Native Esperanto speakers (in Esperanto denaskuloj) are born into families in which Esperanto (and usually other languages) is spoken. Often one or both parents choose to use Esperanto as the main language in communicating with the children, who thus acquire the language in the way that other children acquire their native languages, so that their first word as an infant may be "Panjo" or "Pa?jo" (the Esperanto equivalents of "Mommy" and "Daddy", and respectively). Usually those children become natively bilingual, trilingual, or even more. It also happens that the parents use Esperanto between themselves, but use another language when speaking with the children. Then the children, who wish to understand what the parents are saying between themselves, learn to at least comprehend spoken Esperanto.
Esperanto is not the mainstream language in any geographic region, outside of temporary gatherings (such as conventions like the World Congress of Esperanto) and isolated offices (such as the World Esperanto Association's central office in Rotterdam). As such, native speakers have limited opportunity to meet one another except where meetings are specially arranged. For this reason, some parents consider it important to regularly bring their children to Esperanto conventions. The annual Children's Congress of Esperanto (Infana Kongreseto) happens alongside the largest Esperanto convention, the World Congress of Esperanto (Universala Kongreso). According to Ethnologue, there are "200–2000 who speak Esperanto as a first language."[1]
The most famous native speaker of Esperanto is businessman George Soros, son of Tivadar Soros a publisher and writer in Esperanto[2]. Also notable is young Holocaust victim Petr Ginz, whose drawing of the planet Earth as viewed from the moon was carried aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. Other famous Esperanto speakers include Daniel Bovet, 1957 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, or the famous "Polgár sisters", the best female chess players: Zsuzsa (Susan), Zsófia (Sofia), and Judit.
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