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:
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
2008-07-16: The 7th American Esperanto Congress started on 12 July 2008 in Montreal, Canada. Two hundred participants took part. They came from all parts of North, Central and South America, with a few from other parts of the world. There have been several reports in the media about it: some in English, e.g. for example this one, some in French par exemple. The congress program was varied, with lectures, forums, practical sessions, a course for beginners, meetings of the American Esperanto Commission, a banquet, auction, meetings of Esperanto-USA etc. The evening entertainment included concerts by JoMo from France, performers from Quebec, and Julian from Cuba.
2008-06-18: La Aŭstralia Esperanto-Somerkursaro 2009 okazos en Sidnejo inter la 11a kaj 25a de Januaro ĉe "International House", loĝejo de internaciaj studantoj de la Universitato de Sidnejo en la urbocentro. Por detaloj rigardu je: www.aesk.esperanto.org.au
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.
2008-05-08: A new book called "Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto" by Geoffrey Sutton, is to be published in New York. This reference work charts the evolution of the original literature of Esperanto from its first publication in 1887 to its present worldwide use of all kinds. See details and ordering information.
2008-02-09: Message from Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, 21 February 2008. UEA has produced leaflets (in various languages) in support of International Mother Language Day. UEA grants anyone interested the right to use these pamflets. Here is the English one.