GARDEN GROVE : All Greek to You? But Not to Esperanticists

La birdoj vidis la insektojn . Or in English, the bird saw the insects.

Welcome to the world of Esperanto, the would-be world language that just can’t seem to get the respect its supporters say it deserves.

It was back in 1887 when Dr. L.L. Zamenhof dreamed up the idea of uniting the world’s people with a single language bearing a resemblance to nearly every European language. It has not caught on.

But there are some hardy followers out there, such as J. Tilman Williams of Garden Grove, who believe that Esperanto’s time has come. Williams is the founder of the Esperanto Society of Orange County.

“The concept of Esperanto is that people could go anywhere and be understood,” said Williams, 64, a city councilman. “I got interested in this back in 1984, when I was chairman of the United Nations Day celebration. A little Vietnamese girl wrote an essay about how wonderful it would be if everyone could understand each other.”

Consisting of root words taken from Latin, Greek, Romance and Germanic languages, Esperanto is considered somewhat simple to learn because each of its 28 letters has just one sound, all nouns end in “o” and there are just 16 rules of grammar, with no exceptions.

Shortly after reading the essay from the Vietnamese girl, Williams joined a Los Angeles chapter. Now he is the language’s main promoter in Orange County, having donated space in his Garden Grove realty-insurance offices for the 15-member group’s “ La Amika Domo “ (Friendship House).

“It’s catching on,” Williams said. “Remember, it has only been a little over 100 years since Dr. Zamenhof introduced it.”

Dr. Alan S. Kaye, a professor of linguistics at Cal State Fullerton and an Esperanticist, said interest in the language is inhibited by political and cultural factors: “Languages are very often closely identified with religions or nationalism. To try to promote Esperanto in an Arab country, for instance, well, you just couldn’t do it.”

Esperanto is “a very, very feasible idea. It’s just not practical. “

Still, Williams’ interest in the language has taken him to England, Warsaw and Beijing.

Being able to communicate with everyone, Williams said, is not just for a former mayor ( urboestro ) or city council member ( membro de registraro ).

“It’s a dream of the people,” he said.