Recently I read a story called ‘El la vivo de Esperantistoj’. I didn’t like the story at all, and therefore I described it negatively on my blog. It is possible that I completely misunderstood the story, but I’m not ashamed of that. I did read it completely out of context; that is to say, without knowing anything about the author or his point of view. In my opinion the story was very boring and because of that I don’t suggest that other people read it to give me more takes on it. To me it no longer matters what the message of the story really was. If the author intended to write with irony, in my opinion he didn’t do very well If you want to read my first review (in English), you’ll find it here.

You will see that there is also a certain amount of discussion on this page, and it’s because of that that I have decided to write this blog post. We were discussing those people who in English I normally called Espervangelists. I would like to explain in more detail what sort of people I am describing when I use that word.

I was unlucky, because my first experience of Esperanto was by means of an Espervangelist. I wrote about that experience several years ago, in an article which is called A Tale of Two Esperantists. By means of that article I attempted to portray the difference between good and bad promotion of the international language.

An Espervangelist is a person for whom Esperanto is neither a beautiful language nor an interesting hobby, but a religion. An Espervangelist is a fanatic who wants everyone in the world to start speaking Esperanto, even if everyone in the world doesn’t want to do so. An Espervangelist talks about Esperanto to people who are not at all interested in the language, and continues to talk to them even after they have explained three times – “I don’t want to learn your artificial language!”. An Espervangelist even speaks in Esperanto to non-Esperantists. On Google he searches for blogs which mention Esperanto and leaves comments which don’t relate to the theme of the website and probably only serve to irritate the other readers of the blog.

I don’t have a problem with people who are enthusiastic about Esperanto and who want to tell others about their experiences. I don’t have a problem with people who work to promote Esperanto and want others to get to know it. However, I do have a problem with people who want to force other people to learn Esperanto. We all have the right to choose whether to learn Esperanto or not, and if someone doesn’t want to learn Esperanto, that doesn’t mean that that person is stupid. There are good arguments both for and against Esperanto, and everyone has the right to express their own viewpoints.

I welcome comments from Esperantists on this blog. On the page which is called “Stories and Articles” you can read several things which I have written either about or in Esperanto. This blog, however, is not chiefly about Esperanto. Sometimes I will talk about it, but probably not very often. Esperanto is indeed a part of my live. I am an active member of Junularo Esperantista Brita. Without Esperanto I would never have met the man I love However, despite that Esperanto remains only a tiny part of my life; the majority of my life happens outside of Esperantujo, and as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing So, from time to time I will mention Esperanto here, and it is possible that when I do that I will say something negative. Not everything which relates to Esperanto is perfect, and I’m entitled to criticise things which I don’t like. This is not a personal attack against any one person, but if going forward I receive pointless comments from Espervangelists, they will be deleted immediately.