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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: talk & travel
Message-ID: <elnaD4AAqz.Dtp@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <elnaD3oBsD.IE7@netcom.com> <BLUME.95Feb8200539@atomic.cs.princeton.edu> <3i29ps$8u3@macondo.dmu.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 05:47:23 GMT
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herb@dmu.ac.uk () writes in a recent posting (reference <3i29ps$8u3@macondo.dmu.ac.uk>):
>
>Forgive my ignorance, but is all very interesting, but what has it got
>to do with soc.culture.german?
>
Dear Herb et alii:
As this thread has evolved (as indeed all threads evelve, nicht wahr?) it
has changed its focus so that some readers can no longer see the relevance
of the subject at hand as it might apply to their newsgroup. Let me recap:

The original subject was an article claiming that the European Parliament
was entertaining a motion at some official level to reduce the number of
official EP (or EU or EC...) languages from the current nine (soon eleven!)
to five. As author of the original post, I invited participation from all
soc.culture.* readers, because I believe that this issue concerns not only
the structures of European government, but of all its constituent nations
and peoples.

I believe it is rather obvious that a policy of reducing the number of 
official languages would be unfair to speakers of the excluded languages.
It also seems obvious that the current system is imperfect, and therefore
subject to improvement. Several writers (myself included) have suggested
that Esperanto might be applied within the EU (and presumably beyond) in a
cost-effective and beneficial program of education and communication. It
has been suggested several times that, although preliminary studies have been
quite positive, some more studies should be done to test the claims made here
and elsewhere by advocates of this planned language.  

Unfortunately, much of the discussion has been diverted to rebuttal of a 
series of a priori judgements and misunderstandings wrapped in rhetorically
charged concepts. I shall not apologise for this lengthy thread's being
cross-posted to a half-dozen newsgroups, for I hope that many readers have
followed the crux of the discussion, and agree that linguistic rights cannot
be ignored in Europe nor in any international body.

Miko Formiko.


