Hello friends!
I thought many of you would find this information interesting. I hope
I'm right!
It is a little long but it's not available online yet, otherwise I'd
just give you the link.
Peace,
Mar =)
(619) 258-0169 * (866) GARYMAR * http://www.garymar.org

Local builds popularity of international language
By Sara McInerney
The East County Californian
August 25th, 2005
Experts around the world agree that many of today's
problems between countries and between people are due to a lack of
communication. Santee resident Martha Cárdenas-Loutzenhiser is
attempting to bridge the gap between herself and the international
community with a planned international language that is recently
starting to build popularity, Esperanto.

Loutzenhiser is a native Spanish speaker who moved to the
United States in her 20s and is currently a math, Spanish, and
writing teacher at Prospect Avenue Elementary School in Santee. She
heard about Esperanto when she was a teenager but it was only last
December when she started learning the language. She finished the
online course in seven weeks. Currently, she is the events
coordinator for the Esperanto Group of San Diego.

Esperanto has been in existence since 1887 when Dr. L. L.
Zamenhof, a Polish physician, published his book Lingvo Internacia.
He wrote his book on Esperanto, a language he created in response to
his own experiences growing up in an area of Poland that was then
still part of the Russian Empire and consisted of three groups of
people that spoke different languages: Poles, Belorusians, and a
large group of Yiddish-speaking Jews. He called his new language
Esperanto, which means "one who hopes," in Esperanto.

Currently, there is an estimated two million speakers
worldwide, according to materials provided by Loutzenhiser.

"The internet is the best thing that has ever happened to
it [Esperanto]. It has taken off," Loutzenhiser said.

The language was designed as a secondary language to
facilitate communication on an equal footing between people of
varying languages and cultures. It was created to be politically and
religiously neutral.

Critics of the language ask why is it necessary to learn
an international language, isn't English known as the international
language?

"They [the critics] never had to learn English. They
don't realize how difficult it is. Most people don't have ten years
to devote to learning just one other language," Loutzenhiser
said. "It makes sense to use a simplified language that we can all
quickly learn to communicate with everyone else," she added.

According to Loutzenhiser, Esperanto is very easy to
learn. Seventy-five percent of Esperanto's vocabulary is Romance
language based, 20 percent are Germanic language based, and the rest
are Slavic languages and Greek. But it is also easy to learn for
people who are from other parts of the world.

"[For example], the Japanese language works by adding
particles to a word and in that sense Japanese and Esperanto are very
similar. We may not have many common roots but the structure and how
we build words and sentences are very similar so that makes it easy
for them to learn," Loutzenhiser explained.

In Esperanto every word is phonetic, every letter has
only one sound, there are no silent letters and no exceptions to the
fundamental rules. There are no grammatical genders, word order is
free (speakers can say the same thing in any order that feels
natural), only one verb conjugation, all plurals are formed the same
way and a prefix can be added to change any word's meaning to its
opposite. Adjectives always end in `a', adverbs always end in `e',
nouns always end in `o' and plurals always end in `j.'

Last month Loutzenhiser joined Esperanto speakers from
around the world in a three-week total immersion Esperanto program
that took place in Vermont. The School of International Training
hosted the program.

"It was overwhelming to be able to speak, to get a long
and make friends with all these people from all different
backgrounds," Loutzenhiser said.

The various accents were quite interesting to
Loutzenhiser and she was surprised that she did not have trouble
understanding anyone. "I did notice that they [some of her fellow
students] had their countries' influence in the way of pronouncing
the words but the sounds in Esperanto are so common to so many
languages that most people don't have any problem pronouncing the
letters," she said.

Loutzenhiser has been in recent discussions with her
principal at Prospect Avenue Elementary School to provide an after
school class in Esperanto. However, Hector Ortega, a San Diego State
University student, who is finishing his master's degree in
linguistics, will most likely teach the class.

"After school we can teach them anything they want to
learn. Anything where there is enough interest," Loutzenhiser said.

Since Loutzenhiser's background is education for
elementary school students she has a variety of materials and ideas
for teaching this language to children. "My group has been very
active in developing materials that are for children because it seems
right now that all the material for learning Esperanto is for the
adult audience and not enough for the kids," Loutzenhiser added.

There is a list of Esperantists around the world who are
willing to host families who speak Esperanto, free of charge. "If
nothing else; it is a very inexpensive way to travel," Loutzenhiser
concluded.

The local club, the Esperanto Group of San Diego, will be
hosting the 55th National Esperanto Convention in 2007. For more
information call the Esperanto Group of San Diego, 1-866-427-9627 or
visit them online at
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/EsperantoGrupodeSanDiego
Martha Loutzenhiser may be contacted by visiting the Web site,
www.garymar.org