readenglishbook.com » Study Aids » International Language, Walter J. Clark [popular books of all time txt] 📗

Book online «International Language, Walter J. Clark [popular books of all time txt] 📗». Author Walter J. Clark



1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 35
Go to page:
spectators possessed that mother-tongue acquaintance with Esperanto that would lead them to feel slight divergences shocking, or even noticeable without extreme attention to the point. Other theatrical performances were given at Geneva, as also at Boulogne, where a play of Molière was performed in Esperanto by actors of eight nationalities with one rehearsal, and with full success.

In the face of these facts it is idle to oppose a universal artificial language on the score of impossibility or inadequacy. The theoretical pronunciation difficulty completely crumbled away before the test of practice.

The "war-at-any-price party," the whole-hoggers à tous crins (the juxtaposition of the two national idioms lends a certain realism, and heightens the effect of each), are therefore driven back on their second line of attack, if the Hibernianism may be excused. "Yes," they say, "your language may be possible, but, after all, why not learn an existing language, if you've got to learn one anyway?"

Now, quite apart from the obvious fact that the nations will never agree to give the preference to the language of one of them to the prejudice of the others, this argument involves the suggestion that an artificial language is no easier to learn than a natural one. We thus come to the question of ease as a qualification.

IV
the question of practice (continued)—an international language is easy1

1Readers who do not care about the reasons for this, but desire concrete proofs, may skip the next few pages.

People smile incredulously at the mention of an artificial language, implying that no easy royal road can be found to language-learning of any kind. But the odds are all the other way, and they are heavy odds.

The reason for this is quite simple, and may be briefly put as follows:

The object of language is to express thought and feeling. Every natural language contains all kinds of complications and irregularities, which are of no use whatever in attaining this object, but merely exist because they happen to have grown. Their sole raison d'être is historical. In fact, for a language without a history they are unnecessary1. Therefore a universal language, whose only object is to supply to every one the simplest possible means of expressing his thoughts and feelings in a medium intelligible to every one else, simply leaves them out. Now, it is precisely in these "unnecessary" complications that a large proportion—certainly more than half—of the difficulty of learning a foreign language consists. Therefore an artificial language, by merely leaving them out, becomes certainly more than twice as easy to learn as any natural language.

1i.e. they do not assist in attaining its object as a language. One universal way of forming the plural, past tense, or comparative expresses plurality, past time, or comparison just as well as fifteen ways, and with a deal less trouble.

A little reflection will make this truth so absurdly obvious, that the only wonder is, not that it is now beginning to be recognized, but that any one could have ever derided it.

That the "unnecessary" difficulties of a natural language are more than one-half of the whole is certainly an under-estimate; for some languages the proportion would be more like 3:4 or 5:6. Compared with these, the artificial language would be three times to five times as easy.

Take an illustration. Compare the work to be done by the learner of (a) Latin, (b) Esperanto, in expressing past, present, and future action.

(a) Latin:

Present tense active is expressed by—

6  endings in the  1st  regular conjugation. 6 " 2nd " 6 " 3rd " 6 " 4th "

Total regular endings: 24.

To these must be added a vast number of quite different and varying forms for irregular verbs.

(b) Esperanto:

Present tense active is expressed by—

1 ending for every verb in the language.

Total regular and irregular endings: 1.

It is exactly the same for the past and future.

Total endings for the 3 tenses active:

(a) Latin: 72 regular forms, plus a very large number of irregular and defective verbs.

(b) Esperanto: 3 forms.

Turning to the passive voice, we get—

(a) Latin: A complete set of different endings, some of them puzzling in form and liable to confusion with other parts of the verb.

(b) Esperanto: No new endings at all. Merely the three-form regular active conjugation of the verb esti = to be, with a passive participle. No confusion possible.

It is just the same with compound tenses, subjunctives, participles, etc. Making all due allowances, it is quite safe to say that the Latin verb is fifty times as hard as the Esperanto verb.

The proportion would be about the same in the case of substantives, Latin having innumerable types.

Comparing modern languages with Esperanto, the proportion in favour of the latter would not be so high as fifty to one in the inflection of verbs and nouns, though even here it would be very great, allowing for subjunctives, auxiliaries, irregularities, etc. But taking the whole languages, it might well rise to ten to one.

For what are the chief difficulties in language-learning?

They are mainly either difficulties of phonetics, or of structure and vocabulary.

Difficulties of phonetics are:

(1) Multiplicity of sounds to be produced, including many sounds and combinations that do not occur in the language of the learner.

(2) Variation of accent, and of sounds expressed by the same letter.

These difficulties are both eliminated in Esperanto.

(1) Relatively few sounds are adopted into the language, and only such as are common to nearly all languages. For instance, there are only five full vowels and three1 diphthongs, which can be explained to every speaker in terms of his own language. All the modified vowels, closed "u's" and "e's," half tones, longs and shorts, open and closed vowels, etc., which form the chief bugbear in correct pronunciation, and often render the foreigner unintelligible—all these disappear.

1Omitting the rare . ej and uj are merely simple vowels plus consonantal j (= English y).

(2) There is no variation of accent or of sound expressed by the same letter. The principle "one letter, one sound"1 is adhered to absolutely. Thus, having learned one simple rule for accent (always on the last syllable but one), and the uniform sound corresponding to each letter, no mistake is possible.

1The converse—"one sound, one letter"—is also true, except that the same sound is expressed by c and ts. (See Appendix C.)

Contrast this with English. Miss Soames gives twenty-one ways of writing the same sound. Here they are:

ate
bass
pain
pay
dahlia
vein
they   great
eh!
gaol
gauge
champagne
campaign
straight   feign
weigh
aye
obeyed
weighed
trait
halfpenny1

1Prof. Skeat adds a twenty-second: Lord Reay!

(Compare eye, lie, high, etc.)

In Esperanto this sound is expressed only and always by "e." In fact, the language is absolutely and entirely phonetic, as all real language was once.

As regards difficulties of vocabulary, the same may be said as in the case of the sounds. Esperanto only adopts the minimum of roots essential, and these are simple, non-ambiguous, and as international as possible. Owing to the device of word-building by means of a few suffixes and prefixes with fixed meaning, the number of roots necessary is very greatly less than in any natural language.1

1Most of these roots are already known to educated people. For the young the learning of a certain number of words presents practically no difficulty; it is in the practical application of words learnt that they break down, and this failure is almost entirely due to "unnecessary" difficulties.

As for difficulties of structure, some of the chief ones are as follows:

Multiplicity and complexity of inflections. This does not exist in Esperanto.

Irregularities and exceptions of all kinds. None in Esperanto.

Complications of orthography. None in Esperanto.

Different senses of same word, and different words used in same sense. Esperanto—"one word, one meaning."

Arbitrary and fluctuating idioms. Esperanto—none. Common sense and common grammar the only limitation to combination of words.

Complexities of syntax. (Think of the use of the subjunctive and infinitive in all languages: ου and μη in Greek; indirect speech in Latin; negatives, comparisons, etc., etc., in all languages.) Esperanto—none. Common sense the only guide, and no ambiguity in practice. The perfect limpidity of Esperanto, with no syntactical rules, is a most instructive proof of the conventionality and arbitrariness of the niceties of syntax in national languages. After all, the subjunctive was made for man and not man for the subjunctive.

But readers will say: "It is all very well to show by a comparison of forms that Esperanto ought to be much easier than a natural language. But we want facts."

Here are some.

In the last chapter it was mentioned that the present writer first took up Esperanto in October 1905, worked at it at odd times, never spoke it or heard it spoken save once, and was able to follow the proceedings of the Congress of Geneva in August 1906, and talk to all foreigners. From a long experience of smattering in many languages and learning a few thoroughly, he is absolutely convinced that this would have been impossible to him in any national language.

A lady who began Esperanto three weeks before the congress, and studied it in a grammar by herself one hour each day, was able to talk in it with all peoples on very simple subjects, and to follow a considerable amount of the lectures, etc.

Amongst the British folk who attended the congress were many clerks and commercial people, who had merely learnt Esperanto by attending a class or a local group meeting once a week, often for not many months. They had never been out of England before, nor learnt any other foreign language. They would have been utterly at sea if they had attempted to do what they did on a similar acquaintance with any foreign tongue. But during the two days spent en route in Paris, where the British party was fêted and shown round by the French Esperantists, on the journey to Geneva, which English and French made together, on lake steamboats, at picnics and dinners, etc., etc., here they were, rattling away with great ease and mutual entertainment. Many of these came from the North of England, and it was a real eye-opener, over which easy-going South-Englanders would do well to ponder, to see what results could be produced by a little energy and application, building on no previous linguistic training. The Northern accent was evidently a help in pronouncing the full-sounding vowels of Esperanto.

One Englishman, who was talking away gaily with the French samideanoj,1 was an Esperantist of one year's standing. He had happened to be at Boulogne in pursuit of a little combined French and seasiding at the time of the first congress held there, 1905. One day he got his tongue badly tied up in a cafe, and was helped out of his linguistic difficulties with the waiter by certain compatriots, who wore green stars in their buttonholes,2 and sat at another table conversing in an unknown lingo with a crowd of foreigners. He made inquiries, and found it was Esperanto they were talking. He was so much struck by their facility, and the practical way in which they had set his business to rights in a minute (the waiter was an Esperantist trained ad hoc!), that he decided to give up French and go in for Esperanto. This man was a real learner of French, who had spent a long time on it, and realized with disgust his impotence to wield it practically. To judge by his conversation next year at Geneva, he had no such difficulty with Esperanto. He was quite jubilant over the change.

1Terse Esperanto word. = partisans of the same idea (i. e. Esperanto).

2The Esperanto badge.

Such examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. No one who attended a congress could fail to be convinced.

Scientific comparison of the respective difficulty

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 35
Go to page:

Free e-book «International Language, Walter J. Clark [popular books of all time txt] 📗» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment