As some of you may be aware, in
Thousand Suns, I sometimes use words and phrases from the constructed language of Esperanto as stand-ins for the futuristic universal human language of Lingua Terra (a name cribbed from H. Beam Piper). This not only felt "right," since a lot of Golden Age SF uses Esperanto in a similar fashion, but was fun, too, since I've had a strange fascination with Esperanto since I was a teenager.
Anyway, I recently came across references to a translation of Burroughs's
A Princess of Mars into Esperanto, the cover for which I've reproduced below. I'd love to find a copy of it somewhere, though I wouldn't actually be able to read it, since, despite my interest in the language, I'm far from being fluent in it. Still, I thought it was kind of cool.
You can download a pdf of it via the following link.
ReplyDeletecindymckee.com/librejo/Burroughs,EdgarRice-PrincinodeMarso.pdf
Sweet, I've been trying to teach myself Esperanto for the last year and a half, now I have an excuse to push the issue.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the horror film Incubus (1966) starring William Shatner and spoken entirely in Esperanto? Strangely good and filmed just before Star Trek started; it could almost be an episode where Kirk is lost on some strange planet...
ReplyDeleteHarry Harrison's "lingua galactica" was Esperanto. Although generally only the more cosmopolitan and seasoned travellers spoke it. many worlds retained their own language groups.
ReplyDeleteAs a dabbling but inept Esperantist, I'll have to take a look at this. Though I won't be able to read it either.
ReplyDelete@Zenopus Archives:
ReplyDeleteDidn't Roddenberry originally planned on filming the entire first Star Trek series in Esperanto?
Personally, I don't quite get the point about Esperanto (sure, it's easy to learn - if you speak a European language). But it definitely beats using Asian characters for your futuristic alphabet XD