The 89th International Esperanto Conference will be held in Beijing from July 24 to 31. It is the first time China has hosted the conference since 1986.

Esperanto is an artificial language designed for maximum ease and efficiency. It is written with 28 Latin letters, each with only one pronunciation. All Esperanto words are pronounced with the stress on the second to last syllable. There are just sixteen basic grammatical rules, making Esperanto an easy language to learn. Anyone who knows the letters and how to combine the sounds into syllables can easily pronounce and spell any word.

Most of the roots of Esperanto words come from Indo-European languages. The majority come from the Latin family of languages, and the rest from Germanic and Slavic languages.

Esperanto is not intended to reject or replace any languages, but merely to provide a supplementary tool for international contact. Advocates of the language say that it meets the demand for linguistic equality and social unity.

Esperanto was created by Polish doctor L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 and named after his pseudonym, "Doktoro Esperanto." The Chinese version of the name, "Shijieyu" in Pinyin, was borrowed from a Japanese free translation.

The language has tens of millions of speakers spread out over 120 countries. It is used in fields such as politics, economy, culture and education, technology, publishing, transportation, mail, travel and the Internet.