List of Esperanto speakers

An Esperantist (Esperanto: esperantisto) is a person who speaks, reads or writes Esperanto. According to the Declaration of Boulogne, a document agreed upon at the first World Esperanto Congress in 1905, an Esperantist is someone who speaks Esperanto and uses it for any purpose.

List

Important Esperantists

Muztar Abbasi, Pakistani scholar, patron in chief of PakEsA, translated the Quran and many other works into Esperanto
William Auld, eminent Scottish Esperanto poet and nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature
Julio Baghy, poet, member of the Akademio de Esperanto and "Dad" ("Paĉjo") of the Esperanto movement
Henri Barbusse, French writer, honorary president of the first congress of the Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda
Kazimierz Bein, "Kabe", prominent Esperanto activist and writer who suddenly left the Esperanto movement without explanation
Émile Boirac, French writer and first president of the Esperanto language committee (later the Akademio de Esperanto)
Antoni Grabowski, Polish chemical engineer, the father of Esperanto poetry
Lou Harrison, American composer of Esperanto music and translator of Sanskrit texts into Esperanto
Julia Isbrücker, Dutch Esperantist
Boris Kolker, Esperantist scholar and key member of the Akademio de Esperanto
Georges Lagrange, French Esperantist writer
John Edgar McFadyen, Scottish theologist and linguist
Frederic Pujulà i Vallès, pioneer of Esperanto in Spain
Sándor Szathmári, leading figure of Esperanto literature
Anna Tuschinski, prominent Esperantist in the Free City of Danzig; "Mother of Esperanto"
L. L. Zamenhof, Polish ophthalmologist, inventor of Esperanto

Politicians

Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was said to have studied Esperanto by Leon Trotsky, though he later killed many Esperantists
Kazimierz Badowski, member of the Communist Party of Poland, promoted Esperanto as part of the Trotskyism movement
Richard Bartholdt, U.S. Representative from Missouri
Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, one of the architects of the League of Nations, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Parley P. Christensen, Utah and California politician
Willem Drees, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (1948–1958)
Heinz Fischer, President of the Republic of Austria
Małgorzata Handzlik, Polish member of the European Parliament
Ho Chi Minh, President of North Vietnam
Jean Jaurès, French politician. He proposed to the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart in 1907 the use of Esperanto for the information diffused by the Brussels Office of the organization.
Franz Jonas, President of the Republic of Austria, Secretary of the Austrian Laborist Esperantist League and founder of Internacio de Socialistaj Esperantistoj ("International of Socialist Esperantists")
Graham Steele, Canadian lawyer, author, and former politician
Josip Broz Tito, head of state of Yugoslavia^[1]
Alexander Dubček, head of state of Czechoslovakia. He grew up on a utopian and Esperantist cooperative called Interhelpo.

Writers

Anna Löwenstein, British Esperantist, writer, teacher
Nadija Hordijenko Andrianova, Ukrainian writer and translator
Maria Angelova, Bulgarian poet
Ba Jin, prolific Chinese novelist and chairman of Chinese Writer Association
Henri Barbusse, French writer, and honorary president of the first congress of the Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda
Louis de Beaufront, Esperantist writer
Gerrit Berveling, Dutch Esperantist poet, translator and editor of the Esperanto literary review, Fonto
Marjorie Boulton, British writer and poet in English and Esperanto; researcher and writer
Jorge Camacho, Spanish Esperantist writer
Vasili Eroshenko, Russian writer, Esperantist, linguist, and teacher
Petr Ginz, native Esperanto speaking boy who wrote an Esperanto-Czech dictionary but later died in a concentration camp at age 16. His drawing of the Moon was carried aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. His diary appears in Czech, Spanish, Catalan and Esperanto, and was recently published in English.
Don Harlow, American Esperantist writer and webmaster of the United States Esperanto web-site.
Hector Hodler, Swiss journalist, translator, organizer, and philanthropist
Hans Jakob, Swiss writer
Kálmán Kalocsay, Hungarian surgeon, poet, translator, and editor
Lena Karpunina, Tajik Esperantist short story writer
Ikki Kita, Japanese fascist author, intellectual and political philosopher
Georges Lagrange, French Esperanto writer, member of Academy of Esperanto
Nikolai Vladimirovich Nekrasov, Esperantist writer and translator of the Soviet Union
Mauro Nervi, Italian poet in the Esperanto language
Edmond Privat, Swiss author, journalist, university professor, and movement activist
João Guimarães Rosa, Brazilian novelist, short story writer and diplomat
Cezaro Rossetti, Scottish Esperantist writer
Lazër Shantoja, Albanian catholic saint, writer and translator
René de Saussure, Swiss writer and activist
Tivadar Soros, Hungarian Jewish doctor, lawyer, author and editor
W. T. Stead, well-known philanthropist, journalist and pacifist who was aboard the Titanic when it sank.
Þórbergur Þórðarson (Thorbergur Thortharson), Icelandic writer and Esperantist
J. R. R. Tolkien.^[2]
Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer and philosopher, who claimed he learned how to write Esperanto after two hours of study
Julian Tuwim, Polish poet and translator.
Vladimir Varankin, Russian writer
Jules Verne, French author, incorporated Esperanto into his last unfinished work The Barsac Mission.
Qian Xuantong, Chinese writer and linguist who pushed for the abolition of Classical Chinese, and supported the substitution of Spoken Chinese with Esperanto
Kenji Miyazawa, Japanese poet and author of children's literature. Author of Night on the Galactic Railroad (銀河鉄道の夜).

Scientists

Daniel Bovet, Italian pharmacologist and winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, learned Esperanto as a first language
Sidney S. Culbert, American linguist and psychologist
Bertalan Farkas, Hungarian cosmonaut
Louis Lumière, French inventor of cinema, said: "The use of Esperanto could have one of the happiest consequences in its effects on international relations and the establishment of peace."
Fran Novljan, contributed to the promotion of Esperanto in Yugoslavia.
Wilhelm Ostwald, German Nobel laureate for his seminal work in chemical catalysis
Mark Pallen, British microbiologist
Claude Piron, Esperantist, psychologist, and linguist, translator for the United Nations
Reinhard Selten, German economist and winner of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics because of his work on game theory. He has authored two books in Esperanto on that subject.
Leonardo Torres Quevedo, Spanish engineer and computer scientist.
Yrjö Väisälä, Finnish astronomer, discovered asteroids 1421 Esperanto and 1462 Zamenhof
John C. Wells, British phonetician and Esperanto teacher
Wladimir Köppen, Russian geographer of German descent
Marcel Minnaert, Belgian astronomer who worked in Utrecht
Seok Joo-myung, Korean ecologist who studied and identified native butterflies of Korea
Claude Roux, French lichenologist and mycologist

Others

Baháʼí Faith adherents, many of whom have been involved with Esperanto (see Baháʼí Faith and auxiliary language). Lidia Zamenhof was a Baháʼí. Several leading Baháʼís have spoken Esperanto, most notably the Son of Baháʼu'lláh, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (see John Esslemont).
Rudolf Carnap, German-born philosopher.
Onisaburo Deguchi, one of the chief figures of the Oomoto religious movement in Japan and president of the Universala Homama Asocio ("Universal Human-love Association")
Alfred Hermann Fried, recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize and author of a textbook on Esperanto
Ebenezer Howard, known for his Garden Cities of To-morrow (1898), the description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature.
Pope John Paul II, gave several speeches using Esperanto during his career^[3]^[4]
Franko Luin, Swedish type designer of Slovene nationality
John E. B. Mayor, English classical scholar, gave a historic speech against Esperanto reformists at the World Congress of Esperanto held at Cambridge
Alexander Nedoshivin, Russian tax specialist, one of the founders of the Esperanto Society at Kaunas, Lithuania
William Main Page, Secretary of Edinburgh Esperanto Society, editor and author
László Polgár, Hungarian chess teacher
Susan Polgar, Hungarian-American chess grandmaster, taught Esperanto by her father László
George Soros, Hungarian-American billionaire and son of Esperantist parents. ("Soros", a name selected by his father to avoid persecution, means "will soar" in Esperanto.)
Daniel Tammet, British autistic savant. He has stated Esperanto is one of the ten languages he speaks.
Marcelle Tiard, French Esperantist who co-founded the Union of Esperantist Women.
Antoon Jozef Witteryck, Belgian publisher and instructor

Sources

This page has been translated from the article fr:Espérantiste on the French Wikipedia, accessed on June 13, 2006.
Information on William Thomas Stead from the Esperanto Vikipedio article.

References

^ Esperanto en Perspektivo, pp. 475 and 646, 1974.
^ Smith, Arden R. (2006). "Esperanto". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Routledge. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0, and Book of the Foxrook; transcription on Tolkien i Esperanto; the text begins with "PRIVATA KODO SKAŬTA" (Private Scout Code)
^ "Johano Paŭlo la 2a kaj Esperanto". www.ikue.org. Retrieved 2024-01-26.
^ Who Supports Esperanto? Archived 2008-02-04 at the Wayback Machine

External links

100 eminentaj esperantistoj "100 eminent Esperantists" (eo)

[1] Esperanto en Perspektivo, pp. 475 and 646, 1974.

[2] Smith, Arden R. (2006). "Esperanto". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Routledge. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0, and Book of the Foxrook; transcription on Tolkien i Esperanto; the text begins with "PRIVATA KODO SKAŬTA" (Private Scout Code)

[3] "Johano Paŭlo la 2a kaj Esperanto". www.ikue.org. Retrieved 2024-01-26.

[4] Who Supports Esperanto? Archived 2008-02-04 at the Wayback Machine