Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: Kitt@cary.demon.co.uk (Kittredge Cowlishaw)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!news.duke.edu!convex!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!pipex!demon!cary.demon.co.uk!Kitt
Subject: Re: refusing to speak a language Re: Mastering many languages
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Date: Sun, 18 Sep 1994 17:27:00 +0000
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Scott Horne writes:
> I, for example, am competent in Esperanto, though I refuse to speak it.

iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
[of Scott Horne]
> >... I think he is very unlikely to
> >ever come across an Esperantist with whom he doesn't share at least
> >one natural language, so this strategy can't be a source of problems.

donh@netcom.com "Mo" writes:
> Happens more often than you might think.... I got called in once
> when a friend of mine had to interpret between a doctor and a patient.
> The doctor spoke putonghua, Shanghainese, and about a hundred words of
> English (of the "Hello. Please sit down. Thank you. Goodbye." variety).
> The patient spoke Finnish, French and Esperanto. Interpretation was
> between Esperanto and Shanghainese. Perhaps Mr. Horne would have
> refused, on principle, to participate in such a process?

Mr. Derzhanski's point was that, in the probable course of events
--including the situation you describe--Mr. Horne would not need
to use his Esperanto in order to act as interpreter.

To someone who has taken the trouble to learn a respectable number
of the world's most widely-spoken languages, as Scott Horne has,
Esperanto may be of negligible utility.  Anyone who chooses to learn
only one or two, on the other hand, may make a different choice
according to his own circumstances.

(Hmmm, this argument is flawed, since many of us sci.lang polyglots
learn languages not for utility, but for fun--but that cuts both
ways, so it doesn't affect the conclusion.)

Of course, one could propose endless combinations of doctors,
patients, languages, and dire emergencies in the cause of testing
Mr. Horne's resolve; however, in the general case, if I found myself
in urgent need of linguistic assistance and saw both Mr. Horne and
an Esperantist hovering in the hospital corridor, I'd yell for Scott.
But that's partly because I'm convinced that, once out of the glare
of public debate, he wouldn't be as inflexible as he pretends.

Kittredge
