RIDO DE ZAMENHOF 02 (English)

Dr. Ludovic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer) Zamenhof (December 15, 1859 - April 14, 1917) was a Polish-Jew ophthalmologist, philologist and the initiator of Esperanto, the most widely spoken constructed language to date. His native languages were Russian and Yiddish, but he also spoke Polish and German fluently. Later he learned French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and English, and he also had an interest in Italian, Spanish and Lithuanian.

Zamenhof was born on December 15, 1859 in the town of Bialystok, in the part of Poland which was then a part of the Russian Empire, and the town's population was made up of three major ethnic groups: Poles, Belorusians, and a large group of Yiddish-speaking Jews. Zamenhof was saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels between these groups. He supposed that the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in mutual misunderstanding, caused by the lack of one common language that would play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

As a student at secondary school in Warsaw, Zamenhof made attempts to create some kind of international language with a grammar that was very rich, but also very complex. When he studied English (along with German, French, Latin and Greek), he decided that the international language must have relatively simple grammar with a wide use of suffixes to make new forms of the words.

By 1878, his project Lingwe uniwersala was almost finished. However Zamenhof was too young then to publish his work. Soon after graduation from school he began to study medicine, first in Moscow, and later in Warsaw. In 1885, Zamenhof graduated from university and began his practice as an ophthalmologist. While healing people he continued to work on his project of the international language.

For two years he tried to raise funds to publish a booklet describing the language until he received the financial help from his future wife's father. In 1887, the book titled as "Lingvo internacia. Antaŭparolo kaj plena lernolibro" (International Language. Foreword And Complete Textbook) was published under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto" (Doctor Hopeful), from which the name of the language derives. For Zamenhof this language wasn't merely a communication tool, but a means of spreading his ideas on the peaceful coexistence of different peoples and cultures.
Eliezer Zamenhof and Esperanto

Ludvic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer, Ludwik Łazarz) Zamenhof (December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an eye doctor, philologist, and the initiator of Esperanto, the most widely spoken and successful constructed language in the world. According to biographers A. Zakrzewski and E. Wiesenfeld, his native languages were Polish, from the neighborhood where he was raised, and his parents' languages Russian and Yiddish, but his father was a German teacher, and he also spoke that fluently. Later he learned French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and English, and he also had an interest in Italian, Spanish and Lithuanian.
Life

Zamenhof was born on December 15, 1859 in the town of Białystok (in Poland, then under Russian rule) to parents of Lithuanian Jewish descent. The town's population was made up of three major ethnic groups: Poles, Belarusians, and a large group of Yiddish-speaking Jews. Zamenhof was saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels between these groups. He supposed that the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in mutual misunderstanding, caused by the lack of one common language that would play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.
As a student at secondary school in Warsaw, Zamenhof made attempts to create some kind of international language with a grammar that was very rich, but also very complex. When he later studied English, he decided that the international language must have a simpler grammar.

By 1878, his project Lingwe uniwersala was almost finished. However Zamenhof was too young then to publish his work. Soon after graduation from school he began to study medicine, first in Moscow, and later in Warsaw. In 1885, Zamenhof graduated from a university and began his practice as an ophthalmologist. While healing people he continued to work on his project of the international language.

In 1879, Zamenhof wrote the first grammar of the Yiddish language, which he published in part years later in the Yiddish magazine "Lebn un visnshaft" (Life and Science, Vilna, 1909; see Esperanto translation as «Pri jida gramatiko kaj reformo en la jida» in «Hebreo el la geto: de cionismo al hilelismo», Eldonejo Ludovikito, vol. 5, 1976). Complete original Russian text of this manuscript with parallel Esperanto translation was only published in 1982 (translated by Adolf Holzhaus in «L. Zamennhof, provo de gramatiko de novjuda lingvo», Helsinki, . In this work, not only does he provide a review of the Yiddish grammar, but also proposes its transition to the Latin script and other orthographic innovations. In the same period, Zamenhof wrote some other works in Yiddish, including perhaps the first survey of the Yiddish poetics.
Dr. Zamenhof died in Warsaw on April 14, 1917.