Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 13, Season XV. Our annual break is coming up and this is our last formal Alphaday. There are only three items on the agenda but two of them concern the final flourish of this season and the planning of the forth-coming season. That should give you plenty to mull over.
Today’s agenda:
- This bulletin from me
- The results and feedback for the Open Page 3rd edition
- A survey of Alphas’ views re. the current season and a call for suggestions for improvements
There’s no special Alpha news. We’ll appoint and applaud this season’s Alpha Laureate when I’ve put the final Alpha Leaderboard together. Then we’ll celebrate our achievements over the season with the usual extravaganza of virtual fireworks and champagne.
There’s nothing to celebrate in the general news – if we accept that for most of us the EU elections have occupied the main place.
I did find one interesting point in the proceedings, though. A linguistic one. I have a friend who’s a keen Esperantist. She goes to Esperanto classes and attends a week-long annual conference somewhere with international participation.
I was on duty at our local voting office this Sunday and looked through the many lists on display for voters to choose from. Amongst them I spotted the ‘Europe Democracy Esperanto’ or the E-D-E. Their aim is to establish Esperanto as the official EU language rather than English. English does not seem appropriate for the EU seeing that England wants to leave whereas Esperanto would do nicely. It represents a “common human culture unencumbered by national frontiers”. In the French EU elections it scored 0.08%, or – to put it differently – it was no. 20 out of 34 lists and that gives some substance.
Esperanto was invented in 1887 and fits into the Indo-European linguistic family. Since then it has attracted a lot of interest and a strong following in 120 different countries. It’s used officially at several universities and international organisations. Esperanto writers have been nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature on three occasions.
It’s a thought, isn’t it?
Bonan tagon al vi!
Christine