Esperanto: Hearings Before The Committee On Education Part 3

The hour or hour and a half spent weekly on this subject would be amply repaid by the increased intelligence and linguistic feeling of the pupils, and ultimately the subject could be taught with great benefit to the whole school, doing away with the necessity of ineffectual attempts at teaching foreign languages to all and sundry, regardless of taste and capacity.

(6) Perhaps a few remarks may be in place here to substantiate still more clearly the postulate that Esperanto fulfills absolutely the ideal requirement of a language that means to be introduced throughout the world as a secondary or auxiliary language: Facility of acquirement to all nations.

(a) There is not one difficult sound, such as our th, our obscure vowels, the French nasals, the German a, o, u, etc. The vowels are a, e, i, o, and u. Each has but one sound value, and that long and full, approximately as in the phrase: "Pa may we go, too?"

(b) The tonic accent, an insuperable difficulty in English, on account of its irregularity and elusiveness, is in Esperanto invariably on the last vowel but one.

(c) The grammar is reduced to a minimum, the whole mechanism of Esperanto being compa.s.sed within 16 rules which any one can grasp and a.s.similate inside one hour.

(d) The vocabulary is extremely small, less than 1,000 roots, mostly common to every Aryan tongue, being sufficient for all ordinary purposes of language.

This is due to the marvelously ingenious system of word building, which enables anyone to derive from a dozen to one hundred and more words from every root, there being to this derivation no limit but that of common sense.

Of course, the vocabulary for science and technology is considerably larger, but equally flexible.

(e) There are no troublesome genders; s.e.x is expressed by the insertion of "in" before the "o" ending of nouns, and of course only in the case of animate creation. For instance, "viro" is man, "virino" woman, "frato" brother, "fratino" sister, "kuzo" male cousin, "kuzino" female cousin, etc. And here Esperanto has over all other languages not only the signal advantage that there are no irregularities, but the far more important advantage that the scheme is applicable to all cases.

For instance, although we have in English from 30 to 40 different ways of forming the feminine such as father, mother; brother, sister; uncle, aunt; bull, cow; stallion, mare; fox, vixen; etc., yet in most cases we possess no decent or sensible way to indicate the s.e.x of the individuals; as, for instance, in the cases of teacher, doctor, friend, cousin, neighbor, witness, elephant, camel, goat, typist, stenographer, companion, president, chairman, etc.

Last, but not least, every word pa.r.s.es itself by its distinctive ending.

(7) The stupendous flexibility of Esperanto will be still better understood if I state here that it possesses some 30 particles (prefixes and suffixes), each with a definite meaning and each available whenever you want to attach that particular meaning to any word.

We have already seen that the suffix "in" expresses the female s.e.x whenever it may be desirable to give it expression. So "id" denotes the offspring, "il" the tool or instrument, "isto" the profession, "ul" the person or individual, "ec" the quality (abstract), "ajx"

the concrete thing, product, or result, "eg" means large, and "et"

small, etc. Now, let us see how this works out in practice. Bovo is bull; bovino, cow; bovido, calf; bovajxo, beef; bovidino, female calf. And you may say bovego, boveto, bovinego, bovineto, bovidego, bovideto, bovidinego, and bovidineto if you wish to add the idea of size or smallness to the original or to the derived word.

Again: "Lern" is the root for learning. We first get lerni, to learn; lerna, learned; lerne, learnedly; learno, learning. Next, using a few of the particles we can make: lernebla, capable of being learned; lernema, inclined to learn (studious); lerninda, worth learning; lernilo, a text book (a tool); lernisto (a professional learner), a student; lernulo, a learned person, a scholar; lerneco, learning in the abstract; lernajxo, the matter to be learned (concrete), etc. And once more note that what you can do with one root you can do with every root in the vocabulary. So that the originally available number of words is multiplied ten and hundred fold. Which simply means a tremendous saving of labor in learning words and forms and yet secures a range of expression and a degree of precision undreamed of in any other language.

(8) On the possible rivals, past, present, or future, to Esperanto see closing remarks.

(9) To complete what I said on the verb during the hearing I give here the entire paradigm of the verb in Esperanto.

Paroli, to speak; parolanta, speaking; parolata, spoken.

Present, I speak, etc.: Mi parolas, vi parolas, li parolas, sxi parolas, ni parolas, vi parolas, ili parolas, oni (one) parolas, gxi (it) parolas.

There a thus only one ending "as" for the present of every verb and the same for every person.

In the past the ending is "is": mi parolis, I spoke, etc.

In the future "os" mi parolos, I shall speak, etc. In the conditional "us": mi parolus, I should speak, etc. In the subjunctive "u": ke mi parolu, that I may or might speak, the tense being sufficiently indicated by the antecedent verb.

For the imperative we use the subjunctive without conjunction and generally without subject.

The participle has a most ingenious flexbility, it having three forms, anta, inta, onta for the active, and ata, ita, ota for the pa.s.sive; parolanta, speaking now; parolinta, having spoken; parolonta, about to be speaking; parolata, being spoken now; parolita, spoken formerly; parolota, to be spoken later.

Only practice can reveal the wonderful usefulness of this scheme, again, of course, applicable to all verbs.

One interesting sequel is, that as every word can be turned into a noun--if sense demands it--by simply changing the ending into o, we therefore get: parolanto, the present speaker; parolinto, the past speaker; parolonto, the future speaker.

Let no one say that such richness and possibility of precision is of no importance; many a life's jeopardy has turned on less. Nor can it be said that this unlimited capacity of expression makes the mechanism of the language c.u.mbersome, for the whole scheme of Esperanto can be thoroughly mastered in a few hours.

(10) In England Esperanto has been on the school rates for several years; any technical or continuation school can apply to the board of education for permission to put Esperanto on its program. In 1909 it was already thus taught in 33 centers.

The London Chamber of Commerce holds examinations in Esperanto every year, and has done so since 1907. The United Kingdom a.s.sociation of Teachers prepares for the certificate of proficiency in Esperanto.

In the town of Lille, France, Esperanto has been taught in the high schools for at least nine years; about 1,500 pupils benefiting yearly from this. The same is true of Rio de Janeiro, in Brasil.

In conclusion, I wish to register my opinion as an unbiased student of the whole movement for the adoption of an international language that Esperanto has nothing to fear from any rival scheme--present, past, or future.

Of upward of 150 different projects that have seen the light since the seventeenth century, not one was born with a life worth saving but Esperanto; not one has ever attained one-hundredth part the power and vogue and vitality that Esperanto has achieved.

One only of all these schemes has ever come prominently before the public before Esperanto came into the field, Volapuk, and this failed of its own defects.

One only among some 20 or 30 imitations of Esperanto, namely, Ido, succeeded for a time in creating a diversion in the Esperanto camp.

If Volapuk died of its defects, it is permissible to say that Ido never lived on account of its numerous authors' everlasting chase after theoretical perfection, each one having a different opinion--and changing the same with every wind--as to what const.i.tutes perfection in every one of a thousand features of a human language. Accordingly, the Idoists have altered their mock Esperanto a hundred times in six years, so that no one has been able to keep track of the changes, and the adherents of the secession themselves have never been able to learn, speak, and use the language.

During these six years Esperanto has succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng itself and getting a firm hold in every civilized country from China to Peru and from Greenland to Zanzibar, because it is a live and growing language, perfect in so far that it is endowed from the start with all the power of evolution without the need of any internal changes in its wonderfully simple structure.

Here are a few quotations from great thinkers as to the need for an auxiliary language:

The diversity of languages is fatal for genius and progress. If there were a universal language, we should save a third of life.

(Leibnitz.)

The interrelations.h.i.+ps of the peoples are so great that they most certainly need a universal language. (Montesquieu.)

One of the greatest torments of life is the diversity of language.

(Voltaire.)

What an immeasurable profit it would be for the human race if we were able to intercommunicate by means of one language. (Volney.)

It seems to me quite possible--probable even--than an artificial language to be universally used will be greed upon. (Herbert Spencer.)

The learning of many languages fills the memory with words instead of facts and thoughts, and this is a vessel which, with every person, can only contain certain limited amount of records. Therefore the learning of many languages is injudicious, inasmuch as it arouses the belief in the possession of dexterity, and, as a matter of fact, it lends a kind of delusive importance to social intercourse.

It is also injurious in that it opposes the acquirement of solid knowledge and the intention to win the respect of men in an honest way. Finally, it is the ax which is laid at the root of a delicate sense of language in our mother tongue, which thereby is incurably injured and destroyed. The two nations which have produced the greatest stylists, the Greeks and the French, learned no foreign languages; but as human intercourse grows more cosmopolitan, and as, for instance, a good merchant in London must now be able to read and write eight languages, the learning of many tongues has certainly become a necessary evil; but which, when finally carried to an extreme, will compel mankind to find a remedy, and in some far off future there will be a new language used at first as a language of commerce, then as a language of intellectual intercourse, then for all, as surely as some time or other there will be aviation. Why else should philology have studied the laws of language for a whole century and have estimated the necessary, the valuable, and the successful portion of each separate language? (Nietsche.)

In this connection it may be well to repeat once more that Esperanto is only an "auxiliary" language. n.o.body dreams of it being a "universal language."

EXAMPLES OF ESPERANTO.

Simpla, fleksebla, belsona, vere internacia en siaj elementoj[1], la lingvo Esperanto prezentas al la mondo civilizita la sole veran solvon[2] de lingvo internacia: cxar[3], tre facila por h.o.m.oj nemulte instruitaj, Esperanto estas komprenata sen peno de la personoj bone edukitaj. Mil faktoj atestas la meriton praktikan de la nomita lingvo.

[1] "j" has the sound of English "y", as in boy, and is the sign for the plural of nouns and adjectives.

[2] "n" is the mark of the accusative or object of the verb.

[3] The diacritic sign ^ occurs on c, g, h, j, s and has the force of an h after the first and the last--ch, sh. gx is p.r.o.nounced like English g in George, which g without sign has the value of g in good. jx is p.r.o.nounced like s in pleasure, while j simple has the sound of y in yes, esp. jes. hx occurs rarely and is doomed to disappear in favor of k.

Kaj se vi pregxas, vi ne devas esti kiel la hipokrituloj, kiuj volonte staras kaj pregxas en la lernejoj, kaj apud la anguloj de la stratetoj; por ke ili estu vidataj de la h.o.m.oj. Vere, mi diras al vi: Ili ricevis sian pagon. Sed se vi pregxas, iru en la cxambreton kaj fermu la pordon, kaj pregxu al via patro en la kasxito, kaj via patro, kiu vidas en la kasxiton, rekompencos gxin al vi publike. Kaj se vi pregxas, vi ne devas multe babili, kiel la idolistoj, cxar ili opinias ke gxi estos akceptata, se ili faras multe da paroloj. Tial vi ne devas simili al ili. Via patro scias, kion vi bezonas, antaux ol vi petas lin. Tial vi devas pregxi tiamaniere. Patro nia en la cxielo. Via nomo estu sanktigata. Via regno venu. Via volo farigxu sur la tero, kiel en la cxielo. Nian panon cxiutagan donu al ni hodiaux. Kaj pardonu al ni niajn kulpojn, kiel ni pardonas niajn kulpulojn. Kaj ne konduku nin en tenton, sed savu nin de la malbono. Cxar via estas la regno, kaj la forto, kaj la gloro en eterneco. Amen. Cxar se vi pardonos al la h.o.m.oj iliajn kulpojn, tiam via cxiela patro pardonos ankaux al vi. Sed se vi ne pardonos al la h.o.m.oj iliajn kulpojn, tiam via cxiela patro ankaux ne pardonos al vi viajn kulpojn. (La Evangelio Sankta Mateo VI, 5-16.)