It’s always good to read around a subject, rather than just dive in, blinker-style, and ignore the periphery. So, I picked up a copy of The Life of Zamenhof at abebooks.

It’s a slim book - 123 pages in total - and couched in slightly outdated terms. Originally written in Esperanto by Edmond Privat, it was translated into English in 1931, and this first edition hard-backed version is printed on the most wonderful thick cartridge paper, into which the letters of the press have sunk deep.

Zamenhof, who invented Esperanto, was a remarkable man. Very meek, quite shy and entirely humble, he had a massive vision for achieving world peace, the twin strands of which were a neutral, universal language - Esperanto - and an almost equally neutral belief system built on the right of every citizen to hold their own beliefs and have those beliefs respected. Fairly regular and acceptable rights, you might imagine, but at the turn of the last century they were really quite radical.

At the time the world was fractured among so many different lines that every nation seemed to be fighting not only its neighbours but also itself. Different religions, different regions and different ethnic groups were struggling for influence right across Europe, and this in part inspired Zamenhof to create his neutral language. He didn’t want everyone to learn it as their mother tongue, but rather to learn it as a secondary language, so that when Russians and Poles, or French and Germans spoke to one another they would be on an equal footing of both using a secondary language, rather than one using their native language and the other being at a disadvantage by using something foreign.

The language didn’t have an easy ride. Zamenhof’s father wanted him to be a doctor, not a linguist, and made him promise that he would pursue a career in medicine. Zamenhof agreed, and locked away his Esperanto dictionaries, grammar books and literature. He did well in his studies, but was sustained by the thought that once he was finished he would be able to return to his constructed language and the intellectual pursuit he really loved the most.

It was a shock, then, to return home and discover that his father had destroyed all of his work on the language by burning it, forcing him to write it again from scratch. Fortunately, he knew it off by heart, so could do it from memory, but it took his mother’s death many years later to bring him back close to his father again.

The writing style can at times be awkward, slipping back and forth between a neutral third party and a more personal recollection of the original Esperanto author’s meetings with Zamenhof himself, but it is an engaging and easy read - it took me only two days.

Not one to recommend to anyone who is simply after some words to kick back with, but for anyone who wants to know more of the aims and inspiration behind Esperanto, it’s highly recommended.

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