Esperanto: a Language with a Good Cause

Esperanto is the international language created by Polish doctor Ludwik Zamenhof so that all people might be able to communicate with each other on an equal footing.  He published a brochure in 1887 that he signed with the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto.  Thus was born the Esperanto language, which means “he who has hope.”
Over more than 100 years Esperanto has become both a written and a spoken language.  Its vocabulary is primarily derived from the languages of Western Europe, while its syntax and morphology come from Slavic languages.  Esperanto’s morphemes are invariable and can yield practically an infinite amount of combinations, making it easy to create new words, making it very similar to such isolating languages as Chinese, whereas the internal structure of the words bears similarities to such agglutinating languages as Turkish, Swahili, and Japanese.
Esperanto’s particularity is precisely that it is not the language of one country or one culture; it was created for communication throughout the entire world.
Due to its simple and logical grammar, its ability to create an infinite quantity of words based on a few roots and the international character of its vocabulary, Esperanto is the easiest language to learn.  It has no grammatical gender and an agglutinating morphology.
According to Ethnologue’s figures, in 1996 there were between 200 and 2000 native speakers of Esperanto.  One of the most famous such speakers is George Soros, the financier and philanthropist or Hungarian origin; one of the best known self-instruction books is “Do You Know Esperanto?” by Argentina author Jorge Hess.
The official regulating body of this language is the Academy of Esperanto, and there are grammar books such as the Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko (Complete Manual of Esperanto Grammar).