Esperanto is a made-up, or artificial, language devised by a Polish doctor named Ludovic L. Zamenhof about 100 years ago to serve as a common language between people who speak different native languages.
Its words are based on common words in European languages, and it is fairly easy to learn because its grammar rules are simple and its words are spelled the way they are pronounced.
No one knows for sure how many people use Esperanto, estimates range from 100,000 to 2 million people.
Most live in central and eastern Europe and in eastern Asia.
The word esperanto means “one who hopes” in the language itself, and the language has about has about one thousand native speakers.
