Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof ( in English; born
Eliezer Samenhof, December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an
ophthalmologistOphthalmology is a branch of medicine which deals with the diseases and surgery of the visual pathways, including the eye, hairs, and areas surrounding the eye, such as the lacrimal system and eyelids. The term ophthalmologist is an eye specialist for medical and surgical problems...
, philologist, and the inventor of
Esperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word esperanto means "one who hopes" in the language itself...
, a
constructed languageA planned or constructed language—known colloquially or informally as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
designed for international communication.
As of 1975, Esperanto was taught in 600 schools to 20,000 students per year; and there were about 100 journals and 7500 books written in Esperanto, including translations from 65 languages. In addition, it had by that time been used in more than 700 international conferences. As of 2000, per Cambridge Encyclopedia, it had somewhere between 1 and 15 million speakers, according to sources referenced.
Cultural background
Zamenhof was born on December 15, 1859 in the town of Białystok in
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(then part of the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
). He considered his native language to be his father's
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
(or perhaps
BelarusianThe Belarusian language, or Belorussian is the language of the Belarusian people and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland...
, which was not considered distinct from Russian at the time and which appears to have had a strong influence on
Esperanto phonologyThe creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, illustrated Esperanto pronunciation by comparing the letters with their equivalents in several major European languages and declaring a principle of "one letter, one sound"...
), but also spoke his mother's Yiddish natively; as he grew older, he spoke more
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
, and that became the native language of his children. His father was a
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
teacher, and he also spoke that fluently, though not as comfortably as Yiddish. Later he learned
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
,
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
,
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
,
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
, and
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
, and had an interest in
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
,
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
and
LithuanianLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
.
In addition to the Yiddish-speaking Jewish majority, the population of Białystok was made up of three other ethnic groups:
PolesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic...
,
GermansThe German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship , distinguished from people of German ancestry...
, and
BelarusiansBelarusians are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Belarusian language...
. Zamenhof was saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels between these groups. He supposed that the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in mutual misunderstanding, caused by the lack of one common
languageA language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using...
that would play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.
Work for an international language
As a student at secondary school in Warsaw, Zamenhof made attempts to create some kind of international language with a grammar that was very rich, but also very complex. When he later studied English, he decided that the international language must have a simpler grammar. Apart from his parents' native languages
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
and Yiddish and his adopted language
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
, his lingustics attempts were also aided by his mastering of German, a good passive understanding of Latin, Hebrew and French, and a basic knowledge of Greek, English and Italian.
By 1878, his project
Lingwe uniwersala was almost finished. However, Zamenhof was too young then to publish his work. Soon after graduation from school he began to study
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, first in Moscow, and later in Warsaw. In 1885, Zamenhof graduated from a
universityA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
and began his practice as a doctor in
VeisiejaiVeisiejai is a city in the Lazdijai district municipality, Lithuania. It is located south-east of Lazdijai. The Esperanto language was created in Veisiejai where L. L. Zamenhof started his practice as an ophtalmologist in 1885. There is a church dedicated to St...
and since 1886 as an
ophthalmologistOphthalmology is a branch of medicine which deals with the diseases and surgery of the visual pathways, including the eye, hairs, and areas surrounding the eye, such as the lacrimal system and eyelids. The term ophthalmologist is an eye specialist for medical and surgical problems...
in Płock and
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
. While healing people there he continued to work on his project of the international language.
For two years he tried to raise funds to publish a booklet describing the language until he received the financial help from his future wife's father. In 1887, the book titled as
"Lingvo internacia. Antaŭparolo kaj plena lernolibro" (International Language. Foreword And Complete Textbook) was published under the
pseudonymA pseudonym is a fictitious name used by a person, or sometimes, a group.Pseudonyms are often used to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre and computer hackers' handles. Actors, musicians, and other...
"Doktoro Esperanto," or "Doctor Hopeful," from which the name of the language derives. For Zamenhof this language, far from being merely a communication tool, was a way of promoting the peaceful coexistence of different peoples and cultures.
Work on Yiddish language and Jewish issues
In 1879, Zamenhof wrote the first grammar of the Yiddish language, which he published in part years later in the Yiddish magazine "Lebn un visnshaft". The complete original Russian text of this manuscript with parallel Esperanto translation was only published in 1982 (translated by Adolf Holzhaus in
L. Zamennhof, provo de gramatiko de novjuda lingvo, Helsinki, p. 9-36). In this work, not only does he provide a review of Yiddish grammar, but also proposes its transition to the Latin script and other orthographic innovations. In the same period, Zamenhof wrote some other works in Yiddish, including perhaps the first survey of Yiddish poetics (see p. 50 in the above-cited book).
In 1882, a wave of
pogromA pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers...
s in the Russian empire motived Zamenhof to take part in the early Zionist movement, the
Hibbat ZionHovevei Zion , also known as Hibbat Zion , refers to organizations that are considered the forerunners and foundations of the modern Zionist movement....
. He left the movement in 1887, and in 1901 published a statement in Russian with the title
Hillelism, in which he argued that the Zionist project could not solve the problems of the Jewish people.
In 1914, he politely declined an invitation to join a new organization of Jewish Esperantists, the TEHA. In his letter to the organizers, he said: "I am profoundly convinced that every nationalism offers humanity only the greatest unhappiness... It is true that the nationalism of oppressed peoples -- as a natural self-defensive reaction -- is much more excusable than the nationalism of peoples who oppress; but, if the nationalism of the strong is ignoble, the nationalism of the weak is imprudent; both give birth to and support each other..."
Among the many works Zamenhof translated into Esperanto is the
Hebrew BibleThe Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic...
or Old Testament.
Zamenhof died in Warsaw on April 14, 1917, and is buried in the
Okopowa Street Jewish CemeteryThe Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. Located on Warsaw's Okopowa street and abutting the Powązki Cemetery at , the Jewish Cemetery was established in 1806 and occupies 33 hectares of land. The cemetery contains over 200,000 marked graves, as well...
in that city.
Religious philosophy
Besides his linguistic work, Zamenhof published a religious philosophy he called
Homaranismo (loosely translated as
humanitarianismIn its most general form, humanitarianism is an ethic of kindness, benevolence and sympathy extended universally and impartially to all human beings. Humanitarianism has been an evolving concept historically but universality is a common element in its evolution...
), based on the principles and teachings of
Hillel the ElderHillel was a famous Jewish religious leader, one of the most important figures in Jewish history. He is associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud...
.
Children
Zamenhof and his wife Klara raised three children: a son,
Adam' was a Polish physician known for his work on ophthalmology and was Ludwik Zamenhof's son, the inventor of Esperanto. During World War II, 6 September 1939, he was head of the Starozakonnych Hospital in Warsaw, and its director. On 1 October 1939 Zamenhof was arrested and sent to the camp in...
, and two daughters, Sofia and Lidia. All three were murdered in
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
.
Lidia ZamenhofLidia Zamenhof was the youngest daughter of Ludwik Zamenhof, the creator of the international auxiliary language, Esperanto. She was born 29 January 1904 in Warsaw, then in the Russian Empire...
in particular took a keen interest in Esperanto, and as an adult became a teacher of the language, traveling through Europe and to America to teach classes in it. Through her friendship with
Martha RootMartha Louise Root was a prominent traveling teacher of the Bahá'í Faith in the late 19th and early 20th century. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith called her "the foremost travel teacher in the first Bahá'í Century", and named her a Hand of the Cause posthumously...
, Lidia accepted
Bahá’u’lláhBahá'u'lláh , born Mírzá usayn-`Alí Nuri , was the founder of the Bahá'í Faith...
and became a member of the
Bahá’í faithThe Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in nineteenth-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories.The Bahá'í Faith teaches a doctrine of...
. As one of its social principles, the Bahá’í faith teaches that an auxiliary world language should be selected by the representatives of all the world's nations.
Name discrepancy
Zamenhof's parents gave him the Hebrew name
Eliezer, which appeared on his birth certificate in its Yiddish form
Leyzer. In his adolescence he used both Leyzer and the Russian equivalent
Lazar (the form
Lazarus is often used in English texts). In some Russian documents Lazar was followed by the
patronymicA patronym or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronym. Each is a means of conveying lineage...
Markovich.
While at university, Zamenhof began using the Russian name
Lyudovik (often transcribed
Ludovic; Polish
Ludwik; in English the form
Ludwig is also used) in place of Lazar. When his brother Leon became a doctor and started signing his name "Dr L. Zamenhof", Lyudovik reclaimed his birth name Lazar and from 1901 signed his name "Dr L. L. Zamenhof". The two L's do not seem to have specifically represented either name, and the order
Ludovic Lazarus is a modern convention.
Zamenhof may have chosen the name Lyudovik in honor of
Francis LodwickFrancis Lodwick was a pioneer of a priori languages . He was a merchant of Dutch origin who lived in London...
(or Lodowyck), who in 1652 had published an early conlang proposal.
His family name was written
Samenhof in German orthography;
Zamenhof is an Esperantized spelling.
Honors and namesakes
In 1910, Zamenhof was nominated for the
Nobel Peace PrizeThe Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:...
, by four British
Members of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
(including
James O'GradySir James O'Grady, KCMG was a trade unionist and Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the first colonial governor appointed by the Labour Party from within its own ranks.- Early life :...
,
Philip SnowdenPhilip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden PC was a British politician and the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer.-Early life:...
) and Professor Stanley Lane Poole. (The Prize was instead awarded to the
International Peace BureauInternational Peace Bureau is the world's oldest international peace federation. It was founded in 1891, and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910....
.)
The
minor planetAn asteroid group or minor planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...
(1462) Zamenhof Zamenhof is a main belt asteroid, which was discovered by the Finnish astronomer and physicist Yrjö Väisälä on February 6, 1938. It has a diameter of 25.82 km and geometric albedo of 0.1268....
is named in his honor. It was discovered on February 6, 1938 by
Yrjö VäisäläYrjö Väisälä was a Finnish astronomer and physicist.His main contributions were in the field of optics, but he was also very active in geodetics, astronomy and optical metrology...
. Also, hundreds of city streets, parks, and bridges worldwide have been named after Zamenhof. In
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
, the best-known Zamenhof Street is in
KaunasKaunas Kaunas Kaunas and Vilnius-Klaipėda (A1)...
, where he lived and owned a house for some time. There are others in France,
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
, Poland, the
Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
, Spain (mostly in
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
), Italy,
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
, and
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
. There are Zamenhof Hills in Hungary and Brazil, and a Zamenhof Island in the Danube River.
In some Israeli cities, street signs identify Esperanto's creator and give his birth and death dates, but refer to him solely by his Jewish name Eliezer (a variant of which, El'azar, is the origin of Lazarus). Zamenhof is honored as a deity by the Japanese religion
OomotoOomoto , also known as Oomoto-kyo , is a Japanese religion, often categorised as a new Japanese religion originated from Shinto. Deguchi Nao was its kaiso in 1892...
, which encourages the use of Esperanto among its followers. Also, a genus of
lichenLichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic association of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
has been named
Zamenhofia rosei in his honour.
His birthday, December 15, is celebrated annually as
Zamenhof DayZamenhof Day is celebrated on December 15, the birthday of Esperanto creator L. L. Zamenhof. It is the most widely celebrated day in Esperanto culture....
by users of Esperanto.
House of the Zamenhof family, monument dedicated to Ludwik Zamenhof and Bialystok Esperanto Centre are sites of
Jewish Heritage Trail in BialystokJewish Heritage Trail in Bialystok - marked foot trail blaze created in June 2008 in Białystok, Poland, by group of students and doctorate candidates, volunteers at The University of Bialystok Foundation....
which was opened in June 2008 by volunteers at
The University of Bialystok FoundationThe University of Bialystok Foundation, Universitas Bialostocensis - independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization located in Białystok, Poland....
. Those sites are also marked on Bialystok Trail of esperanto and many cultures which was opened in June 2009 by Landbrand company.
External links