Ludwik Zamenhof vowed to give the world a language that all its peoples could use to communicate with one another, and thus, he hoped, to bridge their differences.
But what kind oflanguage would serve as a tongue for all mankind? Of the thousands of languages and dialects in the world, which one to select? Quickly Ludwik abandoned the idea of choosing a living tongue for his 'human language'. No matter which one was chosen, there would be some people who would object. And those people whose native tongue it was would have an advantage over all the others. Choosing any one language could only imply that it was
i. Markus and Rozalia Zamenhof, Lidia'sgrandparents, iti 1878
2. Courtyard oĵ the building u>here the Zamenhofs lived in the iSjos. Here the schoolboy Ludu>ile made his first attempts at creating a language
superior in some way and others inferior.
Zamenhof became convinced that the only possible international language would be a neutral one, belonging to none of the living nations. After rejecting the idea of a classical language such as Greek or Latin, he began to dream of creating a new language for all mankind.
The problem sometimes seemed beyond him. How could one boy invent a language? 'Human language,' wrote Zamenhof, 'with its endless accumulation of grammatical forms, and its hundreds of thousands of words . . . seemed to me such a colossal and artificial machine that more than once I told myself: "enough of dreams! This enterprise is beyond human powers." And yet, I always came back to my dreams.'
Ludwik Zamenhof was not the first to think of creating a universal language. Proposals for constructing auxiliary languages had been circulated since the seventeenth century — Descartes mentioned the idea in a letter in 1629. In 1878, even before Zamenhof had completed his project, a proposal for a language called Volapŭk (Word Speech) was published by Johann Martin Schleyer, a German Catholic priest, who felt his work to be divinely revealed. But Volapŭk was arbitrary and difficult. Eventually it died out, its followers bitterly divided over Schleyer's authoritarian attitude and the issue of linguistic reforms.
At the age of fifteen Ludwik Zamenhof began to try to create his language. His first attempts were unsatisfactory, but as the years passed, he continued to work on his project.
By now the Zamenhof family had moved to Warsaw where Ludwik's father, Markus, taught languages. A strict disciplinarian, Markus Zamenhof had no formal education but was self-taught. However, he intended that his sons should go to university.
To earn the necessary money, the Zamenhof family took in boarders, and Markus took up the post of Jewish Censor. At home every night he scrutinized Jewish publications for any statement that might offend the Russian government or the tsar. With the money he earned, Markus was able to educate his sons. Four became doctors and one a pharmacist. As one would expect for that time, none of his daughters went to university.
In 1878 Ludwik was in the eighth class of the gymnazium, and his language was, as he wrote later, 'more or less ready'. There was still a great difference between his Lingwe Uniiversala (Universal Language) and what would eventually become Esperanto, but the idea, at least, had taken shape. He confided his creation to some ofhis friends and his brother Feliks. Attracted by Ludwik's idea and the simplicity of the language, they began to learn it.
On 5 December 1878 the small group of friends solemnly celebrated the birth of Lingwe Uniwersala, giving speeches in the new language
and singing enthusiastically the anthem Ludwik had written. It began: Malamikete de las rtacjes Kado, kaddjam temp' esta! La tot' homoze in familje Konutiigare so deba.
(Hatred of the nations,
Fall away, fall away, it is already time!
All mankind in one family
Must become united.)
In June, the young men finished school and went their separate ways. But when Ludwik's friends tried to tell others about the new language, they were scoffed at by 'mature' men and immediately repudiated the language. Ludwik found himself alone. He knew that he was still too young to display his creation publicly, and he decided to wait and continue improving the language. Ludwik received another blow when his father, who had tolerated Ludwik's project until now, abruptly became opposed to it. Someone had convinced him that his son's preoccupation with the language might be a sign of insanity. Markus made Ludwik promise to give it up until he had finished his university studies. He took away Ludwik's notebooks containing all his precious work - the entire grammar of the language and the translations he had made - and locked them up.
Soon Ludwik left for Moscow University, where he was to study medicine. In Moscow he was exposed to other intellectual currents, and his idealism took a new direction as he became involved in the early stirrings of what would eventually become the Zionist movement.
Like many young Jews of the time, Ludwik Zamenhof wanted to improve the intolerable situation of the Jewish people in Eastern Europe. His father and grandfather had been followers ofthe Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, and the humanistic, rationalistic, and secularistic ideas which the Haskalah belatedly brought to Eastern European Jewry deeply influenced Ludwik.
Inspired by the Haskalah, and by what had appeared to be a shift toward liberalism on the part of the Russian government, some Jews like Markus Zamenhof had become convinced that ifjews abandoned their cultural isolation and became assimilated into the culture of the country in which they lived, retaining their own religion in a modernized form, they would be accepted as equal citizens. Markus Zamenhof was an admirer of Russian culture, however, not Polish. But Jews like the Zamenhofs, who favored modernizing Jewish religion and culture, were a minority in Eastern Europe. Most Jews clung to orthodox traditions and scorned the assimilationists.
In Ludwik's time, however, as anti-Semitism became more vicious and widespread, many assimilationists became disenchanted and doubted they would ever be accepted as equal citizens who happened to follow a different faith. When, following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, pogroms broke out in two hundred towns and villages, the illusions ofmany were shattered. They turned their efforts in a new direction, convinced now that the Jews were not really just a religious group but a nation, and that their only salvation lay in the establishment of a Jewish state.
Ludwik Zamenhof was among those who rejected assimilation and embraced the idea of emigration. By his own account, in 1881 he organized some of his fellow students at Moscow University into the firstJewish political organization in Russia. At first, Ludwik had agreed with the faction that wanted to go to America, settle a territory, as the Mormons had done, and eventually form a state. But in order to avoid disunity in the movement, he soon gave his support to the majority, who held that Palestine was the only possible homeland for the Jews.
That same year, financial difficulties forced Ludwik to return to Warsaw, where on Christmas Day a pogrom broke out and the terrified family had to hide in the cellar. In Warsaw Ludwik continued his studies as well as his Zionist work, founding among the Jewish youth in Warsaw a society ofKhibat Zion (LoveofZion), which aimed to form agricultural colonies in Palestine. Among religiousJews at that time, Zionism was still new and suspect. Most had not accepted the idea of a Jewish state, which was supposed to be established only after the coming of the Messiah. Zamenhof later recalled that when he spoke with passionate conviction of his belief in the reconstruction of the Jewish homeland, 'my fellow Jews mocked me severely'.