9. Can an artificial language have its own literature? (Esperanto)
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This article is from the Esperanto FAQ, by Mike Urban urban@netcom.com and Yves Bellefeuille yan@storm.ca with numerous contributions by others.
9. Can an artificial language have its own literature? (Esperanto)
Duncan C Thomson:
Esperanto has just as much literature (original, not just
translated) as any other language of a similar number of speakers.
Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Have you heard of Auld, Szathmari, Kalocsay? Galloway, Gray, Kelman?
None of them, probably, but you would probably not be as quick to
claim that Scotland did not have a literary culture.
[Several tens of thousands of books have been published in
Esperanto; the library of the British Esperanto Association has
30 000 volumes. There are about 100 periodicals of some importance,
plus countless local bulletins and newsletters. At one point there
was even a daily newspaper in Esperanto! I have no idea how they
managed to distribute it to the subscribers in a timely
manner. -- Ed.]
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