37.1865, Confs: Esperanto – 140 Years: This is No Longer a Project (France)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1865. Fri May 22 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1865, Confs: Esperanto – 140 Years: This is No Longer a Project (France)

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Date: 20-May-2026
From: SHESL [shesl at shesl.org]
Subject: Esperanto – 140 Years: This is No Longer a Project


Esperanto – 140 Years: This is No Longer a Project

Date: 09-Jun-2027 - 11-Jun-2027
Location: Paris, France
Contact: Sébastien Moret & Pascal Dubourg Glatigny
Contact Email: shesl-esperanto-2027 at listes.u-paris.fr
Meeting URL: https://shesl.org/en/2027-esperanto-2/

Linguistic Field(s): History of Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Esperanto (epo)

Submission Deadline: 30-Sep-2026

Esperanto – 140 years: this is no longer a project
9–11 June 2027, Campus Condorcet, Paris
Organised by Sébastien Moret (UNIL-SHESL) and Pascal Dubourg Glatigny
(Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN)
https://shesl.org/en/2027-esperanto-2/
In 1887, Lazare Louis Zamenhof launched from Warsaw his project for an
international language through a series of brochures—published in
Russian, Polish, French, and German—that outlined the linguistic and
intellectual principles of a future “international language.” The work
included a draft of a linguistic system, complete with grammar and
vocabulary, and demonstrated its application through a few examples.
This proposal was not merely intended to become humanity’s second
language of communication; its author also asserted his conviction
that it would help mitigate the antagonisms and hostilities arising
from inequalities among peoples and nations.
To mark the 140th anniversary of this foundational publication, an
international conference aims to bring together specialists from
various disciplines to examine this singular experiment, which began
as a linguistic and local project before gradually expanding into a
global social and cultural phenomenon.
Esperanto, along with Volapük—another constructed language that
preceded it by a few years but did not endure—emerged in a context
where an easily acquirable and usable language, unmoored from any
particular nation, seemed the indispensable complement to
technological advancements such as the telegraph, telephone,
transatlantic steamships, and railways, all of which facilitated and
accelerated human connection. Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau’s
Histoire de la langue universelle (1903) opened with these words:
The necessity of an international auxiliary language is no longer
contested by anyone: it imposes itself with increasing evidence and
urgency as relations of all kinds between civilised nations develop.
It is a commonplace to observe the extraordinary progress of
communication: one will soon be able to circumnavigate the globe in
forty days; one telegraphs […] from one side of the Atlantic to the
other; one telephones from Paris to London, Berlin, or Turin.
In the field of linguistics, however, the concept was less readily
accepted. While the 17th century, with its philosophical languages,
and to some extent the 18th century—particularly Rousseau’s notion of
language as a primordial “contract”—had conceived of language creation
as a deliberate act, the late 19th century, still steeped in
naturalism and Neogrammarian precepts, seemed at first glance
ill-disposed to grant legitimacy to artificially created languages,
which nonetheless proliferated. Many linguists of the time opposed
these “linguistic monsters” (Moret 2004), arguing that a language
could not be consciously created, as a language could not have a
birth, following Kihm’s reflections on creoles (1984). Others, such as
Albert Dauzat (1912), warned of the dangers these languages posed to
national languages and their ambitions. Despite these often-peremptory
views, Volapük and Esperanto entered the linguistic debate, with some
scholars openly advocating for an artificial international auxiliary
language (Schuchardt, Meillet, Jespersen, Baudouin de Courtenay,
etc.). Yet there is more: as Michel Bréal noted as early as 1908, the
success of Volapük and then Esperanto compelled “linguists, both
opponents and proponents [of these languages], to clarify their
conception of language in general.” Esperanto thus contributed to
broadening the scope of linguistic theories and the study of language
(Axmanova, Bokarev 1956; Martinet 1946; Schubert 1989). Zamenhof’s
language clearly provided a matrix for linguistic reflection.
The predictions of Neogrammarians Brugmann and Leskien (1907), who
claimed that artificial languages would inevitably die out—like any
hybrid creation—have not come to pass. For 140 years, far from being a
mere instrument of communication, Esperanto has asserted its existence
as a phenomenon that is not only linguistic but also social, cultural,
literary, and even political.
The linguistic embryo proposed in Warsaw in 1887 quickly became a
global and enduring phenomenon, known as Esperanto. On every
continent, individuals—speakers of dominant and oppressed languages
alike, from all social classes and religions—began to forge
connections and, gradually, to form a community. From the early 20th
century, children acquired the language within the family circle,
contributing to making Esperanto, for some, the language of intimacy
and emotion (Fiedler, Brosch 2022). Through real-world use, Zamenhof’s
original idea evolved into a living, fully functional language and as
such, its lexical and morphological evolution has been the subject of
debates and controversies involving consolidation, evolution,
enrichment, and linguistic innovations—both accepted and rejected
(Moret 2020)—as well as schisms and new competitors such as Ido,
Occidental, and Interlingua (Garvía 2015).
Over nearly a century and a half, Esperanto has become—and remains—a
successful, if minority, experiment: it has developed into a complete
everyday language and produced a substantial corpus of literary and
scientific texts; it has expressed itself through all the
communication channels and technologies that have emerged and
disappeared over time. This so-called “artificial” language, despite
its total invisibility in the public sphere, has reached such a level
of density that some linguists argue Esperanto now behaves like any
“natural” language (Lindstedt 2006; Koutny 2009).
Esperanto has recently gained significant interest beyond linguistics,
attracting scholars from across the humanities and social sciences.
The question of artificial languages in general, and Esperanto in
particular, has moved beyond the circles of learned Esperantists. Over
the past several years, there has been a relative but notable increase
in publications devoted to this subject, whether entirely or in part
(see, among others, Garvía 2015; Gogibu 2020; Gordin 2015; Heller
2017; Karlander 2020; Okrent 2010; Sorlin 2012). This scholarly trend
is not limited to (inter)linguists or historians of linguistics; it
encompasses a broad spectrum of researchers (sociolinguists,
historians, philosophers, geographers, sociologists, anthropologists,
political scientists) who seek to unravel the linguistic, historical,
and socio-anthropological phenomenon that is Esperanto and its
community of speakers as an object of study.
Esperanto thus enters into reflections on the linguistics of
minorities and linguistic rights (Tonkin 2017; Gazzola et al. 2023 ;
Bhattacharyya 2024), Jewish history (Schor 2016; Eckert 2025); its
community is integrated and analysed in the era of communication
technologies (Fians 2022), and, after examining the persecution
endured by Esperantists under totalitarian regimes (Lins 2016–2017),
scholars seek to understand how the Esperanto experience revitalises
or expands transnational inquiry (Dubourg Glatigny 2024). As Humphrey
Tonkin (2022) notes, the publication in the early 1990s of Umberto
Eco’s The Search for the Perfect Language in European Culture (1994,
first French translation) likely paved the way by rendering the
subject, if not “licit,” at least legitimate in academic circles.
Consequently, Esperanto is increasingly addressed by researchers who
initially had no interest in or connection to the movement itself.
Half a century after the monumental volume Esperanto en perspektivo
(1974), this conference will provide an opportunity for
interdisciplinary dialogue on the evolution of this unique linguistic
experiment.
The following themes—merely illustrative and by no means
exhaustive—may be addressed:
1) Esperanto as a historical object? Origins of the diachronic
approach, social and cultural diversity of speakers, issues of
periodisation.
2) How did Esperantists gradually form a group? Exploring the
distinctions between the Esperanto movement and its community,
including the differences between Esperantists and Esperanto speakers,
the language as a shared resource, its internal linguistic democracy,
and the personalisation of the language through individual idiolects.
3) Esperanto and institutional linguistics. Esperanto as a matrix for
reflection and evolution in linguistic theory. On the “natural” or
“artificial” character of languages, etc.
4) Linguistic teratology: Esperanto and other artificial auxiliary
languages in the face of criticism. Discourse on artificial languages
vs. discourse on creoles.
5) Esperanto and linguistic innovations: Terminology, latinisation,
shorthand, and sign language.
6) From project to language—How did the language take shape? Lexical
expansion processes, communication and innovation validation dynamics,
Zamenhof’s rejection of linguistic authority (vs. Schleyer’s rigid
control over Volapük), literary translations, and Esperanto’s role as
a bridge language.
7) Esperanto as an object of research: A crossroads of the humanities
and social sciences in the era of spatial and decolonial turns, where
the question of language assumes a primordial role.
8) Esperanto and new technologies: From the DLT project (Distributed
Language Translation, 1981–1990) to Google Translate and DeepL for
Esperanto.
9) The question of sources for research on Esperanto: Challenges of
archiving a non-institutional global community and their exploitation.
10) Esperanto, science, and technology: From transnational communities
of scholars to works of popularisation.
11) Esperanto, medicine, and aid: From the Universal Medical
Association (UMEA), active since 1908 as a network for exchanging
experiences, to links with the Red Cross.
12) Esperanto and politics. Esperanto and revolution. Esperanto and
Marxism.
13) The Esperanto experiment and language Reform in general.
14) Esperanto and the Jewish world. Esperanto in the face of
antisemitism. Hillelism and Homaranism.
15) Esperanto and religions. The Catholic International (IKA) vs. the
International Catholic Esperanto Union (IKUE), Quakers, Baháʼís, Ōmoto
and Buddhist movements, the Islamic Esperanto Association, etc.
Conference languages: French and English
Please send your abstracts (approximately 2000-3000 signs) by 30
September 2026, at the latest, to:
shesl-esperanto-2027 at listes.u-paris.fr
Scientific Committee:
– Başak Aray (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Istanbul)
– Bipasha Bhattacharyya (University of Cambridge)
– Marcus Colla (Universitetet i Bergen)
– Pascal Dubourg Glatigny (Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN)
– Denis Eckert (Géographie-cités, CNRS-Paris 1 Panthéon
Sorbonne-EHESS)
– Christopher Gledhill (Université Paris Cité)
– Federico Gobbo (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
– Chloé Laplantine (SHESL, HTL, CNRS-Paris Cité, Sorbonne nouvelle)
– Sébastien Moret (SHESL, Université de Lausanne)
– Philippe Planchon (Université de Tours)
– Anne Rasmussen (Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN)
– Didier Samain (SHESL, Université Paris Cité)
– Dan Savatovsky (SHESL, Sorbonne nouvelle, HTL)
– Humphrey Tonkin (University of Hartford)
For full list of bibliographic references, please see the conference
website.



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