Microsoft Word llz-bio-En doc

y) to indicate the plural. The ending –jn indicates a noun used as direct object. 

The lexicon is based mainly on the international words found in the European 

languages. Words such as adreso, biblioteko, centro, ĉokolado, demokratio, etc. do not 

require any effort to memorize for speakers of many different languages. For the 

remainder, Zamenhof used words from the Romance and Germanic languages and, to a 

lesser extent, the Slavic languages. 

 As mentioned above, the word formation makes maximum use of affixes. For 

example, from the root word san (=related to health) one can create new words by 

adding affixes with fixed meanings, such as sano (health), sana (healthy), resanigi (to 

cure, to bring back to health), malsana (ill, sick), malsanulo (a patient, a sick person), 

malsanulejo (hospital, clinic), etc. Thanks to this agglutinative principle, a mere three 

thousand root words can create a vocabulary of more than twenty thousand words. 

In the Unua Libro, Zamenhof asked that criticisms of his language be sent to him 

and promised that, after one year, the best proposals he received would be incorporated 

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11 

 

in a special booklet that would give the language its definitive form. 

The Unua Libro was sent to linguists, rabbis, editors, and associations in various 

countries. Zamenhof published advertisements in newspapers, mainly in Russia, but he 

did not get the ten million promises he sought. Consequently, he was not obliged to 

publish the names and addresses of the respondents, a massive undertaking that would 

have required the publication of one hundred books of a thousand pages each with a 

hundred names and addresses on each page. Nevertheless, he did receive hundreds of 

letters, both positive and negative, and even some that made a joke of the whole 

business. He also received coupons expressing the desire to learn the new language 

independently of the ten million "promises". To respond to these letters and coupons and 

to provide reading material in his language rather than about it, he published the Dua 

Libro de l' Lingvo Internacia (Second Book of the International Language) in January 

1888. 

Meanwhile, The American Philosophical Society (APS) of Philadelphia, founded by 

Benjamin Franklin in 1743, had elected a committee to study three questions: 1) Is an 

international language necessary? 2) Is it possible to create such a language? 3) What 

characteristics should such a language have? 

The committee's decision was that 

It is possible to create an international language; that such a language is 

necessary; and that it must have the simplest and most natural grammar and 

the simplest spelling and phonology. Its words must sound pleasant to the 

ear. Its vocabulary must be created from words more or less recognizable to 

the most serious civilized cultures. The language's final form must not be 

the fruit of a single person’s labours, but the result of the combined efforts 

of the whole educated world. (D-ro Esperanto 2) 

The APS had invited scientific organizations to attend an international congress at 

which the definitive form of an international language would be worked out. The APS's 

secretary, Henry Phillips, received the Dua Libro after the invitations had been sent and 

wrote a favourable report on it. 

Having learned of the APS initiative and Phillips' favourable view, Zamenhof 

published in June of 1888 an Aldono al la "Dua Libro de l' Lingvo Internacia" (Supplement 

to the "Second Book of the International Language"). In this supplement, he outlined the 

APS initiative and Phillips' position and declared that the entire fate of the international 

language now rested on the congress and that all devotees of his international language 

must accept and abide by whatever definitive form the congress might give to the 

language. He further declared that he was henceforth ceasing his own work on it. 

Unfortunately, the APS received few registrations and the anticipated congress never took 

place. Zamenhof was consequently forced to reconsider his decision to withdraw from his 

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language's further development. 

Since the speakers of the new language needed more words than were published in the 

Unua Libro, Zamenhof published in early 1889 both Russian–International Language and 

International Language–German dictionaries. Around this time, the language author's 

pseudonym was adopted as the name of the language: Esperanto. 

The first devotees of Esperanto, now called Esperantists, comprised for the most part 

scholarly Russian and Polish Jews, Russian followers of Tolstoy, Eastern-European free 

masons, and speakers of Volapük who had become disenchanted with their language. The 

Nuremberg International Language Club, founded in 1885, abandoned Volapük at its 

general meeting on 18

th

 December, 1888 and converted to Esperanto. Thus, the first 

Esperanto Club made its appearance. 

To create a feeling of community among the first Esperantists and to provide them with 

reading material, Zamenhof decided to publish a periodical. However, his proposal to 

publish a weekly paper, La Internaciulo (The Internationalist), was turned down in 

September 1888 by the main office for publications in Petersburg. 

It was not until 1889 that the number of promises to learn Esperanto reached one 

thousand, i.e. 0.01% of the magic number of ten million. In the first Adresaro de la 

personoj kiuj ellernis la lingvon (Names and Addresses of People Who Have Learned the 

Language) published by Zamenhof, there were 919 inhabitants of the Russian Empire. 

Germany was next, with 30 names. The first thousand names included inhabitants of 266 

cities in 12 countries. The greatest numbers were in Petersburg (85), Warsaw (78), Odessa 

(51), Kiev (33), Moscow (28), Vilnius (26). Only two names were registered for 

Nuremberg, where nevertheless the first issue of the periodical La Esperantisto (The 

Esperantist) was published on September 1

st

, 1889.