Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!xanth!mcnc!ecsvax.uncecs.edu!dgary
From: dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Global Cultural Prototype
Summary: commie plots, yet
Keywords: Esperanto
Message-ID: <1989Oct17.171307.13744@uncecs.edu>
Date: 17 Oct 89 17:13:07 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> <3814@ethz-inf.UUCP>
Reply-To: dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Organization: Datalytics, Inc.
Lines: 61

In article <3814@ethz-inf.UUCP> wyle@ethz.UUCP (Mitchell Wyle) writes:
>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.

For starters, it's spelled "Esperanto" and the commie plot charge is
more than a bit silly.  Stalin persecuted Esperantists and the language
was for some time outlawed in the USSR.  The Russian Esperanto
Association was allowed to re-affiliate with the rest of the world only
this year.

>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.

That "argument" applies to any language used internationally, including
English, French, Latin, etc.  One major undercurrent in the Esperanto
movement is support for linguistic diversity, which, they contend, is
enhanced if the international language can be learned more rapidly,
saving time for studing others.

>I'll bet there are more people speaking Romansch or !Kung.  

The World Almanac puts the figure at 2 million Esperanto speakers, which
I personally suspect is high.  In any case, the question was whether
Esperanto is a "real" language, not whether it had as many speakers as
English or Chinese - obviously it doesn't.

>Adding yet
>another (artificial!) way of isolating people from each other may not
>be the correct road to world peace.  

I doubt world peace will be affected either way, but I would be curious
to know how a common language, even an imperfect one, is a "way of
isolating people from each other."

>When the Esperanto proponents went to
>Trotsky for support, he said that the world already had an international
>langauge:  Russian.

Irrelevent even if true, but from what I've read of Trotsky I doubt it.
Can you provide a source?

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

I agree.  That's why I favor giving students at least the option of
studying an easily-learned one that they have a chance of acquiring to a
moderate level of fluency.  Our current approach doesn't seem to teach
very many Americans to speak foreign languages, sad to say.

Cheers yourself,
Gary
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
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