Lidia

At a Khibat Zion meeting he had met a young woman named Klara Zilbernik from Kaunas, Lithuania. Her father, the owner of a soap factory, was impressed by the serious young Dr Zamenhof. When Klara and Ludwik became engaged, Zilbemik told his daughter that Ludwik was 'a genius' and that Klara had 'a sacred task' before her. She believed so too, and would spend the rest of her life fulfilling it.

In i887Ludwik andKlara weremarried. Klara and her father agreed to use half the money from her dowry to enable Ludwik to present his language publicly, in the form of a small book. It appeared earlier that same year.

The forty-page document included translations in the new language, a model letter and original poems, as well as the complete grammar, a vocabulary of nine hundred words with their Russian translation, and promise forms to be filled out by those who agreed to learn the language, which Zamenhof had named Lingvo Intemacia (Intemational Language).

Ludwik Zamenhof faced the moment with excitement and some trepidation. 'From the day my book appeared,' he realized, 'I would no longer be able to go back; I knew what fate awaits a doctor who depends on the public, if this public sees him as a crank. . .' Zamenhof knew that pursuing his ideal openly might jeopardize his family's security and future happiness. 'But I could not forsake the idea that had possessed me body and soul,' he said, and he did not tum back.

TWO

One Who Hopes

Dr Zamenhofs little book soon brought so many letters asking questions and offering advice, that he published a second book as a way to answer them all. A circle of enthusiasts grew, as people began to learn the language and use it to correspond with each other and with Zamenhof. Ludwik hoped that the language would spread on its own so he could 'retire from the scene and be forgotten'. He had signed his first book with the pseudonym 'Dr Esperanto'. Esperanto meant 'he who hopes'. It quickly became the popular nameofthelanguageitself.

At first most of the Esperantists lived in the Russian Empire and included many Jewish intellectuals and followers of Tolstoy. But by 1889 the first Adresaro, or Directory ofEsperantists, included people in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Sweden, the United States, Turkey, Spain, China, Romania and Italy; and soon there were Esperantists in South America, North Africa, South Africa and Australia.

The language was so simple that the entire grammar could be explained in sixteen rules. Words were formed by combining prefixes and suffixes with root words drawn mostly from German and Latin so as to be familiar to most speakers of European languages. Nouns were formed by adding -o; adjectives by adding -a (vivo, 'life'; viva, 'alive'). The plural was made by adding -j (pronounced as 'y' in 'boy'). The use of prefixes and suffixes had been a brilliant stroke. It greatly simplified the language. For example, the prefix mal- indicated the opposite meaning of the term to which it was added. Thus bona meant 'good', while malbona meant 'bad'. Not only did this do away with all separate negative terms, but it then became possible to create other words by using the prefix, such as: dekstra, 'right' / maldekstra, 'left'; antaŭ, 'before' / malantaŭ, 'behind'; riĉa, 'rich' / malriĉa, 'poor'. Instead of having to memorize a completely different word for each concept, one need only learn the roots and the prefix.

An example of the way Esperanto words were formed may 12 seen in samideano, a term that soon came to be widely used among the Esperantists. The root sam- meant 'same', the root ide- meant 'idea', and the suffix -ano meant 'member' or 'adherent'. Thus, samideano meant 'one who shares in the same idea', or 'fellow-idealist', in other words, Esperantist. The feminine form was created by adding the feminine -/«-: samideanino.

The personal pronouns were mi, 'I'; vi, 'you'; //, 'he'; ŝi, 'she';J/, 'it'; ni, 'we'; ///, 'they'; oni, 'one'. Verbs were completely regular and had only one form for each tense. The present ended in -as (mifaras, 'I do'), the past in -is (mifaris, 'I did'), the futurein-os (mifaros, 'I will do'), the conditional in -us (mifarus, 'I should do'), the imperative in -u (faru, 'do!'; nifaru, 'let us do').

One case ending was used: the suffix -n served to indicate, among other things, the object of a verb - what would be called in Latin or Russian the accusative case. Thus 'I wrote the letter' would be rendered in Esperanto: 'Mi skribis la leteron.'