All Quotes By Tag: Humainity

“Fundamentals of EsperantoThe grammatical rules of this language can be learned in onesitting.Nouns have no gender & end in -o; the plural terminates in -oj & the accusative, -on Amiko, friend; amikoj, friends; amikon & amikojn, accusativefriend & friends.Ma amiko is my friend.A new book appears in Esperanto every week. Radio stations inEurope, the United States, China, Russia & Brazil broadcast inEsperanto, as does Vatican Radio. In 1959, UNESCO declared theInternational Federation of Esperanto Speakers to be in accord withits mission & granted this body consultative status. The youthbranch of the International Federation of Esperanto Speakers, UTA,has offices in 80 different countries & organizes social events whereyoung people curious about the movement may dance to recordingsby Esperanto artists, enjoy complimentary soft drinks & take homeEsperanto versions of major literary works including the OldTestament & A Midsummer Night’s Dream. William Shatner’s firstfeature-length vehicle was a horror film shot entirely in Esperanto.Esperanto is among the languages currently sailing into deep spaceon board the Voyager spacecraft.-Esperanto is an artificial languageconstructed in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof, a polish oculist.following a somewhat difficult periodin my life. It was twilight & snowing on the railway platform just outside Warsaw where I had missedmy connection. A man in a crumpled track suit & dark glasses pushed a cart piled high with ripped & weathered volumes—sex manuals, detective stories, yellowingmusical scores & outdated physics textbooks, old copies of Life, new smut, an atlas translated,a grammar, The Mirror, Soviet-bloc comics, a guide to the rivers & mountains, thesauri, inscrutablemusical scores & mimeographed physics books,defective stories, obsolete sex manuals— one of which caught my notice (Dr. Esperanto since I had time, I traded my used Leaves of Grass for a copy.I’m afraid I will never be lonely enough.There’s a man from Quebec in my head,a friend to the purple martins.Purple martins are the Cadillac of swallows.All purple martins are dying or dead.Brainscans of grown purple martins suggestthese creatures feel the same levels of doubt& bliss as an eight-year-old girl in captivity.While driving home from the breweryone night this man from Quebec heard a radio programabout purple martins & the next day he set outto build them a housein his own back yard. I’ve never built anything,let alone a house,not to mention a homefor somebody else.Never put in aluminum floors to smooth over the waiting.Never piped sugar water through colored tubesto each empty nest lined with newspaper shreddedwith strong, tired hands.Never dismantled the entire affair& put it back together again.Still no swallows.I never installed the big light that stays on through the nightto keep owls away. Never installed lesser lights,never rested on Sundaywith a beer on the deck surveyingwhat I had done& what yet remained to be done, listening to Styxwhile the neighbor kids ran through my sprinklers.I have never collapsed in abandon.Never prayed.But enough about the purple martins.Every line of the workis a first & a last line & this is the springof its action. Of course, there’s a journey& inside that journey, an implicit voyagethrough the underworld. There’s a bridgemade of boats; a carp stuffed with flowers;a comic dispute among sweetmeat vendors;a digression on shadows;That’s how we finally learnwho the hero was all along. Weary & old,he sits on a rock & watches his friendsfly by one by one out of the song,then turns back to the journey they all beganlong ago, keeping the river to his right.”