esperanto_story1-3, Exercise 1: Volapük and Esperanto compared

Model answer (check the details):

1. Founder: Johann Martin Schleyer, a German priest (Volapük, 1879); L. L. Zamenhof, a Warsaw doctor (Esperanto, 1887).
2. Control: Schleyer kept authority over the language and resisted reform; Zamenhof gave up ownership and, at Boulogne, accepted a fixed foundation (Fundamento) that no one person could change.
3. Difficulty: Volapük is often described as harder to learn, with complicated grammar and heavily altered root words; Esperanto's rules are fewer and its roots are closer to the source languages.
4. Timing: Volapük rose first and exhausted much early interest by the 1890s; Esperanto grew in the years that followed.
5. Organisation: both had journals, clubs and congresses; Esperanto's movement built a lasting international association and annual congress.

Which mattered most: many historians stress control and difficulty. A careful answer says that they probably worked together, and that the evidence for any single factor is limited.

Evidence wanted: comparisons of learners' progress, records of the disputes inside the Volapük movement, membership figures from both, and testimony from people who knew both.

Care: do not repeat learner numbers without a source; both movements exaggerated.