Esperanto – 140 years: this is no longer a project

9–11 June 2027, Campus Condorcet, Paris

Organised by Sébastien Moret (UNIL-SHESL) and Pascal Dubourg Glatigny (Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN)

Call for Papers

In 1887, Lazare Louis Zamenhof launched from Warsaw his project for an international language through a series of brochures—published in Russian, Polish, French, and German—that outlined the linguistic and intellectual principles of a future “international language.” The work included a draft of a linguistic system, complete with grammar and vocabulary, and demonstrated its application through a few examples. This proposal was not merely intended to become humanity’s second language of communication; its author also asserted his conviction that it would help mitigate the antagonisms and hostilities arising from inequalities among peoples and nations.

To mark the 140th anniversary of this foundational publication, an international conference aims to bring together specialists from various disciplines to examine this singular experiment, which began as a linguistic and local project before gradually expanding into a global social and cultural phenomenon.

Esperanto, along with Volapük—another constructed language that preceded it by a few years but did not endure—emerged in a context where an easily acquirable and usable language, unmoored from any particular nation, seemed the indispensable complement to technological advancements such as the telegraph, telephone, transatlantic steamships, and railways, all of which facilitated and accelerated human connection. Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau’s Histoire de la langue universelle (1903) opened with these words:

The necessity of an international auxiliary language is no longer contested by anyone: it imposes itself with increasing evidence and urgency as relations of all kinds between civilised nations develop. It is a commonplace to observe the extraordinary progress of communication: one will soon be able to circumnavigate the globe in forty days; one telegraphs […] from one side of the Atlantic to the other; one telephones from Paris to London, Berlin, or Turin.

In the field of linguistics, however, the concept was less readily accepted. While the 17th century, with its philosophical languages, and to some extent the 18th century—particularly Rousseau’s notion of language as a primordial “contract”—had conceived of language creation as a deliberate act, the late 19th century, still steeped in naturalism and Neogrammarian precepts, seemed at first glance ill-disposed to grant legitimacy to artificially created languages, which nonetheless proliferated. Many linguists of the time opposed these “linguistic monsters” (Moret 2004), arguing that a language could not be consciously created, as a language could not have a birth, following Kihm’s reflections on creoles (1984). Others, such as Albert Dauzat (1912), warned of the dangers these languages posed to national languages and their ambitions. Despite these often-peremptory views, Volapük and Esperanto entered the linguistic debate, with some scholars openly advocating for an artificial international auxiliary language (Schuchardt, Meillet, Jespersen, Baudouin de Courtenay, etc.). Yet there is more: as Michel Bréal noted as early as 1908, the success of Volapük and then Esperanto compelled “linguists, both opponents and proponents [of these languages], to clarify their conception of language in general.” Esperanto thus contributed to broadening the scope of linguistic theories and the study of language (Axmanova, Bokarev 1956; Martinet 1946; Schubert 1989). Zamenhof’s language clearly provided a matrix for linguistic reflection.

The predictions of Neogrammarians Brugmann and Leskien (1907), who claimed that artificial languages would inevitably die out—like any hybrid creation—have not come to pass. For 140 years, far from being a mere instrument of communication, Esperanto has asserted its existence as a phenomenon that is not only linguistic but also social, cultural, literary, and even political.

The linguistic embryo proposed in Warsaw in 1887 quickly became a global and enduring phenomenon, known as Esperanto. On every continent, individuals—speakers of dominant and oppressed languages alike, from all social classes and religions—began to forge connections and, gradually, to form a community. From the early 20th century, children acquired the language within the family circle, contributing to making Esperanto, for some, the language of intimacy and emotion (Fiedler, Brosch 2022). Through real-world use, Zamenhof’s original idea evolved into a living, fully functional language and as such, its lexical and morphological evolution has been the subject of debates and controversies involving consolidation, evolution, enrichment, and linguistic innovations—both accepted and rejected (Moret 2020)—as well as schisms and new competitors such as Ido, Occidental, and Interlingua (Garvía 2015).

Over nearly a century and a half, Esperanto has become—and remains—a successful, if minority, experiment: it has developed into a complete everyday language and produced a substantial corpus of literary and scientific texts; it has expressed itself through all the communication channels and technologies that have emerged and disappeared over time. This so-called “artificial” language, despite its total invisibility in the public sphere, has reached such a level of density that some linguists argue Esperanto now behaves like any “natural” language (Lindstedt 2006; Koutny 2009).

Esperanto has recently gained significant interest beyond linguistics, attracting scholars from across the humanities and social sciences. The question of artificial languages in general, and Esperanto in particular, has moved beyond the circles of learned Esperantists. Over the past several years, there has been a relative but notable increase in publications devoted to this subject, whether entirely or in part (see, among others, Garvía 2015; Gogibu 2020; Gordin 2015; Heller 2017; Karlander 2020; Okrent 2010; Sorlin 2012). This scholarly trend is not limited to (inter)linguists or historians of linguistics; it encompasses a broad spectrum of researchers (sociolinguists, historians, philosophers, geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists) who seek to unravel the linguistic, historical, and socio-anthropological phenomenon that is Esperanto and its community of speakers as an object of study.

Esperanto thus enters into reflections on the linguistics of minorities and linguistic rights (Tonkin 2017; Gazzola et al. 2023 ; Bhattacharyya 2024), Jewish history (Schor 2016; Eckert 2025); its community is integrated and analysed in the era of communication technologies (Fians 2022), and, after examining the persecution endured by Esperantists under totalitarian regimes (Lins 2016–2017), scholars seek to understand how the Esperanto experience revitalises or expands transnational inquiry (Dubourg Glatigny 2024). As Humphrey Tonkin (2022) notes, the publication in the early 1990s of Umberto Eco’s The Search for the Perfect Language in European Culture (1994, first French translation) likely paved the way by rendering the subject, if not “licit,” at least legitimate in academic circles. Consequently, Esperanto is increasingly addressed by researchers who initially had no interest in or connection to the movement itself.

Half a century after the monumental volume Esperanto en perspektivo (1974), this conference will provide an opportunity for interdisciplinary dialogue on the evolution of this unique linguistic experiment.

The following themes—merely illustrative and by no means exhaustive—may be addressed:

1) Esperanto as a historical object? Origins of the diachronic approach, social and cultural diversity of speakers, issues of periodisation.

2) How did Esperantists gradually form a group? Exploring the distinctions between the Esperanto movement and its community, including the differences between Esperantists and Esperanto speakers, the language as a shared resource, its internal linguistic democracy, and the personalisation of the language through individual idiolects.

3) Esperanto and institutional linguistics. Esperanto as a matrix for reflection and evolution in linguistic theory. On the “natural” or “artificial” character of languages, etc.

4) Linguistic teratology: Esperanto and other artificial auxiliary languages in the face of criticism. Discourse on artificial languages vs. discourse on creoles.

5) Esperanto and linguistic innovations: Terminology, latinisation, shorthand, and sign language.

6) From project to language—How did the language take shape? Lexical expansion processes, communication and innovation validation dynamics, Zamenhof’s rejection of linguistic authority (vs. Schleyer’s rigid control over Volapük), literary translations, and Esperanto’s role as a bridge language.

7) Esperanto as an object of research: A crossroads of the humanities and social sciences in the era of spatial and decolonial turns, where the question of language assumes a primordial role.

8) Esperanto and new technologies: From the DLT project (Distributed Language Translation, 1981–1990) to Google Translate and DeepL for Esperanto.

9) The question of sources for research on Esperanto: Challenges of archiving a non-institutional global community and their exploitation.

10) Esperanto, science, and technology: From transnational communities of scholars to works of popularisation.

11) Esperanto, medicine, and aid: From the Universal Medical Association (UMEA), active since 1908 as a network for exchanging experiences, to links with the Red Cross.

12) Esperanto and politics. Esperanto and revolution. Esperanto and Marxism.

13) The Esperanto experiment and language Reform in general.

14) Esperanto and the Jewish world. Esperanto in the face of antisemitism. Hillelism and Homaranism.

15) Esperanto and religions. The Catholic International (IKA) vs. the International Catholic Esperanto Union (IKUE), Quakers, Baháʼís, Ōmoto and Buddhist movements, the Islamic Esperanto Association, etc.

Conference languages: French and English

Please send your abstracts (approximately 2000-3000 signs) by 30 September 2026, at the latest, to:
shesl-esperanto-2027@listes.u-paris.fr 

Scientific Committee

– Başak Aray (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Istanbul)
– Bipasha Bhattacharyya (University of Cambridge)
– Marcus Colla (Universitetet i Bergen)
– Pascal Dubourg Glatigny (Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN)
– Denis Eckert (Géographie-cités, CNRS-Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne-EHESS)
– Christopher Gledhill (Université Paris Cité)
– Federico Gobbo (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
– Chloé Laplantine (SHESL, HTL, CNRS-Paris Cité, Sorbonne nouvelle)
– Sébastien Moret (SHESL, Université de Lausanne)
– Philippe Planchon (Université de Tours)
– Anne Rasmussen (Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN)
– Didier Samain (SHESL, Université Paris Cité)
– Dan Savatovsky (SHESL, Sorbonne nouvelle, HTL)
– Humphrey Tonkin (University of Hartford)

Selected Bibliography

– Başak Aray (2019). “Louis Couturat, modern logic, and the international auxiliary language”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 27(5), 979-1001.

– O. S Axmanova, E. A. Bokarëv (1956). «Meždunarodnyj vspomogatel’nyj jazyk kak lingvičeskaja problema» [La langue internationale auxiliaire comme problème linguistique], Voprosy jazykoznanija, 1956, 6, 65-78.

– Viola Beckman, Liliana Feierstein (eds.) (2023). Language as Hope: L.L. Zamenhof and the Dream of a Cosmopolitan Wor(l)d, Berlin, Hentrich & Hentrich.

– Bipasha Bhattacharyya (2024). “Mohandas Gandhi and the Uses of Esperanto: Language as a Tool for Coercive State-Making”, Language Problems & Language Planning, 48:3, 292-315.

– Michel Bréal (1908). « [Compte rendu de : Brugmann & Leskien 1907] », Revue critique d’histoire et de littérature, 13 (2 avril 1908), 244-246.

– Karl Brugmann, August Leskien (1907). Zur Kritik der künstlichen Weltsprachen. Straßburg, Karl J. Trübner.

– Marcus Colla (2025). “Back to Babel: New Studies on Esperanto, Internationalism and Global Languages in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”, The English Historical Review, CXL/607, 1486-1505.

– Louis Couturat, Léopold Leau (1903). Histoire de la langue universelle, Paris, Hachette.

– Albert Dauzat (1912). La défense de la langue française, Paris, Armand Colin.

– Pascal Dubourg Glatigny (2024). “Esperantists in the Twentieth Century: Making Connections in an Age of Division”, Cultural History, 13.2, 103-122.

– Umberto Eco (1994). La recherche de la langue parfaite dans la culture européenne, Paris, Seuil.

– Denis Eckert (2025). “Naftali Naymanovich and the First Esperanto Textbook for Yiddish Speakers (1888)”, East European Jewish Affairs, 1-28.

– Guillaume Enguehard, Philippe Planchon, Alice Ray (éds) (2025). La créativité linguistique au prisme des langues construites / Linguistic Creativity Through the Lens of Constructed Languages (RiCOGNIZIONI, 12, 23).

– Guilherme Fians (2022). Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks. Language Politics, Digital Media and the Making of an International Community, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan.

– Guilherme Fians, Bernhard Struck, Claire Taylor (2025). Postcards, Translators and Esperanto Pioneers: An Alternative History of International Communication,London, University of London Press.

– Sabine Fiedler, Cyril Robert Brosch (2022). Esperanto – Lingua Franca and Language Community, Amsterdam / Philadelphia, John Benjamins.

– Roberto Garvía (2015). Esperanto and its Rivals. The Struggle for an International Language, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.

– Michele Gazzola, Federico Gobbo, David Cassels Johnson, Jorge Antonio Leoni de León (2023). Epistemological and Theoretical Foundations in Language Policy and Planning, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan.

– Vincent Gogibu (2020). « L’espéranto : entre complot juif et menace sur la langue française. Remy de Gourmont et Ernest Gaubert », in Stéphanie Bertrand & Jean-Michel Wittmann (dir.), Le nationalisme en littérature (II). Le « génie de la langue française » (1870-1940), Bruxelles, Peter Lang, 243-257.

– Michael D. Gordin (2015). Scientific Babel. How Science Was Done before and after Global English, Chicago / London, The University of Chicago Press.

– Claude Hagège, Istvan Fodor (1983-1994). Language reform: history and future = La réforme des langues : histoire et avenir = Sprachreform: Geschichte und Zukunft, vol. 1-6, Hamburg, Buske.

– Monika Heller (2017). “Dr. Esperanto, or Anthropology as Alternative Worlds”, American Anthropologist, 119, 1, 12-22.

– David Karlander (2020). “Ideological Indeterminacy: Worker Esperantism in 1920s Sweden”, Language & Communication, 71, 95-107.

– Alain Kihm (1984). « Les difficiles débuts des études créoles en France (1870-1920) », Langue française, 63, 42-56.

– Marcel Koschek (2024). Local internationalists: Polish and Central European Esperantist Networks between the Local, National, and Global, c. 1890s-1910s, PhD, University of St. Andrews.

– Ilona Koutny (2009), „Esperanto im Rahmen der Sprachtypologie“, in S. Fiedler (Hg.). Esperanto und andere Sprachen im Vergleich. Beiträge der 18. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik e.V., 21.-23. November 2008 in Berlin, Interlinguistische Informationen 16. Berlin, Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik, 117-130.

– Ivo Lapenna, Ulrich Lins, Tazio Carlevaro (red.) (1974). Esperanto en perspektivo, London / Rotterdam, UEA / Centro de Esploro kaj Dokumentado pri la Monda Lingvo-Problemo.

– Ulrich Lins (2016–2017). The Dangerous Language – Esperanto Under Hitler and Stalin, vol. 1-2, Londres, Palgrave Macmillan.

– Jouko Lindstedt (2006). “Native Esperanto as a test case for natural language”, in M. Suominen et al. (eds.), A man of measure. Festschrift in Honor of Fred Karlsson on his 60th Birthday. Special supplement to SKY Journal of Linguistics 19, Turku, The linguistic association in Finland, 47-55.

– Mélanie Maradan (2021). Uncertainty in Deliberate Lexical Interventions. Exploring Esperanto Speakers’ Opinions through Corpora. Berlin, Frank & Timme.

– André Martinet (1946). « Les langues artificielles et la linguistique », Words, 2, 1, 37-47.

– Antoine Meillet (1918). Les langues dans l’Europe nouvelle, Paris, Payot.

– Sébastien Moret (2004). « D’un vice caché vers une nouvelle conception de la langue : les langues artificielles et la linguistique », Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, 57, 7-21.

– Sébastien Moret (2020). « Comment enseigner une langue qui vient d’apparaître. Le cas de l’espéranto », in F. Dell’Oro Francesca (éd.), Méthodes et modèles de l’apprentissage des langues anciennes, vivantes ou construites, hier et aujourd’hui (Cahiers du CLSL, 62), Université de Lausanne, 141-174.

– Arika Okrent (2010). In the Land of Invented Languages, New York, Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperbacks.

– Esther Schor (2016). Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language, New York, Metropolitan Books.

– Klaus Schubert (with Dan Maxwell) (eds.) (1989). Interlinguistics – Aspects of the Science of Planned Languages, Berlin / New York, Mouton de Gruyter.

– Hugo Schuchardt (1888). Auf Anlass des Volapüks, Berlin, R. Oppenheim.

– Hugo Schuchardt (1904). „Bericht über die auf Schaffung einer künstlichen internationalen Hilfssprache gerichtete Bewegung“, Almanach der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 54, 281-296.

– Sandrine Sorlin (2012). Langue et autorité. De l’ordre linguistique à la force dialogique, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes.

– Humphrey Tonkin (2017). “Naturalizing a Planned Language: Esperanto and the Promotion of Linguistic Diversity”, in Maryam Borjian (ed.), Language and Globalization, London, Routledge, 144-157.

– Humphrey Tonkin (2022). «Esperanto: esploraj prioritatoj», Esperantologio / Esperanto Studies, New Series 3 (11), p. 86-107.

– Ana Velitchkova (2022). “Nationalized Cosmopolitanism with Communist Characteristics: The Esperanto Movement’s Survival Strategy in Post–World War II Bulgaria”, Social Science History, 46 (3), 617-642.