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Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks pp 89–124Cite as

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When Esperantists Meet, or What Makes This Community International?

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Abstract

Based on an ethnographic account of the 2017 Universal Congress of Esperanto, in Seoul, this chapter explores how certain understandings of nationality emerged historically among Esperanto speakers, foregrounding national diversity as the proxy of difference to be valued and celebrated by particular forms of cosmopolitan openness. I argue that, as nationality becomes a token for diverse forms of alterity, Esperantists forge and reinforce stereotyped perceptions of nationalities to, then, overcome these perceptions by partially turning Esperantists from different nationalities into fellow members of this international speech community. Beginning with what motivates Esperantists to physically get together, I explore how a specific grammar of national differences is highlighted, examining how this community emerges in constant tension via an internationalism that simultaneously embraces nationalities and rejects nationalisms.

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Fig. 4.1

(Source Hector Hodler Library, UEA, Rotterdam)

Fig. 4.2

(Source Department of Planned Languages, Austrian National Library, Vienna)

Notes

  1. 1.

    I use national Other with capital O to underline the ‘different’ features at once abstract and relational that are said to characterise Esperantists from distinct national, linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

  2. 2.

    In commenting on how constructed languages such as Esperanto work to create new worlds, Monica Heller states: ‘either we think we will solve human problems by finding a way to communicate clearly across difference, or we think we will do so by embracing the incommensurability of difference. Sometimes, we think both are true at once’ (2017: 13). This applies to how the cosmopolitan sociabilities at stake sometimes blend the principles outlined in the previous section.

  3. 3.

    Regarding varieties of Esperanto according to the influence of people’s mother tongues, it is also relevant to consider such influence in cases of children who learn Esperanto from birth (Corsetti et al. 2004; Lindstedt 2006, 2010; Fiedler 2012: 73–76) and in stress patterns in spoken Esperanto (Abrahamsen 2015).

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil

    Guilherme Fians

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Fians, G. (2021). When Esperantists Meet, or What Makes This Community International?. In: Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84230-7_4

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