Release date is 2025-06-11

Andrew Sly, Mairi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images made available by The Austrian National Library)

"Por kaj kontraŭ Esperanto : Dialogo by Henri Vallienne" is a polemical dialogue written in the early 20th century. It presents a reasoned debate about an international auxiliary language, weighing objections and defenses of Esperanto. Framed as a conversational essay, it explores language, culture, and practicality, arguing that a neutral, easy, and regular tongue can aid science, commerce, travel, and understanding without replacing national languages. The book stages a lively exchange between Henriko, an ardent Esperantist, and Aleksandro, a skeptic who drops in after a train mishap. Henriko counters claims that an invented language is unnatural or unworkable, insisting Esperanto stays stable because it functions as a written, foreign medium among educated users, not as a replacement for native speech. He dismisses Latin as too hard and ill-suited to modern needs, demonstrating its inadequacy with a forced translation of railway terms, and contrasts Esperanto’s fixed pronunciation, simple grammar, and international roots. He cites congresses where speakers of many nations converse fluently, shows its utility for business and travel, and praises its power to open scientific literature and mirror the style of classics through supple translation (even when reciting Virgil). Henriko also touts its pedagogic clarity and envisions it as a modern heir to Latin—an instrument of peace and cooperation—before Aleksandro departs for his train, only half-convinced but intrigued. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Paris: Presa Esperantista Societo, 1906