My first excursion into Esperantujo has already been well documented in Issue Three of Saluton.  Whilst attending ‘Ni Festivalu’ was an enjoyable and fulfilling experience, it was not one which passed off entirely without incident.  Alas, whilst I long for a quiet and simple life, I rarely seem to achieve it!  Having lacked the time to attend any Esperanto meetings during the spring and early summer months, my second attempt at speaking Esperanto was scheduled to be the JEB Somera Renkontiĝo in July.  This time, I felt confident that nothing could possibly go wrong… (more…)

The Esperanto Association of Britain runs a programme called Springboard which offers teaching to primary schools using Esperanto as a faciliating device to create language-awareness.

Along similar lines, the Springboard staff asked me to give a presentation to a primary school in Leicestershire in recognition of the European Day Of Languages last September. It went pretty well. Here is the report that I provided to them. (more…)

Five British Members of Parliament recently undersigned a nomination to have the Universala Esperanto-Asocio considered a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

They were approached by activists from the UK’s “Esperanto Lobby”.

The five original signatories are Roger Gale, Mike Hancock, Oliver Heald, Brian Iddon, and Austin Mitchell. They were later joined by Rob Marris and Lord Teverson.

The nomination they submitted reads:

The International Language Esperanto is regular and relatively easy to learn, is currently in use by a worldwide community and is employed in world travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, conventions, literature, language instruction, radio broadcasting, and on the internet. Esperanto already serves as a common auxiliary language, fostering effective and fair international communication.

The Universala Esperanto-Asocio (UEA) supports linguistic diversity, democracy, human emancipation, and a global culture for peace.

Because Esperanto contributes to, education for international understanding, and because understanding is essential for peace, I wish to nominate the Universala Esperanto-Asocio for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008.

Wouldn’t it be poetic for UEA to win the award during the International Year of Languages

January 3^rd, 2008

We had to vacate our rooms by 09:00, so there was no chance of a lie-in. As had become par for the week, I dragged my sorry carcass out of bed after far too little sleep, this time feeling like death after my cold decided to bookend the holiday. (more…)

January 1^st, 2008 - Part 1 - Midnight till the early hours

Happy New Year!

So, I went downstairs leading up to the stroke of midnight. Cue “The Final Countdown”, and everybody singing along with it. It amazes me that foreign people actually know the lyrics, whilst I and the other English folk have to make do with loudly voicing “La-la-la laaa, la-la-laaaa”. (more…)

It would appear that circumstances have led me to already cease updating every day. That’s not very good, I know.

So, rather than wile away the three hours leading to the stroke of midnight over here in the disco, I figured it appropriate to sit down, take advantage of nobody else being around to leach the net connection, and play catch-up.

Now just to hope that I can remember everything … (more…)

December 26th, 2007

Not much of note to say about today, seeing as it was a day of travelling. How can I make that worth reading?!

I suppose the thing that most stood out was the fact that we, well, might well have missed our flight. Whoops. (more…)

Rolf already explained what the Internacia Seminario is here.

We’re just about ready for this year’s to start in Würzburg in Bavaria. (more…)

I first came across Esperanto about five or so years ago - strangely enough, in a book about computer programming. Since then I’ve spent very little time actively learning the language, but as time went on I found that I could actually work out what simple (and eventually slightly less simple) Esperanto texts were saying. But it wasn’t until this summer that I first made contact with other Esperantists, when I joined the JEB forums in July - which is an amazingly lively place considering the low number of regular posters. Cut to October, and I found myself having agreed to meet these Esperantists in person - but in which exotic location?
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Just a note to all who read that I’ve added a new page on this subject. It is indeed possible to have your costs covered when you attend Esperanto events, be they in Britain or overseas.

Read the rest here.