JES, great Esperanto youth congress!

Posted by Chuck Smith 3 Comments
Dec 30 2011

[Tradukita en Esperanto: Libera Folio]

Saluton from Gdansk, Poland, where this year’s Junulara Esperanto-Semajno (Esperanto Youth Week) is taking place. I have to say, the biggest critique I could say is that it’s only 5 days long, instead of the usual 7… but man, what a great congress! Here we have 170 people gathering from 30 countries to celebrate the New Year. In the DAY # style inspired by Attack of the Moon Zombies, I’ll share my experience with you.

DAY ONE

Landing at the airport in Gdansk, we took out some zloty (Polish money) from cash machines and made our way to the bus. The directions said not to take one route, because then you’d have to pay attention to which direction the bus was going, so we decided to go it “safe” by taking the bus to the train station. A half hour, we arrived. Oh wait, it’s the wrong direction. Grrrr, so an hour back in the other direction we go…

When we arrived, food was waiting for us and it was quite enjoyable indeed, except for my friends who were surprised that the cooks believed the yogurt salad dressing was vegan. However, they quickly replaced it with the salad for meat-eaters, which amusingly enough, was actually vegan! After dinner, the ludejo [game place] filled up upstairs with people playing various board and card games, so I enjoyed the atmosphere there before heading to bed.

DAY TWO

Program for day two

So, looking at the schedule, I see that there’s the opening ceremony, followed by talks on Abstract Board Games, The Pirate Party and Lifehacking. Since my lecture wasn’t prepared, I had to skip the opening ceremonies to work on it, but from what I heard it was “boring as usual,” so I don’t really feel like I missed out. At the same time as the abstract board games talk, I have to admit that I was impressed to see a lecture about the new 24-hour Esperanto radio station, Muzaiko there. In fact, during the whole meeting, they had a booth where you could talk to the team about their project.

Being the board game fan I am, I went to the Abstract Strategy Games lecture [PDF] where we were taught Hex and Lines of Action, both great games. It was a nice touch that he gave everyone a small piece of paper with pens to try out Hex with other participants around the room. Afterwards, I learned that there is now a new Esperanto wiki about games! Then, I quickly rushed to my lecture, surprised to find a room full of people wanting to hear about The Pirate Party. The projector and loudspeakers I had requested were not there, but the organizers quickly found them and brought them to me. Anyway, I’ll post more about that next month here on this blog.

The Lifehacking workshop was really great with everyone sharing about ways to improve their life in the following areas: productivity, motivation, happiness, mind and body and money. Judith promised me a guest post about that, so you can look forward to that soon as well! Then there was dinner and concerts by Asorti (a Lithuanian folk band) and Gijom (a French singer-songwriter with a piano), but they weren’t really my style, so I just hung out with other non-concert goers that night. The nice that about these large Esperanto meetings is that there’s always something interesting going on, but even if you feel like taking a break from the program, there’s always interesting people to chat with from all around the world!

DAY THREE

Former president of Poland, Lech Wałęsa

This morning, we had a rare opportunity. We had a meeting with the former president of Poland, Lech Wałęsa (interpreted from Polish by Irek Bobrzak)! He he co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the first independent trade union in Soviet countries and won a Nobel Peace Prize. We were a bit afraid of a monologue, but it was mostly a question and answer session, which he prefaced by saying that he’s most interested in tackling the hard questions. The questions ranged from democracy, copyright reform, the Occupy movement, Russian protesters, etc. There were also questions about the role communism played in Poland. It’s quite nice that Esperanto sometimes gives you access to such interesting people!

After that was the aligatorejo, which is a funny event where people aren’t allowed to speak their native language nor Esperanto! That means, you might find a French guy speaking Spanish with a Japanese guy who then replies in German. It’s fun for everyone to practice their languages, which making it clear why Esperanto is a better solution for international communication. After that, I screened Attack of the Moon Zombies, a 50′s style black-and-white horror movie, dubbed into Esperanto. Afterwards, I encountered a group folk dancing, blocking the hallway, so I took an secret underground passage in the school to leave the building.

Kimo kaj Bugge Bang

After dinner, we enjoyed a great concert by Inicialoj DC of the famed Berlino sen vi followed by Kimo and Danĝera. Inicialoj DC concerts are always worth seeing, as he presents his inspired electronic music to interesting video clips playing in the background, which match the style of the current song. Kimo donning his accordion, started his concert with his new stuff and then surprised us all by inviting beatboxing Bugge Bang on stage to join him. Then after a short song, they joined forces in what I never expected to see before in my life: a duo of beatboxing with an accordion, interesting!

A GREAT TIME!

If you ever get a chance to attend one of these European Esperanto meetings, definitely give it a shot. It’s a great way to experience culture from all over the world as well as to get to know people from other countries. Rather than attending that Understanding Other Cultures workshop offered in your local business school, maybe it would be worth taking a quick trip to Europe to interact with others firsthand and see more of what the world has to offer, in a unique environment!

Have you ever been to a European youth event? What was your experience like? Do you have any advice you’d like to share for others attending for the first time? Please share in the comments!

Various Esperanto slogans around the world

Posted by Chuck Smith 4 Comments
Dec 26 2011

If someone were to ask you to summarize what is Esperanto in a short phrase, what would you say? Many groups have tried to answer this question and I’ll present some of their ideas.

Probably the most famous slogan of all time is Esperanto: everyone’s second language. This is quite old back when everyone had the goal of everyone speaking Esperanto. My personal goal is for everyone to have heard of Esperanto and for them to respect it, thus one of the reasons I write this blog… and why I write it in English. This slogan has largely fell out of favor as many people like the Esperanto community as it is now, and most don’t feel that it still represents the community in general. I personally find it amusing that at one event, someone joked about a new slogan: Esperanto: everyone’s second international language, since English is often considered the de facto international language today. This was also referenced in TEJO’s April Fool’s Joke in 2003.

For quite a long time, Esperanto USA had the slogan Esperanto: the international language that works. I found this problematic, because I have often seen English as being an international language that works. I have to admit, it usually does not work as well as Esperanto, but I found the slogan to be a bit strange … and that it would appear strange to those who have successfully learned English as a foreign language to a high level.

I see now that their slogan appears to be Esperanto is both revolutionary and sensible. I definitely prefer this to the one above, but to me it doesn’t really have that zing that makes people want to learn more. It also doesn’t say what Esperanto is (a language), leaving people who’ve never heard of it before confused. However, the more I think about it, the more I like it.

Today, I heard about an interesting slogan of the German Esperanto Association: Esperanto: more than a language. Trevor Steele originally mentioned it in an article called Should we lose hope? The more I thought about it, the more I loved it. If someone hasn’t heard of it before, they now know it’s at least a language and they’ll be curious as to what more. If they believe Esperanto is dead, they’ll wonder “what more is there?” to which one could easily reply community, music, congresses, books, etc. In short, I find that it informs while creating interest.

What do you think? Which slogan(s) do you like best? Does your country use a different slogan which you find interesting? Would you propose something else? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments!

Muzaiko: 24 hour Esperanto radio

Posted by Chuck Smith 3 Comments
Dec 23 2011

Screenshot of Muzaiko.info

Today, I’ll be talking with the all-volunteer team from Muzaiko, the new 24-hour Internet radio station completely in Esperanto!

How did you see a need for a 24-hour radio station in Esperanto?

A 24-hour radio station in Esperanto is one way to make the language a daily part of speakers’ lives. It can keep active Esperanto speakers in touch with the culture and happenings of the Esperanto community, even if they are only able to occasionally travel or attend events. For beginners or those interested in the language, it can likewise showcase the diverse culture, and offer plenty of passive exposure to the language. Furthermore, it is a great way for the international Esperanto community to come together and collaborate on a project that everyone can enjoy. A good example of this is the news team – where else can you hear international news from all over the world, as heard by the people living in those places?

How do you manage to get 24 hours of original content everyday? Isn’t that an incredible amount of work?

Our aim is not necessarily to develop 24 hours of new content daily, but to generate about a third of that, and repeat it so that people all over the world in different time zones can enjoy all parts of the program. Currently, Muzaiko is still in the beta stage, so we have not yet reached that goal. The program is currently 3 hours long, and repeats 8 times throughout the day. Music and spoken programs are intermixed, with one spoken program each hour. We have at least one new program per day, and the others are generally from our archives.

I heard that you dealt with some rather difficult issues regarding the copyright for the music. How did you overcome these barriers? Were there any other legal issues you had to tackle?

Initially there were indeed concerns and uncertainties about the legality of the radio station, since laws about copyright and broadcasting differ in depending on country, both the country from which one is broadcasting and the countries to which one is broadcasting. For now, these problems have been solved by using the the services of Radionomy, which takes on the costs of copyright and does its own advertising. Continued research into these issues is ongoing while we set up an independent server. As far as acquiring the rights to use the music itself, Vinilkosmo, Edistudio, and individual artists themselves have been a great resource for us.

How is Muzaiko financed? Do you accept advertising? If so, under what conditions?

Muzaiko is currently financed through donations, and the finances are publicly available on our website. Our operating costs are minimal at this point, but we are always accepting donations of money or equipment, which will be used towards improved sound quality, maintaining our own server, and related costs. We certainly accept advertising, as one of our goals is to improve the flow of information throughout Esperantujo. We accept donations from advertisers if possible, but realize that many are also working as volunteers, so we generally play ads for free. Ads should be relevant to Muzaiko or Esperanto, and about 30 seconds in length.

How many people listen to Muzaiko?

We don’t have an exact number, but we do know that our listener base has been growing. In the last month, using data from Radionomy, we’ve had over 20 people listening at once, but that doesn’t count everyone, since there are several ways one can listen to our station. We hope this number keeps growing, and aim to have more thorough statistics in the future.

What do you see in the future for Muzaiko?

In the future we hope to expand the program in several ways. We would like to add more contributors so we can have voices and ideas from all parts of the world. As stated above, we will be generating more new content on a daily basis and extending the program. On the technical side, we have been working towards gaining independence from radionomy.com and using our own server.

How can my readers get involved in helping the project?

We always welcome new contributors and volunteers! Anyone interested in doing interviews or reports, collecting and reading news, proposing new program segments, compiling the program, helping with computer and technical issues, or anything else is welcome to join our all-volunteer team! If you would like to help, or have any ideas or suggestions for what YOU would like to hear in the future of Muzaiko, feel free to contact us at info@muzaiko.info. Our work is done entirely in Esperanto.

So, I welcome you to listen to the station at Muzaiko.info.

More commercial and political influence

Posted by Chuck Smith 3 Comments
Dec 15 2011

In my last part about what could happen when more people speak Esperanto, I mentioned that there would be more interesting Esperanto meetings. Now I want to discuss the potential for greater commercial and political influence with more speakers.

More commercial influence

Currently many companies don’t develop Esperanto language courses, because they don’t think there’s enough of a market for them (a notable exception being Transparent Language and more is in the works). If you go into your local bookstore, do you find a book teaching Esperanto? The problem is that many companies judge demand on the current number of speakers instead of on how many people actually want to learn the language.

Also, it can be hard to find typical things like good-quality games or movies in Esperanto. With more speakers, a larger market develops. But, many makers of such products also don’t realize that they can still succeed in a smaller market, because there isn’t as much competition. For example, I personally produce a line of iPhone learning apps called Intense. I sell German and Latin apps (I give the Esperanto app away as a trial version). The funny thing is that even the German market is bigger, I’ve made the same amount of money with the Latin app. The same is true for people making games for Mac OS and Linux. The Mac and Linux markets are smaller, but the selection for consumers in those markets are also more limited, so they are more likely to buy your product.

More political influence

As Esperanto becomes more widespread, it is used more and more in politics. Roland Schnell wrote an entire blog post about Esperanto in German politics (in German). I think the most interesting developments can be seen from the Green, Pirate and Unu Mondo parties. The green party has its own Esperanto association, the Asocio de Verduloj Esperantistaj. There is an Esperanto pirate party website as well as an Esperanto Squad in Berlin. The Unu Mondo party is a purely Esperanto party, which “regards globalization as a chance to realize human rights and abolish poverty everywhere in the world.”

Bilingual sign: Herzberg city library

On a local level, there are already huge successes like the Herzberg, the Esperanto city. For years, Peter Zilvar worked with the city until they decided to make it official. Throughout the city, you can find Esperanto monuments as well as bilingual street signs. There is also, of course, an Esperanto center there.

The Future of Esperanto?

Every year (except during the world wars), the Esperanto community grows. As I see it, we’re just getting started. What do you see in the future for Esperanto speakers? What commercial and political opportunities should be explored? Let me know how you see the future of Esperanto in the comments!

A vision for more interesting Esperanto meetings

Posted by Chuck Smith 3 Comments
Dec 13 2011

Many Esperanto speakers (especially in Europe) are content with the state of Esperanto as it is now. You can travel to almost any major city in the world and find someone who speaks Esperanto. You can listen to music in Esperanto… there’s even a 24 hour Internet radio station. You can already chat online with people all over the world. But, what would happen if Esperanto were more widely spread?

Playing board games at KoKoLoReS

As it is now, the largest Esperanto conferences happen because a bunch of Esperanto speakers want to hang out together. While there is nothing wrong with that, people usually have a reason to meet up, not just to speak the same language together. The two most brilliant Esperanto meetings I know are the KoKoLoReS and the Esperanto Wikimania. Why? Well, these are two meetings where people meet to do something specific: playing board games and improving Wikipedia, respectively. The Czech press was very present at the Esperanto Wikimania… possibly more because of Wikipedia than Esperanto. But really, doesn’t that make sense? It’s newsworthy that Esperanto speakers meet to work on Wikipedia. It’s not nearly as newsworthy that a bunch of people are meeting who speak the same language. I think we’ll know Esperanto has gone mainstream when we see the first Esperanto fashion show. Why yes, I was surprised when I saw that an Esperanto article existed for that in Wikipedia!

Currently, unless you’ve got a topic that generally interests Esperanto speakers, there’s no way you can expect any kind of turnout by running such a niche event. And there’s even less of a chance such an event could be a success outside of Europe. But, as the Esperanto community grows, these kinds of events should spring up more and more. Typically at non-Esperanto international conferences, people from the same nationality end up meeting with each other and speaking their native language, because it’s just easier for them. This, of course, takes away from the whole experience of an international conference in the first place! Why go to a foreign country if you’re just going to talk with your own countrymen anyway?

I’m already seeing this effect as the community craves New Years events. This year, there will be six Esperanto new years events: Jarfina FESTego (Château de Grésillon, France), Junulara Esperanto-Semajno (Gdansk, Poland), Internacia Festivalo (Xanten, Germany), Novjara Renkontiĝo (Bitburg, Germany), NOVA (Formiga, Brazil) and SANO-2 (Herzberg, Germany). Basically, more and more people wanted to take part in cozy New Year’s events, but it became difficult to find reasonable places to host so many people, so the events splintered off. For more details on how this happened, you can see last year’s article: Celebrate the New Year, in Esperanto style!

What do you see happening when more people speak Esperanto? In my next part, I will discuss greater commercial and political influence!

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