Esperantist optimistic

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32498, 7 January 1971, Page 1

Esperantist optimistic

(N.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Jan. 6. Esperanto, the international language, would spread across the world, the secretary of the New Zealand Esperanto Association congress (Mr P. E. Wood) said today.

Mr Wood, on the eve of the annual congress in Auckland, said: “I have no doubt that the language will spread like wildfire. But don’t ask me when.”

He said the difficulty was raising the money for fullscale promotion.

The Government was interested in Esperanto, which was being taught in some schools. He predicted that the Education Department would spend the necessary money once it realised how useful the language was.

Mr Wood said Esperanto was widely spoken in Eastern Europe, although it was not near to becoming the universal language it was intended to be. Japan was also a strong Esperanto centre, and China put out

weekly propaganda broadcasts in Esperanto. “We are no longer the cranks people once tried to suggest we were,” he said. Esperanto was constructed by a Polish jew, Dr L. L. Zamenhof, in 1887 and quickly caught on. The Encyclopaedia Britannica wrote: “It has literary power, beauty, precision, flexibility and power of growth.” Although enthusiasm has waned in recent years, the Esperanto library boasts more than 4000 books in originals and translations, including the Bible.