Theme : Esperanto 08

When talking about Esperanto, we're talking about a language.

Call it 'constructed' or 'artificial', speaking Esperanto, doesn't give me the feeling there's much artificial about it. It's a tool to make people understand eachother in a world with so many languages.

According the Bible (First or Old Testament) in the beginning there was only one language. (which wasn't Esperanto I suppose).
But menkind became presumptuous, and tempted God by building an enormous tower according to the Book of Genesis,  in the plain of Shinar. Pretending that speaking in one language, one voice, would make them invincible.

"And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, and they left off building the city, which was called Babel "because God there confounded the language of all the Earth."(Genesis 11:5-8)"

Also in the Qur'an there is a story with similarities to the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, though set in the Egypt of Moses. In Suras 28:38 and 40:36-37, Pharaoh asks Haman to build him a stone, or clay tower so that he can mount up to heaven and confront the God of Moses.

This image inspired Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the flemish renaissance painter in 1563 to make a painting of the so called 'tower of Babel'.

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563).

The painting of Breugel, was in 1982 the idea for a stamp dedicated to the theme of Esperanto.
As the tower symolises the confusion of tongues, and Esperanto offers a solution for this confusion, the tower of Babel appears in this belgian stamp, having a green star (the symbol of Esperanto) on top of the tower as a comet flying into the scenery.

Belgium - Esperanto 1982

A very nice stamp, and a very nice tribute to Dr. Zamenhof.