Esperanto community
| Esperantujo | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Linguistic area | |||
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| Etymology: Esperant + ujo (“place of Esperanto”) | |||
| Anthem: "La Espero" |
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 Countries where a national Esperanto Association exists |
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| Population | |||
| • Estimate (1999) | 2 million | ||
| Demonym(s) | Esperantist | ||
| Language | Esperanto | ||
Esperantujo (IPA: [es.pe.ran.ˈtu.jo]) or Esperantio [es.pe.ran.ˈti.o] (meaning "Esperanto-land") is the community of speakers of the constructed international auxiliary language Esperanto and their culture, as well the places and institutions where the language is used, referred to as if it were a country. Although it does not occupy its own area of Earth's surface, it can be said to constitute the 120 countries which have their own national Esperanto Association.
The word is formed analogously to country names. In Esperanto, the names of countries were traditionally formed from the ethnic name of their inhabitants plus the suffix -ujo, for example "France" was Francujo, from franco (a Frenchman).
The term analogous to Francujo would be Esperantistujo (Esperantist-land). However, that would convey the idea of the physical body of people, whereas using the name of the language as the basis of the word gives it the more abstract connotation of a cultural sphere.
Currently, names of nation states are often formed with the suffix -io traditionally reserved for deriving country names from geographic features, so now Francio, and recently the form Esperantio has been used i.a. in the Pasporta Servo and the Esperanto Citizens' Community.
In 1908, Doctor William Molly attempted to create an Esperanto nation in Neutral Moresnet known as "Amikejo" (place of friendship). What became of it is unclear, and Neutral Moresnet was annexed to Belgium in the Treaty of Versailles, 1919.
During the 1960s came a new effort of creating an Esperanto state, which this time was called Republic of Rose Island. The state island stood in Adriatic Sea near Italy.
After World War II, during Esperanto events there was a common currency used, but the management has stopped at the end of the 20th century.
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