Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec,sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!swrinde!pipex!uknet!festival!edcogsci!iad
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Languages in the EC
Message-ID: <D3uMy4.A6A@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3ha0n3INNmq5@SUNED.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU> <DUNCAN.95Feb9174429@lightning.eee.strath.ac.uk> <3he6ld$jf5@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 18:49:12 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <3he6ld$jf5@agate.berkeley.edu> coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Coby (Jacob) Lubliner) writes:
>This confirms my impression that when Esperantists travel, they
>hang out mainly with other Esperantists.   As several posters
>have pointed out, it's a great way to travel - free lodging,
>instant companionship, and so on.  

Those advantages would vanish very quickly if Esperanto became more
widespread.  No matter which country you go to, there will surely be
more English speakers in it than Esperantists; but while a traveller
who happens to be both can expect hospitality from the latter, from
the former he can not, for the simple reason that studying/speaking
Esperanto is the strange hobby of a relatively small clique, whereas
studying/speaking English is very common.  If Esperanto started being
used as commonly as English is now, its speakers would similarly lose
all interest in one another.

>What I fail to see is what this hobby has to do with the practical
>needs of scientists [...] who must communicate with alloglots on a
>day-to-day basis, and who, for better or worse, seem by and large to
>have settled on English.  In what language do you think a visiting
>Italian or Polish scientist usually lectures in Spain?  Or a
>Bulgarian in Turkey?  Or a Greek in France?

I vaguely remember reading an anecdote about a Bulgarian mathematician
who gave a talk in Esperanto at a conference in Roumania, without any
warning.  When he was done talking, there was only one question: `What
language was that?'

That was back in the Middle Ages, of course, before people had become
aware of the advantages of having English as the single official
language at international conferences.

-- 
`I'm sendin a flood tae pit an end tae it aw.  But dinny worry yersel, Noah.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)    (J Stuart, _Auld Testament Tales_)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
