From: James Harnett <mharnett <at> USWEST <dot> NET>
Date: 22 mar 2000
Subject: Re: Beginners Book in Esperanto

>Cxu la tutan libron estas en esperanto? Mi estas esperantiston kaj volas
>lerni la vortojn de japana sxako. Cxu kiu havas la vortarojn?
>Rikard

Esperanto is an international or universal language intended to be used by
people from various linguistic backgrounds, as a method of communications.
There have been hundreds of attempts, since the 17th century, to create an
artificial language that would encompass the majority of the Worlds
languages.  Esperanto is one of those attempts at such a language.  Dr.
Ludwig Zamenhoff (a physician and linguist) of Poland presented it to the
public in 1887, as a small text booklet.  It is made up of individual root
words from Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and Germanic languages, which have
various prefixes and suffixes added, so as to simplify the words.  It has
been shown that Esperanto can be learned in 10 - 20 percent of the time
required to learn most any other national language.  It was estimated in
1991, by Sidney S. Culbert, University of Washington, that over 2 million
people were speaking the Esperanto language.

                "Inteligenta persona lersono lernas la lingvon Esperanto
                rapide kai facile.  Esperanto estas la moderna, kultura
                lingvo por la tuta mondo."

James Harnett