Why I Won’t Learn Esperanto – A Response.

In this vlog, I respond to an old blog post made by the Mezzoguild on why he won't learn Esperanto.
https://www.mezzoguild.com/esperanto/
----------
Adreso de Miriado (Myriad address): MEx6VEmx8t72yP1eRofRLKc7dwtqVhKR7n
Adreso de Monero (Monero address): 49KTTNjgFs7VEnSwRj4YfaPRnpPjt1e19Dp7hpczoY7XDZYha4og4LM7PTtRFx1sH9gYxXx5ENpqCB8A3w3y27dn5YVmneK
----------
I have awesome Patreon rewards for fans: https://www.patreon.com/evildea

Ankaŭ mi havas bonegajn rekompencaĵojn por fanoj:
https://www.patreon.com/evildea
----------
Laste, vi povas paroli kun la komunumo de Evildea-amantoj ĉe:
Fejsbuka Paĝo: https://www.facebook.com/EvildeaVlog/
Fejsbuka Komunumo: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Evildea/

What's up, guys? Evildea here.

And today I'm going to do a response

to a very old blog post.

Now the reason I'm responding to this blog post…

Well, there is actually few, but the main one is

because I just received a link to it,

literally, like a few days ago.

I received links to it before and I responded privately

to the person who sent me the link before

about my ideas regarding the content of the post.

But I decided: you know what,

I'm gonna make one video,

slap it all in there

and then just publicize it.

And if anyone ask me in the future

hey go check out my video.

Now, this is going to be a long response.

Nothing is ever just black and white.

Now, normally I wouldn't respond

to a blog post called

Why I Won’t Learn Esperanto,

French, English, whatever.

Because, you know, that's a personal opinion.

You… You…

You don't have to go learn anything.

But there is a fair few misrepresentations

about Esperanto within this article,

so I feel like I'm going to respond to those.

Whether you wanna learn something or not

is up to you, but I can respond

to the misrepresentations.

Now, the guy who wrote this, Donovan

(I think that's how you pronounce his name),

has actually engaged with me previously

on my YouTube channel.

There is one of his comments.

There was more, but I can't find them.

Maybe they were deleted, or not.

But anyway, seems like generally not an ass.

So, that's a good thing.

I'm not going to go attack this guy,

but I am going to present his biography.

Mainly because I feel like

we have so much in common.

It's kinda crazy.

The blog post was posted on website

The Mezzofanti Guild.

Name's Donovan, as I said.

Now, he is from Australia

and has travelled the world for over 14 years.

I'm from Australia,

and I'm excited about that because, you know,

bloggers and youtubers from Australia are quite rare.

And when we bump into each other

and discuss a topic are we both interested in

it… it's even more rare.

We are massive country with a very small population.

And it's super rare that I found someone

who is a blogger who knows anything

about Esperanto in Australia.

So, this makes it kinda special for me.

Anyway, he has travelled 14 years.

Don't know if that's consecutive or not.

I've done a lot of travelling myself,

not 14 years worth.

Now, he says here: “like most people though,

I had to study a language in school

(5 years of Mandarin Chinese).”

I was the same.

I didn't have to study Mandarin Chinese,

I had to study Japanese.

I did 5 years at school.

And I understand where he is coming from.

Australian education system

regarding the teaching of languages

is atrocious. It's terrible.

You, basically, learn nothing.

At least it was during my generation

and, I'm assuming, his generation.

Maybe it's changed now, back then it was terrible.

I did 5 years of Japanese, didn't learn anything.

But I have to kind of admit

I was in the class mainly for the girls.

It was a…

It was a confusing time during my youth,

you know, my teenage years.

There is a lot of testosterone going around,

lot of hormones, whatever.

So, I didn't learn Japanese.

Now, he says: “after school, …

did my undergraduate degree in Theology.”

It was here that I realized for the first time

just how fun and exciting languages actually are.

Hey, I agree.

After I left school I joined the army,

did 6 years and that's when I bumped

into Arabic.

I learned a bit, didn't find it that interesting.

I mention Arabic now

because he is actually fluent in Arabic.

It was the first language he got fluent in

apart from English.

So, I figured that's a good starting point.

Anyway after that I bumped into Esperanto

and that's when I realized

that languages can be fun and exciting.

So, overall, me and this guy

are very similar.

The only difference is

he is a Christian and I'm an atheist.

I just need to state,

I'm not going to respond to every line

in his article. For example,

the first 3 paragraphs I feel, like, are just fluff.

It's like how, you know,

Youtube has 30 seconds of logo spinning around

making magical sounds.

I feel like the first 3 paragraphs or so

were, basically, just fluff.

They weren't really needed.

Ok, so, “The bloke who created it (Esperanto),

Ludwik Zamenhof, developed a political”

and religious philosophy”.

And then he is bracketed:

“a cultish offshoot of Judaism that looked

more like something straight out of

The Communist Manifesto”.

So, obviously, this is an opinion piece,

but I feel like he's bracketed the insult.

He is kinda like demonizing Esperanto speakers

by linking them with things

that make it look bad in a sense.

So, first up I'm gonna break down each part

and explain why.

So, he says “a cultish offshoot of Judaism”.

He's mixed up a few different things here.

I'll explain the other things later,

but I will say this right now.

When people call something cultish

they are not saying “hey, that's a

secret religious organization” most of the time.

They are not saying that. They are saying:

“Hey, that's something you shouldn't look into,

because if you do – you get sucked in

and that's the end of it.

We'll never see you again.

And you'll end up worshipping something.”

So, he is kind of implying that Esperanto

is, in some way, a cult.

Which it definitely is not,

because there is no religious aspect to Esperanto.

There is no god to worship.

There is no higher being or anything like that.

It's literally just a language.

And then he says it's an offshoot of Judaism.

I'll go into this more later.

So, first up Zamenhof was Jewish.

But the vast majority of Esperanto speakers

aren't Jewish.

And probably the majority are maybe Christian,

but I'm not even sure about that.

There is a lot of atheists, a lot of Christians,

there is a fair few Muslims as well,

but not that many Jews that I know of

in the Esperanto community.

They do exist, obviously, but not that many.

And then he goes “looked more like something

straight out of The Communist Manifesto.”

So, now he is implying that

Esperanto is not only a cult,

but it's also something that's politically

in line with The Communist Manifesto.

I'm gonna leave that up to you to judge.

I will say one thing. I find this quite strange

coming from someone who's learned Arabic.

Because a lot for Arabic speakers are demonized

in Western media or even in Chinese media.

They are just demonized in general

due to what's happened in Middle East and

and due to terrorist attacks around the world.

So, someone who has gone out of their way

learn Arabic, I believe, would be more aware

of the hardship that they've been put through

by a certain memebers of their own community

causing all these issues.

So, I feel like if you were within that situation

you would feel less inclined yourself

to throw these types of insults upon another community.

But that's just me.

So, I'm not gonna go demonize every Arabic speaker

due to the fact that some Muslims have gone

and blown up people.

But I feel like he is kinda painting

the entire Esperanto speaking community

“something cultish”, and etc. etc.

Anyway, let's go into what I think

he is trying to talk about.

So there's 3 aspects to this.

Esperanto, the internal idea, and homaranismo.

So, I'll speak about Esperanto and the internal idea first.

Esperanto is, basically, just a language.

It was created prior to 1887

but the first book on Esperanto

was published by Zamenhof in 1887.

Zamenhof published the foundations for the language.

He didn't create the entire language.

In fact he created only a tiny portion of the language,

and from their it evolved

into this full-fledged language we have today.

The first book was published by Zamenhof,

and in the first book he stated 3 ideas

for why he thinks Esperanto is needed.

Why he, basically, created it.

So, let's go through these ideas

and see if this sounds like something

that's cultish to you.

So, he said:

“To render the study of language so easy

as to make its acquisition mere play

for the learner.” So, basically,

he wanted to create a language that was so easy

it will, basically, be a game.

So, what he was talking about

was gamification before Duolingo made it cool.

So, he wanted a language that was just super easy.

Second one: “To enable the learner to make direct use

of his knowledge with people of any nationality,

whether the language be universally accepted or not.”

The “or not” is important for later.

“In other words, the language is to be directly

a means of international communication.”

Very simple to understand.

He wanted to create a language that could be used

for international communication between people

who didn't share the same language.

These first 2 points are very simple to understand.

The 3rd point needs a bit more historical context,

so I'll read the 3rd point now.

“To find some means of overcoming

the natural indifference of mankind,

and disposing them,

in the quickest manner possible, and en masse,

to learn and use proposed language as a living one,

and not only in last extremities,

and with the key at hand.”

So, let's break down what he is talking about here.

This refers to the internal idea

that exists within Esperanto community.

So, the Esperanto community has

these 3 things that are the internal idea,

but this one's more so the last.

So, there's these 3 things he mentions.

Natural indifference.

So, he is talking about the historical context

in which Esperanto was born.

Esperanto was born during a time in history

when Poland was ruled by Russia.

And the whole of Europe, ok,

was devided based on language.

So, if you spoke French you are French.

If you spoke German you are German.

And we don't like each other.

That's just how it was.

So, the natural indifference was

extreme tribalism and nationalism,

which was just rampant in a society.

And this was reflected in a term

which Zamenhof grew up in.

Basically, those Poles, Germans, Russians, Yiddish,

and no one spoke to each other

because they all belonged to different groups.

They were all different ethnic groups.

So, this was extreme tribalism

or the natural indifference of society.

And he wanted to dispose of this.

He also wanted to create a living language.

Now, his idea of a living language

and the idea of a living language

for some groups of modern Esperanto speakers

is quite different.

Zamenhof wanted to create a language

that would be learned by everyone,

eventually almost as a native language.

But we would speak… Say,

in Australia I would speak English,

and when I went to China I wouldn't speak English,

my native language,

I would swap to Esperanto and speak Esperanto

with an Esperanto-speaking Chinese speaker.

And we them came to Australia be vice versa.

So, we would keep our native languages

but we would also have a secondary native language –

Esperanto.

Now, a lot of modern Esperanto speakers, like,

“no-no-no, Esperanto is the second language

and you have you native language.”

So, they are against the idea

of anyone learning Esperanto as a native language.

But you can see Zamenhof's idea

in the fact that he taught Esperanto

as a language to his children,

and a lot of early Esperanto speakers

took on this idea.

But, basically, what happened is

in the early history of Esperanto the ideas swapped

and less people start teaching it to their children.

A lot of people still teach it to their children

and I feel like a lot more are starting to now,

like some of my friends are.

So, this being an evolution in ideas about

should Esperanto be a native language or not.

But he believed, in essence, that it should be.

The last part he says the “key at hand.”

This is not some mysterious cultish thing,

it's simply talking about the “Unua Libro”.

It, basically, had a key within it.

And the key was: these are the words,

this is the grammar, you can use this as a cipher

to transfer your English to Esperanto.

Write a letter, send it off to your friend

who would use their key to decipher it back

into like whatever their language is, Russian.

So, it was, basically,

like a really poor version of Google Translate.

And eventually, he hoped,

that when the people got good at that

that they might speak it, evolve on it,

and then it will become its own language.

In fact Esperanto was, probably, the first

crowdsource language. The first open source language.

Because when Zamenhof published it he said:

hey, I created this, but it ain't mine.

Don't come to me asking for questions,

you guys figure it out.

He, basically, went: I'm not, like,

the leader of this movement in any sense.

But the funny thing is, I've given you

all of this historical information,

but the vast majority of Esperanto speakers

don't know anything about this.

It's like those people who know a ton of information

about the Constitution of the US

and the Founding Fathers and what they think

and all that type of stuff.

You go ask the standard person on the street

what the Founding Fathers thought about this and that,

or you ask them about Constitution

and they'll have a vague idea

about a couple of things here and there.

So, that's what the Unua Libro is to Esperanto speakers.

It's like the Constitution,

but without the legal backing that comes with it.

So, it's kind of like this document

that we look at historically

and it impacts on certain aspects

of the Esperanto community,

but there is no legal force behind it.

So, realistically, it doesn't have

that much of influence

in the modern Esperanto community.

So, the next thing he spoke about was homaranismo.

So, homaranismo is something completely separate

to Esperanto that Zamenhof created.

So, let's talk about that now.

Homaranismo is a philosophy that Zamenhof created.

And the idea was that

everyone's religious during the time

when Zamenhof was, like, alive.

Everyone was religious.

Everyone belonged to some religion

and the religions were almost linked with languages

and the infighting between the religions

was based around these

religious/language linguistic groups.

And he kinda wanted to find a solution to that as well

So, he was warking on two things at once.

So, he created a homaranismo

and it was originally based on Hillelism…

I don't know how to pronounce that word.

Anyway, it's like a Jewish belief system

he based on that originally and then he went

e-eh, nah, scrap this.

So he ditched… he completely ditched that

and he created his own belief system.

And, basically, the belief system is a philosophy.

So, here are the 2 main core beliefs of homaranismo.

And I'm gonna… these are in Esperanto,

so I'm gonna translate them to English on the fly,

so my translation may not be, like, the best.

But I was too lazy to just translate it

because there is no English translation.

So, he says: I am a human,

and the entire human race I see as one family;

the division of the human race

(see, I've put division in green)

the division of the human race

into different, like, enemy ethnic groups

and the ethnic religious communities

I see as the biggest unhappiness, the biggest unluck

(ok), which sooner or later must disappear

and whose disappearance I will accelerate

according to my ability.

So, what he is saying is

he regards the division as the biggest,

worst thing that's happened.

Not the ethnic groups, not the religious ethnic groups,

but the division between those groups.

So, he supports the ethnic groups,

but he hates the division

that's been formed between them

by people using them to their benefit.

You know, to their own personal benefit.

And he wants to make that disappear, the division.

I'm pretty sure anyone in the world would agree

that division between ethnic groups is a bad thing,

and anyone who proposes creating division

is just being bad in general.

Now, the 2nd point is:

I see an every human only a human

and I treat every human

according to his personal worth and actions.

Every offense and oppression (that's in green)

of a person because of that he belongs

to a particular ethnic group or language or social class

that's different to me I see as a barbarity.

So, he sees the oppression of people as a barbarity.

So, Zamenhof is all for ethnic groups,

he believes in the diversity of the human race.

I think anyone who looks at this

and associates this as cultish

or as something that belong to communism

really is misreading it.

Now, maybe on its surface

communism and this have something, like,

align with each other,

but this is just as much aligned

with the beliefs of Christianity or Islam,

at least in my eyes.

So, anyway, that's what he actually believed

regarding homaranismo.

Esperanto was separate and in fact and, as I said,

homaranismo died.

It would probably been better if it survived

but it died off.

So, he believed oppression is bad, division is bad.

So, another thing this person says in a blog is

“Esperantistan is an ideologically homogenous

(I can never pronounce this word,

I'm not even gonna bother) landscape.”

So he is basically saying that

everyone in the Esperanto community

thinks exactly the same.

First off, I just wanna point out one thing

he said “Esperantistan.”

I find this quite a strange word.

Now, the Esperanto word for Esperanto speakers

is “esperantisto.”

So, he obviously knows a little bit about, um,

you know, word formation in Esperanto.

But then he uses this English ending -stan,

which is only ever used for words around

the Middle East or maybe, like, Ex-Soviet countries.

I'm wondering why he did that.

There is only 1 of 2 reasons:

one is because he loves Arabic culture so much

and he's just got -stan stuck in his head,

or two – he is thinking more along

the bogan English thinking.

A lot of bogan, like, English speakers,

especially in Sidney, add -stan

to an end of a place name

to make it sound like a war zone

or something that's just bad

and generally not good to go to.

So, I don't know which meaning he is aiming at here,

but, you know, it's really not that important.

The actual word for the Esperanto community

would be Esperantujo,

so you can use that in future blog post.

“Wherever you travel, you meet people

of all different persuasions.

No matter what language you learn,

you'll meet speakers all the time

from the far left to the far right of the political spectrum.

You'll also meet non-believers, nominal believers,

the devout and the extreme.

Esperanto, being an ideological tool that it is,

opposes this.”

So he is, basically, saying:

Esperanto has one belief system, we all follow that.

So, the question is: are modern Esperanto speakers

all ideologically the same?

Well, no. Because I'm proof of that.

Even though that's kind of anecdotal

let's start with myself, because I know myself.

I'm the most popular Esperanto youtuber in the world.

Woah. That's saying a lot for a small community,

but I am. Well, it's not really saying that much,

but I am I'm the most popular Esperanto youtuber.

Not kinda, like, trying to flaunt it or anything,

but the reason I'm pointing this out is because

I, probably, go against the trend of a lot of groups.

Now, I'm not a communist, I, in fact,

think that communism is an ideology that

has result in a deaths of millions is terrible.

It sounds good on the surface,

but once you actually try to apply it to humans

which, in essence, are broken –

like, humans are easily corruptible –

it becomes terrible.

So, I'm actually a capitalist.

I believe that, you know, we should work for goods

and we trade goods based on our own means

without interference from others.

I don't believe in big government,

I feel like small government's the way to go.

I believe some regulations required

and I'm totally not religious.

So, I'm probably more right leaning in a lot of ways.

Probably in a majority of ways.

Now, to give you an idea, my local Esperanto group,

which, basically, consists of my friends.

We, uh, people who fit into

pretty much every political ideology.

Now, in Australia (he is aware of this,

but I'll point out for everyone else)

in Australia there's 3 major parties:

the Greens, Liberals, and the Labours.

Eh, and Labour. (laughs) and Labours. And Labour.

Um, so, the Greens,

you probably aware of what they are:

they are, basically, far left.

Then you got Liberal. Liberal is kind of like

our version of the Conservative party in US,

so they are kind of like right.

They are like leaning towards the right.

And then you got Labour,

which is like our version of the Democrats

which are leaning towards left.

So, I vote Liberal.

Because I think that their policies in general

are just better for us as a society.

Now, in my local group there are Greens voters,

there are Liberal voters, and there are Labour voters.

And we are all Esperanto speakers,

and we all get along fine.

We have our political debates but that's about it.

We are not all ideologically the same

and definitely are very different in a lot of regards.

Now, I've put in red here that the only thing

every Esperanto speaker agrees on

is that we speak Esperanto.

And we can't even agree on that most of the time.

If you look at my YouTube comments

often I'll have YouTube comments like

“you are not speaking real Esperanto

because you are using this or that made-up word”.

You know, it's like when someone says

you can't use “they” as a singular in English

and then you have the whole thing…

It's the same thing that happens in Esperanto,

there is always, like, a grammar debate somewhere.

Um, and that's pretty much just how it goes.

So, the only thing Esperanto speakers agree on,

realistically, is that we speak Esperanto.

Or at least some form of it.

So, the idea that we are all the same

is a bit strange to me,

and he used one reference

to one person's anecdotal experience

about going to an event.

Now, the thing is with events:

events, anywhere in the world, are representative

of the people who run those events.

And if someone… If the people who run that event

all are left leaning then the even, in general,

is going to be very left leaning.

If all people who run the event are very right leaning

the same thing happens.

So, if you just happen to go to an event

that sounds interesting,

but, unfortunately, is being politically tainted

by the people who run that event

then that means you gonna feel like

everyone around you

is of the same political persuasion.

It's not true in the Esperanto community,

it's not true in general.

I think that's, probably, a bad example.

Now, he says: “Not only does it have no culture

but its adherents are delusional.

Esperanto has no country or geographical ties

to an ancestral homeland.

Unlike natural languages, you don't learn Esperanto

because you are fascinated by a country,

people group or location.

Outside of a few crackpots

who decided to turn their kids into circus acts

by raising them with Esperanto as a first language,

it has no inter-generational indentity

or national/tribal history.”

Okay. So, before I break into responding to that

I'm just gonna read the follow-up part he wrote:

“To which…” Some people say that Esperanto

does have culture because it's got music, foods,

events, literature. And he responds with:

I think this is “incredibly shallow

and [a] poor understanding of what culture actually is.”

So, let's go back to the previous point.

He says: “Esperanto has no country

or geographical ties to an ancestral homeland.”

That's true, we don't have a country.

There's some geographical places

that are linked very closely to Esperanto.

For instance, uh, the Esperanto urbeto

which is a small town in Germany.

I forget the German name.

Someone will put in the comments. [Herzberg am Harz?]

Basically, there Esperanto is

part of the local community,

all signage are in Esperanto,

but it's used more is kinda like a tourism thing.

So, it's not really like a thing

that's been passed on generation to generation.

So, I agree with him, Esperanto has no country

or geographical ties. Okay?

That's the extent of my agreement.

“Unlike natural languages, you don't learn Esperanto

because you are fascinated by a country,

people group or location.”

I don't necessarily learn a language because I'm fas…

Like, for instance, I learned Chinese

not because I'm fascinated with the country,

the people, the group or the location.

I learned Chinese because I need it

to speak with my wife's parents.

Afterwards I became fascinated

in the country, people, and location,

but I didn't start learning it because of that.

So, this is, uh, a forward assumption

that people learn language because of this.

“It has no inter-generational indentity

or national/tribal history.”

So, Esperanto is 130 years old.

So, it can't develop a very big “tribal history”

(I'm gonna call it “tribal history”

to keep it in line with that he's saying)

during that time.

But there's 4th generation Esperanto speakers,

that means they learned Esperanto,

their parents, their parents, their parents.

You know, going back 4 generations.

They do exist. We've actually got one here in Sidney.

She, um, not 4th generation,

I think she is, like, 3rd generation.

So, Esperanto's been in her family for quite some time.

And she has, basically, photo albums

going back to her great grandma

where she's showing pictures of them

at Esperanto events, how they met, you know,

Esperanto passed along for the family.

It's the same thing when I went to, um, Germany.

I stayed with an Esperanto speaking family from Munich

and they had Esperanto in their family

for a few generations.

And if you told them

that it wasn't part of their “family history”

You'd, basically, be insulting them

because it's how their family even formed

a couple of generations ago.

Now, Esperanto has not just a “tribal history”

it has… also has, like, tribal pain in a sense.

So, I've got this book here called “La Danĝera Lingvo”,

which means a dangerous language,

and it basically details all the times during history

Esperanto speakers have been killed

due to the fact that they speak Esperanto.

Or they have been locked up

because they speak Esperanto.

It talks about how Hitler killed Esperanto speakers,

Stalin killed Esperanto speakers,

they had a japanese lock them up in World War II.

It goes into depth, and these types of things, for me,

are what glue culture together.

The sufferings and the shared culture.

So, this is a book, and now I'm going to quickly

just place in a short video

of me walking around the Esperanto library.

I know he considers literature

to be a shallow example of culture,

but for me literature is a perfect example of culture.

Now, I'm showing you the Esperanto library here,

as you can see there is a lot of books.

I'm not going to put in too much,

you can search for this in my YouTube channel

if you want more in-depth videos.

Now, he says a good definition of culture is

something that's

“intangible aspects of human societies,

patterns of behaviours and interactions,

cognitive constructs.”

For me, this definition is so abstract

that I'm unable to define culture

through this definition.

So, if I was him I would've presented

an example of this through Australian culture.

So, what are the intangible aspects

of Australian culture?

What a the patterns of behavior

of Australian culture?

And interactions and cognitive constructs.

I can't even think about that

for Australian culture, so

I definitely couldn't think

about that for Esperanto culture.

I feel like this is a meaning that so abstract

that it's lost its meaning.

Anyway, maybe there is some way

that you can do this,

you'd have to be a neuroscientist

to figure this one out, I think.

So, in the end he says:

“the original goal for Esperanto, in fact,

conflicts with the very nature of human cultures:

to serve, to separate and distinguish

humans as unique groups.”

Well, remember

what the original goal was according to Zamenhof.

It was to create a tool

in which we could contact each other across culture.

It was not to replace culture.

Now I've been speaking about Esperanto culture

for the last 5 minutes,

so you, probably, a bit confused.

Not everyone follows

what Zamenhof originally intended.

In fact, the vast majority of the Esperanto community

do as they please.

And although Esperanto was created

with an original goal by Zamenhof

over a 130+ years it has evolved

into many different directions

and people use it for many different reasons.

So, there's still a few people

who use it as that original tool

for international communication,

and there's lots of people like me

who is simply enjoying the culture

that evolved out of Esperanto.

So, he also says that

“Esperanto evangelists

(I can't even pronounce that word

because I barely every use it)”

aren't just passionate – they are fanatical.

So yeah, the extreme thing.

Discussing Esperanto with an Esperantist

is like discussing theology with Jehovah's Witness

or animal rights with a PETA activist.”

Now, I know he is going to

use this video as an example,

so I'm just gonna point this out.

You can go learn whatever you want,

I don't care if you learn Esperanto.

For you, the viewer,

if you randomly stumbled across this video,

I don't care if you go learn Esperanto.

If you choose to – great.

You know, do it for you

if that's something you enjoy.

But I'm not saying you need to learn Esperanto.

And I think the vast majority of Esperanto speakers

are like that.

What I'm trying to do throught this video

is to provide an interesting perspective

into unique community.

And do we worship Zamenhof?

Because through this whole thing

he is trying to present Esperanto like a religion.

And I get the feeling

that he is saying that we “worship” Zamenhof.

Now, there are, probably,

a few Esperanto speakers that do worship Zamenhof,

just like there are a few Americans who,

probably, worship the Founding Fathers.

There is always a fanatical person in every community.

Do we define the communities

based on those few fanatics?

No, we don't. Okay?

And to give you, eh, example here:

Mojosujo.

Mojosa means cool in Esperanto.

“-ujo”, as I said previously, is kind of a country.

So, Mojosujo is cool country.

What happens a lot is

Esperanto speakers when speaking in public, um,

people hear us speaking

and they'll go

“hey, what the language is that?”

because it sounds so weird like foreign to them.

And we'll explain what it is

and then we often get, like, mocked.

Like, people would just mock us like

why would you just speak that language,

why not learn a real language?

Even though there is no definition for a real language.

Anyway, so what Esperanto speakers often do

in public is we say “Uh, we are from Mojosujo,

it's just a small eastern European country.”

And then now will be an end of the conversation

Just due to the fact that we

don't wanna have this discussion every 10 seconds.

So idea that we go fanatically around and go

“you must learn Esperanto speaker… uh,

you must learn Esperanto”

is… it's kinda strange.

Okay. So, I'm just gonna finish this all.

And he says “Esperanto has failed –

not that we needed it anyway.”

I'm gonna leave you with the quote

from Zamenhof from the Unua Libro de Esperanto,

the first book of Esperanto:

“To enable the learner to make direct use

of his knowledge with people of any nationality,

whether the language be universally accepted or not.”

Esperanto speakers don't care

what the international language is,

we use Esperanto for many different reasons.

Some might use it for international communication

as Zamenhof proposed,

some, like me, use it because

it's an interesting cultural thing

and all my friends speak it,

some use it because it's a family language.

Has it failed for me?

No, I found it interesting.

I've used it in an international communication,

I make money through Esperanto,

and my friends speak Esperanto,

and my children, probably, will speak it too.

So, for me it's just an interesting thing

and it's part of my personal culture.

Has it failed to become the international language?

For some people like me it's worked

as an international language, for others – no.

So, anyway, that's the end of the video.

Just wanted to, uh, give my input on this,

sorry if it's extremely long.

And if you like this video you know what to do.

Like it, share it around,

sub to the channel if you haven't already.

And I'll see you all in the next video.

And I'll leave you with a warning:

my future videos are pretty much all

gonna be in Esperanto.