You may want to see some videos on my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/thomasmatus

A single upload does not characterize the thematics of the videos — there is more here than UFO lore and speculation — but rather the sense of openness and dialogue of distinct but converging minds that drew me to YouTube in the first place.

It has been more than a month since I made that video about “ET contact”, and during these weeks I have reconnected with a teen-age interest in Esperanto. I have returned to this internacia lingvo (international language) now and then, but something has drawn me to re-elaborate and expand the Esperanta Vortaro (Esperanto dictionary) I found on the web. I could speak about a feeling of connection with the mind of Dr. Ludoviko Zamenhof, who invented the language about 125 years ago as an instrument of communication beyond the distinctions and divisions of linguistic groups, ethnicities, and religious communities. He used the pen name Doktoro Esperanto (Dr. Hoping), which gave a name to the neutral language he proposed and which suggested a kind of prophetic hope, in keeping with the Jewish faith in which he was raised. Zamenhof’s home languages were Yiddish and Polish; he spoke Russian and German with his neighbors, and was also fluent in French and English. Esperanto has a 60% Latin vocabulary, Slavic phonology, and a grammar with similarities to both English and Polish.

My paternal grandparents were Polish Catholics, although grandmother’s stepfather had a Jewish surname (Balón), and among her favorite recipes were gefilte fish and chicken soup with dumplings. As soon as I have made peace with my Esperanto compulsion, I plan to go back to Polish, whose grammar I studied, although I am unable to carry on a conversation in my father’s childhood language.