Ivan Eidt Colling (UFPR) and Luiz Fernando Dias Pita (UERJ)

The Symposium “Esperantology and Interlinguistics” aims to gather researchers dedicated to the study of the international planned language Esperanto, with focus on linguistics, literature, translation as well as language teaching and, in a broader sense, to the study of Interlinguistics, understood as the “branch of the science of language which deals with the structure and basic ideas of all languages with the view to the establishing a norm for interlanguages, i.e. auxiliary languages destined for oral and written use between people who cannot make themselves understood by means of their mother tongues” (Jespersen 1931).

Esperanto was proposed by the Polish Jew physician Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof (1859-1917, known in English also as Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof and in Esperanto as Ludoviko Lazaro Zamenhof) after a comparative study of several ethnic languages. He started this study at young age, when he lived in Bialystok, a town where at least four languages – Polish, Russian, Yiddish, and German – were used, and where the interaction among the ethnic groups not always was peaceful. The quest for a neutral language to help the understanding among different human groups became the main motivation of Zamenhof. The basis of Esperanto was published in July 26^th, 1887, in a 40-page book entitled “Lingvo Internacia”. With a 132-year history, Esperanto is the most succesful planned language in use, with an intercultural community of speakers in more than a hundred countries – including native speakers –, and it is a means for several cultural expressions – in literature, music, theatre, movies. In October 31^st, 2014, Esperanto was included in Poland’s List of Intangible Heritage.

Since Esperanto originated in Polish territory, and its first speakers and specialists were Polish, from the beginning it became a means for spreading Polish culture, mainly Polish literature, outside its linguistic borders. In this way, works of Adam Mickiewicz and Bolesław Prus, for instance, are among the first translations of literary works into Esperanto.

Therefore, the field of this Symposium is culture and literature, in dialogue with linguistics and translation studies. It is important to mention that Interlinguistic Studies have a special relation with slavic culture: the Croat Juraj Križanić in the 17^th century was the first to follow an ‘a posteriori’ guideline in Interlinguistics with his pan-slavic language.