Esperanto is a language introduced in 1887 by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof after years of development. He proposed Esperanto as a second language that would allow people who speak different native languages to communicate, yet at the same time retain their own languages and cultural identities. Esperanto doesn't replace anyone's language but simply serves as a common second language. Esperanto can be learned in much less time than any other language. (Some say that it is four times easier). Esperanto is politically unbiased.
Although there aren't a lot of people who speak Esperanto in any one place, there are some almost everywhere. There are over a hundred periodicals regularly published in Esperanto. There are thousands of books in Esperanto, both translated and original works. There are millions of webpages.
People who speak Esperanto are internationally minded, concerned about social justice and peace, and are helping to preserve linguistic diversity. Meetings and conventions in
.
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The abandonment of the
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Communication by speech was a ‘divine’ gift to mankind alone. The ancients knew well the irony implicit in divine gifts. It is the theme of much classic Greek drama, where the audience knows what the hero and his fellows in the play do not know--that the divine gift, whatever it happens to be in the particular play, brings with it the seed and the moment of destruction. We are accustomed to say that science knows no boundaries and no lesser allegiances than knowledge and the search for truth. But of course we should know, from reading sociologists from Marx to Merton, that the notion of science unbounded is mostly utopian foolishness. Perhaps science ideally should know no boundaries, no restrictions, but in fact it knows many. National aspiration, cultural milieu, social philosophy, economic power, political wrangling, and language are but a few.
Language may be a divine gift, but the diversity of language must surely be the tragic irony implicit in this particular divine gift. Is it overly simplistic or even stupid to suggest --like the author of Genesis-- that we would be better off as human beings, and as scientists, if we did “understand one another’s speech, ” if we could more nearly approach one another’s thought ?
Linguistic diversity is the tip of a great mental iceberg. We have been blessed and cursed not only to speak differently but to think differently because of it. Is there any doubt that thought not only shapes speech but, as Whorf suggested that language shapes thought? What is easily expressed in one language may be beyond conceptualization in another. Whether this applies to molecular biology or any other branch of modern science is easily enough appreciated if one were to imagine an attempt to translate The Double Helix into Eskimo.
I don’t believe that English is the language most suited to science because it is the best language. It is simply the language that scientists as a whole now best understand. We must goon from that fact. English is by no means a simple language. It does not have that to recommend it. Even though it can claim the grandeur of Shakespeare and the glory of the King James Bible, it also carries the stigma of having been the oral and administrative instrument of unparalleled colonial exploitation. It may not be as lucid as French, as vigorous as German, as musical as Italian, as subtle as Russian, or as tender as Spanish. I am told it is not as deceptively concrete as Chinese, nor as heart-easing as Gaelic, but it is the language now best understood by scientists. The overwhelming superiority and recommendation of its being best understood should not be underestimated. The government of
The chauvinists of particular languages would perhaps prefer French because it was the language of
The urge to be once again’ ‘of one language and one speech,” in and outside of science, should not be dismissed as anti-cultural. It is a powerful urge that expresses itself in many forms, such as our delight in a “silent” movie by Charlie Chaplin, or the universal embracement of the modern television broadcast. The urge has also been powerful enough to spawn numerous “artificial” languages like Volapuk, Esperanto, lnterlingua, Novial, etc. In retrospect, it may seem remarkable that people of so many nations grasped so eagerly at the ‘linguistic’ monstrosities frankensteined by idealist inventors.
Looking today, for example, at a page of Volapuk, a once popular and now ‘dead’ artificial language, one finds it hard to believe that anyone could ever have taken such a WorldSpeak (the name Volapiik meant that) seriously. But in the l9th century a great many people did. On the other hand, artificial languages have not been solely the product of amateur utopians or entrepreneurial egotists, as was often the case. Distinguished linguistic scientists like Otto Jespersen tried their hand at it as well. Some rate Jespersen’s Novial the best of the lot. The time may come when English will be universally understood. I join with Professor Steiner (1) in expressing the hope that the universality of English will be accompanied by an increasing bilingualism or trilingualism. A world of bilingual nations will be better off for its ability to share the benefits of different linguistic cultures, as well as those of technology.
(1) Steiner, G. What is an educated man now? (JZOmion) ZYmes Higher Education Supplement 11 October, 1974, p. 13
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>>> The essay appeared on garfield.library.upenn.edu
