Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!amanda@intercon.com From: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Global Cultural Prototype Message-ID: <1497@intercon.com> Date: 16 Oct 89 22:12:29 GMT References: <3366@ccnysci.UUCP> <2145@avsd.UUCP> <18291@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1989Oct13.142526.13122@uncecs.edu> <1489@intercon.com> <2255@randvax.UUCP> Sender: news@intercon.com Reply-To: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation Lines: 76 In article <2255@randvax.UUCP>, urban@randvax.UUCP (Mike Urban) writes: [An excellent article!] > 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. Well, not all of us :-)... point taken, though, mostly (more on this in a minute). > 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. Bingo. Its merits as a language aside, I remain somewhat of the feeling that it is a solution in search of a problem. Not because I think that English, say, will become a universal language, but because language is very tied up with culture. > 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 I don't think that, phrased this simply, this is necessarily true (see? here's your chance to convert a heathen :-)!). For one, I would argue that Esperanto is *not* politically neutral--it is very Indo-European, and more European than Indo [:-)]. I would be surprised if it was as easy to learn for someone from Indonesia or Tibet as it is for someone from Europe or the U.S. Within the northern hemisphere, perhaps, but it still sounds European, and Romance at that. Esperanto feels like linguistic monoculture to me, and I dislike that feeling. Now, I admit that having an extremely good ear for languages probably biases me, but I would *rather* learn the language of the culture I am visiting than a "neutral common ground," even if I would be less fluent in it than I would be in Esperanto. It forces me to see at least a little bit through the eyes of the people I am trying to communicate with, and that is very important to communication, as much as a common language is (cf. the saying [Churchill, maybe?] that "England and America are two countries that are separated by a common language" :-)). Ever-widening communication and a growing sense of global community do not lessen this; on the contrary, they make it more important. > the divergence > of topic from the original question of `must a global telecommunications > community use English?' It depends on what the question means. If it means, "exclusively," I have to say a resounding "No." If it means "as one of a host of different languages," I'd say an equally resounding "yes." English, Chinese, and perhaps Russian will probably be well represented, by virtue of their sheer "installed base" (to borrow a phrase) if nothing else. > [long, nice quote from J.R.R. Tolkien] > 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 I think that this is the best presentation of the case for the use of Esperanto that I have yet seen. I still diagree. I do not think that the world community needs a universal language (or even universal lingua franca) any more than it needs a universal currency, or a universal religion. There are obviously people who disagree with me on all of these points :-), but they all seem to me to be based on an idea of the form, "all we have to do is X, and then that problem will be solved." Over the years, I've learned to distrust claims of that form on any subject (life, language, Usenet... :-)). -- Amanda Walker "Tobacco is the only drug in America that will kill you if it's taken as directed." --Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General