Zamenhof Day
Template:Short description Template:Hatnote Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox holiday Template:Esperanto sidebar Zamenhof Day (Template:Langx, Polish: Template:Lang), also called Esperanto Book Day,<ref name="UEA"/> is celebrated on 15 December, the birthday of Esperanto creator L. L. Zamenhof.<ref name="Birth"/> It is the most widely celebrated day in Esperanto culture.<ref>Pri la 145-a Zamenhofa tago at China Radio International</ref> On this day, Esperantists hold information sessions and cultural gatherings to promote literature in Esperanto.<ref name="UEA"/>
The history of celebrating Esperanto on Zamenhof's birthday can be traced back to 17 December 1878, when at a birthday party for his 19th birthday he presented to his friends his Lingwe uniwersala, the first version of his international language.<ref name="Boulton"/><ref name="ExactDateDiscussion"/> By 1887, this language had evolved into what is now recognized as Esperanto when he published the Unua Libro. 15 December previously used to be also known as Esperanto Day,<ref name="EsperantoDay"/> but that is now celebrated on 26 July, the day Unua Libro was published.<ref name="UEAPub"/> As of 1927 onwards, 15 December is celebrated within the Esperanto movement as Esperanto Book Day as it is customary to purchase a new book on Esperanto on that occasion.<ref name="PeoplesWorld"/><ref name="EuropeanStudiesBlog"/>
Zamenhof's 150th birth anniversary
[edit]15 December 2009 marked 150 years since Zamenhof's birth, and there were several events to celebrate. On this date, the authorities in his home town of Białystok, Poland, opened a new Zamenhof Center,<ref name="EsperantoToday"/> and a symposium honoring Zamenhof was held in New York City, featuring talks by Arika Okrent and Humphrey Tonkin among other professors.<ref name="ZamenhofSymposium"/>
Also on this date, the search engine Google, in 33 national language versions (but not the international English one), bore a special version of their logo (a Doodle) emblazoned with the Esperanto flag in honor of the occasion,<ref name="Huliq"/><ref name="LiberaFolioGoogle"/> which generated, between the 30 biggest Wikipedia languages, 1,750,000 page views on the articles "L. L. Zamenhof".<ref name="Marek"/>
See also
[edit]References
[edit]<references> <ref name="UEA">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Birth">Birth certificate of Ludwik Zamenhof Template:Webarchive, dated 15 December 1859, Archives of Poland, Post-Partition Era (19th century). It corresponds to 3 December in the then-official Julian calendar of Russia.</ref>
<ref name="Boulton">Boulton, Marjorie. Zamenhof, Aǔtoro de Esperanto. La Laguna : J. Régulo, 1962. Template:In lang</ref>
<ref name="ExactDateDiscussion">Discussion on the exact date of that birthday party may be found at Message Board Template:Webarchive at Yahoo Groups Japan</ref>
<ref name="EsperantoDay">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="UEAPub">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="EsperantoToday">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="ZamenhofSymposium">Zamenhof Symposium</ref>
<ref name="Huliq">Zamenhof Honored by Google, Huliq.com. Retrieved 15 December 2009.</ref>
<ref name="LiberaFolioGoogle">Google festas la Zamenhof-Tagon, Libera Folio Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 15 December 2009.</ref>
<ref name="Marek">Blahuš, Marek. "Google: Reklami Esperanton... sen esperantistoj" Template:Webarchive, La Ondo de Esperanto, 2010, n-ro 2 (184), p.8.</ref>
<ref name="PeoplesWorld">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="EuropeanStudiesBlog">Template:Cite web</ref>
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