Good Day, Language Enthusiasts!

On Sunday, 26 August 2018, Polyglot Indonesia collaborated with Indonesia Esperanto Association to conduct a meetup celebrating Esperanto language titled Made Up Language That Goes Massive. Ilia Dewi, the president of Indonesia Esperanto Association, was invited to come and share her knowledge on the subject. Another member from Indonesia Esperanto Association, Arman Yusuf, also came to assist Ilia with her presentation.

With 58 participants in attendance, Ilia started with the reason and person behind the establishment of Esperanto movement. She moved on to other topics such as Universal Esperanto Association, Indonesia Esperanto Association, benefits of learning Esperanto, etc. Several participants were intrigued with Esperanto after they heard that it might be advantageous to be able to speak Esperanto as, in several countries, you might be able to find a place to stay in the house of fellow Esperantists.

In the next session, Ilia taught Esperanto to our participants. She started with the pronunciation of the alphabets, numerals, cases, singular and plural form, etc. She also demonstrated some conversation scenarios with Arman in order to let the participants hear how was Esperanto in spoken form. Afterwards, she introduced how to present yourself in Esperanto. In both sessions, Jakarta's language enthusiasts were keen to ask more about Esperanto and they animatedly repeated and followed Ilia and Arman's instructions on the language.

For the discussion session, participants were tasked to discuss about their opinions on constructed language such as Esperanto. Then, each of the table were asked to choose one constructed language that piqued their interest and the reason behind it. English Table presented Parseltongue from Harry Potter, Sindarin from Lord of the Rings, and Newspeak from George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four/1984. German Table talked about Tengwar from Lord of the Rings. Dutch Table described about Klingon from Star Trek franchise. Korean Table introduced us to Na'vi language of the blue skinned alien creature from the movie Avatar by James Cameron. Mandarin Chinese Table compared Esperanto with its auxiliary, Novial. Japanese Table humored us with their presentation of the gibberish language of the Minions from the Despicable Me franchise.

Italian Table explained about a language from Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange novel, Nadsat. Spanish Table showed us their bookworm side by presenting Valyrian from A Song of Fire and Ice novels by George R. R. Martin. French Table amused us with their performance of Simlish, a language spoken by the characters in The Sims game franchise. Russian Table told us that while they cannot find any interesting constructed language, they felt that Russian language itself could be seen as constructed language because a learner has to decipher its alphabets first.

Thank you for Ilia Dewi and Arman Yusuf from Indonesia Esperanto Association for the fun and educational collaboration! Special thanks to Hoshino Tea Time and Menara BTPN for the great venue! Hope to see you again on another Polyglot Indonesia Jakarta Chapter's meetup! (For the photo documentation, please check our Facebook fanpage album)