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!

Fun Esperanto weekend in Harrisburg, PA

Posted by Chuck Smith 11 Comments
Nov 29 2011

In Passage to India

Last weekend, 16 people from 3 countries came out to Harrisburg, PA to speak Esperanto together, including the Internet-famous musician, Manekeno. 8 came from Pennsylvania, 2 each from Germany, New Jersey and Virginia with 1 each coming from Mexico and Maryland. I also found it interesting that exactly half of the participants were vegetarians.

In organizing this event, I really wanted to create a “model weekend,” which North American Esperanto speakers can use to organize their own weekend meetings all across the continent. Basically, I think Americans have different needs than Europeans. American Esperanto speakers are more spread out and have less vacation days than their European counterparts, so that shorter, regional meet-ups make more sense than week-long national or international ones. This would also help participants from feeling lost in the crowd, and it would enable them to find Esperanto speakers living nearby, which they would rarely meet at a national conference.

We started our event at Passage to India (a great Indian restaurant), where I surprised everyone with a drawing for random Esperanto goodies. Everyone cheered when I presented the documentary The Universal Language. After that, we headed to Hershey’s Chocolate World.

After that we spontaneously perused the books at Midtown Scholar Bookstore and then went back to the hotel to have some German bread and hang out. A couple of us went out and got a nice variety pack of beer from Appalachian Brewing Company, which was particularly amusing since we bought at 400 Cameron St and it was brewed at 50 Cameron St. Talk about local beer!

Watching Pac-Man with Manekeno and Hector

Back in the room, a party erupted and despite the various language levels, everyone seemed to fit in. We watched some amusing Esperanto videos online and fluent speakers helped interpret for beginners. It was especially fun to watch Manekeno’s music videos while she was in the room! We also had some fun with Esperanto karaoke.

The next morning started out a bit slow, but then we all joined in a game of Word Race in Esperanto (more or less a Taboo clone for iPhone, i. e. a word-guessing game). Then we walked around Reservoir Park and went to the National Civil War Museum. My goal was to balance educational and entertainment venues for this event. I joked afterwards that next time I’d try to take the group to a peace museum! :)

Next, we had Thai food and crossed the Susquehanna River to sit in a gazebo on City Island and play more Word Race. Some even said that playing that game together was the highlight of the weekend for them! At around 7pm, everyone headed home.

For me, it was quite an experience organizing such an event from abroad in my home in Berlin. Here is what I would change next time:

- Make it cheaper for students. As it was, I had the impression that the $40 for a night of lodging was a bit too expensive for the students and too cheap for the adults. Next time, I plan to make it $30 for students and $50 for others. I also noticed this neglect on my part when I organized the cinema evening in Berlin.

Group in Reservoir Park

- Take the group pic at the beginning. Between lunch and checking in to the hotel, two part-time participants had already gone home. I forgot to tell them about the group picture.

- Call potential participants earlier. I used the address book of Esperanto-USA to contact everyone who lived less than 200 miles from the meeting, but at first they were too busy and later I was, so that many people didn’t get much notice of the event. Still, thank you Esperanto-USA for the support!

- Send a press release before the event. I was increasingly busy preparing for the trip and all, so I asked for help on the AktivUsono mailing list. Unfortunately, nobody replied. I later wrote to the eusa-membroj mailing list and got lots of help, but by then it was too late for me to actually write the announcement, so that ended up falling through the cracks.

- Have separate webpages for information about the meeting and registration. Google Forms is a great solution to easily set up a registration form. I also used Google Forms to collect feedback after the event. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t let you have links on it, so I should have made a separate webpage for info about the event. Also, I should have asked everyone if they would be willing to let me list their participation on the website and to send out their contact details to participants after the event, so that participants can stay in touch more easily.

- It would be better to have the educational event on Saturday and entertainment on Sunday. Participants have more energy on the first day, so it would make sense to have the educational visit then and save the entertainment for the second day, when people are feeling more tired. Also, I should have looked more carefully at Sunday opening hours, as that messed up my plans for both the museum and the Thai restaurant.

Having said all that, I’m still quite content with how everything went and I actually think I’m being a bit overcritical about my organization of the event. Considering how I laid into the IJK this year, it’s probably only fair though.

If you missed this event, you need not despair. Jeremy Aldrich from Harrisonburg, VA is considering working with David Doughtery from Rockville, MD to organize the next Eo weekend in VA. I hope that works out!

Would you like to organize an Esperanto weekend in your city? It’s easier than you think, and a lot of fun! If you’re interested in organizing your own weekend Esperanto event, please don’t hesitate to contact me… I will gladly share my experience!

Update: We now have a Google Group to discuss organizing future Urba Semajnfino events: Urb-Sem.

How to count in Esperanto

Posted by Chuck Smith 5 Comments
Nov 19 2011

So, want to impress your friends by being about to count in the most widely spread planned language? Let’s start by counting to 10… I’ll even throw in some memory hints for free! And yes, I’m a software developer, so I’ll start counting at zero. :)

Numbers 0-10

  • 0 – nul (sounds like null)
  • 1 – unu (sounds like card game Uno)
  • 2 – du (do you want to learn the second number?)
  • 3 – tri (sounds like three)
  • 4 – kvar (almost like four)
  • 5 – kvin
  • 6 – ses (almost like six)
  • 7 – sep
  • 8 – ok
  • 9 – naŭ (learn this number now!)
  • 10 – dek (highest number in a deck of cards)

    • Ok, that was just as easy as learning any other language, but here is where Esperanto’s logical nature really helps. For fun, I’ll teach you the ordinal numbers. Let’s compare English with Esperanto here:

    English
    cardinal    		 English
    ordinal    		 Esperanto
    cardinal    		 Esperanto
    ordinal
    one first unu unua
    two second du dua
    three third tri tria
    four fourth kvar kvara
    five fifth kvin kvina
    six sixth ses sesa
    seven seventh sep sepa
    eight eighth ok oka
    nine ninth naŭ naŭa
    ten tenth dek deka

    Numbers 11-1.000.000

    The numbers stay logical. Check out the following examples:

    • 11 – dek unu
    • 12 – dek du
    • 34 – tridek kvar
    • 93 – naŭdek tri
    • 100 – cent
    • 123 – cent dudek tri
    • 678 – sescent sepdek ok
    • 1.000 – mil
    • 1.000.000 – miliono

    Also note that as opposed to English, the thousands dividers are typically separated by a dot, whereas the decimal is a comma. For example, you might see, “Tio kostas 1.299,99 €.” [That costs €1,299.99.]

    Saying years

    If you want to say, “The first Universal Congress of Esperanto happened in 1905.” you would say, “La unua Universala Kongreso okazis en mil naŭcent kvin.” Literally in English that would be “thousand nine-hundred five”. Note however, that in years starting with 2000, the same order as English applies, so 2011 is “du mil dek unu”.

    Further study for advanced students

    Believe it or not, numbers above a billion can get tricky. When you’re ready for an advanced lesson, feel free to check out Vortoj por grandegaj nombroj.

Universal Language in Berlin cinema

Posted by Chuck Smith 2 Comments
Nov 11 2011

Movie theater room

Two days ago, I had the pleasure of showing the documentary The Universal Language in Berlin. Amusingly enough, a few months ago, I saw a deal to rent a movie theater room for €49 (US$66) and thought that would be cool. I plan to use more coupons there for two screenings of Going Cardboard, once with Esperanto subtitles and again with German subtitles. In any case, 20 people showed up last night to watch The Universal Language in English with German subtitles.

After a short introduction, I presented the music video Berlino sen vi by Initials DC, which I had previously set up as a subtitle challenge to our community. That campaign has so far succeeded in making that film available in 30 languages. My plan with this campaign now is to write someone everyday who speaks a language not yet translated until I have 50 languages. :)

Introducing the film

After this, I presented a bit about how the film came to be. It started when Sam Green was making a live documentary called Utopia in Four Movements. One of the movements is Esperanto and he found so much information about Esperanto that he wanted to make a short film dedicated entirely to that. Thus, The Universal Language was born.

Unfortunately, as soon as I started the movie and took me seat, I realized that in my excitement, I forgot to pass on a special message:

I’m thrilled about this upcoming screening – it’s the German premier of my new film, The Universal Language. I’m happy that the the Berlin-Brandenburg Esperanto Association has been inspired to put this event together. I’m not an Esperanto speaker, but I greatly admire the Esperanto movement and am honored and thrilled to have this association. For more than 100 years, Esperanto speakers have been trying to make the world a better place, and I have tremendous respect their hopefulness, pragmatism, patience, and fondness for people.
–Sam Green, director of The Universal Language

Felix Zesch, Chuck Smith, Luisa Rund, Daniel Salomon

After the film, Luisa Rund and Daniel Salomon came up on stage to answer questions with me. Luisa talked about how fun it was to be filmed by Sam Green in the Yokohama World Congress of Esperanto, and Daniel spoke more about how he helped Sam Green scavenge the archives of the Universal Esperanto Association for interesting materials.

When the discussion was over, I showed the DVD extras and then we all went upstairs for drinks. All in all, I’d say the event was quite a success, but I did learn of a few ways we could make such an event better next time. First of all, the event wasn’t in the filmcafe’s program, because I didn’t think to ask them to do that. Secondly, we sent out the press release only a week in advance. We had even planned the event six weeks in advance to give us time to prepare and send out the message, but our head of PR and me were both too busy at different times in order to coordinate this well. In any case, it was a great evening and I look forward to similar events in the future!

Sam Green’s website offers the Universal Language DVD for sale. Also, you can buy the Berlino sen vi music video from Vinilkosmo, which sync with subtitles downloaded from universalsubtitles.

All photos courtesy of Roland Schnell.

Esperanto Wikimania in Svitavy

Posted by Chuck Smith 5 Comments
Nov 7 2011

Pavla trains Czech students

Last week, I participated in a historic event: the Esperanto Wikipedia conference in Svitavy, Czech Republic on Oct 26-30, 2011. Esperanto speakers travelled there from all over Europe to work together on Wikipedia and learn more about the project. On the second morning, Czech national TV interviewed Miroslav Malovec about how he started the Czech Wikipedia from Esperanto. Here you can see the TV report.

After that, we had a nice ceremony with Svitavy’s mayor in City Hall. The director of the Esperanto museum of Svitavy gave the mayor some Esperanto books, including a book of the biography of Zamenhof in Czech. In turn, we received nice bags from the city with various goodies such as a picture book of the city, a beautiful calendar, a map, etc. I’m quite proud that we had Wikipedians there representing Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Netherlands, and the United States.

Svitavy's mayor at Vikimanio

During the day, we split up into groups based on our experience with Wikipedia. No matter which group we belonged to, we mostly worked on articles related to Svitavy. Even there we were occasionally amused by TV cameras floating around. In fact, of all Esperanto events I have ever participated in, I have never seen so much press coverage! Anyway, since I, as the founder of the Esperanto Wikipedia, and Yves Nevelsteen, the author of Vikipedio – praktika manlibro [Wikipedia - practical handbook], were also there as trainers, we assisted experienced editors when questions arose. Marek Blahuš and Miroslav Malovec helped with the Czech students.

The following day, on Friday, we started early and I gave the keynote lecture about the history of the Esperanto Wikipedia along with a quick summary about how the English and Czech Wikipedias started out. Then Miroslav Malovec talked about his experience founding the Czech Wikipedia. This all took place in a beautiful hall on the upper floor of the Esperanto museum of Svitavy.

Also, the city’s mayor came to watch the first half of the program, even though almost everything was just in Esperanto (the opening words were interpreted for his benefit) and the mayor also gave a short speech thanking us for choosing Svitavy to hold our meeting. I have to admit that the city’s support was overwhelming. They published the event on the city’s website and informed the media well. They also provided financial support to make the event less expensive for participants.

Salono Chuck

So, after the morning program, I gave a toast to Wikipedia and its bright future after which, to my great surprise, the room burst into song, praising me for starting the project ten years ago. Needless to say, it was quite overwhelming! But I couldn’t mingle long… another TV interview. Craziness.

Then, we had more workshops. In my workshop, we talked about how to improve the article about Esperanto in every language. Before the event, Marek Blahuš painfully researched the top 10 most visited articles about Esperanto among various languages. He quantitively judged them by how many pictures were in each article, whether they mention the International Youth Conference of Esperanto, the latest year (to see how much the article reflects current events), etc. It was eye-opening to say the least.

Marek explained to us that Czech Wikipedians worked tirelessly to make the article about Esperanto article in Czech phenomenal. Pictures, current events, the Esperanto movement in Czech Republic, etc. Our plan now is to translate this article into Esperanto and then use that as a basis to integrate that information into all the different language Wikipedias. The biggest step is the first one… translating the Czech article into Esperanto. We would like to finish this work as soon as possible, since we would like to link to it extensively during the celebration of the 125th year of Esperanto next year in 2012!

Tomb of famous Eo author Karel Píč

After all that work, we were happy to enjoy an excursion to the historic city of Litomyšl and its castle. I would be happy to show you pictures of the inside of the castle here, except our tour guide told us, we weren’t allowed to take pictures, which was required by UNESCO, since it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Some of us complained bitterly about that, and I still don’t believe UNESCO would require such a thing. If anything, I would suppose that they would be happy for people to take pictures to help preserve this important historical building online! Afterwards, we paid our respects for the famous Esperanto author Karel Píč.

In any case, I have to say the meeting was quite a success. Although there were fewer participants than expected, I believe the quality of the participants was most important. I expect this will help the Esperanto Wikipedia push forward and will also lead the way for another Vikimanio meeting in 2013. I also want to send out a hearty thank you to the organizing team for their great job putting this all together.

Czech radio interviews participants

In conclusion, the massive press coverage helped Esperanto and Wikipedia reach a lot more eyeballs through the press coverage, so I’m very happy about that. Also, I’m very grateful to have had the chance to work together with so many wonderful people throughout the week and I hope we will be able to keep collaborating together in the future!

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