Unua Libro

Unua Libro
Dr. Esperanto's International Language
(1889 Geoghegan translation)
AuthorL. L. Zamenhof
Audio read byNicholas James Bridgewater (LibriVox)
Original titleМеждународный языкъ
TranslatorJulian Steinhaus (1888)
Richard Geoghegan (1889)
Henry Phillips Jr. (1889)
LanguageRussian, Esperanto
SubjectEsperanto, international auxiliary language
PublishedWarsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire
PublisherChaim Kelter
Publication date
July 26 [O.S. July 14] 1887
Pages42
Followed byDua Libro 
Original text
Международный языкъ at Russian Wikisource
TranslationUnua Libro at Wikisource

Dr. Esperanto's International Language[n 1] (Russian: Международный язык), commonly referred to as Unua Libro (First Book), is an 1887 book by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof, in which he first introduced and described the constructed language Esperanto.[1] First published in Russian on July 26 [O.S. July 14] 1887, the publication of Unua Libro marks the formal beginning of the Esperanto movement.[1]

Writing under the pseudonym "Dr. Esperanto", Zamenhof originally referred to the language as the international language; the use of Esperanto did not arise until 1889 when people began to use his pseudonym as the name of the language itself. Zamenhof reproduced a significant portion of the content of Unua Libro in the 1905 Fundamento de Esperanto, which he established as the sole obligatory authority over Esperanto in the Declaration of Boulogne, ratified by the first World Esperanto Congress later that year.[2]


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  1. ^ a b "1887: Unua Libro en Esperanto (First Book in Esperanto)". NationalGeographic.org. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved October 19, 2017.
  2. ^ Kerziouk, Olga. "La Unua Libro". Blogs.BL.UK. Retrieved November 16, 2017.