Native Esperanto speaker | Stela speaking the Esperanto language | Wikitongues

Stela is one of a few thousand native speakers of Esperanto, a constructed international auxiliary language, or auxlang, created by L.L. Zamenhoff in 1887. There over a million Esperantists worldwide. Esperanto was a precursor to Ido, another auxlang.

This video of Stela Besenyei-Merger was self-recorded remotely due to COVID-19 and contributed by Gian Pablo Antonetti; she was in Budapest, Hungary, and he was near Scranton, Pennsylvania. Esperanto is a constructed international auxiliary language (auxlang), which is a variety of constructed languages (conlangs) that are intended for use in international communication. Esperanto was created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, and has since spread around the world as an option for communication with people who choose to learn the language – people who do so are known as Esperantists. Estimates range greatly due to the fact that anyone can start to learn the language and pick it up or put it down without consequence, but there is anywhere from 60,000 to 2,000,000 people who speak the language worldwide.

Help us caption & translate this video!

[abby]

It just sounds like another romance language. As a French native speaker it sounds like a mix between Italian and Spanish.

[stelabesenyei-merger]

I never speak this slowly, ever. :-) I am happy to see that many of you understand what I am saying. Enjoy!

[chiaracorrado]

My father is also a Esperanto native speaker, but he didn't speak to me in Esperanto since I was born... I'm trying to learn it now, and since I want to learn it we've decided that one day per week he will speak only Esperanto... I hope I'll be able to learn :)

[affable]

As a Spanish speaker, it was amazing how much of this I could understand!

[desanipt]

I'm Portuguese, I never studied Esperanto whatsoever, and I could understand much of what she said, I'm amazed.

[jayolovitt]

I have never heard Esperanto spoken fluently. It’s actually beautiful.

[cemreomerayna]

I just started to look at Duolingo's Esperanto course and scratched some grammar in Wikipedia after this video. Now after a short period of basics, I can easily follow her speech. It is a really exciting, and truly satisfying, experience.

[deepautumn]

I'm an Italian native speaker, and I've learnt some other languages including Spanish. I understood almost 95% of it... Esperanto's Latin roots are definitely visible!

[joaoweimar]

Really impressive. Couldn’t never imagined native Esperanto speakers existed.

[lauraellen]

I have never heard this language spoken but feel like I heard words in German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Quite an interesting language!

[AngeliGarEs]

OMG. I started learning the language with Duolingo and Lernu like a month and a half ago and I already understood 90% of what this person said without needing subtitles! Amazing!

[brbosen]

For anyone considering studying this language - I spent about 2 months in 2017 studying Esperanto, and have not studied it much since. Yet, watching this video, I was able to understand about 80% of what she said without having to try too hard. So, don't be intimidated to study Esperanto! You got this!

[SiboWoW]

Her accent is beautiful! What i love the most about native esperanto speakers is that they speak Esperanto as L1, but with the accent derived by the local native language., and the hungarian accent is so gentle :D

[elisatrentin]

I’m italian, but i also speak english, german, spanish, french and understand portuguese and dutch. i find it amazing how i could understand most of what they were saying without having ever studied any esperanto. it’s truly wonderful how languages connect and interlace.

[gumerboveda]

El esperanto es una lengua estéticamente hermosa y con una gramática lógica y sencilla. En pocos meses se puede tener nivel suficiente para tener conversaciones

[MrBkbnk]

Its insane that this woman is a native speaker of conlang! She's so cool!

[yassi]

My aunt is an Esperantist. She is gonna love this

[emmacajal]

Before maybe three months ago, I saved this video in my "watch later" and after three months studying Esperanto finally I can understand all stuff that she's speaking. I'm so happy

[romanr.]

I'm always amazed at the thought of native speakers of constructed languages, because to me it signals a LOT of dedication on their parents' end. I'm guessing her parents were both language nerds (not a bad thing at all!) who learned Esperanto (probably met _because_ they were both learning Esperanto), got married, and then when they had a child, spoke Esperanto around her to ensure she would speak it natively. That is quite a lot of commitment, I must say.

[non.newtonianfluid]

This sounds like a combination of Slavic and Romance languages. I feel like I hear Slovenian, Italian, Spanish, Polish combined!