LEAGUE LANGUAGE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 299, 1 August 1929, Page 1

LEAGUE LANGUAGE.

DIFFICULTIES AT GENEVA. It is an old quip at Geneva that English and French are “spoken in all languages” for as they are the two official languages of the League they are naturally spoken with varying competence by delegates and others from non-English and non-

• French-speak'ng parts of the world. The rules permit the employment of j other languages, with the provision i that the speaker provides his own in- ; terpreter, except in the case of ex--1 Pert committees. The use of a third language is net very common in the Council or Assembly; Dr Stresemann, the German Foreign M nister, uj-ually addresses these bodies in German, and the German Chancellor and t'he Austr.an Chance lor also spoke in German at the last Assembly. On one occasion of the admission of the Irish Free State, President Cfosgrave perfaced h:s speech, which was delivered in English, by a few words in Gaelic. It is not uncommon, however, for other languages to be used in League Committees. At the Preparatory Disarmament Commission, the Chinese delegate. | general Tsiang TsopiJng, introduced ! tho Chinese language for the first time in any League gathsr'ng. M. Litvinoff, head of the Soviet delegation, speaks English in the Commission, but there have been occas cnal delegates from Russia who have spoken their own language, and Spanish and Italian are sometimes employed. When a th'rd language in use in this way, it generally means that each speech is given three times—in the or'ginal, in English ana in French—but the offic:al publications and records are confined to English and French, except the “Treaty Series,” where treaties are published in the'r original texts, as well as in the official languages if they are not th? orig nals. A good many official delegates are conversant with several languages, and the Chilian President of the Third Assembly (1922), M. Augustin Edwards, who was at the t me Ambassador in London, made his Presidential speech in French, and then repeated it in English. Two other Assembly Presidents, name’y M. Van Karnebeek (Holland) in 1921, and Senator Dandurand (Canada) in 1925, expressed themaelvse in equal facility in both official languages, employing either as occasion required.