Esperanto
Built on purpose, in 1887
The only invented language with native speakers, and the only one whose grammar has no exceptions because someone decided it would not.
- Published in 1887 by Ludwik Zamenhof, who grew up in a town where four languages argued with each other daily.
- Sixteen rules, no exceptions, no irregular verbs. Every noun ends in o, every adjective in a, every adverb in e.
- There are around a thousand people who grew up speaking it at home, children of couples who met through the movement.
- The accusative ending -n means word order is free: you can put the object first and nothing breaks.
- One root gives you a whole family. Sana healthy, malsana ill, malsanulo a patient, malsanulejo a hospital.
- Stress falls on the second-to-last syllable. Always, with no exceptions.
Designed in 1887 to be learnable in months, and it is: sixteen rules, no exceptions. Studies keep finding it speeds up whatever language you learn after it. Pasporta Servo, the couch-surfing network for speakers, has been running since 1974: learn it and strangers worldwide host you on principle.
Where Esperanto parts company with the languages closest to it, and what each one would cost you from here.
Esperanto vs English → Esperanto vs Hindi → Esperanto vs Spanish →
Reading about a language is not speaking it. These are the places I would go to find someone to speak Esperanto with.
The Esperanto Passepartout is not out yet
Five printed pages that carry you through the arrival. Leave your address and you hear about it first, and nothing else.
Leaving takes one click.
Short stories written inside a measured vocabulary, with the word lists and nothing invented for a textbook.