Esperanto

Most-spoken of the Artificial languages. Created by LudovicLazarusZamenhof in 1887 as an attempt at a world language. So far, best attempt yet. An Inflected language, with no genders and two cases, nominative and accusative. The vocabulary draws mainly off Romance languages, spelling is phonetic, and the morphology is of course extremely regular and easy to learn.

Approximately 1.6 million people speak Esperanto (to Foreign Service Level 3 ability) as of the year 2000.

esperi To hope

esperas Am, are, is hoping

esperis Was, were hoping

esperos Will be hoping

esperu Hope!

esperanta(n) Hoping - nominative (accusative) adjective

esperantaj(n) Hoping - nominative (accusative) adjective

esperanto(n) Hoper - nominative (accusative) noun

esperantoj(n) Hopers - nominative (accusative) noun

esperantino Hoper, female

esperantujo Land of hopers

There was also another language, Ido, based on Esperanto that enjoyed a brief popularity in the early 1900s.

If you speak Esperanto, or would like to, you might be interested in the Esperanto wiki JerryMuelver hosts at http://unumondo.com.

Esperanto's potential as a meta-language for machine translation is being explored by the Traduki Project.

Another useful link is http://www.esperanto-usa.org. US-ians can contact ELNA, PO Box 1129, El Cerrito CA 94530; 1-510-653-0998 (real person), 1-800-ESPERANTO (automated info and information requests).