Ludwik longed to work on his language, which he felt would help the scattered communities of Jews all over the world communicate with one another and come out oftheir cultural isolation. Until now he had obeyed his father and had devoted himselfto his studies. But when he asked to see his precious bundle of notebooks and papers, he learned Markus had burned them. Ludwik would have to begin constructing his language all over again, from memory. The break with his father would take many years to heal.
Ludwik continued to work on the language as he finished his medical studies and began to practice in a small village in Lithuania. 'The tranquil life of the place', he later explained, '. . . was conducive to thought and brought about a complete change in my ideas.' In the peaceful forests of Lithuania, Ludwik Zamenhof came to the conviction that nationalism of any kind, even Jewish nationalism, would 'never solve the eternal Jewish question' and bring his people equality and respect. 'You may imagine that it was with no little grief that I decided to abandon my nationalist labors,' he later recalled, 'but thenceforth I was to devote myself to realizing that non-national, neutral idea which had occupied the thoughts of my earliest youth - to the idea of an intemational language.'
The language was at last ready, but one problem troubled Ludwik. 'I knew', he wrote, 'that everyone would say to me: "Your language will be useful to me on!y when the whole world accepts it; thus I cannot accept it until everyone does." But because "everyone" is not possible without some individual "ones" first, the neutral language could have no future until its usefulness for each individual was independent of whether the language was already accepted by the world or not.' Zamenhof decided to devise a one-page 'key' which would include the grammar and vocabulary, translated into a national language. Anyone who received a letter written in the new language could readily translate it and compose a reply with the aid of a 'key' in his native tongue. Thus the auxiliary language could be used immediately for its crucial purpose - communication between people.
Ludwik Zamenhof returned to Warsaw, having decided that he was unsuited to general practice. The agony of seeing incurable patients die was more than he could bear. He took up ophthalmology, studying the specialty at the Jewish Hospital in Warsaw and in Vienna, then opening his practice in Muranowska Street in Warsaw.
At a Khibat Zion meeting he had met a young woman named Klara Zilbernik from Kaunas, Lithuania. Her father, the owner of a soap factory, was impressed by the serious young Dr Zamenhof. When Klara and Ludwik became engaged, Zilbemik told his daughter that Ludwik was 'a genius' and that Klara had 'a sacred task' before her. She believed so too, and would spend the rest of her life fulfilling it.
In i887Ludwik andKlara weremarried. Klara and her father agreed to use half the money from her dowry to enable Ludwik to present his language publicly, in the form of a small book. It appeared earlier that same year.
The forty-page document included translations in the new language, a model letter and original poems, as well as the complete grammar, a vocabulary of nine hundred words with their Russian translation, and promise forms to be filled out by those who agreed to learn the language, which Zamenhof had named Lingvo Intemacia (Intemational Language).
Ludwik Zamenhof faced the moment with excitement and some trepidation. 'From the day my book appeared,' he realized, 'I would no longer be able to go back; I knew what fate awaits a doctor who depends on the public, if this public sees him as a crank. . .' Zamenhof knew that pursuing his ideal openly might jeopardize his family's security and future happiness. 'But I could not forsake the idea that had possessed me body and soul,' he said, and he did not tum back.
TWO
One Who Hopes
Dr Zamenhofs little book soon brought so many letters asking questions and offering advice, that he published a second book as a way to answer them all. A circle of enthusiasts grew, as people began to learn the language and use it to correspond with each other and with Zamenhof. Ludwik hoped that the language would spread on its own so he could 'retire from the scene and be forgotten'. He had signed his first book with the pseudonym 'Dr Esperanto'. Esperanto meant 'he who hopes'. It quickly became the popular nameofthelanguageitself.
At first most of the Esperantists lived in the Russian Empire and included many Jewish intellectuals and followers of Tolstoy. But by 1889 the first Adresaro, or Directory ofEsperantists, included people in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Sweden, the United States, Turkey, Spain, China, Romania and Italy; and soon there were Esperantists in South America, North Africa, South Africa and Australia.
The language was so simple that the entire grammar could be explained in sixteen rules. Words were formed by combining prefixes and suffixes with root words drawn mostly from German and Latin so as to be familiar to most speakers of European languages. Nouns were formed by adding -o; adjectives by adding -a (vivo, 'life'; viva, 'alive'). The plural was made by adding -j (pronounced as 'y' in 'boy'). The use of prefixes and suffixes had been a brilliant stroke. It greatly simplified the language. For example, the prefix mal- indicated the opposite meaning of the term to which it was added. Thus bona meant 'good', while malbona meant 'bad'. Not only did this do away with all separate negative terms, but it then became possible to create other words by using the prefix, such as: dekstra, 'right' / maldekstra, 'left'; antaŭ, 'before' / malantaŭ, 'behind'; riĉa, 'rich' / malriĉa, 'poor'. Instead of having to memorize a completely different word for each concept, one need only learn the roots and the prefix.
An example of the way Esperanto words were formed may 12 seen in samideano, a term that soon came to be widely used among the Esperantists. The root sam- meant 'same', the root ide- meant 'idea', and the suffix -ano meant 'member' or 'adherent'. Thus, samideano meant 'one who shares in the same idea', or 'fellow-idealist', in other words, Esperantist. The feminine form was created by adding the feminine -/«-: samideanino.
The personal pronouns were mi, 'I'; vi, 'you'; //, 'he'; ŝi, 'she';J/, 'it'; ni, 'we'; ///, 'they'; oni, 'one'. Verbs were completely regular and had only one form for each tense. The present ended in -as (mifaras, 'I do'), the past in -is (mifaris, 'I did'), the futurein-os (mifaros, 'I will do'), the conditional in -us (mifarus, 'I should do'), the imperative in -u (faru, 'do!'; nifaru, 'let us do').
One case ending was used: the suffix -n served to indicate, among other things, the object of a verb - what would be called in Latin or Russian the accusative case. Thus 'I wrote the letter' would be rendered in Esperanto: 'Mi skribis la leteron.'
Esperanto had been successfully launched into the world; Ludwik and Klara were further delighted when in 1888 their first child, Adam, was born. But soon troubles began to cloud their lives. Ludwik had difficulty establishing his medical practice in Warsaw. His fears had been justified - people saw him as an eccentric and were reluctant to go to him for medical treatment. Half of Klara's dowry had gone to publish the Esperanto books; the couple had only about five thousand rubles left. Then catastrophe struck.
Ludwik's father, Markus, had been accused by a personal enemy of letting an article critical of Tsar Alexander III pass censorship. The article was about wine; the offensive passage was: 'continual drinking of wine gradually destroys the intellectual and civilized abilities of a man's brain and sometimes it causes insanity and a loss of all reason.' The passage was interpreted as a comment on the tsar's drinking habits and a direct insult to his person.