esperanto_story1-2, Exercise 2: Białystok and Edinburgh compared

Model answer (check the details):

Languages: Białystok in the 1860s had Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish and Belarusian speakers living in the same town. Nineteenth-century Edinburgh was mostly English- and Scots-speaking, with Gaelic speakers in the Highlands and among incomers.

Power: in Białystok the imperial state spoke Russian, and Polish and Jewish communities were under restrictions. In Scotland the language of government, law and schooling was English, within a union that gave Scotland its own church, law and education.

What a language project could offer: in Białystok, a neutral language belonging to no group, which could be learnt by everyone as a second tongue. In Scotland the language question was more about the survival of Gaelic and Scots than about a bridge between neighbours, so a neutral language was less obviously what people needed.

Another difference: Zamenhof's town was a place where people lived next to speakers they could not understand; most Edinburgh residents could manage in English.

Care: this is a comparison of conditions, not a claim that one place was better. Say what is known and what is estimated.