Feliĉan Esperanto-Tagon! Happy Esperanto Day!

Esperanto.
Yummy, yummy Esperanto.

Today is Esperanto Day.

If you Google "Esperanto Day," you'll get a number of sites that equate it with Zamenhof Day, the anniversary of the birth of L. L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto. No, they're two separate days.

Zamenhof day comes in December. But on July 26, 1887, the twenty-eight year old L. L. Zamenhof published the first book about Esperanto. It was published in Poland and was in Russian and Esperanto. Subsequently, it was translated into a variety of other languages, including (eventually) English.

I can puzzle out bits of
the cover.

The English translation took its title from the Russian original. "Dr. Esperanto's International Language." It's funny to think about it, but publishing an international language was a possibly subversive act in Czarist Russia (the censors worried that it would be used to transmit information or views against the state).

Esperantists tend to make more of Zamenhof Day (December 15), except in one way: the Universala Kongreso is typically held to coincide with Esperanto Day. And, the 99th Universala Kongreso started today in Bueno Aires.

I'm publishing this late (because I spent a big chunk of my day chattering away in Esperanto). But if you see an Esperantist today, remember to say "Saluton!"

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