Google celebrates L.L. Zamenhof’s birthday today with a Google doodle!

L.L. Zamenhof is the inventor of the Esperanto language.

The word esperanto means “one who hopes” in the language itself. Zamenhof’s goal was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding.

No country has adopted the language officially, but it’s still used widely, and Google offers searching of Esperanto-related Web sites.

Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof was born Dec. 15, 1859, in Poland, and died in 1917.