Esperanto on the Radio: Broadcasting Infrastructure and the Politics of Universal Speech in the Japanese Empire

This article explores the interface between Esperanto and the radio in the Japanese Empire. Viewing radio as more than simply a mode of conveyance, it examines the tensions that emerged when a universalizing language met a universalizing medium. The following sections explore how new communication infrastructure enabled Esperantists’ claims to political salience. Radio in the Japanese empire helped articulate powerful forecasts of political solidarity, liberated from the restraints of space or state. However, Esperanto on the radio also appeared in ways that deepened the borders of colonial relations and linguistic hierarchies. The article first discusses the history of radio infrastructure in the Japanese Empire and its role in shaping linguistic topography of the 1920s and 1930s. It then turns to a case study of the 1928 “Esperanto Evening” broadcast from colonial Taiwan by Japanese Esperantists. As one of the few surviving examples of when universalizing language and media met, the transcript of this broadcast reveals the limits of Esperanto’s emancipatory reach.