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''Dr. Esperanto's International Language'' (), commonly referred to as ' (''First Book''), is an 1887 book by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof, in which he first introduced and described the
constructed language A constructed language (shortened to conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed natural language, naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devise ...
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 ...
. First published in Russian on , the publication of ''Unua Libro'' marks the formal beginning of the Esperanto movement. Writing under the pseudonym "Dr. Esperanto", Zamenhof originally referred to the language as the ''international language''; the use of ''Esperanto'' did not arise until 1889 when people began to use his pseudonym as the name of the language itself. Zamenhof reproduced a significant portion of the content of ''Unua Libro'' in the 1905 '' Fundamento de Esperanto'', which he established as the sole obligatory authority over Esperanto in the Declaration of Boulogne, ratified by the first World Esperanto Congress later that year.


History

After many years of developing the language, Zamenhof completed ''Unua Libro'' by the spring of 1885 and spent the next two years looking for a publisher. In 1887, shortly after he married his wife Klara, his new father-in-law Aleksandr Silbernik advised him to use money from Klara's dowry to find a publisher. Following his advice, Zamenhof found a publisher in
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
, Chaim Kelter. On , Kelter published the book in Russian as ''International Language'' (). Before the end of the year, Kelter published the Polish, French, and German editions of the book, as well. In 1888, Zamenhof had Julian Steinhaus translate the book into English, and the translation was published under the title ''Dr. Esperanto's International Tongue''. However, when Richard Geoghegan pointed out that Steinhaus's translation was very poor, Zamenhof destroyed his remaining copies and requested that Geoghegan produce a fresh translation. Geoghegan's translation of the book, titled ''Dr. Esperanto's International Language'', was published on and became the standard English translation. Henry Phillips Jr., a secretary of the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
and early supporter of Esperanto, also produced a translation in 1889, titled ''An Attempt towards an International Language'', but Geoghegan's translation remains the preferred standard. ''Unua Libro'' was also translated into
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
,
Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
, Swedish, and Lithuanian in 1889 and then into Danish, Bulgarian,
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
, Spanish, and
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...
in 1890. The name ''Unua Libro'' was applied retroactively to the book in relation to the title of Zamenhof's 1888 book '' Dua Libro'' (''Second Book''). In 1905, Zamenhof reproduced much of the content of ''Unua Libro'' in '' Fundamento de Esperanto'', which he established as the only obligatory authority over Esperanto in the Declaration of Boulogne at the first World Esperanto Congress later that year. However, in his 1888 '' Aldono al la Dua Libro'' (''Supplement to the Second Book''), he officially altered the spelling of the suffixes of the temporal correlatives (''when'', ''then'', ''always'', ''sometimes'', ''never'') from ''-ian'' to ''-iam'', which rendered the Esperanto of ''Unua Libro'' slightly outdated.


Content

The book consists of three parts, an introduction, a grammar section, and a dictionary. Zamenhof begins by renouncing all rights to the language, putting it in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
. In the introduction, Zamenhof lays out his case for the need for an
international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a ...
(IAL). He states that previous attempts, such as Volapük, have failed because they have not overcome the three main difficulties an IAL must overcome in order to succeed. Those difficulties are: In the next three parts, he addresses each difficulty specifically and explains why he believes Esperanto is fit to overcome them. In part I, he explains the simplicity and flexibility of Esperanto grammar, particularly due to its regularity and use of
affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...
es. In part II, he demonstrates the ease of using
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 ...
for international communication due to a simple and clear vocabulary. To demonstrate this, he translates the Our Father and Genesis 1:1–9 and presents a fictional letter and a few poems in Esperanto—"El Heine'", a translation, and "Mia penso" and " Ho, mia kor'", both original. In part III, he presents an idea called the "universal vote", which is a campaign to allot 10 million signatures of people making the following pledge: "I, the undersigned, promise to learn the international language, proposed by Dr. Esperanto, if it shall be shown that ten million similar promises have been publicly given." He argues that this will prevent anyone from wasting time on learning the language since, once 10 million signatures have been gathered, there will be a significant population obliged to learn the language, rendering the language useful. He also welcomes critical feedback for the next year and promises to consider criticism before publishing a special booklet that will give definitive form to the language the following year (which was to be ''Aldono al la Dua Libro''). Additionally, he lays out guidelines for a language academy to guide the evolution of the language in the future (which was to be the Akademio de Esperanto). In the grammar section, he explains the
Esperanto alphabet Esperanto is written in a Latin-script alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the Numerical digit, digits 0–9, currency signs such as $ € ¥ £ ...
and sixteen grammar rules. In the dictionary section, he presents a dictionary with 917 roots of vocabulary.


Reception and legacy

Zamenhof received a wide range of reactions to ''Unua Libro'', from mocking criticism to avid interest. In the hundreds of letters he received, he saw enough support to prompt him to publish ''Dua Libro'' in January 1888 and '' La Esperantisto'' in 1889, in order to provide more Esperanto reading material for those with interest. In 1889, he also published Russian–Esperanto and German–Esperanto dictionaries to increase Esperanto vocabulary, as well as ''Aldono al la Dua Libro'', a supplement to ''Dua Libro'', to establish the definitive form of the language, a document he promised in part III of ''Unua Libro''. By all measures, Zamenhof's "universal vote" campaign failed. By 1889, he had only reached 1000 signatures, a mere 0.01% of his goal of 10 million. Nevertheless, the Esperanto movement continued onward. Among the early supporters were educated Russian and
Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
,
Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...
and his followers,
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an
freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
s, and speakers of Volapük who had lost hope in their language.


See also

* History of Esperanto * Esperanto Day


Footnotes


Notes


References

* *


External links

* *
A collection of free Esperanto books compiled by David G. Simpson.
This collection includes, among many others, reprints of the "canonical books" of the Esperanto language, i.e., Unua Libro, Dua Libro (with the Aldono al la Dua Libro) and Fundamento de Esperanto. {{Authority control 1887 non-fiction books Esperanto history Esperanto literature Works published under a pseudonym