Esperanto is an expressive, flexible language used for international communication. Unlike most languages, Esperanto favors no one nationality, ethnicity, religion, or political ideology. It's a shared second language that allows people from different countries to communicate on an equal footing. And it works!

It's relatively easy

Most languages have a lot of irregularities. Students are forced to waste enormous amounts of time memorizing things like verb conjugations, irregular spellings, and the genders of inanimate objects.

With Esperanto, you spend your time learning how to communicate! Esperanto has no irregular verbs, no grammatical genders, and a simple, phonetic spelling system. Students typically gain fluency in a fraction of the time needed to learn other languages.

It opens doors to world culture

For over a century, millions of people have been using this shared “second language” to make friends around the globe. The expressiveness of Esperanto has made it especially popular for literature; tens of thousands of translated and original works have appeared so far, from cultures both large and small.

Few other languages give you access to radio broadcasts from Beijing, poetry from São Paulo, news from Brussels, short stories from Kaliningrad, and rap from Helsinki!

It's practical

Want to see the world on the cheap? Like traveling to foreign cities? Why use tour guides when you can speak directly to the locals—or even stay with them for free? You can do just that with the Pasporta Servo, a free service for Esperanto-speaking tourists in over 90 cities worldwide. (We occasionally get visitors via the Pasporta Servo here in Rochester; if you'd like a chance to meet them, join our mailing list!)

It's fun! (Yes, really!)

Esperanto can be a beautiful language. Its agglutinative morphology and flexible grammar lend themselves especially well to puns, wordplay, and an elegance of expression that can't easily be duplicated in other tongues.

The rich original literature is by itself “worth the price of admission”. The 20th century produced a number of world-class Esperanto authors from around the world. Most notable perhaps is William Auld, the Scottish poet whose epic La infana raso was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

We're an informal group of UR students, alumni, and staff interested in learning and using Esperanto. We welcome people from both UR and the greater Rochester community who are interested in languages, travel, linguistic/cultural diversity and world literature.

Classes

We offer free classes on the UR campus each year. The tuition is free, and all are welcome.

Conversation tables

We hold regular meetings to help beginning and progressing students practice in a casual, supportive atmosphere. Whether you want to chat, play Skrablo, or just drop by to hear what the language sounds like, feel free to join us!

Field trips

Occasionally we'll organize excursions to regional events like the Aŭtuna Renkontiĝo de Esperanto, or (on rare occasions) we'll provide a tour of Rochester to an overseas visitor from the Pasporta Servo.

Subscribe to our mailing list to find out about upcoming events. Send a message to lists at lodestone dot org with the subject line: subscribe ur-eo