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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 480
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WCL 480 September 2004
Financial nightmare
An old friend takes me to task for my advocacy of a neutral language for use in the European Union. However, I can't see the point of having an invented language which no-one has a real interest in, has no historical base, no cultural bas, no poetry or literature etc.
It sometimes surprises me how easily those (like myself at one time) who have never seriously considered the use of a created language can dismiss such an innovation. Without actually using the language and finding that it can and does work very well, it is easier to postulate that it is worthless. Once one has travelled and used Esperanto in four different continents with thousands of fellow-speakers, it becomes much harder to accept the objections.
Perhaps it is only the uninformed who can be really confident of their strength. To examine them seriatim: there are several million speakers of Esperanto, most of whom are indeed very interested in the question, plus a large number of other thoughtful people who, though unwilling to make the effort themselves, fully appreciate the potential value of having a neutral language that can dispel a good deal of the partisanship which occurs in international political debate.
The historical basis of the language, which was created well over a century ago, may be relatively brief, but, believe it or not, ALL languages were once in a similar position! The history of the language is really quite heroic, with its growth from the dedicated labours of millions of convinced adherents. Many, like Tolstoy, taught themselves, in his case as a contribution to international understanding, or like Fenner Brockway in prison when a conscientious objector to conscription in the First World War, as a gesture of defiance.
But the bitter persecution of speakers of the language by Hitler and Stalin in the first half of the last century puts them in the forefront of the struggle against the nationalism and bigotry that is the curse of the human race. Which was to be expected with the aims of the creator, whose daughter died in a Nazi concentration camp.
Esperanto is the heir of the culture, first of the nine languages that originally contributed to its roots and since then of the literature of every country in the world, since translations made of every classic work have provided the base for a global cultural heritage. That is also what all of us in this country inherit from, among others, our Jewish, Norse, French and Saxon invaders and ancestors.
The worth of a culture depends upon the quality of the thought and language and it is irrelevant whether it is inherited from parents and education or from the community around us. But it also is determined by the morality that informs it: the cultural traits of modern American belligerence and pornography strike me as vastly inferior to a culture based upon universal tolerance and understanding, which is what Esperanto was designed to promote.
There has been a wealth of creativity among writers of Esperanto - poetry, novels of all kinds, from comics to crime, from philosophy to history. Only the speakers of the language can fully appreciate that wealth, but it is no wiser to ignore or denigrate it than to decry the culture of Finland or Japan because we do not pronounce a word of their languages. I have enough experience of reading, speaking and communicating in Esperanto to know it has a capacity for expression and flexibility at least as great as any of the other three languages that I understand and use.
My friend's suggested remedies are easier to deal with than to convince him and others of the merits of proposed changes.
In order to simplify the process of translation each country should lock into one of three or four of the most widely used languages (English, Spanish, French and German) so that these become the basis of a simplified structure. Translation between those three or four would form the basis of fundamental documentation and translation. Each country can then have, at most, only one additional translator from one of the four. How about that? Eighty million Turks, likely to join the EU within a decade, would hardly like that. But why should four groups of native speakers be privileged over the other 50% of Europeans? Certainly it would be cheaper and simpler (in some ways) for that half, but why bother to go down that road when so many Germans speak very good English and even many of the French have a fair grasp of the language that they find so hard to speak? Why not bite the bullet and tell them all that it will be in one language from now on? After all, "everyone speaks English now".
The proposal is a dead duck and the current linguistic troubles in the EU show why. Of all aspects of human culture, our language touches us most nearly. At the centre of almost all our activities, we can hardly think without it. Until we become fluent in another language than our mother tongue, we cannot feel fully competent unless we are using it. The majority of people never master another language and they are permanently handicapped or deprived in some measure if they are unable to employ it in everyday affairs. Democratic participation, always difficult to ensure and enlarge, is crippled by the demands of imperial rulers for the privileges of the language of the master-race. And one thing that the EU has stood for from its outset is equality, in contrast to the war years that preceded its founding.
For most people, it requires about six years of higher education to attain a standard of English (or some other foreign language) adequate to give full command and fluency. Only those who have tried and failed to communicate on level terms by using another's language can fully appreciate the necessity for full linguistic equality. For those who have learnt it in the cradle or mastered English the way forward may look obvious; but it ignores, unwisely, a simmering frustration that will upset the anglophone apple-cart if English continues to be used as "the world language" in despite of the billions of people who understand something of it but cannot expect to use it on terms of equality.
John Roberts
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