Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks : Language Politics, Digital Media and the Making of an International Community

This book explores how Esperanto – often regarded as a future-oriented utopian project that ended up confined to the past – persists in the present. Constructed in the late nineteenth century to promote global linguistic understanding, this language was historically linked to anarchism, communism and pacifism. Yet, what political relevance does Esperanto retain in the present? What impacts have emerging communication technologies had on the dynamics of this speech community? Unpacking how Esperanto speakers are everywhere, but concentrated nowhere, the author argues that digital media have provided tools for people to (re)politicise acts of communication, produce horizontal learning spaces and, ultimately, build an international community. As Esperanto speakers question the post-political consensus about communication rights, this language becomes an ally of activism for open-source software and global social justice. This book will be of relevance to students and scholars researching political activism, language use and community-building, as well as anyone with an interest in digital media more broadly. This book transcends the commonplace perception of Esperanto as a language of the past, drawing on an ethnography carried out primarily in France to investigate how Esperantos internationalism is manifested in the present. Constructed in the late nineteenth century as an attempt to promote global linguistic understanding, Esperanto has been associated with internationalism since its early days. Yet, if this language was previously linked to anarchism, communism and pacifism, what is its current political relevance? What impacts have new communication technologies such as digital media had on the dynamics of this speech community and language movement? Unpacking how Esperanto speakers are everywhere, but concentrated nowhere, the author argues that digital media have provided tools for people to (re)politicise acts of communication, produce horizontal learning spaces and, ultimately, build an international community. As Esperanto speakers question the post-political consensus about communication rights, this language becomes an ally of activism for open-source software and global social justice. This book will be of relevance to students and scholars researching political activism, language use and community-building, as well as anyone with an interest in digital media more broadly. Guilherme Fians is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Brasilia, Brazil and Co-Director of the Centre for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems, Netherlands/USA. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, UK. Committed to multilingualism in academia, he has published about themes such as prefigurative politics and digital media in several languages Dedication Acknowledgements Contents 1 In the Beginning Was the Word 2 And the Word Was Made Flesh, or How to Narrate Histories 3 Follow the (Non-)Native: Circulating, Mapping and Territorialising the Esperanto Community 4 When Esperantists Meet, or What Makes This Community International? 5 The Speech Community Against the Language Council: Vocabulary Choice, Authority and Standardisation in a No Man’s Language 6 On Moving and Standing Still: The Social Movement from the Standpoint of an Esperanto Association 7 Mobile Youth: How Digital Media Changed Language Learning, Activism for Free Speech and the Very Experience of Time 8 We Have Never Been Universal: How Speaking a Language Becomes a Prefigurative Practice 9 Coming to a Close, or How Not to Put an End to the Conversation Afterword Index