L. L. Zamenhof

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L. L. Zamenhof bigraphy, stories - Inventor of Esperanto

L. L. Zamenhof : biography

df=y March 12 – 14 April 1917

Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof ( born Leyzer Leyvi Zamengov; 15 December 1859 – 14 April 1917) was a doctor and linguist, and the creator of Esperanto, the most successful constructed language.

Cultural background

Zamenhof was born on 15 December (3 December OS) 1859 in the town of Białystok in the Russian Empire (now part of Poland). He stated that his native language was Russian,In a letter to a Th. Thorsteinsson dated 8 March 1901 he wrote, Mia gepatra lingvo estas la rusa; sed nun mi parolas pli pole… "My native language is Russian, but now I speak more Polish…" See also his biographers A. Zakrzewski and E. Wiesenfeld. but he also spoke Yiddish and Polish; it was Polish that became the native language of his children. His father was a teacher of German, and he also spoke that language fluently. Later he learned French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and English, and had an interest in Italian, Spanish and Lithuanian.

In addition to the Yiddish-speaking Jewish majority, the population of Białystok was made up of Poles and Belarusians, with smaller groups of Russians, Germans, Lipka Tatars and others. Zamenhof was saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels among these groups. He supposed that the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in the mutual misunderstanding caused by the lack of one common language. If such a language existed, Zamenhof postulated, it could play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

Name discrepancy

Zamenhof’s parents gave him the Hebrew name Eliezer, which appeared on his birth certificate in its Yiddish form Leyzer. In his adolescence he used both Leyzer and the Russian equivalent Lazar (the form Lazarus is often used in English texts). In some Russian documents Lazar was followed by the patronymic Markovich.

While at university, Zamenhof began using the Russian name Lyudovik (often transcribed Ludovic; in English the form Ludwig is also used) in place of Lazar. When his brother Leon became a doctor and started signing his name "Dr L. Zamenhof", Ludwik reclaimed his birth name Lazar and from 1901 signed his name "Dr L. L. Zamenhof". The two L’s do not seem to have specifically represented either name, and the order Ludwik Lazar is a modern convention.

Zamenhof may have chosen the name Ludwik in honor of Francis Lodwick (or Lodowyck), who in 1652 had published an early conlang proposal.

His family name was originally written Samenhof, in German orthography; the spelling Zamenhof reflects the romanization of the Yiddish spelling , as well as the Esperanto and Polish spellings.

Work for an international language

As a student at secondary school in Warsaw, Zamenhof made attempts to create some kind of international language with a grammar that was very rich, but also very complex. When he later studied English, he decided that the international language must have a simpler grammar. Apart from his parents’ native languages Russian and Yiddish and his adopted language Polish, his linguistics attempts were also aided by his mastering of German, a good passive understanding of Latin, Hebrew and French, and a basic knowledge of Greek, English and Italian.Holzhaus, Adolf: Doktoro kaj lingvo Esperanto. Helsinki : Fondumo Esperanto. 1969

By 1878, his project Lingwe uniwersala was almost finished. However, Zamenhof was too young then to publish his work. Soon after graduation from school he began to study medicine, first in Moscow, and later in Warsaw. In 1885, Zamenhof graduated from a university and began his practice as a doctor in Veisiejai and after 1886 as an ophthalmologist in Płock and Vienna. While healing people there he continued to work on his project of an international language.

For two years he tried to raise funds to publish a booklet describing the language until he received the financial help from his future wife’s father. In 1887, the book titled Международный язык. Предисловие и полный учебник (International language: Foreword and complete textbook) was published in RussianKeith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie, Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World (Elsevier, 2009: ISBN 0-08-087774-5), p. 375. under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto" (Doctor Hopeful). Zamenhof initially called his language "Lingvo internacia" (international language), but those who learned it began to call it Esperanto after his pseudonym, and this soon became the official name for the language. For Zamenhof this language, far from being merely a communication tool, was a way of promoting the peaceful coexistence of different people and cultures.