The Esperantic Studies Foundation (ESF) is a foundation which strives to raise awareness on international language problems. According to its website, "The Esperantic Studies Foundation (ESF) was established in 1968 as a vehicle for promoting scholarly research and dialogue on issues concerned with world language problems and policies, including the planned international language Esperanto. ESF works to further the understanding and practice of linguistic justice in a multicultural world, and it aims to develop and support excellence in scholarship, education, and interlingual communication."
One of ESF's educational projects is lernu!, a website hosting several free multilanguage courses designed to teach Esperanto. The site was launched December 21, 2002. The word lernu is Esperanto for "learn", in the jussive mood. ESF also created the Tekstaro de Esperanto, a text corpus, and supports a number of other important projects, such as website for teachers of Esperanto, Edukado.net, North American Summer Esperanto Institute (NASK), a conference series (the Nitobe Symposia) on world language problems that bring together activists, academics and politicians. ESF sponsors a number of other events, including a series of symposia on language and development in New York aimed at raising the awareness of the United Nations about the importance of language equality for human development and human rights. In addition, ESF provides support to academics enabling them to work on various research projects related to ESF's mission, according to the website (esperantic.org).
ESF's current president is Humphrey Tonkin.