Esperanto began as a stab at linguistic utopia. Imagining a world unfettered by communication barriers, Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof invented the grammatically simple language in late-19^th century Poland. He dreamed that it eventually would be adopted worldwide as a universal second tongue. While these ambitious plans never reached fruition, the Boston Phoenix reports that a small, but tight-knit, international community of speakers keep Esperanto alive.

These loyal fans translate books, write songs, and hold annual conferences. They’ve also benefited from a host of web resources, using services like Skype and Facebook to stay connected and practice conversation. It helps that the language has only 16 basic grammar rules; the simple structure makes it easy for budding Esperantists to learn quickly.   

Check out the article to learn more about the language and read comments by some enthusiastic speakers. Wikipedia’s also got an extensive page on Esperanto, with plenty of historical info and good links for further exploration. 

(Thanks, AltWeeklies.)

I’ve been spending far too much time lately on the website Big Think. The site has a mass of videos with smart people ruminating on important questions. Politicos like Ted Kennedy and Dennis Ross mull over questions of education and foreign affairs, while Deepak Chopra and Steven Pinker ponder the meaning of humanity’s existence. It’s is a marvel of modern communication, like a YouTube for smart people.

One of my favorite bloggers, Jason Kottke, considers what this mass of communication means to the people in the video you can see below. 

—Bennett Gordon