INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE

Radio Record, Volume XIII, Issue 11, 21 August 1939, Page 39

INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE

Over 50 Years Of Use Has Proved W orth Of Esperanto

By

VERNON J.

LECK

f JN an explanatory article on Esperanto, which appeared in this paper some months ago, | endeavoured to explain to the radio amateur the value of this practical, simple and euphonious language as a means of lifting the language barrier. Since then requests for further information on the subject have been received from all over New Zealand, and I feel sure that further enlightenment on this gift fo mankind by a linguistic genius, Dr. L. L. Zamenhof, of Poland, will help to convince radio amateurs of the usefulness of this g@gmternational auxiliary language.

QvER 50 years of practical use by several million people hag demonstrated that Esperante is the EASIEST-there-fore the BEST-language. As a matter of easily-demon-strable fact it is the only auxiliary language officially recognised. Several ministries have permitted the teaching of Esperanto in schools as an optional subject. The Board of Education for England and Wales, for many years, has recognised both school and evening classes. There is an Esperanto lectureship at the University of Liverpool, which now admits the language as a first-class subject

for the B.A. degree. Esperanto is a "clear" language over telegraph or radio-like the national languages. Telegraph, radio, and modern methods of transportation are bringing the nations of the earth sa close together that it has become almost imperative that the language barrier be lifted. Life is far too short for anyone interested in any business-or pleasure-beyond the limits of his own nation, to learn several fanguages. Since the days of the Tower of Babel there has been a constant, persistent demand for a language to make possible intercourse hetween people of different nationalities. Hundreds of attempts. hare heen made to furnish the world with a "secondary" or "neutral’ language for eyerybody-one that would be acceptable to all nations -it being long ago recognised that no already existing national language would be accepted. No national would, or will, admit that any other nation’s language is better than his own-history has demonstrated that only force could win or compel his compliance. Philip and Alexander, of Macedon, about 500 years B.C., conquered the then-known world, and forced Greek as the world language. Then the Roman conquest, and Latin was almost universal for several centuries. There have been many "pass". or secondary languages down through the ages"Lingua Franca," a mixture of Latin, French, Spanish.and Arabic, used by the people of the Mediterranean countries in the Middle Ages, was probably the best known. India has her "Hindi" and China "Pidgin" English. lis Formation R. ZAMENHOF, the com‘piler of Esperanto, studied the principal European languages, dissected their grammars and discarded all but a few short rules and forms. By the ingenious system of prefixes and suffixes he adopted, from one rootword, many shades of meaning can be formed, without burdening the mind with ‘words. When one learns 100 root-words in Esperanto, one has a vocabulary of several thousand words. Its grammar can be learned in a very short time. _ There are no exceptions to the 16 simple rules, no irregular verbs, one conjugation of the verb, and 12 yerb endings (compare with English-over 600, and French over 2200). Hach letter has one sound only, and always the same. No mute or silent letters. The accent is always on the next-to-last syllable. He adopted the principle of "internationality,’ which admitted into Esperanto all words relating to the arts and sciences-which are already world property, being almost the same in all languages. He used the principal languages of EKurope-especially Bunglish, French, German and Italian,

As all the European languages derive fargely from each othe, on reading a 1000-word article written in Esperanto, scholars of different European fanguages would prebably recognise as their own the following percentages: French, 88; Italian, 85; English, 83; Spanish, 82; Portuquese, 81; German, 76. When a word is common.to three or more of the principal national’s it is accepted (with a few excentions) into Esperanto. Names of birds, animals, fish and disease, generally taken from _ scientific vocabularies, are used, so that an

Esperantist learns the terminology ef arts and sciences as he goes along. Not A Fad ,SPERANTO is not intended ' to take'the place of any. native, or mother tongue, but as a secondary or helping language, to obviate the necessity of Jearning several languages, It is not a fad. -It is the only neutral language to receive the attention of any government-and it has been recognised in various ways by

almost every -nation-many using it in Government services such as the Post Office, Railway and Telegraph. It is not an experiment --it was so near perfect when given to the world in 1887 that the best scholars since that time have not found any changes necessary. In order that you may have some idea of Esperanto as it is written, I will write a few sentences followed by a translation in English. "lIntelegenta persona lernas fa fingvon facile kaj rapide. Esperanto estas la vera solvo de fa lingva problemo kaj potenca helpa al internacia paco. Simpla,

riéa, preciza, belsona, fleksebla, facile lernebla-la moderna kultura lingvo de [a tuta mondo-tla praktika solvo de fa problemo de fnternacia kompreno. Gi meritas vian seriozan konsideron."

"Any intelligent person can learn the language easily and rapidly. Esperanto is the real sclution of the language problem and a potential help towards international peace. Simple, rich, precise, euphonious, flexible, learned -the modern cultural language of the whole world-the practical solution of the problem of international comprchension. It merits your serious consideration."