Esperantismo and the Interna Ideo: What Esperanto Is For

Esperanto has a written statement of what it is for, adopted on 9 August 1905: the Declaration of Boulogne. It says the movement spreads a neutral language, and that everything else is private. A year later Zamenhof named something more, la interna ideo. Both are in his own words, and this page sets them side by side.

Zamenhof's own creed, homaranismo, and the later argument between fina venko and Raŭmo have their own pages.

esperantismo, esperantisto: -ism- and -ist-

The title words are built, and the suffix tells you what kind of thing each one is. -ism- makes a doctrine or movement; -ist- makes the person who follows it, or does it as a job; -an- makes a member.

• La esperantismo estas movado. - Esperantism is a movement.
• Ŝi estas esperantisto. - She is an Esperantist.

A komunisto follows a doctrine; a dentisto does a job. The Declaration (below) makes an esperantisto neither: just someone who uses the language.

The Declaration of Boulogne, point by point

Its full title is Deklaracio pri la Esenco de la Esperantismo. The first congress adopted it on 9 August 1905, on Zamenhof's proposal, because, says its preamble, many people had tre malveran ideon, a very false idea, about what Esperantism is.

Point 1: the definition, and the door it closes

La Esperantismo estas penado disvastigi en la tuta mondo la uzadon de lingvo neŭtrale homa...

Esperantism is an endeavour to spread throughout the world the use of a neutrally human language...

• Declaration of Boulogne, point 1, 1905

The same point ends:

Ĉiu alia ideo aŭ espero, kiun tiu aŭ alia Esperantisto ligas kun la Esperantismo, estos lia afero pure privata, por kiu la Esperantismo ne respondas.

Every other idea or hope which this or that Esperantist associates with Esperantism will be his purely private affair, for which Esperantism is not answerable.

There is no separate point about neutrality. The famous disclaimer is a clause tacked to the end of the definition.

Points 3 and 4: nobody's property, nobody's lawgiver

Point 3 gives a reason, and the grammar shows it: Ĉar (because) the author renounced every personal right, tial (therefore) the language is:

"nenies propraĵo", nek en rilato materiala, nek en rilato morala.

"nobody's property", neither materially nor morally.

• Declaration of Boulogne, point 3, 1905

Nenies is the correlative for nobody's, as kies is whose (the correlative table).

Point 4 opens Esperanto havas neniun personan leĝdonanton, Esperanto has no personal lawgiver. Then it demotes its own author: the creator's opinions and works are absolute privatan kaj por neniu devigan, absolutely private and binding on nobody. Only the Fundamento de Esperanto binds (a story of its own).

Point 5: who counts

Esperantisto estas nomata ĉiu persono, kiu scias kaj uzas la lingvon Esperanto tute egale por kiaj celoj li ĝin uzas.

Anyone is called an Esperantist who knows and uses the language Esperanto, quite regardless of the purposes he uses it for.

Joining a society is rekomendinda, sed ne deviga, recommendable but not obligatory. No oath, no register, no belief.

The stanza Boulogne did not hear

Zamenhof ended his opening speech at Boulogne with a poem, Preĝo sub la verda standardo, Prayer under the green banner. He recited stanzas 1 to 5. The sixth, on the three Abrahamic faiths, was left out at the organisers' insistence:

Kristanoj, hebreoj aŭ mahometanoj, / ni ĉiuj de Di' estas filoj.

Christians, Hebrews or Muslims, we are all children of God.

• Zamenhof, Preĝo sub la verda standardo, sixth stanza

The usual explanation is the antisemitism of the Dreyfus years in France. The stanza reached print in 1906, but Zamenhof never printed it in his Krestomatio, so few readers know it.

Two words date it. Mahometanoj is the old word; today a Muslim is an islamano. And Di' is Dio with its -o cut for the metre, the apostrophe poetry allows.

La interna ideo: Geneva, 1906

The phrase is not in the Declaration. Zamenhof named it at the second congress, in Geneva in August 1906:

Sed por ke nia laborado estu fruktoporta, ni devas antaŭ ĉio bone klarigi al ni la internan ideon de la esperantismo.

But for our work to bear fruit, we must above all make clear to ourselves the internal idea of Esperantism.

• Zamenhof, Geneva, 1906

The context was a pogrom. In June 1906 Białystok, his home town, had seen people with axes and iron bars attack their neighbours for speaking another language and holding another faith. He said so from the platform: Terure altaj kaj dikaj estas ankoraŭ la interpopolaj muroj, terribly high and thick are still the walls between peoples.

Some Esperantists now said the language should never be linked with any idea, even privately. His answer: Ho, ne, ne, neniam!, oh no, no, never! His short name for the idea was frateco kaj justeco inter ĉiuj popoloj, brotherhood and justice among all peoples. He still granted every Esperantist the right vidi en Esperanto nur lingvon, to see in Esperanto only a language.

At Cambridge in 1907 he explained why the clause existed: many people would not learn the language for fear of being taken for partisans of the idea, so the Declaration said otherwise por ne fortimigi de ni la grandajn amasojn, so as not to frighten the great masses away.

Kraków, 1912: the idea defined, the title refused

The definition everyone quotes is from Kraków, the eighth congress and the language's twenty-fifth anniversary. The speech opens karaj samideanoj:

La interna ideo de Esperanto, kiu havas absolute nenian devigon por ĉiu esperantisto aparta, sed kiu, kiel vi scias, plene regas kaj ĉiam devas regi en la esperantaj kongresoj, estas: sur neŭtrala lingva fundamento forigi la murojn inter la gentoj kaj alkutimigadi la homojn, ke ĉiu el ili vidu en sia proksimulo nur homon kaj fraton.

The internal idea of Esperanto, which carries absolutely no obligation for any individual Esperantist, but which, as you know, fully reigns and must always reign at the Esperanto congresses, is: on a neutral linguistic foundation to remove the walls between the peoples and to accustom people so that each of them sees in his neighbour only a human being and a brother.

Sur neŭtrala lingva fundamento is a line from his own poem La Espero, first printed in 1890 and sung today as the movement's anthem. The definition's long words are built:

The next sentence fences it off: Ĉio, kio estas super tiu interna ideo de Esperanto, estas nur privataĵo, everything beyond that internal idea is only a private matter.

Then he gave up the title:

Mi petas vin, ke de la nuna momento vi ĉesu vidi en mi "majstron", ke vi ĉesu honori min per tiu titolo.

I ask you to stop, from this moment, seeing a "master" in me, to stop honouring me with that title.

• Zamenhof, Kraków, 1912

His reason: Se al iu ne plaĉas mia persono aŭ miaj politike-religiaj principoj, li fariĝas malamiko de Esperanto, if someone dislikes my person or my political and religious principles, he becomes an enemy of Esperanto. Anyone, he said, could call what he did tute privata ideo aŭ frenezaĵo de Zamenhof, an entirely private idea or folly of Zamenhof's. To the old motto espero, obstino kaj pacienco he added a word: konkordo, concord.

It was not a sudden reversal. Point 4 of the 1905 Declaration had already made all his opinions por neniu devigan, binding on nobody.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Read point 5 aloud, then say who counts as an Esperantist in your own words.
2. Read homaranismo, the creed Zamenhof kept apart.
3. Read fina venko and Raŭmo, the argument that followed.

See also

• Homaranismo - Zamenhof's private creed, and why he kept it off the movement's books.
• Fina venko and raŭmismo - the modern argument about what the movement is for.
• Who decides what is correct Esperanto - point 4 and the Fundamento.
• The history of Esperanto - Boulogne, Geneva and Kraków in sequence.
• Esperanto and the religions - the faiths that took up a neutral language.
• La kongreso - the congresses where the idea was said to reign.
• esperantismo - the word, and how -ism- builds it.