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Case file

L. L. Zamenhof

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “ophthalmologist who lived for most of his life in warsaw”. Today it says “creator of esperanto”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Inventor of the international language Esperanto in the 19th century”. It now reads “Creator of Esperanto (1859–1917)”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
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The opening as it read in 2005

Ludovic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer) Zamenhof ( December 15 , 1859 – April 14 , 1917 ) was a Russian-Jewish ophthalmologist , philologist , and Zionist, and the initiator of Esperanto , the most widely spoken planned language to date. His native languages were Russian and Yiddish , but he also spoke Polish and German fluently. Later he learned French , Latin , Greek , Hebrew and English , and he also had an interest in Italian , Spanish and Lithuanian . Zamenhof Zamenhof was born on December 15 , 1859 in the town of Białystok , in the part of Poland which was then a part of the Russian Empire, and the town's population was made up of three major ethnic groups: Poles, Belorusians, and a large group of Yiddish -speaking Jews. Zamenhof was saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels between these groups. He supposed that the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in mutual misunderstanding, caused by the lack of one common language that would play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. As a student at secondary school in Warsaw , Zamenhof made attempts to create some kind of international language with a grammar that was very rich, but also very complex. When he studied English (along with German, French, Latin and Greek), he decided that the international language must have a relatively simple grammar with a wide use of suffixes to make new forms of the words. By 1878 , his project Lingwe uniwersala was almost finished. However Zamenhof was too young then to publish his work. Soon after graduation from school he began to study medicine , first in Moscow , and later in Warsaw. In 1885 , Zamenhof graduated from a university and began his practice as an ophthalmologist. While healing people he continued to work on his project of the international language. In 1887 , the book titled as "Lingvo internacia. Foreword And Complete Textbook) was published under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto" (Doctor Hopeful), from which the name of the language derives. Among the many works he translated into Esperanto is the Old Testament . Zamenhof and his wife Klara raised three children: a son, Adam, and two daughters, Sofia and Lidia. Lidia Zamenhof in particular took a keen interest in Esperanto, and as an adult became a teacher of the language, traveling through Europe and to America to teach classes in it. Through her friendship with Martha Root , Lidia converted to the [[Bah%E1%27%ED_Faith|Bahá'í Faith]]. All three of Zamenhof's children perished in the Holocaust . He is considered a god by the Oomoto religion. Zamenhof died in Warsaw on April 14 , 1917 .1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17889564.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “ophthalmologist who lived for most of his life in warsaw”. Today it says “creator of esperanto”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Inventor of the international language Esperanto in the 19th century”. It now reads “Creator of Esperanto (1859–1917)”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
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Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since October 7, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

ophthalmologist who lived for most of his life in warsaw

Now

creator of esperanto

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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