International Mother Language Day

Feb. 20, 2015 - PRLog -- Saturday, February 21 2015 is International Mother Language Day. There are over 6,000 languages spoken on earth, a staggering amount ... but would you have guessed that Esperanto is one of them?

That's right - Esperanto is a living language with native speakers, and in celebration of International Mother Language Day a multinational team has put together a short video interview with six native Esperanto-speakers. The video features subtitles in several languages, including English. Producer Judith Meyer, who speaks over ten languages including Esperanto, said "I wanted to show that Esperanto has managed an incredible feat: it started out as one man's project, its death was prophesied many times in the past 125 years, but now it is a living language with a growing number of speakers all around the world." Listen to what Esperanto native speakers have to say at http://amara.org/de/videos/wDBdCoaBnyw4/info/esperanto-kiel-denaskulo/.

And it's not just native speakers who are carrying the flag for Esperanto. The popular online language learning platform Duolingo has an Esperanto version under development, after its CEO, Luis von Ahn, acknowledged that "by far" the most requested language on the platform has always been Esperanto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7aTabdzr5Q&feature=y...). There are currently over 12,500 people who have signed up for the Esperanto course, which is scheduled for release in May. Chuck Smith, who leads the team preparing the course, estimates that by the end of 2015 some 200,000 people will have started learning Esperanto. Why not give it a try? Sign up at https://www.duolingo.com/course/eo/en/Learn-Esperanto-Online.