Paging Dr. Esperanto, and what not to say in Ireland’s parliament

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December 15 is the most important day in the calendar for people who speak Esperanto. It is Zamenhof Day, named after the man who dreamed up the idea of a language that the entire planet would one day speak. L.L. Zamenhof was born 150 years ago, and though his dream was never realized, Esperanto is still spoken — in fact it’s undergoing something of a revival in the internet age. We consider the failure and success of Esperanto. Also, why the Irish parliament bans words such as guttersnipe and brat, but permits certain swearwords. Finally, if your name is Mark, expect to be teased in Norway.

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Zamenhof Day

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Today is the most important day in the calendar for people who speak Esperanto. It is Zamenhof Day, named after the man who dreamed up the idea of an international language everybody would one day speak. L.L. Zamenhof was born 150 years ago, and though his dream was never realized, Esperanto is still spoken, it’s even undergoing something of a revival on the Internet. The World’s language expert Patrick Cox reports. Download MP3

• Esperanto League of North America
• Patrick Cox’s The World in Words Podcast

Esperanto, Klingon, Blissymbolics and 900 others: why we invent languages

This week, a converation with Arika Okrent, author of “In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language.” Okrent, herself a linguist, tells the stories of people who dreamed up languages that would replace our own bastard tongues. She also submerges herself, Orwell-style, into the geeky world of invented language societies. The vast majority of invented languages from Lingua Ignota (c.1150) to Dritok (2007) have completely failed to take off. But they tell us much about how we think, how we do not think, and how we love to blame language for our own shortcomings. Listen