Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!randvax!urban
From: urban@randvax.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Global Cultural Prototype
Message-ID: <2255@randvax.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 89 14:56:43 GMT
References: <3366@ccnysci.UUCP> <2145@avsd.UUCP> <18291@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1989Oct13.142526.13122@uncecs.edu> <1489@intercon.com>
Reply-To: urban@rand-unix.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Organization: RAND Corp., Santa Monica, Ca.
Lines: 103

In article <1489@intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes:
>
>The biggest reason that I personally think of Esperanto as artificial is
>a very simple one: it was consciously designed by a group of people.  It
>did not arise out of the needs of a community's need to communicate, and
>thus it lacks many of the characteristics of "natural" language, except
>by importing them.  Idioms and expletives, for example...
>

This matter is starting to diverge from the prime focus of the
newsgroup, and I must plead guilty as well.

Actually, one of Esperanto's advantage is that it was invented by
one person.  Had it been devised by committee, it would have been an
aesthetic mess.  But it *did* arise out of a perceived need for a
world community to communicate, and spread for exactly that reason.
As Americans of the late twentieth century, we cannot truly appreciate
this need; we expect everyone to learn English.
  
What many of the past and present reformers and critics of Esperanto
have overlooked is that the world has not yet been sold on the *idea*
of a lingua franca.  Instead of turning their efforts to getting people
to understand that a politically neutral and easily learned lingua
franca is a Good and Valuable Idea--whether it be Loglan, Lojban,
Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Novial, Glossa, Aui, Neo, or anything
else--they spend their time tinkering or arguing over theoretical
matters of vocabulary and grammar.  Indeed, it is this tendency
to argue over linguistic details that has led to the divergence
of topic from the original question of `must a global telecommunications
community use English?'

>Now, I have nothing against synthetic languages in and of themselves--for
>instance, I think that Tolkien's Elvish languages are marvelous works
>of linguistic art.  I don't find Esperanto quite so "pretty", but that's
>beside the point.  However, I wouldn't try to use either for day-to-day
>communication, however much fun they might be for recreation.
>


Some comments by J.R.R. Tolkien seem to be in order here:

I take an interest, as a philologist, and as every philologist should,
   in the international-language movement, as an important and
   interesting linguistic phenomenon, and am sympathetic to the claims of
   Esperanto in particular.  I am not a practical Esperantist, as it
   seems to me on reflection an adviser should at least in some measure
   be.  I can neither write nor speak the language.  I know it, as a
   philologist would say, in that 25 years ago I learned and have not
   forgotten its grammar and structure, and at one time read a fair
   amount written in it, and, since I am trained to that sort of thing, I
   feel competent to have an opinion concerning its defects and
   excellencies.  That being so, I feel that I could make no useful
   contribution, except as a philologist and critic.  But it is precisely
   my view of the international language situation, that such services,
   however good in theory, are in practice not wanted; in fact, that a
   time has come when the philological theorist is a hindrance and a
   nuisance.  This is indeed the strongest of my motives for supporting
   Esperanto.
   
   Esperanto seems to me beyond doubt, taken all round, superior to all
   present competitors, but its chief claim to support seems to me to
   rest on the fact that it has already the premier place, has won the
   widest measure of practical acceptance, and developed the most
   advanced organisation.  It is in fact in the position of an orthodox
   church facing not only unbelievers but schismatics and heretics -- a
   situation that was foretold by the philologist.  But granted a certain
   necessary degree of simplicity, internationality, and (I would add)
   individuality and euphony -- which Esperanto certainly reaches and
   passes -- it seems to me obvious that much the most important problem
   to be solved by a would-be international language is universal
   propogation.  An inferior instrument that has a chance of achieving
   this is worth a hundred theoretically more perfect.  There is no
   finality in linguistic invention and taste.  Nicety of invention in
   detail is of comparatively little importance, beyond the necessary
   minimum; and theorists and inventors (whose band I should delight to
   join) are simply retarders of the movement, if they are willing to
   sacrifice unanimity to ``improvement''.
   
   Actually it seems to me, too, that technical improvement of the
   machinery, either aiming at greater simplicity and perspicuity of
   structure, or at greater internationality, or what not, tends (to
   judge by recent examples) to destroy the ``humane'' or aesthetic
   aspect of the invented idiom.  This apparently unpractical aspect
   appears to be largely overlooked by theorists; though I imagine it is
   not really unpractical, and will have ultimately great influence on
   the prime matter of universal acceptance.  N__, for instance, is
   ingenious, and easier than Esperanto, but hideous -- ``factory
   product'' is written all over it, or rather,``made of spare parts'' --
   and it has no gleam of the individuality, coherence and beauty, which
   appear in the great natural idioms, and which do appear to a
   considerable degree (probably as high a degree as is possible in an
   artificial idiom) in Esperanto -- a proof of the genius of the
   original author ...
   
   My advice to all who have the time or inclination to concern
   themselves with the international language movement would be: ``Back
   Esperanto loyally.''
   
   
-- 

	Mike Urban
	urban@rand.ORG