

                           SOME PREJUDICED QUESTIONS...

                           ...SOME HONEST ANSWERS


                                ABOUT ESPERANTO

                                (by Todd Moody)







Nobody speaks Esperanto; it's not a living language.

Nobody knows exactly how many people speak Esperanto today, since no census is
possible; but current estimates range from one to ten million people who  have
learned to speak the language.


But  why bother?  Esperanto was intended as  an  international  language,  and
English already fills that role.

The belief that "English is the international language" is as widespread today
as  was  a  similar belief about French a century ago -  and  with  as  little
foundation.  Only  ten  percent of the world's people  speak  English,  and  a
majority of these are native speakers in the United States and Great  Britain.
In international diplomacy, whereas French was THE language of standard use in
the 19th century, today several languages are used;  the United  Nations,  for
instance,  has  six official languages.  Even in fields where  English  claims
supremacy  - for instance, in international civil aviation - it  cannot  claim
exclusiveness. Whether it will continue to maintain its current level  of  use
is questionable, mainly due to significant changes in the political, economic,
and military relationships between nations.


Even if we need a special language for international use, why Esperanto? It is
thoroughly   outdated,  a  product  of  the  ignorance  of  the   19th-century
linguistics. For instance, consider its use of supersigns, and  the  existence
of an accusative case: useless ballast that English manages to do without.

Since  Zamenhof  was not a linguist, and relied more on  horse-sense  than  on
linguistic theories,  it cannot be said that he was misled by  "the  ignorance
of 19th-century linguistics."  It is no more outdated today than Afrikaans,  a
language that came into existence at about the same time, or English,a product
of the eleventh century.  As to the use of supersigns, it is worth noting that
the same  people  who chastise Esperanto for their use would  never  think  of
taking Turkish to task for the same reason and the Romanization of the Turkish
alphabet, replete with supersigns, occurred forty years after the invention of
Esperanto!  In fact,  there are only twenty-six letters in the Roman alphabet,
and so a language with more than twenty-six sounds,  if it wants to be written
phonetically, MUST develop either special or supersigned letters.  And  as  to
the accusative case,  most Esperantists consider this a heaven sent  boon.  It
liberates word order in Esperanto and allows us to express our  thoughts  more
fully  by letting us use word order to show emphasis rather  than  grammatical
use. With regard to English: only take a quick look at the  personal  pronouns
to  see  whether  English lacks the accusative.  In Esperanto the student need
only  learn  that the accusative ends in -n;  in English,  the student has  to
learn entire series of unrelated words (me, him, her, us, them, whom).


Esperanto's  grammatical structure is relatively rigid.  Doesn't that restrict
growth and evolution in the language?

Not  at  all;  no more than a rigid endoskeleton restricts growth in  a  human
being. The rules of grammar say, "This is the way such-and-such must be done."
They do not say that the speaker is forbidden to do anything not provided  for
in the rules. The so-called "Fundamento de Esperanto", consisting of the rules
of grammar, a few thousand root words, and some examples of use, is considered
untouchable; but that does not mean (and has not meant!) that the Esperantists
cannot build around this core of continuity in the language.  The proof of the
pudding is in the eating; and over time, Esperanto HAS grown and evolved.


Does it have any advantages over the ethnic languages?   For instance, English
is the  most  expressive  language in  the  world;  can  Esperanto  claim  any
equivalent advantages?

To  take  the second part first;  we have here  a  standard  misunderstanding.
Languages are not expressive; people are.  The usual meaning of the  statement
"English  is the most expressive language in the world"  is:  "The  Unabridged
Oxford English Dictionary contains more words than any  equivalent  dictionary
in any other language." This is almost certainly true;  and it may  mean  that
there are more words in English than in any  other  language,  or  that  other
languages are not as dictionary-conscious as English,  or that some languages,
such as ... Esperanto  have  a  different  system of word creation  and  don't
need large dictionaries.  The largest current Esperanto dictionary,  the Plena
Ilustrita Vortaro, contains only ten or twenty thousand words;  but because of
Esperanto's unique system of word formation,  this  is  equivalent  to several
hundred thousand words in the Oxford dictionary.  Which brings us to the first
part of the question.  Of half a million or so words in the Oxford dictionary,
the  average  speaker  of  English  will  NEVER  use  more  than ten or twenty
thousand. A non-native  speaker will never,  without special training, be able
to handle  more than a thousand or so words;  English FOR HIM,  will  never be
anywhere near as expressive as his own language. Esperanto, on the other hand,
partly because of its  simplified structure and partly because of its  special
system  of  word formation,  alluded  to  above,  CAN  become as expressive as
his own native language. And if this is not an advantage, what is?


Would it be worth my while to learn Esperanto?

That's a question that only YOU can answer. If you never expect to have to use
a foreign language at all for instance, if you intend to remain permanently in
the company of people specially trained in the British-American language  then
it probably would not.

If, however, you are interested in communicating with individuals in all walks
of  life  from  all around the world...if you'd like to  have  access  to  the
literatures of some dozens of different cultures...if you'd like to be able to
converse ON EQUAL TERMS with your non-English-speaking contemporaries...if you
merely want the achievement of having learned one language well enough to read
and  converse  in  it...then please consider the possibility  of  studying and
learning Esperanto.

