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The Auld Scots Tongue and Esperanto

Whit is Esperanto, an whit wey suld ony o wiz lairn hit? Esperanto is a planned leid firstlins cleckit bi Dr. L. L. Zamenhof o Warsaw, who lenched hit oan the warld i 1887. Hit haes syne ootgrown hits smaa fore-ends an there is noo scarcelins a lan o yird whaur there are nae spekkers o Esperanto. Zamenhof pit thegither i yin leid aa the best tracks o aa European tongues (an a wheen o tongues ootwith Europe). Hit is mair eithlie lairnt nor ony ither leid, sin hit kythes nane o the orra wimples an hechles at the ither anes hae. Forby, hit haes mony nips at thir leids canna bode: sin hit is nae the tongue o ony kintra, hit disna gie an onfair kinch tae ony yin fowk or lan. Thus-gates, aa fowk can spek an troke wi ilk ither oan a grun o evendoun "equals-aquals".

Dr. Zamenhof thocht up Esperanto acause he wis born in a toun cried Bialystok whilk wis the hame o nae less nor fower unalik races o fowk (Poles, Russians, German an Jews), wha spak fower tongues, yaised fower alphabets an practeesed fower releegions. These fower races mislippened an laithed ilk ither. Aftwhiles the Jewish indwallers haed tae dree fell pogroms. Whan a lad i the heich schule, Zamenhof cam tae trew at the twa muckle causes o ill wull an weir amang men wis odds on langage and releegion. He wisna sae glaikit as taw trew at sic an internaitional leid as his cud redd up aa the kinches an ills o mankin, bit he wis siccar at it cud redd up thir ills whilk sprang frae langage.

Esperanto is offered tae the warld as the tongue o freenship, saucht and eith trokin amang aa fowk.

    G.C.M.