[originaltext] Esperanto was invented as an international language one hundr

Esperanto was invented as an international language one hundred years ago by a doctor in Poland. His name was Ludovic Zamenhof. Doctor Zamenhof grew up in a part of Poland where people spoke several different languages. He believed the different languages kept people from understanding each other and living peacefully together. He wished that everyone in his part of Poland spoke the same language. In fact, he believed that if everyone spoke a common language, peace could result throughout the world. That is why he gave the world a new language. He called it "Esperanto", which means, in his language "one who hopes."
    Doctor Zamenhof tried to make Esperanto so easy that anyone could learn it in one-hundred hours. It is easy to learn because it has only sixteen grammatical rules. Doctor Zamenhof’s alphabet is also simple. Each letter has only one sound.
    No one knows exactly how many people in the world speak Esperanto. Experts say the number could be as many as fifteen million. For most of the world’s people, however, English, not Esperanto, is the second language. But Esperantists continue to spread the world about their language. They hope that Esperanto someday will become the international language for trade, science, and diplomacy.