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Esperanto: Frequently Asked Questions

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This posting attempts to answer the most common questions from those new to the newsgroup soc.culture.esperanto (or the corresponding mailing list esperanto-l), or to the language Esperanto itself. Please send suggestions, corrections and complaints about this FAQ to the maintainer, Yves Bellefeuille, yan@storm.ca. Post questions about Esperanto in the newsgroup soc.culture.esperanto or send them to the mailing list at esperanto-l@netcom.com, not to the maintainer.

Because of the increasing internationalization of the net, I have attempted to make this FAQ as relevant as possible to readers in various countries. It's still somewhat biased in favour of the US, though.

Part I: The Language Esperanto

1. What is Esperanto?
2. How easy is Esperanto to learn?
3. Where does Esperanto's vocabulary come from?
4. What about Esperanto's grammar and word-order?
5. How many people speak Esperanto?
6. How can I use Esperanto once I've learned it?
7. Where do I find classes, textbooks, etc.?
8. How come Esperanto doesn't have <favourite word or feature>?
9. What are some common objections to Esperanto? How do speakers of Esperanto respond to them?
10. Are there any famous Esperanto speakers?
11. What about other "artificial" languages like Loglan, Ido, etc.?
12. What are PAG, PIV, PMEG, PV, TEJO and UEA?
13. How do you say "I love you" in Esperanto?

Part II: Esperanto, Computers and the Internet

14. How can I type and display Esperanto's accented characters?
15. How can I represent these characters in E-mail or on Usenet?
16. What Esperanto material is available on the Internet?
17. What Esperanto material is available on other (non-Internet) on-line services?

This FAQ was written by Mike Urban (urban@netcom.com). It was brought up to date and is now maintained by Yves Bellefeuille, yan@storm.ca.

Principal contributors: Ken Caviness (caviness@southern.edu), Alan Gould (agolincs@agolincs.demon.co.uk), Edmund Grimley-Evans (edmundo@rano.demon.co.uk), Don Harlow (don@donh.vip.best.com), Konrad Hinsen (hinsen@cnrs-orleans.fr), Dmitri Horowitz (horowitz@xs4all.nl), Arnold Victor (arvimide@mars.superlink.net), Martin Weichert (martinw@cs.chalmers.se), and David Wolff (dwolff@world.std.com).

Last updated: 23 June 1999