Detlev Blanke


Detlev Blanke was a German Esperantist. He was an interlinguistics lecturer at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He was one of Germany's most active Esperanto philologists and was from 1991 to 2016 both the chair of the Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik and the editor of its newsletter, Interlinguistische Informationen. He and his wife, Wera Blanke, were especially interested in the evolution of language, particularly in the development of terminology for the constructed language, Esperanto, and questions of sociolinguistics. Blanke made a study of Eugen Wüster's work toward common international terminology and international standardization.

Academic career

After completing his initial university studies he worked as a teacher of German and geography. He earned a doctorate from Humboldt University of Berlin in 1976 with his dissertation on comparative word construction of Esperanto and German. In 1985 he earned a second doctorate from Humboldt on constructed languages. In 1988 the university appointed him "Honorary Lecturer of Interlinguistics."

Esperanto activities

Having first taught himself Esperanto in 1957, he later became secretary of the Centra Laborrondo de Esperanto-Amikoj, a government-sanctioned affiliate of East Germany's Cultural Association. After 1981 the group became a part of the newly founded German Democratic Republic Esperanto Association. From 1970 to 1990 Prof. Blanke was also editor of the newsletter of those organizations, Der Esperantist. In 1991 the Esperantists of the former East Germany formally affiliated with the German Esperanto Association which had previously operated only in West Germany.

Works of Detlev Blanke

Original works in Esperanto