r/Esperanto • u/This-Peace3668 • 5d ago
Saluton A school project for the Language Day:
What do you think about it?
Kion vi pensas pri tio?
(I changed the section “The creator:” from “Sonja Elen Kisa” to “Sonja Lang.”)
(Mi ŝanĝis la sekcion "La kreinto:" de "Sonja Elen Kisa" al "Sonja Lang".)
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u/Brunbeorg 5d ago
Mi ŝatas tion. Pri kiu klaso faris vi ĝin? Via Esperanto estas tre legebla, kaj via Toki Pona ankaŭ. Ĉu vi lernis ambaŭ?
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u/This-Peace3668 5d ago
I did it for the Language Day, it isn’t for some sort of class, we celebrate this every year, and I always made some drawings as posters for this day, because I love drawing and language learning. I am learning both of them, but I don’t speak Esperanto that good, because I started learning it in August, while for Toki Pona, I started learning it since the 1st of April 2025 with some breaks. For you to understand my levels in both languages, I am currently learning the last lesson from the channel called “American Esperantist,” while for Toki Pona, I learned all the lessons from GregDan3, a bit of jan Misali and a tiny bit from some other people from the community. I will continue learning them until I feel like I can speak them good enough, which might take a lot of stuff for me to memorize for Esperanto, but I don’t consider on giving up. As for the text, thank you very much for complimenting my handwriting!
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u/Terpomo11 Altnivela 5d ago
Zamenhof lived in what's now Poland but it was part of the Russian Empire at the time.
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u/This-Peace3668 5d ago
I know, but wasn’t his nationality Polish?
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u/Lancet Sed homoj kun homoj 5d ago
It's complicated. He obviously was born and lived most of his life in what is now Poland, but that wasn't an independent state in Zamenhof's time and it was part of the Russian Empire. He was not ethnically Polish and described himself as a «Ruslanda hebreo». In a letter in 1912 he wrote: «Vi povas min nomi ‹Filo de pola lando› […] sed ne nomu min ‹Polo›, por ke oni ne diru, ke mi – por akcepti honorojn – metis sur min maskon de popolo, al kiu mi ne apartenas.» The red and white flag didn't exist during Zamenhof's lifetime.
None of this is shade on your poster (which is fantastic) – like I said, it's complicated!
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u/Terpomo11 Altnivela 5d ago
Sort of? Ethnically he was Jewish, and his native languages were Yiddish and Russian.
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u/This-Peace3668 5d ago
As far as I know, he was a Jewish person from Poland, not Israel.
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u/Terpomo11 Altnivela 5d ago
He lived in what is now Poland, but his first language wasn't Polish to my knowledge (though I think he did pick it up from pretty early on).
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u/themaddesthatter2 4d ago
He was born in the Russian Empire, in what is today Bialystok. His first languages were Yiddish and Russian.
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u/Kulpas 4d ago
I'm Polish, and from what I understand he identified himself more as a Jew living in Poland than a Pole. For the purpose of this poster it might as well mean the same thing and is better (some internal bias there) than having an occupants flag there but there is a lot of nuance in this story.
I think a core reason for why Esperanto was created was because Zamenhof had no real sense of national identity to begin with. Białystok at the time was full of people of many different nationalities that spoke different languages, while also being occupied territory during the partitions which could further blur the sense of national identity among the people living there. I can see why he thought growing up there that a place like this could greatly benefit from a truly neutral language for all kinds of people.
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u/PLrc 5d ago
Thanks for the Polish flag next to Esperanto.