Esperanto – One Who Hopes
News – Novaĵoj !
POSTPONED due to Covid-19 Joëlle and Nico will be performing in 2022, at the 105th Esperanto Congress in Montreal, Canada
YouTube clips:
Mondafest2020 Mini concert performance in Esperanto – Joelle and Nico
La Vivo Rozas – La Vie en Rose in Esperanto VIDEO
Performed by Joëlle, arranged by J. Douglas Dodd, translation by Claude Piron
Kantik’ de Noel’ – O Holy Night in Esperanto VIDEO
Performed by Joëlle, arranged by Nico Rhodes, translation by Gene Keyes
August 2020 – An Esperantist kindly sent this review :
“Felicxigas min belegaj muzikoj de Joelle kaj Nico. La famo de Joelle etsas konata, tiel pli gxojigas min la sxanco auskulti sxian vocxon okaze de VK. Impresa estas ankau juna bonaspektulo, Nico kiu montris ne nur belan muzikon sed ankau mirindan lingvon kaj cxarmon.”
“I’m happy with the beautiful music by Joelle and Nico. Joelle’s fame is well known, so I’m more than happy to hear her voice on the occasion of VK. Impressive is also a good-looking young man, Nico who showed not only beautiful music but also amazing language and charm.”
My introduction to Esperanto (One who hopes)
Among the many special moments in my life, I think learning about the universal language, Esperanto, is one of them. In 1986, while doing a concert on Vancouver Island, I was approached by Wally Du Temple, who at the time, was President of the Victoria Esperanto Society. Wally told me the story of how he (from Canada) and his wife Olga (from Czechoslovakia), had met at an Esperanto congress. Neither spoke each other’s native tongue, but both were learning Esperanto. They fell in love, married and had two children. (Both children were raised with Esperanto as their first language. Today, both are multi-lingual.)
I was enthralled by Wally’s story and his passion for the universal language. I admit I did ask the typical skeptical question “Yeah but who speaks it? Is it really alive?” Wally gently nudged me towards books translated into Esperanto (Moliere & the Bible among quite a few), some recordings, namely the singer Veselin Damjanov, and an Esperanto dictionary. A few months went by and Wally showed up again in my life, and made me an offer I could nor refuse: learn the language, record songs, perform at the Esperanto congress in Beijing in the summer of 1986 – “You’ve been invited by the UEA in New York and Rotterdam”. The band and I started our crash course with Paul Janulus at Vancouver’s Geneva School of Languages. Among the 86 languages and dialects Janulus spoke, Esperanto was one of them.
In 1986, we recorded a 45 rpm vinyl album with 2 Esperanto songs for our Beijing appearance. My mind was blown. Three thousand people speaking the same language for a whole week. Wow.
That trip to China, combined with our performances at the World Expo ’86 happening in Vancouver that summer, where we performed ‘Give Peace a Chance’ with the late Danny Kaye, the Russian Children’s’ Choir and the Peking Pops Orchestra, was an exhilarating summer of celebrating universality. It had tapped into my every love-of-language fiber, my profound curiosity to learn more about the many cultures of our planet and my intense desire to communicate with people unlike myself.
The next year, Wally orchestrated our appearance in Warsaw, Poland for the 100th anniversary of the language. What an honour. The trip to Poland was extended into a tour of neighbouring countries of Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia. Throughout those months, we performed in Esperanto, but also in French, English, Spanish, German. The welcomes were genuine and the feeling of unity was inspiring.
Imaging trekking into the Bulgarian hills, to eat dinner at 11 o’clock at night with a couple of local farmers who had a cabinet full of green liquor, a table full of food, and a visiting friend who played the bagpipes. After a few rounds of the suspect green liquor, my violinist Tom Neville pulled out his violin (and his bravado) and tuned up with the sheep-gut instrument to play Somewhere over the Rainbow. Music also proved to be a universal language that night.
Some background on the language
Esperanto was created by Polish ophthalmologist Dr. L. Zamenhof in 1887. The word Esperanto translates into English as “one who hopes“. While Esperanto has no official affiliation to any language family, is it generally based on Indo-European languages. It does not have official language recognition from any country but it is spoken widely in over a hundred countries in South America, East Asia and Eastern and Central Europe. While Esperanto is ‘homeless’, it is spoken by a few million who simply wish to communicate with others in an auxiliary language. Esperanto was never meant to replace one’s maternal language. For more than a hundred years, it has proven to be a movement that strives toward an ideal: an ideal of mutual understanding and cooperation among people.
The Universal Esperanto Association was founded in 1908 as an organization of individual Esperantists. Currently UEA is the largest international organization for Esperanto speakers and has members in 120 countries.
UEA works not only to promote Esperanto, but to stimulate discussion of the world language problem and to call attention to the necessity of equality among languages.
Its statute lists the following four goals:
- to promote the use of the international language Esperanto
- to act for the solution of the language problem in international relations and to facilitate international communication
- to encourage all types of spiritual and material relations among people, irrespective of differences of nationality, race, sex, religion, politics, or language
- to nurture among its members a strong sense of solidarity, and to develop in them understanding and respect for other peoples.
Se vi povas kompreni ĉi tiun frazon, vi povas lerni Esperanton tre rapide!
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