As we prepare to officially launch Leganto – our new Resource Lists system – in the next few weeks, we thought we would let you know a bit about the meaning of the term Leganto itself.

The word will probably sound familiar to those with a background in Latin, but in fact Leganto
comes from the verb legi (meaning to read), in the constructed language of Esperanto.

Esperanto dates all the way back to 1887 and was first promoted by L. L. Zamenhof. It is nowadays spoken by up to two million people (source: esperanto.net), with roughly 2,000 native speakers, making it the most widely spoken constructed language (or conlang) in the world.

Other famous conlangs in popular culture include Klingon and J.R.R. Tolkien’s elvish languages of Quenya and Sindarin.

Zamenhof published the first book in his constructed language under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto (which translates as “one who hopes”).

So, exactly along the same lines, the meaning of Leganto is “one who reads”, a Reader.

Now that you know the origin of its name, over the next few weeks there will be a chance to read all about Leganto and its range of features in our regular blog posts.

In the meantime, if you would like to find out more about invented languages there is a variety of sources on DiscoverEd.

Iraklis Pantopoulos

Course Collections Assistant

Library Learning Services