The Esperanto movement, less commonly referred to as Esperantism (), is a

movement Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger co ...

to disseminate the use of the planned international language

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

.See the definition in the
Deklaracio pri la Esenco de la Esperantismo
("Bulonja Deklaracio", 1905) The movement does not aim to supplant national languages but merely to supplement them. The movement is sometimes used to describe all speakers of Esperanto including their

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

Politics

Esperanto has been placed in a few proposed political situations. The most popular of these is the former minor party ''

Europe–Democracy–Esperanto Europe–Democracy–Esperanto (EDE, E–D–E, or E° D° E°; Esperanto: ''Eŭropo–Demokratio–Esperanto'') is a pro-Esperanto European political alliance regularly participating in European elections. The party's main platform is the intr ...

'', which aims to establish Esperanto as the

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. Grin's Report, published in 2005 by

François Grin François Grin (born 14 September 1959) is a Swiss people, Swiss economist. One of his research fields is the economics of language. Grin studied economics at the University of Geneva, where he obtained a doctorate summa cum laude in 1989. He the ...

found that the use of the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

as the ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

'' within the European Union costs billions annually and significantly benefits

English-speaking countries The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language ...

financially. The report considered a scenario where Esperanto would be the ''lingua franca'' and found that it would have many advantages, particularly economically speaking, as well as

ideologically An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

References

{{Authority control Esperanto

Politics

See also

Further reading

References