Being Colloquial in Esperanto: A Reference Guide for Americans

Esperanto is an international language, created to facilitate communication amongst people from different countries. It was created in 1887 by Dr. L. L. Zamenhof to be a second language that would allow people who speak different native languages to communicate, yet at the same time to retain their own languages and cultural identities. Zamenhof grew up in Bialystok, Poland, where different peoples were not separated by a geographical barrier, but a cultural and language barrier. While he realized that a common language would not end the cultural barrier, it would enable ordinary people, not politicians, to have cross national conversations. To this end, he created Esperanto, a language that would be easy for most people to learn, due to it's logical, regular design. This book is directed to Americans who have completed a basic course in Esperanto, either with a teacher or alone, and who seek a moderately complete Esperanto reference grammar in English with many examples. The book consists of two parts. Part I is the reference grammar. Part II contains an alphabetical list of words that seem - to the author - to pose special challenge to the English speaker.