Jules Verne Forum

<jvf@Gilead.org.il>

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec 19961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009

Verne, Esperanto and Venezuela

From: Victor F Sirvent E <vsirvent~at~ldc.usb.ve>
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:09:31 -0400
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Dear Garmt,

The word "esperante" is not used in Spanish. It is not correct Spanish
to say "Padre Esperante".

It is known how Verne played with the named of his characters.
I conjecture in my article that the name of the character "Le P`ere
Esperante" in "Le Superbe Or'enoque" refers to the language Esperanto.
Since Verne has shown previously interest in the artificial
(constructed) languages.
He mentioned Volapuk (Volap"uk) in "Sans dessus dessous" (1889) and
"Claudius Bombarnac" (1893). And the famous sentence "Nautron respoc
lerni virch" of Nemo's artificial language (in 20K (1874)).
It is known Verne was interested in Esperanto some years after
publishing "The Mighty Orinoco". In 1903 was founded the Amiens
Esperanto Club, and he was
its honorary president. Later he started to write the novel
"Esplorvojagxo" (Voyage d'exploration), where the language Esperanto
plays an important role in its plot. However he never finished this
novel. He only wrote four chapters and started the fifth.

So it is very likely that by 1897, or 1898 when "The Mighty Orinoco"
was published, he knew about Esperanto.

I would like to add that in the language Esperanto, the word
"esperanto" means "one who has hope". The language was named like that
since Zamenhof used the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto" when he
introduced the language.

My article was written for esparantists during the centenary of Verne's
death, I plan to translate it in English soon and post it in my web
page.

Victor Sirvent
http://www.ma.usb.ve/~vsirvent/

Citando a Garmt de Vries <G.deVries~at~phys.uu.nl>:

> Hello Victor,
>
>> I mentioned briefly this film in my article "Jules Verne,
>> constructed languages and Venezuela"
>> (http://www.ma.usb.ve/~vsirvent/esp/verne.pdf).
>
> A nice article, but I'm not so sure that the name of Pere Esperante
> refers to the language Esperanto. Wouldn't it be more probable that
> "Esperante" is simply the present participle of "esperar", so his
> name would be "the Hoping Father"? I'm not sure if that is correct
> Spanish, since the present participle isn't really used anymore, but
> Verne himself wasn't fluent in Spanish either.
>
> Cheers,
> Garmt.
>
Received on Mon 07 Aug 2006 - 19:09:41 IDT

JV.Gilead.org.il
Copyright © Zvi Har’El
$Date: 2009/02/01 22:36:11 $$