Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!cernvax!ethz!ethz-inf!wyle
From: wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Global Cultural Prototype
Summary: commie plot
Message-ID: <3814@ethz-inf.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 89 08:50:56 GMT
References: <3366@ccnysci.UUCP> <2145@avsd.UUCP> <18291@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1989Oct13.142526.13122@uncecs.edu> <1489@intercon.com> <1989Oct15.142457.9248@uncecs.edu>
Reply-To: wyle@ethz.UUCP (Mitchell Wyle)
Organization: ETH Zurich
Lines: 38

dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes
a couple of articles defending and expounding the virtues of esperanto.

An Hungarian who knows a little Esperonto told me that the early East
European communists wanted Esperonto to be a universal language, to
spread the word, make the world safe for communism, etc.  With commies
as political proponents, it's no wonder the USA doesn't like
Esperonto.

A language professor also offered me the following argument against
Esperonto:  Supposing everyone in the world spoke it, and we could all
communicate with each other in Esperanto.  Now suppose you want to visit
(for example) the Loire castle area of France.  In order to understand
the culture and *REALLY* communicate well with the natives, you will
*STILL* want to speak French with them.  Esperanoto will never
communicate cultural subtleties, especially with common folks.

>Yes, there are now quite a number of native ("denaskaj") Esperantists,

I'll bet there are more people speaking Romansch or !Kung.  Adding yet
another (artificial!) way of isolating people from each other may not
be the correct road to world peace.  When the Esperanto proponents went to
Trotsky for support, he said that the world already had an international
langauge:  Russian.

I personally am very bad at foreign languages;  I don't like learning
them.  However, I am about to learn yet another langauge (Italian) in
order to communicate with more of the people with whom I have daily
contact (our cleaning lady, hotel waiters).  These people do not speak
any of the languages I speak (French, German, English, a couple of
others).  Therefore, I am tasked with learning their langauge.  I do not
do it because I enjoy learning languages, but because I want to
communicate.  I have never seen the need to learn Esperonto.

I speculate that some people like languages, learning them, practicing,
etc.  These people might even be the majority, but I doubt it.

Oh well, 'nuff said.  Cheers,  -Mitch