Introduction to the Esperanto Language

Welcome to the Sound of ideeas from IDS Stream Public Media. I'm Stephanie Haney. Thank you for being with us With summer now in full swing, Cleveland Metropolitan School District is going about the work of closing buildings and eliminating staff in order to deal with declining enrollment When this phase of cutbacks is all said and done, the district will have closed eighteen buildings and laid off more than four hundred employees While this hasn't been a popular decision with some people, CMSD is far from alone in the issues it's seeing stemming from declining enrollment It's such a widespread issue that one education researcher has dubbed what's happening in public schools across the country as the big shrink. Public school systems from Los Angeles to New York are seeing their student populations decline as a result of declining fertility rates Families moving to the suburbs and growing enrollment at private schools, among other factors We'll start the show today looking at how CMSD specifically got to this point and what the future may hold With me now to share his reporting on this topic is Connor Morris, education reporter here at IDSream Public Media. Conor, thanks for being with us. Of course Also with us, we have Merl Johnson. She's a former CMSD teacher and was on the State Board of Education for eight years. Merle, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's good to be here. Thank you so much And joining us by video call is Dr. Vladimir Kogan. He's a professor of political science at the Ohio State University, Vladimir, welcome Thanks for having me If you want to be a part of this conversation, you can give us a call at eight six six five seven eight zero nine zero three. You can also email us at sOI at ideastream dot orga or you can message us on Instagram at the Sound of idedeas Connor, can we start please by getting some context from you on how much the population has changed in Cleveland over the years and just how much enrollment has dropped at CMSD Yeah, of course. I mean, you could kind of just throw a rock and see u a school school district closing or lay off staff across the region U in Cleveland specifically, you know, the population was about nine hundred fifteen thousand folks in the nineteen fifties at the height of Cleveland, you know, and now it's about three hundred and sixty three hundred seventy thousand people that live in the city itself The enrollment at CMSD has similarly declined, you know, it's dropped by about half since the early two thousands, but before that point, it was really declining pretty sharply Um, you know, we we did a, you know, a chart that someks some of our you know visual watchers might see up on the screen right now. you know, it really took a bit of a nosedive as school desegregation began to be implemented and bus seeing students began to be bused to different parts of the city. So Cleveland has seen white flight, it's seen, you know factories close, it has seen a lot of different challenges that the city still struggles with today Um and it's not just Cleveland. O of course, Rustbt cities especially really saw this pattern, but, you know Um, we can see in Columbus they're closing some schools and laying some staff off And so, you know, again, yeah, it's not just CMSD, but you know, it's been particularly pronounced here in Cleveland And Vladimir, how do these enrollment drops like Connor has mentioned here impact the financials of a large urban school like CMSD or even others across the state, like in Columbus and Cincinnati, for example? Well, Ohio, like for many other states, has a funding system that's based on funding students So when you lose students, you lose the amount of money that you have. And so that means that you know you have to make adjustments on the spending front. And I think that's I think part of the challenge that districts have faced is, you know even as they've lost enrollment. and to put this in perspective, you know, certainly Cleveland is kind of an extreme case This has happened statewide. So between twenty ten and last year. The number of students statewide enrolled in schools is down by about a quarter of a million. And so when you have a quarter a million for your students But you don't close the buildildings you no longer need. You don't adjust your staffing accordingly. and the state dollars are basase number of students. You can see how that creates a kind of a budget crunch at them Vladimir, do you think that this may be an issue in the future? You know populations fluctuate. We may have that many fewer students right now, but who knows what the case will be five years from now when new births are leading to know kindergarten age ren. What do you think about that? Do you think that we're setting ourselves up for a bit of a shortfall in terms of access to resources in a few years No, actually, I think I think it's actually the tip of the iceberg. So we've been talking and projecting this enrollment cliff for a number of years And we're just starting to feel it So really the trajectory going forward is going to be even much more pain than we're seeing now because the enrollment in schools is expected to continue going down. So you know the levels we're seeing now have not stabilized at kind of where we're expect them to be in the long run. Now of course, you know, predicting demography is difficult, thingsings can always change. But as of right now, you know, I think I think we've only started to have the difficult conversations we need to have about how to U realign the resources that we have or the number of students that we have Connor, in terms of school buildings being closed and consolidated, where do we stand with that? And how are the communities responding? Yeah. in Cleveland, we're seeing the district closing and combining almost thirty schools. So eighteen buildings will be closed physically. Some of those, it's not as serious as it sounds. It's like John Hay's campus, for example, that's three high schools. They're going to be combined into one program, so they're not actually closing any buildings someomeone of course, would argue that is a serious change of course, but And the district has also laid off several hundred educators and administrators and others. The response has been relatively negative from folks. They've been saying the district doesn't need a lay of teachers specifically that they need cut back on administrative costs, that the district iss kind of top heavy administratively, that it hasn't been responsible with money. but also that The arguments was from some folks as past leaders didn't do enough to cut back when they should have It's also spawned an effort to try to return the district to an elected school board, which it hasn't had since the nineteen nineties But there's also a whole mass of other side of uss, which Morl can get to in just a moment, but there's been a lot of anger at the state as well. There's been a lot of criticism of The state that they argue is not funded school public schools adequately.s that they argue it's funneling money to vouchers. And so that's been a whole other part of this conversation that's been going And Connor, as you mentioned, we've seen this declining enrollment. If you're watching us on video, you saw that graph showing declining enrollment over time at the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, which you can see on the IDSream Public Media YouTube page, also on video on Spotify and on Ohiochannel dot org dot Marl, I want to ask you, you were an educator at CMSD for forty years, retiring in twenty twelve What was your experience like teaching? Did declining enrollment have an impact on you when you were in that space? Well, I was teaching at a time where The enrollment was declining, but class sizes were still large. So you know, if you're having classes, you need to have enough staff to make sure that you have class sizes that are Teachable And it was really difficult. I was telling Connor, I retired because they had put forty five students in my ninth grade English class. You know, we had three classes, eighty minute classes, and I had forty five, forty three, and forty two And um, You know, I'm a teacher who likes to develop really trusting, caring relationships with my students and that was just too hard. So I retired in October of twenty twelve because I wanted to leave while I still had a good taste in my mouth about teaching And what is, in your opinion, you've spent a lot of years teaching for a class like you taught ninth grade English, the appropriate class size I would say twenty to twenty five would be appropriate. for me, and that's my personal opinion. It's not based on research. any research does say twenty twenty five, but that would be a class size that would be workable. But you know, if you're a good teacher, you just do the best you can and You know, hope that it turns out okay. Certainly a lot of that going around, and we're very grateful for it. So thank you for the work that you did with the school. I appreciate it for a very long time. I appreciate that. We do appreciate it. Now Connor, you reported that CMSD forecasted a deficit for this school year. and here we are. So how accurate was that forecast Yeah, I mean, it's generally one of the criticisms that CMSC has received is that Again, as I said, past leaders didn't enough to kind of cut back. and that's left current leaders holding the bag almost, so to speak having to make tough decisions that should have been made a long time ago. But yeah, I mean, with former CMSD CEO Eric Gordon, before he left, he said, you know, the school is in good shape And in partly, he was right, the district had seen a long period about a decade of academic growth. new partnerships in the city, scholarships for students to go to Cege, you know, a really remarkable period of change But then at the same time They were showing, know stormy weather ahead. And so some folks are saying, well, well why wasn't the distict more active I did some deep dives in the past and you know, actually the district did cut back quite a bit. There were big layoffs in the early two thousands. There were building closures that veteran educators like Merle would remember. evenven in the mid nineties, the state actually got involved in force the district actually to close some buildings. But the current school board president and when I talked to her, she said, these are such hard decisions, nobody wants to make them, you know We're doing these things now because we want a healthy school system for the future. But yeah, I mean, who would want to make these decisions to cut staff and beloved educators and things of that nature? Sure. If you're just joining us here on the Sound of Idas, we are talking about consolidation and building closures and also employee layoffs at Cleveland Metropolitan School District. This is not unique to Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. This is something that's happening across the country So much so that researchers have dubbed it the big shhrink. If you have a comment or a question about this, you can give us a call at eight six six five seven eight zero nine zero three You can also send us an email at SOI at ideaSream. org or you can send us a message on Instagram at the sound of Ieas Vladimiric, can you talk about what happened to public education during the pandemic And what criticisms do you might have for school operations in the wake of pandemic relief funds coming into those systems Yeah, well, I think you know, this is a two part story. So one is the story about kind of policy decisions that probably have contributed to some of the enrollment losses And so we know that although schools statewide closed all of closed in the early months of the pandemic Really by fall of twenty twenty, most of the state had to reopen for at least some in person education. And it was really just the urban districts, Cleveland being one of them that really dragged their feet And in fact, it took Gonor De Winene essentially requiring districts to reopen as a condition for teachers getting priority access to the vaccine for Cleveland to actually finally bring students back And so when we look at the enrollment data, it was the case that Particularly between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two, the large urban districts that stayed closed the longest saw some of the most severe enrollment declines. Now their enrollment was already declining, but it only accelerated during this period. And that was, I think, very much a self inflicted problem. So the other part of the story is what happened with resources? So we had three rounds of federal emergency pandemic aid that was provided to school districts And it was the largest single infusion of federal dollars in kid home education in US history. So Cleveland alone got somewhere around four hundred fifty million dollars during this period in federal aid And the challenge was that, you know, the most money had to beent spent pretty quickly. Part of the intent was to cover, you know, PPE and increased expenses during the pandemic. Part of the intent was to spend it on learning recovery and addressing some of the learning impacts. But it was one time money So districts got it between twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, and they really had to spend it by the end of twenty twenty four And you know, one of the cardinal rules in public finance is that You never use one time dollars to pay for permanent expenses.? It's like getting an inheritance and then buying a house, using that inheritance as down payment and not being able to afford the mortgage And unfortunately, many districts, particularly large urban districts that got the largest infusion, I think went out and used that one time dollars to really pay for staff. And when that money ran out last year, now they were on the hook of either finding other sources of revenue to cover those staffing expenses or having to make some of the staffing reductions that we're now seeing again in places like Cleveland, Columbus and other places around the state Oh. Merle, what's been your impression of how students were impacted by the pandemic and what support was needed and maybe continues to be needed I think the The biggest impact was the trauma that students had experience it was interesting When students came back to school, there were so many teachers saying Oh their behavior, it's so much worse than it was before uh, the pandemic And when you look at trauma, you know, trauma has an impact on on the brain And it causes you to just feel like you just have to survive and it has an effect on the function of being able to think, being able to regulate your behavior. And I think that was the biggest impact. And of course, that affected academics because students were not focused on what they were supposed to be learning, they weren't remembering. And so I just I always look at that as being the biggest p. because when you talk about the students, one hundred percent had experienced some kind of trauma whether it was a family remember dying or not being with their friends. And so I think that in itself was a huge impact. Of course, the loss of knowledge of their learning, but the behavior has a huge impact on your learning Connor, one of the things that Vladimir mentioned there was the use of pandemic relief funds, which were temporary one time dollars to pay for permanent things. Are you aware is that something CMSD was doing From what I understand, CMSD use some of the money to staff up on nurses particularly because they I believe forormmer leader Eric Gordon wanted he had said, you know, we want to be One nurse in every school. They wanted they believe there was some staffing of counselors and psychologists, I think, as well There were a lot of investments also in after school and summer programming as well, which they did cut back pretty soon into CMSC CO Warren Morgan's tenure where he came in and We've really got to start to make these tough decisions, you know? So yeah, it's happened across the country, of course Although I have looked at some staffing numbers at CMSD and it does look like at least free pandemic, they're down quite a few staffs still. so I'm still kind of sussing up those numbers a little bit, but it's an interesting story there. Okay. win Residents and parents and students are looking at closures and layffs, Cor, and there might be some anger there. Where is that anger being directed? Is it being laid at the foot of CMSD officials? Yes, in some regards, it is, of course with that there's a group that I mentioned that wants to return to an elected school board now after twenty five years or so of it being an appointed, mayor appointed system There's also though, as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of anger at the state as well and also at vouchers specifically. there's more than a billion dollars a year going to school vouchers. and so There's a lot of anger in public education right now from advocates about the state's priorities. Merl, can you tell us what are your thoughts on the state voucher system? Do you think that's a contributing factor here to closures? Most definitely. I'm wearing a button that says those who can teach, those who can't make laws about teaching. And you know, I'm sure that the legislatative state took an oath to abide by the Constitution And Article six, section two of the Constitution, says the General Assembly shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise as with the income arising from the school trust fund will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state but no religious or other sect or sex Ss shall ever have any exclusive right to or control of any priate school funds The reason I read that It's because our majority partarty and the legislature has violated that Oath over and over again. And one way they're doing that is through creating a system of vouchers which takes money away from our public schools and puts them into private schools, mostly when vouchers first started in Cleveland in nineteen ninety five ninety nine percent of the money was going to Catholic schools And that now that there's been a voucher lawsuit filed. There are six hundred about six hundred districts in the state. O three hundred districts are a part of that voucher lawsuit. and that lawsuit says that vouchers are unconstitutional. And aank Franklin County judge ruled, yes, vouchers are unconstitutional, and it was mainly based on what I just read So vouchers now, and when you talk about vouchers, there's more than two billion dollars now. going away from public schools into private schools, and that has a serious impact on what's happening all over the state Vladimir, what do you think about that? It's not something that's just happening in Ohio, the private school voucher system. It is happening in other places across the country. Do you think that's contributing to the decline in public school enrollment Well, you know, think I think there's two questions here. One is is it contributing to public school and disenrollment And I think the answer at least for the latest round of voucher expansion, which took place in twenty twenty three, is really no. because if you look at the number of students who were enrolled and public schools in twenty point two and the number of schools that were enrolled the year after the expansion. It barely budgs Now I think that's, you know, that's a very powerful criticism of this program that it mostly provided public funding to kids who were already in private schools. And I think that's totally reasonable grounds to criticize it But its al if it's going to families who are already in private schools, by definition, it's not contributing to enrollment losses So I think that part of the argument just doesn't hold much water. Now the second more complicated argument is about the finances.? This is a very expensive program And the question is, you, if we didn't have that national program, would that money have gone to public schools instead And I think and that's where we just don't have much evidence to think that's the case that know there's many other things that the state could have done without that money, including paying for tax cuts or sprending on on Medicaid And certainly when we compare to we compare the Revenue projections that districts made beforefore the voucher expansion to the revenue they actually got, the state has given them about a billion dollars more than they were expecting four years ago before the voucher expansion happened So again, it's hard to say that the voucher expansion has crowded out spending on public schools because they've gotten more than they were expecting even before this hypquus. Connor, what's your reporting show? Well justust very briefly. The state over time, some analysis shows has actually shifted the burden of funding schools ono private property owners through business tax cuts through tax cuts in general U, and this um, coalition that Merle is part of. I think they've had some numbers recently as well, right? looking at kind of the changes in the The way the state funds schools? I don't know if you got that available or? Yeah. I think the fair schoolch funding plan is what should have been implemented. and that is a big problem. In twenty twenty one, they promised to use a fair school funding plan which would fund schools fairly based on the four times that the Ohio Supreme Court had ruled school funding unconstitutional And the General Assembly promised to implement it in three two year budget sessions. But what they did was they reneged on that third session, the third two year budget And so as a result of that, the Ohio children were shortchanged two point eight six billion dollars for twenty six twenty seven. That's what they should have received if the majority partarty had gone ahead and funded the fair school funding plan the way they promised. And as a result, that's why you're seeing all the layoffs, the school closures and so forth because that's more than two billion dollars the General Assembly had promised would go to the school based on their fair school funding plan and they renewged on it. And when I talked to a legislator recently with the Republican majority, he did say, well You know, we feel like we are funding schools fairly. He said that A lot of schools have seen enrollment decline over the years. so why would we continue to increase funding if they have less students? Is there argument anyw We do have a call now from Marcy in Cleveland. Marcy, welcome to the Sound of idedas. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my call. My question is when people do projections for enrollment, I wonder how much consideration is given to the fact that our region might be getting climate change refugees So people moving here because excuse me, we are less susceptible to floods and wildfires that are on the increase in other areas of the country. H. Thank you for that question, Marcy, Vladimir, do you have any thoughts about that? Yeah, I don't think those kind of things really go into enrollment projections. Again, I think enrollment projections are very much kind of like a guess and you do your best to, you know, look at things that you can model, which is you know, demographic change, the number of kids that families have But there's many other things that happen in the world that certainly have an impact you know, housing prices being one of them, construction costs, et cetera. And all those things are incredibly difficult to model. So I think, you know, the projections that we have are just that. you know, they're very, very crude projections And there' certainly many other things that in the long run are going to have a big impact that are not predicted right now Connor, I want to ask you about something that's been talked about related to Cleveland City Council members. They've been vocal about how much a school is an anchor in a community. Is there anything civic leaders can do or could have done to change this outcome in CMSD. Yeah, I mean, it it's a very tough question. I mean, they can they specifically can't do a whole lot. They can petition the mayor. They brought the CEO in before city council to talk about, you know, the deficit that the district was facing a little while ago. You know, Cncil member Richardsar famously had a shirt that said who was getting fired when he brought CMSD CEO Warren Morgan in He since softened and said on in terms of Morgan and said actually CO Warren Morgan and the mayor Just Mib have kind of inherited a tough situation, past leadership done more. Cleveland councman Mike Pelank has been kind of the mostocciferous one on this and he but he's long been a critic of the school district and said The district is kind of disinvested in the east side. They've removed popular programs like trades programming The district says, well, we didn't have the enrollment to support that. And so it's kind of a and it's also what we're getting at here is a vicious cycle of a city That has seeing population decline And so then the enrollment declines. and as people leave the city The schools no longer have the investment they need or the amount of students they need to support like a great sports program or you know, clubs, things that that make for a school that you want to send your kids to. A strong school makes a strong neighborhood is what advocates argue. And so it's kind of this vicious cycle whereether there's blame going on of you didn't invest in my neighborhood enough. but also then you know, the school district says, well, well we didn't have the money or the kids to support that. So it's just a is a bit of a very tough situation that schools find themselves in Marl, as we wrap things up here, is there anything you'd like to add about the school being an anchor in the community that we should keep in mind? Well, I think that that is the point that the school is the anchoring community, but it's a two way street. The community has to support the schools, the schools has to support the community. and so often When you're in low income communities, many times famamilies are trying so hard to survive to support their families that they don't have the time to be able to be as involved in the schools as they can be. And it's unfortunate But as a result of that, sometimes the schools end up not being all that they could be. So it's just, you know, it's just really a It's just really a problem of poverty and famamilies caring and wanting to be involved, but just not having the time or the resources to give their all to their schools. And I think that's what's happening, especially in the Collinwood area. because I've been in the school, they had a number of meetings. People don't talk about that, but Eric Gordon was involved in a number of meetings at Collywood with Cstan Polesics and so forth. you know, so I can't say that he didn't try to do anything, but It's just it's just a hard, hard situation. You don't have many students there anymore. The number has been more than, you don, usually don't have more than one hundred students and the school has this room for a thousand. So As Connor said, it's a horrible situation because they that community deserves a thriving school but it's just Poverty is one of the main issues. Well, hopefully, we will continue to hear opportunities for solutions. We know that Connor will be continuing to cover this. We thank you for that. And I want to thank our panel for having this conversation with us today. Joining us by video, doctor Vladimir Kogan, prorofessor of Political science at the Ohio State University of Vladimir. Thankks very much Thanks A Here in studio, Merle Johnson, former CMSD teacher and state Bard of Education Representative, Merle, thank you. Thank you And of course, IDaS Stream public media is education repeporter Connor Morris, we appreciate the time. Thank you so much If you want to read Connor's reporting and see some of the detailed infographics in his article, we have a link to that in the sound of ideas section on the IeaSream Public Media website, which you can find at ideeaStream. org slash Si We'll take a quick break now and when we come back, we're learning about the language of Esperanto. It is certainly not new, but it's relatively new to me, and I bet it also is for most of you This is the sound of ideas. I'm Stephanie Haney, will be right back V are Sutas laa radio programer, Sono de Eedio, de edi stream public media Miia st Stephanie Haney, Dan Kong, Provia Rustardo Kuni What I just said to you was was something very close to your with the sound of ideas from idea Stream public media I'm Stephanie Haney. Thank you for staying with us. Now you might not have understood it because I was speaking Esperanto Esperanto was created in the late eighteen hundreds, meant to be a universal secondary language It's not tied to any particular region in the world, so it has no native speakers, and it's not intended to be anyone's first language It's meant to be easy to learn no matter what your background, and its goal is to promote international communication, and even world peace. That is a lot of opportunity there for the language of Esperano. It's encouraged here in the United States by a nonprofit organization called Esperanto USA, which is hosting a week long course and its national conference at Cleveland State University now through july sixth. Today, we have leaders of Esperonto USA and a Cleveland member joining us to teach us about the language and itss Northeast Ohio connection and hopefully help us walk away knowing a few key phrases So here with me today, we have Brandon Saers, who is the president of Esperanto USA, Hi Brandon. Hi, hello Also with us, we have Amanda Schmidt, executive Director of Esperonto USA. Welcome, Amanda. S little done And we also have with us Jeremy Genovise, Beeachwood resident and member of Esperanto USA, Jeremy. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for bringing this topic of conversation to us today. We appreciate it If you want to be a part of this conversation, you can give us a call at eight six six five seven eight zero nine zero three. You can also email us at SOI at ideastream d. org or you can message us on Instagram at the sound of ideas. Brandon, can you tell us about the origin of Esperanto when it was created in eighteen eighty seven? What prompted this creation of a whole new language? Right, so it was created by a Jewish Polish eye doctor in what's now Poland, but was then part of the Russian Empire And his goal was to create something that would be a second language that anybody could learn with the idea that this would help people to basically overcome boundaries. So he grew up in a city where there was at least four languages that were spoken and there was a lot of ethnic conflict. And so he wanted to create something that could be what he'd called a universal language, meaning it's for anybody, for any purpose and that that at least would Overcome one boundary that people have, right? It's also important to kind of think about the context. This is a time when teelegraph was expanding, when rail networks were expanding. So very much there was this idea of universality in the era U It's also like twenty five years after soccer was formalized, right? whichich we now consider the universal sports. It's really in this period And it goes from there And pretty much spreads around the world. There were other people trying to create languages at the same time. And this is the one that kind of caught on Uh you know, was spread to France to China, Japan, Brazil, U S. all within just a couple of years. Okay. And there is a Cleveland connection a few decades later. Jeremy, can you tell me about that? The creator's daughter dating back to the nineteen thirties, Please explain that So Zbeno's daughter, LyiaZmenhof. was invited to come to Cleveland to teach Es Boronto. Uh, she came to the city and taught in a number of locations here here. And u Well, I guess I should say that there was a large Esperanto community here in Cleveland at that time. I recently found out, for example, that Shehecker Heights High School had an Esperonto club at the high school. There were Esperonto clubs across the city in East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights and it This was a time in Cleveland when there were many ethnic newspapers, many people spoke many languages. So Esperanto had a lot of traction here. So Lydia Zamenhoff came here to teach Esperanto. She came on a tourist visa. And she was welcomed in Espronto, got a lot of coverage in the local newspapers But the story has a tragic end because she was not allowed to stay in the United States when eventually was forced to leave and go back to Poland where she was murdered by the Nazis at Sri Linka H Very sorry to hear that. That is a very tragic end to that story If we can go back to the Cleveland connection to Esperanto here Brand and I know that the National Conference of Esperantonto USA has returned here now. It's not the first time it's been in Cleveland. Can you tell us about some of the times that it's been here in the past as the the national organization in support of this language. Sure. Sos there's two in particular that we are very interested in kind of re exxploring the history of In nineteen twenty four we held a conference here and it was held in the Hotel Cleveland which was newly built at the time. So we're actually going to have a dinner there later this week kind of to commemorate that And then also in nineteen thirty eight, we held a conference here and that was while Lydia Zammenhoff was in town. So she actually addressed the conference at that time. We've also held a conference in Lima, Ohio, for example So we're very excited to kind of come back and explore this history. As an organization, we're actually turning seventy five next year So we're kind of preparing for our own jubilee and want to take that time to explore our history as well And Amanda, let's talk a little bit about what it means to be the executive director of Esperanto USA. What does that look like in a day to day scenario? That's a full time job from what I understand. So what kinds of things is Esperanto USA doing to promote this language Well, we have a lot of different things that we're managing. So we have about five hundred members across the country And I do all of the administrative work, financial work and managerial work. We have a number of contractors that work with us. We have a graphic designer, we have a magazine editor, we have a quarterly magazine that we produce we have a film festival that we run every year, which is an opportunity for people to create short films in Esperanto that are you know, four or five minutes long with at least ten esperanto words in them, but they're not intended only for Esperanto speakers, there for anyone in the general public that wants to make a short film and compete. And there are cash prizes for that So let's see, what else We's quite a bit already. We're doing a lot.. A lot going on. lots of events. Of course, you've got the event that you're here in town for here in Cleveland. Brandon, I want to ask you a bit about what's happening with Esperanto today. Are there exciting developments that we should be aware of? Are we speaking Esperanto at the World Cup So that's a good question. I've been following the World Cup very closely and we actually just recently got a message from an Esperonto magazine and radio program in China. asking to contact espperantists in the U.S, Canada and Mexico to talk about their experience of the World Cup. So I'm going to be responding to that. We have a member of our organization who's also Mexican who'll be responding from his perspective And we'reh, you know, sharing with our Canadian Esperrontis friends as well. And so that's kind of one of the interesting things about Espronto is it allows that direct connection, right where you can say Here's how it's you know, I'm experiencing this as someone in the U.S. or, you know e Mexican in the US. right, watching my team and maybe supporting the U.S. as well and really getting that very direct connection there Um, You know, And I think that speaks also to kind of how international Esperanto is, but at the same time very well connected, right? So I've never met the people producing that program in China, but I'm probably one or two degrees separated from them. So it's a big, small world in the Esperanto community. sounds like Very interesting. I'll ask each of you now if you can tell us just briefly how you came to be involved with Esperanto, how it piqued your interest. And Jeremy, I'll start with you. Sure. So I first heard about Esperanto when I was a kid when I was a teenager So I've always been interested in it. It always sounded like a really good idea to me and kind of followed the movement. but about seven years ago. cllose to the time I retired, I said, Well, this is the time to throw myself into it and really try to learn learn the language. When you have disagreements with people in your life who don't speak Esperanto, do you find yourself speaking Esperanto at them? M be a little unfiltter suggestion. Maybe I'll take that up. How about for you, Amanda, what is it that brought you to Esperanto Well, when I was in college in Illinois, the Spanish professor on the side would teach Esperanto every once in a while. So I took a little intro course and It just It clicked. likeike it worked like a puzzle. All of the grammatical elements were so streamlined and easy that compared to French, which I'd learned in high school, it was a breeze And so it just really intrigued me. And then I went to the immersion course, the summer immersion course that we were running this summer in Cleveland It's I used to be three weeks long now it's a week long And and I was hooked because I met people from all over the world. I met people from Japan and Hungary and Australia and Poland and Argentina lots of different places and it was so fascinating to meet people directly and be able to speak to them without You know, them speaking my language or me speaking their language, we came together in a neutral way. So Okay And how about for you, Brandon? What brought you to Esperonto I found it when I was in high school just browsing Wikipedia, I saw something about it, and I followed the rabbit hole and I kept with it. I know checked out a book from the library back when know That was the way to do it. I met people in my local club in Atlanta, Georgia at the time And I started speaking as frontal with them or trying to, and you know they brought me along. And then I actually went to the same kind of immersion course that Amandaentioned that we're doing here in Cleveland And since then I've You know, had years where I use it a lot and then other times where I don't touch it for a while and then I come back to it. And I came back to it in twenty nineteen And then, you know, in the pandemic, it was kind of a lifeline, a way to stay connected with people around the world hear how they're experiencing that that time period. And since then, you know, I've seen the kind of a resurgence that we've had in the U.S with it. and seeing, you know, where we can go from here and Hm 're getting into publishing now, so I think there's a lot of opportunities. Let me ask you this brandon. Esperonto sounds like a Spanish word, but we have learned here today that it stems from a Jewish Polish creator. So any insight into how Esperanto came to be the name of this language Yeah, so he named himself Doctoro Esperanto. and in Esperanto that means someone who's hopeful, a hopeful person U and very quickly, you know, he didn't name the language Esperontanto, but very quickly people called it, you know, the language of Esperonto and then they just called it Esperanto The sound, I like to say, it's very similar to Spanish or Italian and a lot of the root words are common with Spanish or Italian or other romance languages, but the sounds are also very common with, for example, Japanese, similar vowels, similar continent So that's why it sounds like it could be a Spanish word or an Italian word. Sometimes I joke and say it's like the one romance language that you don't know. Interesting. If you're just joining us here on the Sound of idedas, we' talking about the language of Esperanto, which I've just learned means hope ope Hopeful Hope, hopeful person. This is a language that's intended to be a secondary language in order to bridge international communication. and their national conference is happening right here in Cleveland here in the coming days. If you want to be a part of this conversation, the number is eight six six, five seven eight zero nine zero three. You can also send us an email at si at ideastream dot orga or you can send us a message on Instagram the sound of ideas. Now, Amanda, you are the executive director of Esperanto USA, which suggests there are other national organizations that support Esperanto. Can you give us an idea? How many people do we think in the world are speaking Esperanto Do you have any context that you can share in that regard? It's very difficult to judge that. likeike do you judge someone who just dabbled in it and you know did a few lessons on duolingo or Do you only count the people that are completely fluent So in my experience, I've probably met I don't know five hundred people that speak Esperanto in my life, doing a lot of traveling and going to multiple events and things like that But there are many, many more that I've not met. So it's a big enough community that you cannot know everyone but you can know enough people that it's It's, you know, it feels like a family. And Jeremy, can you tell us a bit about? You shared with me that you have met people internationally virtually through Esperontoots what that's been like? So the interternet has been a real lifeline for Esperonto and has really helped revive the language And so one of the great joys is that I'm able to participate in Online meetings on Zoom or other platforms. everyvery day, literally there are online meetings and I get to talk to Esperantists from all over the world. I think the most interesting experience I had was I was in a call. So these people just jump on these calls and speak Esperanto. And one day I'm on a call and somebody from Iran, another person from Egypt, another person from Israel All Esperanto speakers all had a conversation with each other. and I was thinking like, Esperanto, this is the only place where something like this can happen. So it's a real sense of being part of a worldwide community and discovering common interests or common humanity across limits. We hear all the time that our capacity for learning new language is stronger when we're younger Jeremy, for you, you came to this later in life. You said about seven years ago when you had retired. Can you tell us what is it about this language that makes it so easy to pick up So it The language is easy for a couple of reasons. One, it's completely regular It has completely regular verbs. Anybody who's struggled over complex verb conjugations can learn to conjugate all the Esperonto verbs in just five or six minutes the parts of speeches speech are all marked. and it has this wonderful system of affxes, which allow you to create new words. So for instance, we have the prefix maal, which immediately turns the word that it prececedes into its opposite. So if Lumo is light, Mal Lumo is dark And by using some tricks like that, it enormously decreases the amount of vocabulary learning that you need to do And I guess I also say that, you know, for those of us who are older, One of the best ways to be cognitively engaged is to learn a new language, and Esperanto iss a great candidate for that. Okay. Well, let's try to learn a little bit of Esperanto here today. Amanda Jeremy's given us a couple of details there. We've got a couple sentences that I want to work through here. Are there any basics you'd like to let us know before? I ask you how to help us pronounce these sentences Absolutely. So I have some visual aids here So Esperanto has some special letters with little hats, circumplexes over them and those have particular pronunciations. So the one with the sea with the hunt. is pronounced Just like in, you know, ChuCu train or whatever. Okay. J is like in Giraffe Like in L, like the Spanish word for Lake like can measure That and measure. That's a J with a little hat on it. Yep. Okaykay S with a hat is And you with a little like we call it a hook is like a W sound Okay. So like for example, the word Europa means European So this little phrase says, Checka. Shallow Estas Eopa agra Bljo. So it's pronounced very similar to a lot of European languages. All of the vowels are a u just like in Spanish, French Italian. And what is that sentence in English? This means check like a scarf is a European delight A scarf is a European delight. Yeah. So it's just a sentence that I made up to demonstrate the Okay. Well A scarf is a European delight. You know I spent some time living abroad. they said a scarf is the key to warmth. Yep. You know, We should probably embrace them more here in the States if you want my opinion And what do we have here? What are the tips we'll learn on this fact sheet? This is just showing the what Jeremy was talking about where there's word parts that you can put together. so Esperanto is a neglutinative language So this word is convoyaganto. and can you remind us what a glutinative means? Oh yeah, a glutinative means that you basically There's little word bits that you can glue together. Okay, have your word root like voyage you can add the prefix kun, which means with you can add the afix ant, which means someone who is doing the verb in the sentence. and then all means noun one. Voyage annto means traveveling companion And then there are also words in esperanto that you can that aren't quite translatable because they the agglutinative nature of speranto means that You can create words with the word elements that don't exist in your native language. So for example Voyaemo is one word that Can only in English be described by a phrase like the tendency or the the love of traveling with others So it creates a simplified way to express a broader idea with Esperanto. Y. Okay, so we've got a couple of key phrases here that we'll try to at least mimic the pronunciation of. And if you are watching us on video, we have some graphics on the screen to help along with the visual piece of this The first is Probably a key sentence here, Do you speak Esperanto So Amanda, please guide me through the pronunciation of this. Sure So the first word is chu V Karoas Esperanton Ch Porolas Esperantan. Wow, veryer good I'm like a parrot. Okay, great. So now we know where we're starting from. Beline when you're walking around Cleveland over the next ten or so days, by the way, because Esperonto USA is in town through is it july seventh? Yes, July seventh. through july seventh, you may come upon some people who are speaking Esperanto. You can start with that. Okay Next phrase we have here in English, thanks friend Amanda, ple. Dankon Amiko Dan Kong, Aicko Thanks, friend. Great. Okay, we'll put this on repeat Now this could be very important in many situations. We have a phrase here Excuse me, where is the bathroom That could be very important. Let's see that graphic. There we go. We have that up on the screen for our visual audience members. Please, Amanda H I don't know K. E does La Nitao Ohh, this one's getting a little more tricky. Okaykay Pardono Kay Sas. La nes ale Very close. Okay. exxcellent. Nessateo, is that what it? So the C is pronounced like a TS sound. Okay, N s seo. N's s seo. Okay. And the J is like a Y sound Okay so excuse me, where's the bathroom? Let's hear that again, Amanda from you properly? Pardono. That was very quick. I will leave it at that. That was great. Thank you so much, Amanda. Now I did hear, and Brandon, I'll ask you to help me out on this one that there's a popular phrase about Dining choices among the people who speak Esperanto That is where can I find an inexpensive vegan restaurant? So I'm going to ask you to pronounce that sentence for us. and then I need to hear the backstory on this. Here, Eblas Trovi, Malmote Cstan, Vanon Resturazion. Okay, I'm going to ask you to say that again. please. Kia, Eblas Throvi, Malmote Kostan Beagganan Raurion Kiia Eirblas Trovi, Mamot Takastan Deanan, Resturacion Very good. Nice. Okay, great. Where can I find an inexpensive vegan restaurant? Now, why is that so popular among the people who speak Eesperonto? it's kind A joking phrase that we use sometimes, know definitely not all sperantists are vegans or vegetarians. There is a healthy trend, I would say. For example, Jeremy and I are both vegans You know, I think we asked for a show of hands recently at the conference and it was probably twenty percent of the people there were vegan. So's, you know, there's a big thin diagram there. And so we jokingly say, you know, it's very useful when you're traveling to an Esperonto event. In another country, you might not know in some countries it might be hard to find vegan or vegetarian restaurant and sometimes you maybe in a more expensive country. So it's very useful to ask a local esperantist to have that phrase in your back pocket. Sure. All right. greatreat. We've got about a minute here. I want to make sure people can know where they can find out more about E speranto. So Jeremy, you're giving a public lecture. T us about that This Friday at seven thirty at Cleveland State University in the stududent Center in room three thirteen and three hundred fifteen. I willll be giving a talk, which will be about the story of Lydia Zammenhoff, the backstory of Esperonto in Cleveland, but particularly focusing on Lydia Zahmenhoff's visit and the tragic story of what happened to her. Okay. And Amanda, let us know a bit about the conference that's happening. There's courses happening this week, but then conference extending at the beginning of next week M. So the conference is a three day conference over the weekend. So it's starting on Friday And then we'll be ending on Monday with a post confference excursion Is there a website people can go to to find out about the conference? Yes. so it's WWW Esperanto dash usA. org Okay. And to answer the question Ask it one more time for us in Esperanto, whereere can I find an inexpensive vegan restaurant Here Eblastrovy, Malmotkostan, Vgganon Ruration Cleveland Vvegan is in Lakewood. Can you say that in Esperanto for those who speak it Cleveland Vvegan, stthus and liquid. Okay, perfect. That was the easiest sentence today. Thank you very much for our panel being here with us today, Brandon Saowers, president of Esperanto USA, a management, executive Director of the organization, and Jeremy Genoveves, Beachwood resident and member of Esperanto USA. Thanks very much. Thank you. And what is it? It is Donicos There. Thank you very much. If you missed any part of today's show, you can hear a rebroadcast tonight at nine on eighty nine seven WKSU and you can find every episode of the Sound of Ieas wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube You can get the last word on our topics today by emailing us at SOI at ideaStream. org Yesterday, we had a group of Northeast Ohioans on the sound of ideas sharing their views on the state of affairs in today's America, two hundred and fifty years after its founding, and several people wrote in giving their takes Natalie emailed Donald Trump is not a great president. He is speed trracking our country into a direction that is unrecognizable as it was founded to be He is divisive and as a caller said, cruel, ignorant, deemented, and on and on Democracy means freedom for everyone, rights for everyone, noobody is left out. Thank you for sharing that, Natalie. Tom also wrote in America, the place has been inhabited for thousands of years. What makes us the United States of America is the Constitution, and we are only doing as well as our fidelity to that document That said, we are heading towards technology, powered, authoritarianism, with a push toward theocratic rule, as evidenced by the reinterpretation of the meaning of several amendments like the first and the fourourth Religion paired with government is dangerous and the founders recognize this. Constant surveillance is not freedom, enabling a tyrant is not justice At two hundred fifty, our Constitution is being eroded, ourur ideals are great. Now we must live up to them Thank you for sharing your perspective, Tom Now today is the last day of the United States Supreme Court term, and in several minutes, we expect a decision in the Trump versus Barbara case that considers the presresident's attempt to limit birthright citizenship. Tomorrow on the Sound of idedas, Anna Huntsman will be filling in and willll be discussing the other major decisions handed down by the court Later this summer, in just a few weeks, you can join us for the next Sound of Ieas community tour that's taking place at the Cleveland Metropark Zoo, Monday, july twentieth at six PM We'll be talking about property taxes, the increases that many homeowners are seeing, and reform efforts. It's free and open to the public. We just need you to register at ideastStream d. org slash community tour I'm Stephanie Haney,kss for keeping the conversation going. We'll see you back here tomorrow on the sound of ideas