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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Third-world language problems
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Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 22:41:14 GMT
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Subject: Formala prezentaj'o, 28 mar 96, Chicago

          LANGUAGE BARRIERS TO THIRD WORLD PROGRESS
              by Andrei Kolganov and Kent Jones

Introduction

The third world is characterized by unpleasant living
conditions, poverty, congestion, poor sanitation, low
standards of health and high illiteracy.  Less apparent is
the fact that most of the more than 3000 languages of the
world are found in the Third World, where they exacerbate
the difficulties.

Diversity of language use is not in itself a problem.
Rather, it is the resulting reciprocal non-comprehension
which is the problem, because it creates a multiplicity of
separate ethnic groups.  The communicative isolation of
these groups maintains their ignorance about each other.  It
also makes cooperation in activities such as commerce and
civic projects more difficult.  This keeps a brake on
economic and social progress.

Reciprocal ignorance provides a breeding ground for hate and
its offspring, violence.  In Africa the colonial powers
imposed their arbitrary borders, cutting through some ethnic
groups while forcibly enclosing two or more incompatible
groups.  With the departure of the colonial powers the
various ethnic groups became free to fight each other within
the inherited borders.  Many have chosen this option.  This
language-based threat to stability is now thought to be one
of the greatest dangers to the post-cold war world.

Impedance to education in the Third World

Those few who are lucky enough to go to school may start
life with the family language, begin school with a local
language, and finish with a regional language. A more
difficult framework for learning would be hard to find.

Yet another language may be needed if a student aspires to a
career in science or technology.  The full range of
instructional and reference material can be found in only
five languages.  They are English, French, German, Japanese
and Russian.

It is a practical impossibility for young people from
ordinarary families to succeed in learning one of these
languages.  Years of study are required.  Money is needed
for books and language teachers.  Much time is needed to
master such languages because they are all filled with
complications and irregularities.  English, for example, is
so difficult that after 6 years of study under the best of
conditions Japenese students cannot speak it.

Science education is made nearly impossible by this language
barrier. The resulting lack of scientifically trained
personnel is at least partially responsible for the absence
of the infrastructure of civilization in the Third World.
Even if outside forces were to design and construct water,
sewage and electrical systems, the inability of local labor
to operate and maintain them renders the effort futile.
Human accomplishment in general is  frustrated by language
confusion. In this instance it is in the area of scientific
education for Third World youth.

Multilingual Organizations

The United Nations and its subdivisions use languages
dictated by their most powerful members. These are never
Third World countries.  Hence a precondition for
communication is that the weaker party, the Third World, use
the language of the stronger.  More than $100 million per
year is spent on translations between the 6 dominant
languages.  Were it not for the language problem, this money
could be channelled to useful projects such as health in the
Third World.

The European Union is a regional organization which uses
nine languages.  This may increase to eleven if Turkey and
Greece become members.  At least a fourth of its budget is
spent on translations, because any document produced in one
language must be provided in all others.  Again, this is
money which could alternatively be used for helping the
Third World.

Individual countries are also multilingual.  These include
the former Soviet Union, India and China.  Some of the
ethnic languages in these countries are given official
status, but many are not.  India has over 200 language
minorities, but only 14 of these are used on the money.
Hindi is being pushed to become a language of choice along
with the English, but this produces resistance from the
peoples of southern India. In the Peoples Republic of China,
Mandarin (northern dialect of Chinese) is imposed on Uigurs,
Tibetans, Mongols, and others. The former Soviet Union is
yet another example where Russian was proclaimed and often
functioned as a language of "international" communication
(yazyk mezhnatsionalnogo obshcheniya). This situation
generates not only confusion but inter-ethnic hostility.

Common language for Central Asia

The case of post-Soviet Central Asia is an example. This
huge region, also known as Turkestan, had been incorporated
into Russian Empire in the second half of 19th century. The
three political entities which were there at that time were:
Kokand Khanate, Bukhara Emirate, and Khiva Khanate. These
political formations were based neither on ethnic nor
linguistic principles. The population of Bukhara Emirate
consisted of Turkic-speaking Sarts, Persian-speaking Tojiks,
etc. The identity of a people was often related to the
nomadic or sedentary way of life. The majority of people
throughout Turkestan spoke some variety of Turkic dialect.
At the same time there existed a literary version of the
language known as Chagatai or Old Uzbek  common to educated
people. Many were bilingual (Chagatai-Persian), because the
Persian language was a language of state and office work in,
e.g. Bukhara.

In 1920 after Central Asia had been "inherited" by Soviet
Union, the new authorities carried out a so-called
delimitation of national borders. In the foundation of five
new states - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenista - an "ethnic and linguistic" principle was
established. Even now some scholars argue that the creation
of those states was at least in part artificial. However the
imposition of national borders contributed to splitting the
groups. In this case about seventy years was enough for
groups actually to take on new identities.

New nations emerged in a region where identity was usually
based on territorial origin / affiliation (e.g. Tashkentli
or that who reside in Tashkent). That sometimes damaged
tribal backgrounds. Thus two parts of the same nomadic tribe
which found themselves divided between republics of
Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan accepted different
"nationalities", whileTajiks  in Samarkand sometimes found
it necessary to write in their passports that they were
Uzbeks, because that provided for a better career
advancement.

The effort to find a common language has turned to Russian
in the past decades. It was hailed as a language of inter-
ethnic communication. All governmental documentation was
written in Russian, gradually it became a language of choice
for urban national elites to the degree of their actually
losing their native language. The situation completely
changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The
languages of titular nations were proclaimed official in
each respective state of Central Asia. For the time being,
Russian is still performing the role of a bridge language.
But more recently Turkish has been actively advanced by
Turkey. Iran is increasing its influence in Persian-speaking
Tajikistan. Further, there has been contention over the
choice of Latin or Cyrillic alphabet in many republics.
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are changing the writing system
to Latin, Tajikistan to Arabic. With the growing economic
presence of western powers English is becoming more and more
popular, especially with upwardly mobile urban youths. But
English would not be usable in the rural regions because
there is no educational structure to support it.

Proposed Solutions

Proposals have taken three forms, namely, authoritarian,
democratic, and rational. The authoritarian proposal would
use one national language, such as English, as the common
language.  While this would be attractive for the current
speakers of the chosen language, others simply would refuse
to accept its primacy. The United Nations still refuses to
confine itself to any single national language. In Korea,
Japanese was mandatory for 35 years while Korean was
forbidden. With liberation in 1945 Japanese was quickly
thrown out.

The democratic path is followed at the European Union. The
language of each member is regarded as an equal to all
others. Anything said in one language must appear in all
others. The result probably makes the  bricks of the old
Tower of Babel smile at the confusion. Not only is it costly
but it is operationally faulty.  Where does one find an
adequate supply of translators between the many language
combinations, such as Greek and Danish?

The rational proposal for language is the only practical
choice. Its principle is similar to that of the metric
system of measurement.  It would use a logically devised
language which would therefore be simple to learn. Having
been originated by deliberate design, it would be
independent of any government. The name of the only such
language is Esperanto.

Both authors have spoken this language for several years.
They have used it in communication with persons of dozens of
countries.  They have witnessed the summer credit courses at
San Francisco State University and the University of
Hartford, Connecticut. This accounts for their certainty
that Esperanto can serve the people of the Third World well
as their common second language.

Scientific and technical education must await the
development of textbooks in Esperanto. When they become
available, young people can teach themselves this language
within only six months. The reason that this is true is that
its grammar is perfectly regular. A chemistry text,
Generala, Organika kaj Biologia Kemio  , is an example of
the textbooks ultimately needed. This initiative for
scientific textbooks comes from an Iranian, Dr. M. H. Saheb-
Zameni.

As the Esperanto language is more and more used, the
barriers to Third World progress will markedly diminish.

Chicago, 8 March 1996

-- 
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