Esperanto in Japan

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Esperanto in Japan (in Japanese: 日本のエスペラント) dates back to the 19th century.

Esperantists briefly increased in Japan in the 1880s, along with the interest in the planned language Volapük, but most scholars think the Japanese Esperanto movement really started in 1906, during the Russo-Japanese War. Early learners of Esperanto included Japanese novelist Futabatei Shimei and anarchist Ōsugi Sakae. An influential student group known as the Shinjinkai (新人会) hosted debates with fellow Korean and Chinese students in Esperanto, and the Baháʼí Faith mission headed by Vasili Eroshenko and Agnes Baldwin Alexander was influential in spreading Esperanto along with Christian missions. Esperanto chants were shouted during the visit of Indian Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore to Japan. The Japanese esperanto association was founded in 1919. Japan had its second boom in Esperanto from the 1920s to 1940s, with some Esperanto speakers in Japan beginning to publish their own Esperanto material. Esperanto was used by both left-wing and right-wing movements, but the left wing faced a significant decline in the 1930s.^[1]

• Lingvo Internacia: The Esperanto Movement in China and Japan, 1905–1932