esperanto_story1-2, Exercise 3: A 150-word account

Model answer (about 150 words, check the details):

Esperanto was published in 1887 in Warsaw by Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, an eye doctor born in Białystok in 1859. That much is documented: the Unua Libro exists, with its sixteen rules and a small vocabulary. Zamenhof himself later said that growing up in a town where Poles, Russians, Germans and Jews spoke different languages made him want a neutral second language. That is his account, written years afterwards, and it fits the known facts about Białystok, although it cannot be tested directly. Many biographies add that his father burned his early notebooks and that he rebuilt the language from memory; this is a widely repeated story whose original source I have not seen. He also gave up ownership of the language, which helped it spread. Later writers have sometimes said he meant it to replace national languages; his own words describe a second language.

Care: use phrases such as "documented", "Zamenhof said", "is often told" so the reader can see which is which.