Homaranismo: Zamenhof's Creed, Kept Apart from Esperanto

Homaranismo was Zamenhof's private creed, and he spent years keeping it out of Esperanto. It asks you to see in every person only a person. It went through three versions, in 1901, 1906 and 1913, and the movement never adopted it. This page sets out what it said and why it stayed his own.

homo, homaro, homarano: the word

The name is four pieces on the root hom-, person. Each suffix adds one idea:

• La tuta homaro estas unu familio. - All humanity is one family.
• Mi estas homarano. - I am a member of humanity.

-ar- makes a collection, as in arbaro (a forest). -an- makes a member, as in samideano (a fellow Esperantist). The first name, hilelismo, was built the same way: Hillel, the rabbi, plus -ism-.

1901: hilelismo

Zamenhof set out the first version in a Russian brochure in 1901, signed with the pen name Homo sum, Latin for I am a human being. It was addressed to Jewish readers and named after Hillel, the Jewish sage of King Herod's time.

In a letter of 21 February 1905 to Alfred Michaux he described the plan:

Tiu ĉi plano (kiun mi nomas "Hilelismo") konsistas en la kreado de morala ponto, per kiu povus unuiĝi frate ĉiuj popoloj kaj religioj, sen la kreado de iaj nove elpensitaj dogmoj kaj sen la bezono, ke la popoloj forĵetu siajn religiojn ĝisnunajn.

This plan (which I call "Hilelism") consists in creating a moral bridge by which all peoples and religions could unite as brothers, without creating any newly invented dogmas and without the peoples needing to throw away their existing religions.

The same letter says hardly anyone knew of the Russian book.

1906: the dogmas, unsigned

In 1906 a brochure appeared in St Petersburg, in Russian and in Esperanto, with no author's name: Homaranismo. It explains the change of name in one line: hilelismo concerned one human group, homaranismo concerns all peoples and religions.

A footnote draws the line with Esperanto in so many words:

Oni ne devas intermiksi la homaranismon kun la esperantismo! Ambaŭ ideoj estas tre parencaj inter si, sed tute ne identaj.

One must not mix up homaranismo with esperantismo! The two ideas are closely related, but not at all identical.

It adds that one can be bonega esperantisto and still oppose homaranismo. Privat's biography says that was why Zamenhof left the brochure unsigned: to avoid confusion.

The ninth dogma

The ninth dogma is about language. Speak what you like at home, it says, but meet people of other languages on neutral ground. A note then makes Esperanto replaceable:

Ĉar en la nuna tempo ekzistas nur unu neŭtrala lingvo, nome Esperanto, tial la homaranoj akceptas ĝuste ĝin; tamen ili rezervas al si la rajton anstataŭigi iam poste tiun ĉi lingvon per ia alia lingvo, se tio ĉi montriĝos utila.

Since at present there is only one neutral language, namely Esperanto, the homaranoj accept precisely it; however, they reserve the right to replace this language later with some other language, should that prove useful.

The separation ran both ways. Esperanto did not need homaranismo, and homaranismo did not need Esperanto.

The fifth dogma asks for neutral place names, built from the capital plus -io: Peterburgio, Parizio.

1913: the signed declaration

The last version, Deklaracio pri Homaranismo, appeared in Madrid in 1913, under Zamenhof's own name; his preface is dated Warsaw, May 1913. It opens with a preface aimed at Esperantists. People will think homaranismo is Esperanto, or the interna ideo, he writes: tio tamen estus eraro, that would be a mistake. It is mian kredon pure privatan, my purely private belief, and does not concern other Esperantists.

Its principles are in the first person. The first two:

Note the word order in the second line: the object la tutan homaron comes first, for weight, and its -n keeps the meaning clear (word order).

The preface also points back to Kraków: he had given up every official role in Esperanto there, in 1912, to free Esperantists from any suspected solidarity with his private convictions. The interna ideo page has that speech.

The pressure

Keeping it apart did not keep it quiet. Privat's biography records that Louis de Beaufront, the first propagandist in France, disliked even the vaguer internal idea. He used the 1906 brochure's anonymity to mock it, and then presented it as a serious danger to Esperanto. Some French Esperantists wrote to Zamenhof to say Esperanto is only a language.

In 1914 Zamenhof planned to discuss homaranismo with friends at the Paris congress. The organisers, afraid of the nationalist press, begged him not to call even a private meeting, and would not print his invitation. He set out anyway, and the outbreak of war caught him at Cologne. The congress never met.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Build homaro, homarano and homaranismo from homo, out loud.
2. Read principle II again and translate it without looking.
3. Go back to the interna ideo and compare its Kraków definition.

See also

• Esperantismo and the interna ideo - what the movement itself says it is for.
• Esperanto and the religions - the faiths that took up the language.
• The history of Esperanto - Zamenhof's life and the 1914 war.
• Word building - -ar-, -an-, -ism- and the rest.
• Countries and peoples - the place names homaranismo argued about.