Sunday 15 Dec Zamenhof Day, honouring the creator of easy made up international language Esperanto

 Esperanto flag.

Zamenhof lived in a city in what is now Poland, where four different language groups resided, creating communication problems. They did not have a common intermediary language (such as Greek, Hebrew, German, French, English with added words from local languages) and all the languages had different structures. So he created a simple language with no exceptions. Past, present, future, singular, plural, sixteen straightforward rules. 

The language is in use today, mainly by countries which have a language which few or no other coutnries speak.  In Hunagary you can take Esperanto as a school course and do the school leaving exam.

If you learn it, you can meet other speakers at clubs such as the one in Reading, England, or their annual conference. Throughout the year if you are a speaker, or plan to be, you can link with others who speak esperanto as a second language, or the few entusiasts who speak it as a first language, They have a homestay system. You can offer your home to another speaker to stay for three days and practise speaking Esperanto, and take up offers from others to do the same. 

I bought an Esperanto dictonary and did an Esperanto course, but never took it further. Esperanto is the most widely spoken of two or three made up languages, one developed to update Esperanto. Another, which is my favourite, instead of making up words following the standard unchangeable rules, takes the most widely used international words and phrases.  To give you an example, if the word computer with the plural computers was deemed to be most widely known, this would be used in Interlingo. However, the Esperanto plural oj would be used in Esperanto. 

Also Esperanto is a Romance language base language. Asians have their own sets of attempts to create common languages. 

Meanwhile, I am running an online languages group two Sundays a month, in my time, currently winter in UK, turn on zoom at 2.30 for a 3 pm start. The second and fourth Sundays each month. I give a talk on lanugages. Start with everybody introdcuing themselves with hello and/or welcome in their language and ending the meeting with goodbye in their language.

wiki explains

Esperanto (/ˌɛspəˈrɑːntoʊ/, /-æntoʊ/)^[7][8] is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it is intended to be a universal second language for international communication, or "the international language" (la Lingvo Internacia). Zamenhof first described the language in Dr. Esperanto's International Language (Esperanto: Unua Libro), which he published under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto. Early adopters of the language liked the name Esperanto and soon used it to describe his language. The word esperanto translates into English as "one who hopes".^[9] 

Esperanto Travel

Esperanto Speakers meeting in Norfolk, England

For the traveller, you can visit a museum about Zamenhof and Esperanto in Poland. In Vienna, Austria, you can visit a museum with a section devoted to articifical languages including Esperanto.

Useful Websites

The easiest language to learn? Esperanto?

Which is the easiest language to learn? That is a common question on the Polyglots page in Facebook.

Webster simplified English spelling for immigrants to the USA.

 The Chinese introduced simplified Chinese on mainland China to increase literacy for all.

It depends who you want to meet and speak to. Esperanto is easiest. It is a made up language. But fewer books and film and no country where all the signs are in the language. Maybe Esperanto speakers should set up an Esperanto city. Like the founder of Tel Aviv, stick a stick in the sand and say, our city will be here.

Monotone words and languages with no inflections are easiest to learn.

Chinese has four tones. But each syllable is distinct and with equal emphasis.

Sing-song languages are prettier. Italian. Welsh. You have to go to the country or learn from audio recordings or films (movies).


Places to visit

Ludwig Zamenhof Centre, Bialystock, NE Poland

AUSTRIA
Museum of languages in Vienna
POLAND
Grave of founder of Esperanto
Museum of founder of Esperanto


USA
Home of Webster who reformed spelling and published the dictionary and English workbook

About the Author
Angela Lansbury teaches English and public speaking.
I have several other posts on Esperanto and learning languages and Duolingo and sites connected with Zamenhof. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Where can you speak Esperanto?

Esperanto was created by Zamenhof who lived in Bialystock, then in Russia, now in Poland. His city had different races and religions and they could not talk to each other. He created a simple language, with no word 'a' and a word the whcih remained constant not change case, unlike French. No irregular verbs. He made it easier to learn. It was neutral as it did not belong to any country. That is both its advantage and its disadvantage.

The fore-runner of the UN, the League of Nations, considered making it a universal language. Unfortunately, nationalists wanted their own country's language to be predominant. First the French opposed it. Then the Nazis who wanted German to dominate, and were suspicious of a new language linking up other nations, in WWII.

The name Esperanto comes from the word for I hope. Similar to Latin and Italian. It wasn't the word which Zamerhof chose but it quickly caught on and took over and finally got voted in.

Esperanto and Interlingo
Esperanto is not the only artifical language. I prefer Interlinguo which instead of following all the simple rules, take a word which is the same in several languages, which is how many of us pick up vocabulary in foreign countries, staring with common words such as hotel and taxi and computer.

Why Learn Esperanto
 I did a basic course in German on Interlingua, then tried Spanish.

I had tried Esperanto years ago, with a book and a correspondence course. I made a lot of mistakes and was disheartened at not getting 100%.

The internet and learning online has changed everything. The great thing about Duolingo is that you get marked straight away and just keep working on a word or phrase or sentence it until you get the lesson right.

Nobody knows you got a wrong answer. Whether it take you five minutes to do the next lesson or fifteen is your concern. If you are travelling on a train it doesn't matter and fills in the time.

Recently, I did a bsic course in German on Interlingua, then tried Spanish, which is easier, then switched to Italian, ready for a trip to Italy. I thought I would try the Greek, Russian and Hebrew alphabets. Many famous people, especially writers, years ago, seemed able to grasp all these languages.

Since I live part of the year in Asia, it seemed a good time to learn an Asian language
I was making slow progress with Russian, slow progress Mandarin and zero progress with Korean which uses a different alphabet. I decided to learn Esperanto so I could at least make daily progress in a language, to keep up the habit, then go back to Spanish or Italian and Mandarin.

Meanwhile, on the polyglot page on Facebook every now and then somebody asks a question about Esperanto and I dip back into the history and re-discover the places connected with visionary Zamenhof. The travel spots to visit connected with the history of Esperanto are in Austria and Poland:

I wondered, which should I list first, Warsaw, Vienna or Bialystock?

POLAND
1 The museum where Zamenhof lived in Bialystock, now in Poland. The biggest site connected with Zamenof and Esperanto.

2 His grave in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, Poland. After doing the city tour passing all the Jewish monuments on day one, on day two I took a Jewish tour and found I was the only person on it. In mid winter I had accompanied family to a business meeting. I saw Zamenhof's grave buried deep in snow. A small site, but Warsaw is a place more people are likely to visit.

3 His statue is in two more coutnries.

AUSTRIA
4 The museum on constructed languages in Vienna, Austria.

Esperanto and other languages are featured.


Esperanto Flag
The esperanto flag is green with a five pointed green star on a white square at the top on the side of the pole.

To find out about past and present and future meetings with Esperanto speakers:
Useful Websites
INTERNET
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/duolingo.esperanto.learners/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/EsperantoLanguage/
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/05/which-languages-are-easiest-to-learn.html

UK
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Reading-Esperanto-Meetup/

USA
https://www.duolingo.com/course/eo/en/Learn-Esperanto

POLAND
http://www.centrumzamenhofa.pl/

WORLDWIDE
Stay for up to three nights free with Esperanto speakers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasporta_Servo

Getting there
Ryanair is a cheap way to fly around Europe.

Author
Angela Lansbury

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Where to see statues of Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto, international language

Bust of Zamenhof on a plinth in the Esperanto Park in Vienna, Austria. Photo from Wikipedia article. Photo author 

The text reads in Esperanto

Dr Luwig Zamenhof

autoro (author)

de (of)

la (the)

internacia (international)

lingvo (language)

Esperanto (name of the language, meaning I hope).

LIST OF MONUMENTS & MUSEUMS BY COUNTRY

ARGENTINA

Monument at Mar del Plata (the second city) in Argentina.

BRAZIL

Zamenhof monument in Belo Horizonte, sixth city in Brazil.

AUSTRIA

Monument in Vienna, capital of Austria

FRANCE

Monument, 21 Rue du Sergeant Bernes Cambot, Pau 64000, France.

LITHUANIA

Statue of Liudwik in Veisiejai, Lithuania

PORTUGAL

Portugal Square (Praca Portugal), Portugal. Statue on pedestal, facing the direction of Rua Dr Zamenhof.

SPAIN

Moment with picture of Zamenof's face on a plaque, Sabadell, Spain.

UKRAINE

Odessa, Ukraine.

Marching music for Zamenhof's poem hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCXUfgNJSxs

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share links to your favourite posts.

My Multi-Language Dream For Europe, Singapore And The World

Problem
Every day we struggle to understand somebody. Friends and family mumble, or the background noise or echo confuses an already unclear message. The telephone operator confuses us from the first word by rushing the company name.

Answers
Long ago a man called Zamenho, born in Bialystok which was then in Russia but is now Poland, saw this problem in his city where several languages were spoken. He spoke several languages. He devised a new simple language which is now called Esperanto. It has only sixteen rules. Where can you learn it? At one university in England. Esperanto is the second language taught in schools in Hungary.

Esperanto is also a culturally neutral language.

Over in America, a man called Webster wrote a dictionary and school workbook to help students and immigrants learn English. He simplified the spelling. If you want to learn elegant English, which sounds lovely, learn British English. However, if you want simplified spelling, learn American.

Now, my dream. Marketing and tourism are helping teachers and learners. When I sit on a train, I read the emergency and exit instructions.

What is my dream for the UK and Europe?

Wales
In Wales I can read Welsh and English on the train. They have just (2018) ended the toll on the beautiful bridge for entering Wales, which welcomes drivers. I
 love the sound of Welsh, and Welsh male voice choirs. Probably the most often heard song for tourists is the Welsh national anthem.

Welsh and Scottish Songs
So the easy answer would be to teach everybody in England the words of Auld Lang Syne and 100 Scottish words and the Welsh national anthem and 100 Welsh words and phrases in primary school.

I regret I have to admit that Welsh and Scottish are minority languages and not a lot of use worldwide, although everybody likes to sing the Scottish song, Auld Lang Syne.
What about some more widespread languages?

European Languages. (to be continued.)

Could We All Be Bilingual?
Yes, if governments insisted on it. It is done in Canada.

Canada
Canadians speak French and English in the capital, Ottawa. being bilingual is a requirement for government jobs.

Why stop at two languages?

Chineasy - learn Chinese on YouTube

Singapore flag. Hear four languages in announcements on the MRT train system.

Singapore
Singapore has four languages, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, English, Tamil. Not many people speak all four. However, most people speak two, with a smattering of one or two more.

Lee Kuan Yew, first prime minister and founding father of Singapore, had a vision of every child in Singapore being bilingual.

To learn languages for free online, use Duolingo.

Use Grammarly.
grammarly.com

Travel Tips

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

australia.com

visitbritain.com

visitbritain.shop.com

visitbritain.org

visittheusa.co.uk

visit-canada.com

visitsingapore.com

Singapore Airlines: 

singaporeair.com

Author

Travel writer and photographer, Angela Lansbury.  

Teacher and tutor of English and other languages.Please bookmark and share your favourite posts and websites.

Which Languages Are Easy To Learn And Sound Soothing? Where can I learn?

Chineasy which you can learn from books which you can buy from Amazon and Ebay and learn on YouTube.

Problem
Which languages are easy? Which sound good? I have started learning 12 languages online on Duolingo. The first page gives you an overview or pronunciation and grammar. I shall look at English first, then other languages in alphabetical order.

English
Upper class English sounds 'posh'. The Queen's speech is clear and easy to understand.

I speak what is sometimes called 'received pronunciation', neutral and clear.

A 'London' or cockney accent often confuses foreigners. The endings are dropped off words and words run together. 'Yes' becomes 'yeah', as in the Beatles song, 'she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah'. 'Isn't it' becomes 'innit'.

Other Languages

Esperanto
Simplified made up language with only 14 rules, entirely consistent. I am learning it on Duolingo. Esperanto is taught as a second language in Hungary. A town in England has a college founded for Esperanto speakers. You can attend an international convention on Esperanto, visit the museum of its creator, Zamenhof, and a museum of languages in Vienna, Austria.
I went to see the grave of Zamenhof.

France and French
Esperanto Flag. Source: Wikipedia article on Esperanto.

French sounds great. What about a French accent in English - some like it. But it's not my favourite.

Learn in Paris. The accents in Marseilles and Canada are different. (Oui for yes becomes Way instead of wee, like yeah for yes in English.)

German
Used in Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland. On German wine bottles.

Latin
Used in plant names. Also in medicine. Handy for gardeners, doctors and nurses.

Greek
Easiest if you have studied maths and are familiar with letters such as 'pie' and eeta and theeta.

Italian
Italian is sing song. Used in opera.

Japanese
Japanese is all one tone. Each syllable is accented equally.

Korean
Korean is one tone, like Japanese. When I tried to speak Korean, just saying thank you in a Korean restaurant in South Korea, the staff started laughing.

Romanian
Uses lots of Italian. The word Romanian means from Rome, Italy being a nearby country.

Wales and Welsh
Welsh is sing song.

The quickest way to pick up the accent and vocabulary is to live in a country or take a holiday there or watch old films.

WHERE TO LEARN
You can take short language courses in local languages as well as foreign languages in most cities of the world, at private schools and at universities in their term times and in the holidays.

Popular places include:
UK
England
To learn English with a British accent:
London - crammed with culture
Oxford -
Cambridge - on the river with boating to see in summer.

Greek
Easiest if you have studied maths and are familiar with letters such as 'pie' and eeta and theeta.

Italy
Perugia in Umbria - beautiful hillside university city with Etruscan gate and and excavated and restored underground tunnels converted into a shopping area. See my posts on Perugia.

Hebrew
If you go to Israel they know you are unlikely to be able to speak and read and write Hebrew so immigrants are put into classes to cram up the language.
Around the world many synagogues teach Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is a constructed language, made from the ancient Hebrew alphabet found in the bible and prayer books and on old synagogue walls in the UK and Spain (where synagogues were converted into churches).
If you look at the Hebrew language in Wikipedia or on Duolingo you can see how some of the letters are used in Greek and Cyrillic (Russian and Bulgarian and other East European languages).

Indonesian / Bahasa Malay
Indonesian languages are almost interchangeable with a few vocabulary additions with islands in Indonesia adding and exchanging other languages such Dutch or Portuguese. (See Singapore below.) Plurals are created by repeating a noun. So if you see a double word in a sentence that is likely to be a noun.

Russian
Different alphabet, although some websites claim to be able to teach you the Cyrillic alphabet in an hour. Cyril and his brother borrowed letters from Greek and Hebrew to create their alphabet.

Singapore and Chinese (Mandarin)
You can learn Mandarin at many Community Clubs. Many courses won't let you start in the middle. , However, private schools are more flexible. They want your money! I taught in four private schools. I was supposed to be teaching Intermediate English. But people of lower and higher standards were put in my class because if they wanted to start a class on Monday the organizers said yes and put them in my class and I had to try to cope.

The Malay language appears frequently on signs and you can hear Malay on the trains.

Swedish
Similar to Norwegian and Danish. (Unlike Finnish which is more like Hungarian.)  A Swede who speaks English and has Australian citizenship from living there several years said to me that it's easier for a Swede to understand Norwegian than it is for an English speaking person to understand the English spoken in Glasgow in Scotland.

Wales And Welsh
Cardiff is the capital of Wales. Caerleon university on the hillside just across the border near Newport hosts lots of foreign language school, college and university groups in he summer holidays.

Author
Angela Lansbury. Teacher and trainer, English and other languages.

Useful Websites
duolingo.com

See my other posts on:
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/07/quiz-on-flags-with-stars-can-you-guess.html

Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Visit Reading Museum's Bayeux Tapestry and Join Esperanto Events

Problem
1 What to do in Reading, which has been rebuilding the station and everything for months, years?
2 Does anybody actually speak Esperanto? In the UK, where most people speak or learn English, as opposed to some remote island where nobody speaks their language and the lighthouse keeper wants a penpal?

Answers
I was delighted to be sent an email telling me that Esperanto events are being held in Reading Library and Museum. The library is inside the museum, alongside, however you like to look at it.

That's such a great idea, combining a museum and a public library. Many museums have a library attached to the museum, with books about the museum collection or the museum subject. If you have a free library, and a free museum, this works well. If the museum charges, this could be awkward, but it's easy enough to stick up a sign on the library reception desk saying, Buy Tickets here.

If the occasional person slips past deliberately or accidentally, you might just shrug. Alternatively you install a gate, a camera, threatening signs, welcoming signs, PAY HERE signs, and a person with eagle eyes, a suspicious mind, and a loud, stern voice. You know the sort. A retired NHS doctor's receptionist.

Memories of Reading
I've driven through Reading many times. I've been to the station. Never forgotten, when my car was written off on the nearby M4 as I drove to my writer's holiday in Wales, the huge, high, wide, long recovery vehicle with my car on the back, me perched, still shaking, in the cabin beside the driver, drove around the city's one way systems, to find where the large vehicle could top and let me off, with suitcases for my holiday in Wales into the station entrance or side entrance or back entrance. With a return ticket from that station, and no car, mine being in the local breaker's yard, with half my possessions still inside, I arrived in Reading again at the end of the course, to be collected by my husband who drove from London along the M4 to collect me, and home again.

Windsor, pedestrian area, previous Xmas. Notice the decoration of a royal crown in foreground. More decorations are handing across the street, mid-distance. Windsor Castle is peeping over the top in the background. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

If you are driving from London, you pass Windsor on the motorway on your left, the distant Windsor Castle just glimpsed, and then reach the turn off for Reading. If you are driving to Reading and passing at Xmas, or any season, you might make two centre stops, stopping at Windsor on the way to Reading or on the way back.

I've asked to stop and drive through Reading to break the drive from London to Wales. Hard to find somewhere to park.

But if you are in the area, such as a student or teacher at Reading university campus, you will live nearby or stay nearby, and know the parking places or bus routes or walking routes into the city centre.

The email told me that the library and museum were worth seeing, so do take a look. Type in Reading Museum and you get photos and I had this heading:
https://www.google.com/maps/uv

Esperanto
The Esperanto meetings at the library include one in summer 2018 and one later in 2018 just before Christmas, on or near the date of the birth of Zamenhof, who invented the universal language Esperanto.

Esperanto In Vienna, Austria
By the way, if you are holidaying or working in Vienna, Austria, see the museum with exhibitions on Esperanto and other made up languages. Esperanto is the most successful

Esperanto in England
In the north of England there's a museum on Esperanto and a college teaching Esperanto. See my other posts on Esperanto.

I have given several speeches on Esperanto, the world's easiest language, with consistent spelling and grammar and 16 basic rules. My talk with photos of Zamenhof and the museum about him in Poland and his grave with the Esperanto inscription encouraged members of the audience to say they wanted to learn Esperanto.



Reading Town Hall
Wonderful old building. Designed in the late 1700s!

Inside, the museum contains a copy of the Bayeux Tapestry. See it for free! William the Conqueror and unlucky Harold, shot in the eye by an arrow. Or was that merely William's wishful thinking, propaganda, a threat to others, don't mess with me.

William's legacy to us was the Domesday book, and all those French words, such as beef from boeuf, French for cow.  Go to Hastings, in England, or Bayeux in France, for different views of history.  Or simply ask any two visitors! The same simple question, to curators, 'Was William good for England?' will provoke two differnt answers.

You could discuss this in Esperanto. Start looking up the words now in preparation for your next visit.

The revamped interior also contains the modern museum, library and café.

Esperanto, Desperanto
If you can't do languages, Esperanto is for you. If you are good at languages, add it on, an easy extra.

Monthly events for Esperanto speakers and total novices in the cafe, run under the auspices of Duolingo.

The website said the Xmas event starts at noon, but the email said they meet at 11, so if I were you I'd arrive at 10.30, look around the museum or library and keep an eye open for when people arrive.

Esperanto Events in Reading
August ?
September 15, 2018.
Saturday Oct 13, 2018.
Saturday November 17, 2018.
Xmas Event, Dec 15 11-3 pm. (Not an evening event. Lunchtime.)

Reading Museum,
Reading Town Hall,
Blagrave Street,
Reading,
Berkshire, RG1 1OH

readingmuseum.org.uk
http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk

Learn Esperanto:
duolingo.com (Lots of Languages.)
Lernu.net (Devoted to Esperanto. Looks like lernu is an Esperanto word, simple spelling. Read more on the lernu.net website.)

Travel Information
Trains run from Paddington, London, to Reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Town_Hall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Museum
visitbritain.com
visitengland.com
visitlondon.com
https://www.gwr.com/plan-journey/stations-and-routes/london-to-reading
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/05/frank-talk-about-learning-esperanto-if.html
https://events.duolingo.com/u/mw3qbu/ Contact Rico, the ambassador.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker, teacher of English and other languages. If you would like a talk or workshop on Esperanto and learning languages, why you should be bilingual, or any other travel subject, for entertainment, after dinner, or business, please contact me.

Place Names in Esperanto - What You See Is What You Say

Problem
How do I learn and remember place names in Esperanto? I have such trouble in Belgium. You drive along looking for Bruges, then find it is listed as Brugge.

Answer
No such problem in Esperanto. It's all logical and simplified. Just like Webster changed American spelling to simplified English from the British language of the day, Zamenhof created a new simplified international easily understood language, Esperanto. I have put these names into alphabetical order for you.

What You See Is What You Say
You just add o to the names, sometimes io, especially if there is a Y. You add o to nouns.
Esperanto does not have the letter Y.
Nor the W, only V.
No Q.
No X - it is ks.
No Z - it is C.

You make the sh sound by adding a hat or circumflex over the s. š (On my keyboard I hold down the s key and of the three choices of pictures and numbers I type 3 simultaneously.)
I will add more later.

Adreso - address
asocio - association

Argentino - Argentina
Belgio - Belgium
Bjalistoko - Bialystok
Bonaero - Buenos Aires
Britio - Britain
Boulongjo-sur-Maro - Boulogne-sur-mer
Bulgario - Bulgaria
Danio - Denmark
Edinburgo - Edinburgh
Florenco - Florence
Francio - France
Germanio - Germany
Hispanio - Spain
Hungario -Hungary
Israelo - Israel
Italio - Italy
Japanio - Japan
Kanoda - Canada
Londono - London
Madrido - Madrid
Nederlando -The Netherlands
Norvegio - Norway
Oslo - Oslo
Parizo - Paris
Pollando - Poland
Portlando - Portland
Prago - Prague
Romo - Rome
Stokholmo -Stockholm
Svislando - Switzerland
Tel Avivo - Tel Aviv
Tokio - Tokyo
Vieno - Vienna

You see that maro is sea.

The French Boulogne-sur-Mer is Bulonjo-sur-Maro because a ya sound is J.
You tell the reader that a g is pronounced J by adding by adding a hat over the g.

You can see why the Chinese and Japanese are keen on Esperanto. The spelling is easier than English. So is the grammar. Also they can do business with all the East European countries, former communist countries, nearer to them geographically, and diverse languages.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer, speaker, teacher of languages.

The Esperanto, Zamenhof and Bialystok Exhibitions in Poland, and Warsaw

Duolingo says that 1,180,000, that is over a million - a million and another 180,000, people had signed up for their Esperanto for English speakers course by 2017. That's a lot of people to study a language which doesn't have a country you can visit. 

Where is Esperanto spoken? You can join Esperanto organizations in America and London, England. It is used in the Science Centre in San Marino.

Esperanto was constructed by Zamenhof, using European languages. Why is it so popular in China and Japan? One reason is that Esperanto it is so much easier to learn than English. Only 16 rules. What you see is what you say.

The second reason is that it fulfils Zamenof's objective of preventing one up manship or hostility but instead forging friendship. Neither side need feel that the people they are talking to feel that the East is best, or the West is best, because they are not speaking their language.  They also have the camaraderie of sharing Esperanto.

Go to Bialystok in Poland to the Zamenhof centre and see the permanent exhibition about his Zamenhof's life. The hero of Bialystok is Zamenhof. 

From here you can walk around Bialystok following the Jewish Heritage Trail and learn about his school and other buildings.

Before WWI and WWII Bialystok was a thriving place with a huge Jewish community, like Lodz. The trail takes you past two grand art nouveau buildings, a Yiddish theatre, a Jewish hospital. 

Only a small monument remains of the grand synagogue, burned down in WWII after the Jews had been locked inside.

On a happier note, some of the Jews who came from Bialystok were successful in other parts of the world and world famous. Max Weber, the renowned painter. Boris Kaufman, known for his work in movies The Pawnbroker and Splendor in the grass. Sabin, the inventor of the oral polio vaccine. Plenty to read about them on the English language Wikipedia (which is also in several other languages) including reproductions of Weber's paintings.

The Bialystok
But another less known hero is the Rev Marceli Godlewski, of All Saints Church, Warsaw, who risked his life in WWII saving Bialystok's grandson, Ludwig Krysztof Zaleski-Zamenhof, and others in the Warsaw Ghetto. The grandson spoke about this at the museum in October 2017.

Warsaw, Zamenhof's Grave and Others
Zamenhof is buried in the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw. I went there on a snowy day. It seems to go on for miles. I remember a long hunt along the walls to find the entrance, with the help of my bilingual guide on a day tour featuring Jewish Sights, just for me, after I'd taken a group tour around Warsaw the day before. 

My guide was a Seventh Day Adventist, who thought some Adventists' ancestors might have converted from Judaism to the branch of Christianity which observes the Sabbath on Saturday. After a long cold hunt for several exits and entrances, we eventually but found the right one. 

My guide talked in Polish to the Cemetery official, and we then walked around hunting for various famous people and monuments, brushing off snow, so I could take pictures and read inscriptions. 

I was very keen to see the monument to Janusz Korczac, the head of the Warsaw Jewish orphanage, who refused offers to leave the children and save himself, but instead went with them to comfort them on the train. I saw the exhibition about him which is in the orphanage still operating today. It is a remarkable story. He was a pioneer in making the children feel wanted by healing activities. 

Zamenhof's grave was on the main avenue, 10th quarter, second row.

You can see on movie screens a re-enactment of an incident about members of the church in the Warsaw ghetto helping Jews such as Ludwig's grandson work in the church, then when necessary and possible escape. This was either via the church door, disguised as members of the clergy, or people working for them., in the film The Zoo-keeper's Wife, based on the book of the same name, about the zoo in Warsaw. The film is about how Jews were hidden in the zoo keeper's home in the grounds of the zoo. I saw the film on Singapore Airlines and loved it. 

Esperanto literature day is the 15th December every year, also known as Zamenhof day. It is his birthday.

I first learned Esperanto years ago on a correspondence course. I still have the Esperanto paperback Dictionary. I am currently doing the Esperanto course.

Białostocki Ośrodek Kultury/Centrum im. Ludwika Zamenhofa
Warszawska 19
15-062 Bialystok
phone +48 85 67 67 367
fax +48 85 67 67 369
Open:
Tuesday-Sunday
10 am-5 pm

Useful Websites
centrumzamenhofa.com Bialystok, Poland.

Duolingo tinycards Learn one word at a time on cards on screen; click to reverse the card.

duolingo.com 
Starts with a page on grammar rules. Teaches you words and short sentences in a fun way. Click to hear the words said.
Learn Esperanto, read the introduction page on Esperanto, look at forums discussing other language sites teaching Esperanto. 

Wikipedia has articles on Wikipedia on the Zamenhofs, Bailystok, the museum, Esperanto, Duolingo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Korczak

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amikumu-find-language-learning-partners-nearby/id1214046710?mt=8

Author 
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have writtern several other posts on this blog about Esperanto and learning languages. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts. If you are on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn you can link up with me and send your contacts to this page.

Just three quick facts about Esperanto - and my blog posts read in Russia!

What I have learned about Esperanto:
1 No indefinite article (a). (Easy for speakers of Chinese and Russian who struggle with when to use a and the in English).

2 Definite article (the) is la (unlike French where la is for female, in Esperanto, which is simpler, la is for male, female and neutral).

3 Sentences end with n on the object so Esperanto as object of a sentence becomes Esperanton, noun. Similar to English sentence which start with I or he or they as subject but end with me or him or them.
Esperanto is easy. It looks like Spanish or Italian, but even simpler. The intonation is on the last syllable but one, like Italian. (In Italian you say Maria, then Trattoria, or Osteria, and you'll see what I mean.)

On blogger.com (where you create blogs - you read them on blogspot) I can see how many people have read each of my blog posts by week, day and now.

Who Is Reading this Post About Esperanto?
Often the majority, or at least the hightest number, of my readers are in the USA. That depends on when I write. If you are in the UK or Europe, write at midnight in Europe and the Europeans are already in bed, it's still daytime in the USA but it's the middle of the night in the Far East.

If you write in London, England, before working day starts, before 9 am, it's still night time in the USA, but the people in the Far East are already up and at work. (Similarly in Singapore and the USA, if you are writing a blog post, those who read it the minute after you have writeen it, apart from the insomniacs, you can work it out.

As soon as I had finished writing my morning's blog post on Esperanto, and Zamenhof's home and exhibition in Poland, I checked on my readership. To my surprise and delight I discovered that this week, out of nowhere, I suddenly 1,195 readers in Russia. Russia is a vast areaa, when you look on the map. I also had 180 readers in Poland, that's 180 people who speak English well enough to read a blog in English.

Before the working day had begun in London, before 9 am I already had 84 readers in Russia and 35 in the USA.Another twelve hours to go. I check the figures at lunch time to see if I have reached my daily target and where are my readers? If I have lost the Italians who were reading about the Osteria Modigliani restaurant in London and St Valentine in Ternia, Umbria, should I make sure I mention Italian? Regardless of who is reading where, I have readers. What a welcome start to my day! Welcome to all my readers in Russia, the USA, Europe, England, Poland, wherever you are, welcome everybody worldwide.

Some people play the lottery. I write blogs. I love it. I win every day. Thank you so much for joining me.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
Please share your favourite posts.

Is it worthwhile learning Esperanto - how long would it take and where can I use it?

Bust honouring Zamenhof in Macedonia.

Problem
I just looked up how long it takes to learn a language, assuming you already know English.

Category 1 - 24 weeks - 600 class hours
I already know French. The table compiled in Wikipedia says the easy, popular languages for me would be
Italian 
Spanish and 
Portuguese.
They would all take up to 24 weeks of 600 class hours. Actually they tell you the lowest and highest number of hours. I am assuming I would learn slowly.
Exactly the languages I would choose, what I thought.

After that, other relatively easy languages for me, taking category one of time, would be Dutch, Romanian and Swedish.

Category 2 750 hours, 36 weeks
Not surprisingly,
German is in the next category.

All the other languages in this category take longer, 900 hours.

Category 2B - 44 weeks -Other alphabets
Greek, Hebrew and Russian are going to take me 44 weeks, each, How many hours, each?

Category 3 - Oriental Languages 88 weeks a whopping 2,200 class hours. And you'd better spend half those hours living in the country.

However, there's one easy language which beats all of these.

Esperanto
Only six weeks and 150 class hours!

There's only one problem. Harder to find people who speak it. No country does. No famous literature or places to visit. I've never met anybody who spoke it.

They do have pen pals and conferences.

The first page about them on wikipedia is very encouraging. For example, they solve the problem of the dangling participle. The sentence which reads 'I read a book looking out of the window' can be sorted in Esperanto, where you can see who is doing what to whom. 

So if you are sitting at home bored, or already know a dozen languages (0.5 percent of the world's population are polyglots) you could add Esperanto as your next language.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Esperanto/Appendix/Summary_of_grammar#Dangling

Monuments to Zamenhof
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17377928/ludovic-lazarus-zamenhof

You can learn Esperanto for free on
Duolingo.com
Fast Facts
Esperanto was created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887.
The point of Esperanto is to have a politically neutral language.
 Wikipedia puts it like this: 
1,000 have Esperanto as their native language. 
10,000 speak it fluently. 
100,000 can use it actively. 
1,000,000 understand a large amount passively. 
10,000,000 have studied it to some extent at some time.  
https://en.

Landmarks to visit connected with Zamenhof
wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof

You can see an exhibition about Zamenhof in the Zamenhof centre in Bialystok in NE Poland.
Picture of the exterior of the building by Sunridin, in Wikipedia, which gives you details about copyright of pictures from there.

https://wikitravel.org/en/Białystok
They say:
Another site worth visiting is the whole of Warszawska street, with rows of unspoilt architecture spanning all of 19th century. The particular highlight is the big palace painted in light pink, the former residence of the Prussian Governor of the Bialystok region during the short times in 19th century (1795-1815) when Bialystok was under German rule. The building was later transformed into a school, a purpose it serves to this day (now the King Sigismund Augustus High School). It is here that Ludwik Zamenhoff was taught. The school has another infamous alumnus - Ignacy Hryniewiecki, assassin the Tzar of Russia.

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/poland
https://www.poland.travel/en-gb

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.