Kiistaaraq Imina
Kiistaaraq Imina | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 9 November 1854 Qeqertarsuatsiaat, Northern Veqersianuat, Leinta, Entropan |
| Died | 7 January 1917 (aged 62) Maledonia, Leinta, Entropan |
| Burial place | Maledonia General Cemetery |
| Nationality | Entropan |
| Occupation | Writer Linguist |
| Known for | Esperanto |
| Spouse(s) | Aaju Imina (m. 1877) |
| Children | Akisooq, Alibak, and Ulloriannguaq |
| Writing career | |
| Notable works |
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Kiistaaraq Imina (9 November 1854 – 7 January 1917) was an Entropanian linguist who lived for most of his life in Maledonia, Entropan. He is best known for his creation of Esperanto, the most widely used constructed language, and the most widely used international auxiliary language, which serves as the de facto official language of Entropan, gaining popularity as an auxiliary language between the three main languages of Entropan, them being Uryha, Leintan, and Rockr.
Imina first developed the Esperanto language in 1881, drawing upon his work in academia as a linguist to create a language that, according to his original notes, would produce world peace, through "breaking down linguistic boundaries and igniting a new humanity based on co-operation and harmony". The goals of the language shifted along the years, with later notes dating to 1887, just after the publishing of Unua Libro, stating there being "real opportunity for change within Entropan", changing the goals to "providing for a harmonious and open communication" and that Esperanto would be a "revolutionary" language. Imina's work heavily influenced the Charterist Movement of Entropan, who made Esperanto their official language for "quickened and neutral dialogue" in 1906, a little over a year before the start of the 1907 Entropanian general strike, after which Esperanto use grew among the Entropanian population, becoming the most widely-used language in Entropan by 1935, surpassing Leintan.
As of 2021, an estimated 23 million people in Entropan, and an additional 11 million worldwide, speak Esperanto, making it the most widely spoken constructed language, and most widely spoken international auxiliary language.
Contents
Biography
Early Years
Imina was born on 9 November 1854, the son of Uka and Ulloriaq Imina, in the town of Qeqertarsuatsiaat, Entropan. His father, Uka, was a teacher of physics and Rockr at Qeqertarsuatsiaat College, from whom Imina learnt Rockr and Uryha. Throughout his childhood, Imina also learned languages such as Quebecshirite and Reykani, due to the large diaspora of Quebecshirite and Reykani people within Qeqertarsuatsiaat. In school, he took an "avid interest" in social sciences, including taking courses in economics and international relations, later taking an interest in linguistics, obtaining a Bachelor's Award in linguistics in 1876.
Qeqertarsuatsiaat was a very ethnically diverse town in the late 19th century, with large Quebecshirite, Reykani, and Uryha diaspora populations, as well as small Tirolër populations, in addition to the Leintan majority. This caused significant ethnic conflict, which frustrated Imina, who saw the quarrels as the lack of a "mutual language" for neutral discussion, to prevent the mutual misunderstanding he saw as the problem behind the hate and prejudice within the town. If a language existed to break down the barriers of communication between those of differing linguistic and ethnic backgrounds, Imina postulated, it could bring harmony and help communication and co-operation between ethnically, nationally, and linguistically diverse people, replacing the tension with co-operation, while still keeping intact cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity.
While a student at the University of Maledonia, Imina attempted to create an international language with simple grammar, heavily influenced from Leintan. Later on, he began shifting the grammar to include more elements from Uryha, Rockr, and Quebecshirite. This project, which Imina originally called "La Esperanto" (the one who hopes), was aided by Imina's native language of Leintan, his mastery of Uryha and Rockr, and his good knowledge of Quebecshirite, Ladin, Reykani, Jackian, and Salisfordian.
By 1882, his project of La Esperanto was finished, and for the next 3 years, while working as a teacher at the University of Maledonia, he continued to develop it into a book. Once the book was finished, he raised funds for and continuously allocated a portion of his salary towards publishing Ilisarititsineq aamma Oqaatsinut Nunat Tamalaanut Periaatsit Tunngaviusut (Introduction and Fundamental Basics of the International Language). For Imina, as explained from the blurb of the book, was far from being merely a method of communication, but rather could have much wider implications, such as use in international negotiations, or use in culture where many languages exist within an area, or, as Imina put it, "the promotion of peaceful coexistence of people of different cultures".
Early Career
In 1887, Imina's Esperanto project was picked up by Samo Aagaard, a writer for the Daily Worker, a charterist, who wrote an article titled "Eqqissinermut Oqaatsit?" (A Language for Peace?), wherein he spoke positively of Imina's book, expressing the need for a "neutral platform wherein we can rid ourselves of arbitrary differences and work together toward a common goal". Given the socialist leanings of the Daily Worker, Imina had mixed feelings about the promotion. In notes dated to the 1st of June 1887, 3 days after the publishing, and 1 day after Imina had heard about it, he stated that "I do not believe the Internationalist project to be in need of a partisan lead. The "common goal" of the people does not lie in any ideological venture. That will tear us down."
With the money acquired from sales of his first book, Imina began writing Esperanto-veq Ilisarititsineq (The Introduction to Esperanto), which further developed on what he wrote in the first book in regards to the structure of Esperanto, with a chapter at the end serving as a lengthy explanation of the role that Imina sought Esperanto to play in future. This book, now nicknamed ''Dua Libro'', was published in 1889, consisted of an advanced introduction to Esperanto, its basics, a full dictionary of words translated from Leintan to Esperanto, and a lengthy script in regards to Imina's view of where the Esperanto project would fit politically. The final chapter led to a protractive argument between Imina and Aagard in letters, reifying Imina's distaste towards socialism, charterism, and leftist beliefs in general.
Campaigns within the Charterist League
Imina continued his dissatisfaction towards the draw of socialists to the Esperanto projects for a couple of years, only in the aftermath of the Grassmarket Massacre, wherein a confrontation between private police forces and striking workers of textiles industries led to 31 of the workers being killed, where he began to become more sympathetic toward socialism and the Charterist movement, eventually joining the Charterist League in 1891. In an apologetic letter to Aagard, who he had previously had many disagreements with, Imina expressed his desires to "see a common unity and a drive toward the common good of all", avocating for the use of Esperanto as a tool for the Charterist League to manage conversation between its three regional chapters in Uryha, Leinta, and Rockrsea.
Imina began a campaign within the Charterist League, called "La Esperanto", campaigning for the adoption of Esperanto as a universal language to aid communication between the chapters of the Charterist League. This campaign ended up being successful, with Imina's pamphlet-turned-book La Principa Tasko, published in 1904 after Imina held membership in the Charterist League for 2 years, being received highly among the membership of the Charterist League, the book's contents being about socialism and the argument for Esperanto to be adopted as a "universal language to help focus on the common good of all, without the arbitrary boundaries of region to separate us".
In 1905, 5 months after the publishing of La Principa Tasko, Samo Aagaard authored a motion in the Charterist League's General Committee, proposing the official adoption and promotion of Esperanto among the organisation's members. The motion passed by a vote of 612 for, and 578 against.
The Esperantist Petition and Parliamentary success
Shortly following the 1907 Entropanian general strike, wherein Charterist-affiliated labour unions striked to implement the goals of the 1906 Charter, Imina began a petition to the Entropanian Parliament, for the usage of Esperanto as an official language of Entropan. This petition gathered 50,431 signatures, and was unsuccessful in being presented to Parliament. This didn't deter Imina, who began excessively writing to various Constituency MPs, including the famous incident in August of 1905 where the Post Office of Entropan banned him from writing to the MP for Ittoqqortoormiit Nauja Amundsen, after which he printed out over 1,000 pieces of paper containing the petition, and put them outside Amundsen's home. The growing publicity following this incident, as well as the publishing of the book Fundamento de Esperanto, which had significantly more publicity than his previous works, being promoted in several large Entropanian newspapers, including The Daily, and The Observer. These promotions caught the eye of Social Liberal MP Nuniq Aarstad, who wrote a letter to Imina expressing his admiration for Esperanto and for Imina's work.
At the beginning of the 1906/1907 parliamentary session, Aarstad proposed a Private Member's Bill entitled ''Introduction of a Unified Language to Overcome Linguistic Separation within Entropan'', detailing an extensive education plan wherein Esperanto would be phased into the curriculum and official Government communications. This Bill, in spite of its radical nature, gained considerable cross-party support, mainly from Social Liberal/Social Democratic MPs, but also from a group of 57 backbencher Conservative Party MPs, mainly from the regions of Rockrsea and Uryho, breaking the party's Whip and causing them to be threatened with suspension from the Conservative Party. These MPs expressed that the Bill was correcting what they felt was "centuries of the radical promotion of the Leintan language and culture over the two equal Countries to its West and to its North", noting the fact that the majority of cultural output of Entropan was Leintan-language, and all official Government communications were in Leintan. After the bill spent months being discussed by committee, the bill passed on 3 June 1907. In the following days, Imina wrote an article for The Daily, expressing his "utter bewilderment and ecstatic enthusiasm" at the result. The first public event Imina attended after the bill's passage was the opening of the University of Maledonia's Department of Esperanto, at which he gave a short speech, before being unexpectedly nominated as the first Department Head.
Illness and Death
In 1910, Imina's physical health began to deteriorate. He resigned as head of the University of Maledonia's Department of Esperanto on 27 October, citing "poor health, chronic pain, chronic tiredness". Imina retreated to a small cabin outside of Maledonia with his wife, Aaju Imina, a plan the two had for when their three children, Akisooq, Alibak, and Ulloriannguaq, had become adults and stopped living with them. In this cabin, Imina kept a relatively low public life, the only public-facing life he retained being his becoming of an infrequent columnist for the Daily Worker. According to his wife, he "lived a quiet and inactive life", as his condition, later diagnosed to be rheumatoid arthritis, worsened.
Kiistaaraq Imina died on the 7th of January 1917, after nearly 7 years of worsened illness, at the age of 62, at the Central Maledonian Hospital, in Maledonia. His death was due to a heart attack, likely caused by cardiovascular disease brought on by his rheumatoid arthritis. A large funeral was held in Bieraš Park in the centre of Maledonia, and Imina was buried in the Maledonian General Cemetery.
Bibliography
Original works
- Elementoj de la Esperanto Lingvo, 1886 (Elemental [Parts] of the Esperanto Language)
- Unua Libro, 1887 (First Book)
- Dua Libro, 1889 (Second Book)
- La Esperanto, 1901
- La Principa Tasko, 1904 (The Primary Task)
- Fundamento de Esperanto, 1905 (Fundamentals of Esperanto)
Periodicals
- ''La Esperantisto'', 1888-1909
Poems
- "La Espero" ("The Hope")[note 1]
- "Al la Fratoj" ("To the Brothers")
- "La Vojo" ("The Way")
- "Mia Pensoj" ("My Thoughts")
- "Por Ĉiuj" ("For All")
- "Ho, mia kor" ("Oh, My Heart")
- "De la bono de la popolo" ("Of the good of the people")
Translations
- Relite al Utilitismo, 1890 (Regarding Utilitarianism), by Ahkebeaivi Sárra
- La Socia Respondo, 1892 (The Social Answer), by Ahkebeaivi Sárra
Honours and namesakes
In 1910, Imina received the title of "Hero of Entropan" for his work in creating Esperanto, and in 1981 received the title of "Founder of Entropan", one of only 11 people to receive it.
Thousands of monuments, statues, and plaques have been constructed in Imina's honour, including notable ones outside the Esperanto department of Maledonia University, and the "Non-Violence" sculpture, that of a revolver with its muzzle tied in a knot, that was erected in 1957 outside the Old Parliament in Maledonia, which has a plaque at its base dedicating the memorial to "Imina and the Esperantist Movement".
In Entropan and worldwide, thousands of city streets, parks, and bridges, have been named after Imina. Outside of Entropan, there are namesake places predominately in countries in Ecros, including in Svedonia, Tirol, Quebecshire, and Reykanes.
After the signing of the New Constitution of Entropan in 2022, the Entropanian Parliament, now renamed as the National Council, was established on a street named Imina Street.
His birthday, 9 November, is celebrated annually as Imina Day. Every 9 November, the Esperantist green-starred flag flies above the National Council, and there are festivities across Entropan, with celebrations such as an annual market being set up in the centre of Maledonia and the western end of Rockrsea.
On 9 November 2004, in celebration of Imina's 150th birthday, a one-off week-long state holiday was declared across Entropan.
