Esperanto ASAP- Chapter 21(1)
^CAPITRO 21 (DUDEK UNU) Parto 1
The Internet is claimed to be the communication tool of the future. If this is indeed true then it is important that Esperanto should use its potential as fully as possible. Fortunately this is one area in which Esperanto has made a quite exceptional start. In fact in a recent poll of net users, English was the most popular language (50%) then Esperanto (32%) followed by Spanish, German and French. A recent search by Altavista found 1,057,680 net pages which had a mention of the root word esperant-.
The two main parts of the Internet are E-Mail (elektronika po^sto) and the World Wide Web WWW (Tut-tera Teksa^jo, TTT). If you are not aware of these facilities then this is not the book to deal with them and so I would refer you to a computer library. In this chapter we will deal with them as they effect Esperanto.
It must be remembered that this is a field which changes extremely quickly. The addresses (ULR's (uniform research locations)) were correct when typed (barring any typing errors) but the reader must not be surprised to find that many have already changed. The author would be pleased to receive corrections and updates. Post to D.Fielding
1). Accents
One major problem for Esperanto on the Net is the supersignoj. It is not that computers cannot deal with them. No- the problem is that the publisher and reader of items of the net must have their computers using the same system- and there are literally thousands of different possibilities.
If one tries to read something written by another system one often gets just gibberish! It would be far better to omit accents altogether than produce illegible pages. Of course one cannot blame Zamenhof there were no computers when he published the language.
2). E-Mail
A list of internetted Esperantists (3200 addresses in 95 countries (May 2002) was viewable at :
Unfortunately due to the rapid increase in Esperantists on the net (the number increased more than tenfold in ten years) and problems with spam this listing finished in 2003. Then there were 3242 addresses in 97 landoj; 792 homepages, 596 local organizations and 80 international.
Here are some useful addressees :
A recent regular free news letter about Esperanto is available from British Esperanto Association on application to eabnetnews@esperanto.org
3). World Wide Web
1). The Internet / La Interreto
(Most of the above information was derived from the May 2002 copy of 'Esperanto Today' published by Brian Burnett at indesigneko@aol.com
One can understand the power of the Internet when the Polish Esperanto Association reports a million visit to its pages within 13 months of publication. http://www.esperanto.pl
a). General Information.
An amazing amount of information is available through the Yellow Pages (Flavaj Pa^goj) and also from its parent Virtuala Esperanto-Biblioteko.
b). Calendar of Events
c). Radio Details
It is interest that in 2001 Radio Austria Internacia (ROI) received 32,454 letters of which more than 19,000 were sent to the Esperanto Department. The next most popular was 6,452 to the German Section.
An interesting new development is ITV (Internacia Televido), a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week TV service in Esperanto viewable through the internet. It was set up by Flavio Rebelo -a Brazilian who is editor of the internet news service Gxangalo (http://www/gxangalo.com/televido). Unfortunately due to its large expenses its future is uncertain.
^c). Clubs and Federations
* Received 1,037966 visits in 2001!
d) Free Courses :
(e). Grammatical Points.
(f) Travel :
(g) Stories :
(^g). Esperanto Literature
(in 6 months of 2001, 18,000 electronic books were downloaded from here)