Zamenhof Day
Template:Short description Template:Hatnote Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox holiday Template:Esperanto sidebar Zamenhof Day (Template:Langx, Polish: Template:Lang), also called Esperanto Book Day,<ref name="UEA"/> is celebrated on 15 December, the birthday of Esperanto creator L. L. Zamenhof.<ref name="Birth"/> It is the most widely celebrated day in Esperanto culture.<ref>Pri la 145-a Zamenhofa tago at China Radio International</ref> On this day, Esperantists hold information sessions and cultural gatherings to promote literature in Esperanto.<ref name="UEA"/>
The history of celebrating Esperanto on Zamenhof's birthday can be traced back to 17 December 1878, when at a birthday party for his 19th birthday he presented to his friends his Lingwe uniwersala, the first version of his international language.<ref name="Boulton"/><ref name="ExactDateDiscussion"/> By 1887, this language had evolved into what is now recognized as Esperanto when he published the Unua Libro. 15 December previously used to be also known as Esperanto Day,<ref name="EsperantoDay"/> but that is now celebrated on 26 July, the day Unua Libro was published.<ref name="UEAPub"/> As of 1927 onwards, 15 December is celebrated within the Esperanto movement as Esperanto Book Day as it is customary to purchase a new book on Esperanto on that occasion.<ref name="PeoplesWorld"/><ref name="EuropeanStudiesBlog"/>
Zamenhof's 150th birth anniversary
15 December 2009 marked 150 years since Zamenhof's birth, and there were several events to celebrate. On this date, the authorities in his home town of Białystok, Poland, opened The Ludwik Zamenhof Centre,<ref name="EsperantoToday"/> and a symposium honoring Zamenhof was held in New York City, featuring talks by Arika Okrent and Humphrey Tonkin among other professors.<ref name="ZamenhofSymposium"/>
Also on this date, the search engine Google, in 33 national language versions (but not the international English one), bore a special version of their logo (a Doodle) emblazoned with the Esperanto flag in honor of the occasion,<ref name="Huliq"/><ref name="LiberaFolioGoogle"/> which generated, between the 30 biggest Wikipedia languages, 1,750,000 page views on the articles "L. L. Zamenhof".<ref name="Marek"/>
See also
References
<references> <ref name="UEA">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Birth">Birth certificate of Ludwik Zamenhof Template:Webarchive, dated 15 December 1859, Archives of Poland, Post-Partition Era (19th century). It corresponds to 3 December in the then-official Julian calendar of Russia.</ref>
<ref name="Boulton">Boulton, Marjorie. Zamenhof, Aǔtoro de Esperanto. La Laguna : J. Régulo, 1962. Template:In lang</ref>
<ref name="ExactDateDiscussion">Discussion on the exact date of that birthday party may be found at Message Board Template:Webarchive at Yahoo Groups Japan</ref>
<ref name="EsperantoDay">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="UEAPub">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="EsperantoToday">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="ZamenhofSymposium">Zamenhof Symposium</ref>
<ref name="Huliq">Zamenhof Honored by Google, Huliq.com. Retrieved 15 December 2009.</ref>
<ref name="LiberaFolioGoogle">Google festas la Zamenhof-Tagon, Libera Folio Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 15 December 2009.</ref>
<ref name="Marek">Blahuš, Marek. "Google: Reklami Esperanton... sen esperantistoj" Template:Webarchive, La Ondo de Esperanto, 2010, n-ro 2 (184), p.8.</ref>
<ref name="PeoplesWorld">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="EuropeanStudiesBlog">Template:Cite web</ref>
</references>