The New Zealand Esperanto Association is a voluntary organisation set up to promote Esperanto in New Zealand. Some of our pages are in English and give information about Esperanto or about NZEA; other pages are in Esperanto, to inform Esperanto speakers about Esperanto in New Zealand. There is also a Site Index. The New Zealand Esperanto Association is affiliated to the United Nations Association of New Zealand (Inc).
La Nov-Zelanda Esperanto-Asocio estas volontula organizo en Nov-Zelando por Esperanto. Informo en la angla lingvo estas por informi nov-zelandanojn pri Esperanto kaj nia Asocio; informo en Esperanto estas por informi esperantistojn pri Esperanto en Nov-Zelando. Estas Indekso de nia retejo.
NZEA has produced a leaflet containing a summary of information about Esperanto and about NZEA. You are welcome to print it out.
NZEA works in conjunction with the Australian Esperanto Association to produce a bi-monthly magazine, Esperanto sub la Suda Kruco (Esperanto under the Southern Cross). NZEA also publishes a newsletter Arĝenta Filiko twice per year.
News:
2010-02-02: The Sundance Film Festival in USA in January 2010
included the premier of the film Utopia in four movements directed by Sam Green. The title of the film
refers to the traditional form of a symphony and to social movements. One of the four movements covered
in the film is the Esperanto movement, which Sam Green observed and filmed in an ELNA congress in USA
and in Universal Congresses in Florence, Yokohama and Rotterdam. The present time is against utopias,
according to Green, but despite that various idealists persist, without losing their ideals, and the
the director's sympathy is with them.
Sam Green is a renowned film maker, whose documentary film The Weather Underground (2003) about the
radical USA movement of the same name in the 60s and 70s was nominated for an Oscar. Many Esperantists
helped Green at various stages of the making of his new work. He received assistance from, among others,
ELNA and ESF. He first contacted the Central Office of UEA towards the end of 2005. During the
International Film Festival in Rotterdam in January 2006, in which one of his films was included,
Green visited the Central Office to explore the Hodler Library and to prepare for the presence of his
team in the Universal Congresses.
The film's website is: utopiainfourmovements.com
(Information supplied by UEA)
2010-01-31: NZEA Congress 2010 took place 26 to 29 January 2010, in Wellington. The Annual General Meeting re-elected the Executive. The president presented the annual report in English and in Esperanto.
2010-01-05: Estas tiu tempo en la jaro por kotizi ĉe Universala Esperanto-Asocio. Jen informilo pri UEA en Facebook. Se vi volas subteni Esperanton, certe membriĝu en UEA.
2010-01-03: The author Girvan McKay has announced: Through the offices of LULU Publishing I have just published my new book “William Auld – Master Poet of Esperanto”, which includes my three translations (English, Scots and Gaelic) of Auld’s magnum opus in Esperanto: “La infana raso”. Hitherto my versions could (and still can be) read on the web pages of the Academy of Esperanto Literature, but now it can be purchased on paper or downloaded from www.lulu.com, searching by clicking on: Books – Title – Author – English – Ireland.
2009-12-29: On 2009-12-15 Google published this statement:
The anniversary of the birth of L. L. Zamenhof is celebrated in today's Google Logo,
which has replaced the "L" in "Google" with a green flag.
Zamenhof, born December 15, 1859, was the creator of Esperanto, a constructed language designed
to be used for international communication.
Gunnar Gällmo reported that
this statement sparked many reactions.
2009-12-13: The Italian Esperanto Federation was founded in 1910. It celebrates its centenary in 2010 with a national cengress with extra activities: Esperanto courses, a course on Italian, seminars, concerts, films, tours etc. For further information see Italian Esperanto Congress.
2009-11-05: "Prof Dr Ivo Lapenna (1909-1987), the centenary of whose birth we are celebrating on 5 November 2009, was undoubtedly the most outstanding of the leaders of the organised Esperanto movement. We often link his Esperanto career specifically with the Universal Esperanto Association, which he developed into its modern institutional form. But his contribution to the movement overflows the boundaries of that institutional identity." For the rest of this article in Esperanto, by Probal Dasgupta, the president if UEA, go to the UEA website. UEA has arranged a special postage stamp to commemorate Ivo Lappenna.
2009-10-20: Esperantists in some parts of the world are actively involved in Sister City interchanges. For example: the region Brittany in France and the Shandong province in China have a "sister city" arrangement. The Breton Esperanto Federation and the Shandong Esperanto Association are involved. All four languages Esperanto, Chinese, French and Breton are used in the charter of the arrangement. Other examples are: Tianjin in China and Lodzo in Polland; Tomakomai in Japan and Qinhuangdao in China; Herzberg am Harz in Germany and Góra in Polland; Tianjin in China and Incheon in Korea. UEA has a working group whose convenor WU Guojiang liaises with Esperanto groups who are involved with Sister Cities (also known as twin cities): Its reports are available at Informilo de Ĝemelaj Urboj.
2009-09-24: UEA sent six delegates to the NGO conference held in Mexico in September 2009. The conference theme was "For Peace and Development: Disarm Now!". About 1300 delegates from 340 NGOs took part. The opening speech was given by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. The UEA delegates distributed information about the position of UEA on language rights and held many discussions with other delegates, volunteers and journalists. See reports at The Executive Committee of Non-Governmental Organizations Associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information and the United Nations.
2009-09-23: La fondaĵo Esperantic Studies Foundation ĉi-jare devis duonigi siajn elspezojn. Sekve grandaj novaj projektoj ĉi-jare ne povis estis akceptitaj por financado, kaj la rimedoj estis direktitaj al subteno de jam ekzistantaj programoj. Vicprezidanto Mark Fettes tamen jam vidas lumon ĉe la fino de la tunelo, raportis Libera Folio en tre interesa artikolo.
2009-09-10, 2009-09-17: Kongreso de la Nov-Zelanda Esperanto-Asocio okazos en la ĉefurbo, Wellington, ekde la 26-a ĝis la 29-a de januaro 2010. Aliĝilo por registri vin nun disponeblas.
2009-09-10, 2009-09-17: A Congress of the New Zealand Esperanto-Association will be held in the capital city, Wellington, from the 26th to the 29th of January 2010. The congress enrolment form is now available.
2009-09-13: Former NewZealander Stefan MacGill (now living in Hungary) has been elected President of the Internacia Ligo de Esperantistaj Instruistoj (International League of Esperanto Teachers). more...
2009-07-30: Artikoloj pri la Universala Kongreso de Esperanto 2009 estas legeblaj ĉi tie.
2009-07-25: Māori Language Week 27 to 31 July 2009. NZ Esperanto Association supports language diversity. Whakanuia Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2009.
2009-07-11: Letero de la prezidanto de UEA, Probal Dasgupta, al la ŝtatestroj de la kvar grandaj landoj Barato, Brazilo, Ĉinio kaj Rusio, instigis viglan debaton en Libera Folio
2009-07-10: Information about the annual Universal Esperanto Congress, in Bialistok, Poland, 25 July - 1 August 2009 is available at the congress web site.
2009-06-28: Amelia Nurse has compiled a series of four short items for Radio New Zealand about "Literary Translation: Art or Echo?" Each one is about 12 minutes long. The last one broadcast in the "Afternoons" programme on 3 July 2009. One can listen to the audio (MP3) files of these documentaries. They are available on the Radio NZ web site.
2009-05-28: Brian Fox has made available his glossary of NZ birds: Komunlingva Nomaro de Nov-Zelandaj Birdoj - Esperanto Names of New Zealand Birds
2009-05-17: UEA lanĉis retan filmĵurnalon. Legu la anoncon ĉe UEA aŭ iru rekte al "YouTube".
2009-04-26: The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution establishing 2009 as the 'International Year of Reconciliation'. The intention of the observance is to recognise the importance of reconciliation processes in nations that have been affected by conflict, or whose society is otherwise divided.
2009-04-01: Pickens writes "Jeff Atwood has an interesting post that begins by noting that with the Internet, whatever country you live in or language you speak, a growing percentage of the accumulated knowledge of the world can and should be available in your native language; but that the rules are different for programmers. 'So much so that I'm going to ask the unthinkable: shouldn't every software developer understand English?' Atwood argues that 'It's nothing more than great hackers collectively realizing that sticking to English for technical discussion makes it easier to get stuff done. It's a meritocracy of code, not language, and nobody (or at least nobody who is sane, anyway) localizes programming languages.' Eric Raymond in his essay 'How to be a Hacker' says that functional English is required for true hackers and notes that 'Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following.' Although it may sound like The Ugly American and be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism, 'advocating the adoption of English as the de-facto standard language of software development is simple pragmatism, the most virtuous of all hacker traits,' writes Atwood. 'If that makes me an ugly American programmer, so be it.'"
2009-01-24: Conference Esperanto, a fair language, one of the main events organised by UNESCO "Within the framework of the International Year of Languages and marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ludwik Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto". To read more about the conference (15 December 2008) go to: the UNESCO portal and click on the green and white flag.
2009-01-22: At the Esperanto Summer School in Sidney (11 to 25 January 2009) the Executive of NZEA presented their annual report in English and in Esperanto.
2008-12-14: Ideas for Change in America is a citizen-driven effort to identify and create momentum around the best ideas for how the Obama Administration and Congress can turn the broad call for "change" across the country into specific policies. One of the proposals put forward is: Introduce Esperanto as a foreign language subject in schools.
2008-12-09: Here is a link to UNESCO's 14 page brochure about the UN International Year of Languages 2008
2008-10-20 Raporto de la Estraro aperis en la 26-a numero de Arĝenta Filiko, ĵus eldonita, kun aliaj artikoloj. Detaloj pri la venonta Somerlernejo en Sidnejo ankaŭ.
2008-09-29: The 26 September each year (since 2001) is European Day of Languages. On that day in 2008, the EU ran a forum on multilingualism at the Sorbonne in France, to discuss action to improve citizens' knowledge of languages. The central theme was the "positive influence of multilingualism on development, growth and sense of community". (See Lingva Folio.) The European Commission on Multilingualism wants "EU Member States and the other EU Institutions to join efforts to encourage and assist citizens in acquiring language skills and removing communication barriers. It proposes an approach which advocates including multilingualism across a whole series of EU policy areas."
2008-09-23: Representatives of the Universal Esperanto Association took part in the Social Forum of the 9th session of the Human Rights Council of the UN in Geneva in September 2008. UEA was invited to present a declaration of its policy on language rights. You can read (in English) The position of the Universal Esperanto Association on linguistic rights.
2008-09-08: The New York Times and other newspapers have reported that, ostensibly for marketing reasons, the USA women’s professional golf tour, which in recent years has been dominated by foreign-born players, has decided that competitors must become fluent in the English language by 2009 or they may be suspensed. While the LPGA claims that this change is in reaction to market needs, others have suggested that has more to do with the fact that no US player has won the top money since 1993. Discussion in Esperanto
2008-06-14: The right of children to learn their mother tongue and continue their education using their mother tongue is not only important for their culture, it is essential for their psychological development. It has been shown in many large-scale studies in several countries that if indigenous and minority children have their education mainly using their own languages as the teaching language for the first 6-8 years (with good teaching of the dominant language as a second language, given by bilingual teachers), their general school achievement is better and they learn the dominant language better than if their teaching is through the medium of the dominant language. This quotation is from the position of the Universal Esperanto Association on linguistic rights.
2008-05-17: "How would you cope if you had to describe complex ideas, convey fine nuances in data interpretation, and express your most creative thoughts in an alien language with a totally different vocabulary and an illogical structure? Not only that, you would have to do this while many of your colleagues and competitors, who also act as the gatekeepers of your subject, are happily working away in their mother tongue." See article Speaking your Mind in The Scientist magazine about language discrimination in science.
2008-05-11: Reta kunlaboro rezultis en 20-lingva filmo pri Esperanto.