Oregon daily emerald., November 21, 1978, Page 6 and 7, Image 6

A communal language no one understands:
By JOCK HATFIELD
Of the Emerald
A citizen had to be proficient in Russian, Polish,
German and Yiddish to get through the day
in the town where Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof grew
up. A person without a quadlingual knowledge of
adjectives wasn’t safe in the streets. Zamenhof
decided to create a language from scratch, a
communal language without drugged syntax, cul
tural peculiarities or moody spelling. He intended
it to bridge the cultural gaps not only in Bialystock,
Poland, but around the world.
Zamenhofs language, Esperanto, never quite
caught on. Ever since its creation in the 1870s,
linguists have predicted its popularity, authors
have bolstered it with original works and trans
lators have injected it with Russian, Polish, Ger
man, Japanese and English classics.
In the early 1900s books were published with
the following testament ready for readers to clip
out and send in: “I, the undersigned, promise to
learn the international language proposed by Dr.
Esperanto (Zamenhof’s pen name) if it is shown
that 10 million people have publicly made the
same promise.’’
Esperantists formed international organiza
tions, to promote the idea of world peace. After
each world war, the language was discussed as a
step away from nationalistic thought. But some
where along the line, the artificial language failed,
and 80 years after its birth, Esperanto remains a
tongue without a mouth.
“It was a good idea but it didn't work," says
Eugene resident Wilbur Harrison, who first
learned Esperanto in high school when the lan
guage was gaining popularity in the 1920s. “It’s
been 80 years now since Zamenhof started
promoting it,” he says, 'and it still hasn t been
accepted. It hasn't been given a chance."
Today Esperanto isn't dead, but it has settled
into the passive state.
"I don’t expect Esperanto to become a big force
for the next generation or two,” admits another
Esperanto speaker, Carlton Karrol, professor of
French at Oregon State University. "But Es
peranto is very much alive.
The number of Esperanto speakers has di
minished by 20 million over the last 40 years. It
now has only one million speakers, several
hundred million less than most languages.
The main problem for those wishing to speak
Esperanto is not learning the language, but find
ing someone else who understands it.
Were it not for Esperanto clubs, which publish
lists of members, Esperanto speakers would have
1
to advertise in the classifieds to talk.
Esperanto speakers defend the usefulness of
the language anyway.
"Eighty years for a language to grow isn't long,”
says Doris Connor, whose husband was presi
dent of the North American Esperanto Associa
tion before he died.
Connor donated her collection of Esperanto lit
erature to the University library in 1973.
Esperanto's last political advance came in 1954
when UNESCO recognized it as an admirable
organization. Since then, universal languages
have gone out of style. But if a universal language
does come into vogue, the Esperantists feel theirs
will be the language chosen.
"No nation will ever allow another nation's lan
guage to become an international language,”
Connor explains. "Esperaito has no roots, so it
will be a natural choice."
• Esperanto has other advantages, particularly
for the beginner. Because Esperanto is an artifi
cial language, all speakers are equally incompe
tent, and no ethnic group can snicker at another's
Esperanto accent. The vowel sounds are stand
ardized, spelling is phonetic, and Zamenhof
used Latin roots for his words, making it easy to
pick up.
Most nationalities should recognize parts of
their own language in Esperanto, like pieces of
yesterday’s breakfast cereal stuck to the bottom
of today’s soup. Speakers in some countries can
recognize more than 50 percent of the language
on first reading.
"It’s an easy language," Connor says. “You can
learn to read it in an hour, and a year of Esperanto
study would be equivalents two or three years of
French, Spanish or German.”
Esperanto for the beginner is a linguistic double
exposure: You know what’s going on half the sen
tence, but you aren’t sure what those extra feet
are doing in there, and you are at a loss to explain
why the fruitbowl should leave on a short plane
trip. In his first books, Zamenhot provided a key,
which he claimed made it possible to understand
the language on first reading. This list explained
the standardized grammar rules, vocabulary and
pronunciation.
In his first key, Zamenhof offers the following
quotation. See if you can recognize it:
Mi ne scias, kie mi lasis mian bastonon, cu vi gin
ne vidis?
The correct translation is’ I have lost my stick,
have you seen it?
Some authors in the past were attracted to Es
peranto and adopted it as their writing language.
"The majority of Esperanto writers have been
moved by humanitarian motives,” writes Es
peranto author K. Sturmer in his “Notes and Im
pressions.” "Others perhaps wished to help the
language just by showing that it was fitted to be a
literary medium.” Esperanto writers, such as Stel
len Engholm and Kenelm Robinson, took a
chance. They bet their talents that Esperanto
would catch on. The Connor collection in the main
Library holds hundreds of these original works
and thousands of translations.
As artificial languages go, however, Esperanto
has done well. Of the languages created from
scratch over the last hundred years, Esperanto is
the only one to survive.
“For the million who use it, it’s a tool,” says
Connor. "It’s the one language where you can
communicate on an equal basis with all peoples."
“I still adhere to the idea of a world-wide lan
guage," Connor adds, "but how far we ll get in the
real world is a different thing.”
Book of Genesis according to Esperanto
1EN la komenco Dio kreis la
£ielon kaj la teron. 2 Kaj la
tero estis senforma kaj dezerta,
kaj mallumo estis super la abismo;
kaj la spirito de Dio svebis super la
akvo. 3 Kaj Dio diris : Estu lumo ;
kaj farigis lumo. 4 Kaj Dio vidis
la lumon, ke gi estas bona; kaj Dio
apartigis la lumon de la mallumo.
5 Kaj Dio nomis la lumon Tago, kaj
la mallumon Li nomis Nokto. Kaj
estis vespero, kaj estis mateno, unu
tago.
6 Kaj Dio diris: Estu firmajo inter
la akvo, kaj &i apartigu akvon de
akvo. 7 Kaj Dio kreis la firmajon,
kaj apartigis la akvon, kiu estas sub
la firmajo, de la akvo, kiu estas super
la firmajo; kaj fari&is tiel. 8 Kaj
Dio nomis la firmajon Cielo. Kaj
estis vespero, kaj estis mateno, la
dua tago.
9 Kaj Dio diris: Kolekti&u la akvo
de sub la cielo en unu lokon, kaj
aperu la sekajo; kaj fari&is tiel.
io Kaj Dio nomis la sekajon Tero,
kaj la kolekti£ojn de la akvo Li
nomis Maroj. Kaj Dio vidis, ke £i
estas bona. 11 Kaj Dio diris:
Kreskigu la tero verdajon, herbon,
kiu naskas semon, fruktarbon, kiu
donas lau sia speco frukton, kies
semo estas en fci mem, sur la tero;
kaj fari&is tiel. 12 Kaj la tero
elkreskigis verdajon, herbon, kiu
naskas semon lau sia speco, kaj
arbon, kiu donas frukton, kies semo
estas en &i mem laft sia speco. Kaj
Dio vidis, ke fci estas bona. 13 Kaj
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