Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.politics.ec
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!insosf1.infonet.net!internet.spss.com!markrose
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Esperanto (was: Languages in the EC)
Message-ID: <D4DEC8.G4I@spss.com>
Sender: news@spss.com
Organization: SPSS Inc
References: <3h3ci5$qc8@agate.berkeley.edu> <D3o19C.Hvr@midway.uchicago.edu> <3hbcl6$qhl@blackrabbit.cs.uoregon.edu> <D403LK.8r8@news.cis.umn.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 21:57:44 GMT
Lines: 190

The current debate over Esperanto is at root a religious controversy.  

As in most religious controversies, the rhetorical advantage generally lies
with the believers, who know their facts better, are experienced debating
the issue, and can have great fun demolishing the misconceptions and 
prejudices that are thrown at them.

And as in most religious controversies, the believers fail to convince most
of the onlookers; partly because their arguments are too tied to the 
acceptance of their beliefs, and appeal only to the converted; and partly
because they cannot hold themselves back from insulting their opponents,
which leaves a bad impression.

In the case of Esperanto, the basic problem is that the language has been
around for a century, hasn't achieved even 1% of its goal, and cannot show
that it ever will.  An Esperantist cannot admit this, even to himself... 
without ceasing to be an Esperantist.  

In the course of doing some research on Esperanto, I read a long controversy
on Esperanto, very similar to the current one, in the letter column of the
_New York Times_... for 1910.  I don't think I've seen any arguments in this
newsgroup, for or against, which weren't echoed in that discussion, 85 years
ago.  (The case for Latin was presented a bit stronger then.  One letter-
writer, who signed himself Arcadius Avellanus, maintained that Latin should
replace the "degenerate" modern Romance languages.  And there were some real
live supporters of Ido as well.  Talk about a no-win situation: any
Esperanto-Ido argument, no matter who argues better, cannot fail to reduce
an outsider's respect for both sides.)

This should tell the Esperantists something (but it won't).  For Esperanto
to succeed, either something in the world has to change (and they'd better
figure out what, before wasting another century); or something in the
Esperanto movement has to change.  If Esperantists really wanted success,
they should admit to themselves that the movement has been a failure, and
seriously ask themselves why.  

"Failure" may seem too strong; but I'm only applying the Esperantists' own
standards.  They want to convert the world, and they haven't.  If their
goals were instead simply to promote international study, travel, and
communication among those interested-- kind of like the youth hostel
movement-- then Esperanto is a resounding success.

They might begin by examining whether some of their assumptions are 
actually true.  For instance...

In article <D403LK.8r8@news.cis.umn.edu>,
Nick Rezmerski  <rezm0001@gold.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
>> (2) Economic: A common language would help create a unified European
>> labor market.  It would reduce the cost of cross-border commerce.
>
>Agreed.  Trade and tourism could only benefit.

Really?  In fact, aren't people pretty good at knowing what's in their own
economic interest?  If learning another language is necessary to get a job
or sell products, people will do it (OK, in the latter case they'll hire
someone else to do it for them).  

As for travel, according to all the evidence, people travel when they have
the money to do so, not when they know other languages.  And if enough of
them are travelling, the countries visited will find it in their interest to
learn the travelers' languages.  

If after all that the Esperantists still want to maintain that "trade and
tourism could only benefit", let them quantify exactly how much they would
benefit-- and justify their answers.

>> (3) Social:  A common language could promote a sense of shared
>> identity among EU citizens, encouraging continued support for the
>> Union.
>
>Agreed.  Linguistic barriers only fuel nationalism.

This is sacred Zamenhofiana and unlikely to be touched-- but it doesn't
stand up to a moment's examination.  It's easy to see how Zamenhof, a Polish
Jew, could have felt this way.  But many Russian Jews speak perfect Russian,
and still face persecution.  Common languages never prevented competing 
nationalisms in Northern Ireland, in Korea, in Bosnia, in Lebanon, in China.
Where language seems to divide people, it's generally only because some
other division (class, religion, race, national origin) is taking advantage 
of it to do so.  Arguments over language in Canada, for instance, are not 
really about language, but over anglophones' past treatment of francophones.

In fact I think the argument should be reversed: notions that a common
language are needed for a "sense of shared identity" *are* nationalism.

>> (4) Cultural: A common language would create a large audience for EU
>> filmmakers, and television producers, improving their ability to
>> compete with their American counterparts.
>
>And provide a good reason for Americans to learn the EC language!

This obviously hasn't been thought through very well.  This "large audience"
wouldn't exist for many years; meanwhile, either the European film industry
dwindles away until there's nothing worth saving, or it learns to compete
using its current languages but with better strategies and advertising.

>Also, my Esperanto dictionary doesn't seem to be lacking in words for most
>of the scientific and technical terms I could think of.

One could scarcely conceive of a more inadequate test.  My French dictionary
"doesn't seem to be lacking" in technical words either-- but it is, as I
find when I actually try to use French for technical discussions (of 
linguistics, computers, or statistics, for example).  

>> (B) Ease of introduction: Any common, neutral language will require
>> enormous resources to train teachers, print materials, and so on to
>> create a base of speakers in the EU.  The costs of such investment
>> would likely outweigh the economic benefits of a common language for
>> many years (point 2).  Supporters of Esperanto point out that they
>> already have many speakers, learning materials and the like, while its
>> detractors note that the number of speakers is still tiny.  [...]
>
>"It's pointless trying to increase the number of Esperanto speakers
>because there aren't very many current speakers."  Right. Heard it.

And there, in a nutshell, is why the number of Esperanto speakers *won't*
increase: Esperantists are familiar with the basic problem, even bored
by it, as Mr. Rezmerski evidently and understandably is; but they have no
answer for it.  Folks, you've been in the same boat for a hundred years.
Why is 1995 different from 1965, and 1945, and 1925, and 1905?

>The announcement of Esperanto's selection as an officially supported,
>neutral European language would cause that market to mushroom.

This is nothing more than a statement of faith.  Symbolic gestures are nice,
but don't in themselves accomplish much.  A few years ago, Quechua was made
an official language in Peru.  I applaud this-- but I'd be fooling myself
to think that it's made much practical difference.  

Instead of relying on acts of God or the EU, Esperantists would do better
to study the economic, political, and sociolinguistic reasons why languages
grow and decay-- and apply them objectively to their own language, not 
just everybody else's.

>Although I'm not a EU citizen, I think it's important to pick a
>language that people can all learn to speak equally well.  

This is called "stacking the deck".  Esperanto is certainly easy to learn;
naturally an Esperantist will push ease of learning as the chief criterion
for an interlanguage.  Esperanto has very few speakers; naturally an
Esperantist will pooh-pooh the advantages (number of speakers, number of
teachers, rich lexicon, rich culture) of any widely spoken language.

A similar tactic is to point out that Esperanto does not give any national
group an "unfair advantage", as English is said to do.  Does anyone besides
the Esperantists really believe that it would be a disadvantage, rather than
an advantage, for a proposed common EU language to have a lot of speakers
already?  

>People have to have a reason for learning a language; in the case of English,
>it's traditionally because non-English-speakers want American dollars.

>Part of the advantage of Esperanto is that there is an established
>community of speakers who use it not out of necessity, but because
>they WANT to establish international relationships, and are therefore
>willing to take a step to meet others halfway, by learning Esperanto.

And here's where we get into the insults.  People who learn Esperanto are
altruistic internationalists; while all you people who've learned English
are just a bunch of greedheads.  

The statement itself is dubious enough (I do hope Ivan Derzhanski comments
on the suggestion that he learned English out of a desire for American
dollars); but that's not the point.  Try to ask yourselves, Esperantists:
is this really the kind of argument that convinces people of your cause?

>My impression from watching debate over Esperanto has been this:
>if people spent as much time learning some Esperanto as they do
>arguing against it, they would see the advantage immediately.  Why
>are people so afraid of trying it?  It's not difficult; it's fun!
>You can always give it up and try something else later if you want.
>It can't hurt, and it certainly CAN help.  It also just might make
>you realize how tightly you tend to grip your mother tongue.

And the final religious appeal: you'd stop criticizing us if only you'd
come join us.  Join us... join us...

What Mr. Rezmerski forgets is that religions have apostates, too.  
I and others who've criticized Esperanto here-- I hope Scott Horne doesn't
mind if I mention his name-- *have* taken the time to learn Esperanto.
I'm not afraid of it, and if it *could* succeed I'd have no objection.
But I became convinced that it's not going anywhere, and has no prospects
for change.  And though yes, it was fun, I've gotten a lot more fun out of 
French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

One final note: to the non-Esperantists: you're not going to win the 
debate; religious arguments are not settled by rational discussion.
To the Esperantists: I'm sorry if my arguments have been annoying.
I have high respect for some of you, particularly Don Harlow, and I
hope you continue doing your thing.  
