Paper short abstract:

Esperanto has no identifiable links to Japanese, and yet it remains popular in Japan. How is it the most famous of putatively international languages can have acquired such a following in Japan? This presentation examines this question with several case studies.

Paper long abstract:

Of all the many putatively international languages, Esperanto has been by far the most successful, still marshalling a loyal following around the world. Its creator Ludwig Zamenhof (1859-1917) had grander aspirations, but his language survives to this day, in the year of the centenary of his death. Zamenhof knew many languages—he was a native speaker of four (Russian, Polish, German, and Yiddish) and acquired many more through study—all of which presumably played a role in creating Esperanto. But, one of the most striking things for an East Asian scholar is the all but total absence of any Asian element in this man-made language. Nonetheless, Esperanto has had an extraordinary following among Chinese and Japanese over the past century or more. What accounts for this among Japanese? My paper will look into this issue, both linguistically and culturally, and will then address the individual case of one of Japan's most famous Sinologists, Shimada Kenji (1917-2000), who also wrote on Japanese intellectuals and was, incidentally, born in that same year (1917) when Zamenhof died. Long before Shimada turned his attention to China studies or knew a word of spoken Chinese, he was a devoted Esperantist, and while a middle- and high-school student in China, he established long-lasting friendships with Chinese from various walks of life. Later, though, he abandoned Esperanto for reasons that remain murky and require some thought. Esperanto remains inordinately popular in Japan.