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From: hinsenk@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA (Hinsen Konrad)
Subject: Re: Single European Language
In-Reply-To: hlu@GAS.UUG.Arizona.EDU's message of 14 Jun 1995 18:02:26 GMT
Message-ID: <HINSENK.95Jun15134251@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA>
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	<DUNCAN.95Jun14123826@lightning.eee.strath.ac.uk>
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Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:42:51 GMT
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In article <3rn87i$n9o@news.ccit.arizona.edu> hlu@GAS.UUG.Arizona.EDU (Hung J Lu) writes:

   Frequent Myths of Esperantists no. 17:
   To believe that a French person can only be educated in France,
   live in France, work in France, marry someone French, have 
   French kids. All this should hold true in another 200 years.

I think it is completely pointless to discuss what will happen
200 years from now. I am sure no one would have predicted
anything about today's world in 1795. 200 years are a long time!


When Esperantists talk about "a second language for everyone",
they refer to the situation of today and the immediate
future. The point is that Esperanto *can* be learned to
a high level of competence as a foreign language by a large
part of the population. It is therefore *possible* to use it
as a universal second language without negelecting everyone's
native languages.

Once international communication ceases to be a limiting
factor, there will obviously be more contacts between people
from different origins, including marriages leading to
children. In fact, there are native speakers of Esperanto
even today, due to exactly this effect. But now and in the
forseeable future, these are and wil be exceptions.

--
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Konrad Hinsen                     | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca
Departement de chimie             | Tel.: +1-514-343-6111 ext. 3953
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