International Language Part 14

IDIOM NEUTRAL[1]

Nostr patr kel es in sieli! Ke votr nom es sanktifiked; ke votr regnia veni; ke votr volu es fasied, kuale in siel, tale et su ter. Dona sidiurne a noi nostr pan omnidiurnik; e pardona (a) noi nostr debiti, kuale et noi pardon a nostr debtatori; e no induka noi in tentasion, ma librifika noi da it mal.

[1]There are two forms of Idiom Neutral,-one called "pure,"

authorized by the academy; the other used in the paper _Idei International_.

ESPERANTO

Patro nia, kiu estas en la cielo, sankta estu via nomo; venu regeco via; estu volo via, kiel en la cielo, tiel ankau sur la tero. Panon nian ciutagan donu al ni hodiau; kaj pardonu al ni suldojn niajn, kiel ni ankau pardonas al niaj suldantoj; kaj ne konduku nin en tenton, sed liberigu nin de la malbono.

Comparing Volapuk with Idiom Neutral, even this brief specimen is enough to show the main line of improvement. The framers of the latter had realized the fact that the vocabulary is the first and paramount consideration for an artificial language. It is hopeless to expect people to learn strings of words of arbitrary formation and like nothing they ever saw. Accordingly Idiom Neutral borrows its vocabulary from natural speech, and thereby abandons a regularity which may be theoretically more perfect, but which by arbitrary disfigurement of familiar words overreaches itself, and does more harm than good.

It is very instructive to note that a body of international language specialists were brought little by little to adopt an almost exclusively Romance vocabulary, and this in spite of the fact that they started from Volapuk, whose vocabulary is constructed on quite other lines. In other points their language suffers from being too exclusively inspired by Volapukist principles, so that their recognition of the necessity of an _a posteriori_ vocabulary is the more convincing.

Given, then, that vocabulary is to be borrowed and not created anew, it is obvious that the principle of borrowing must be _maximum of internationality of roots_-i.e. those words will be adopted by preference which are already common to the greatest number of chief languages. Now, by far the greater number of such international words (which are far more numerous than was thought before a special study was made of the subject) are Romance, being of Latin origin. This is the justification of the prevalence of the Romance element in any modern artificial language. It has been frequently made a reproach against Esperanto that it is a Romance language; but the unanimous verdict of the competent linguists who composed the academy for the emendation of Volapuk may be taken as final. They threshed the question out once for all, and their conclusion derives added force from the fact that it is the result of conversion.

But it may be doubted whether they have not gone rather far in this direction and overshot the mark.

Comparing Idiom Neutral with Esperanto, it will be found that the latter admits a larger proportion of non-Romance words. While fully recognizing and doing justice to the accepted principle of selection, maximum of internationality, Esperanto sometimes gives the preference to a non-Romance word in order to avoid ambiguity and secure a perfectly distinct root from which to form derivatives incapable of confusion with others.[1] There is always a good reason for the choice; but it is easier to appreciate this after learning the language.

[1]It is obvious, too, that English, Germans, and Slavs will be more attracted to a language which borrows some of its features from their own tongues, than to an entirely Romance language. This relatively wider international appeal is another advantage of Esperanto.

But a mere comparison of the brief texts given above will bring out another point in favour of Esperanto-its full vocalic endings. On the other hand, many words in Idiom Neutral present a mutilated appearance to the eye, and, what is a much greater sin in an international language, offer grave difficulties of p.r.o.nunciation to speakers of many nations. Words ending with a double consonant are very frequent, e.g. _nostr patr_; and these will be unp.r.o.nounceable for many nations, e.g. for an Italian or a j.a.panese. Euphony is one of the strongest of the many strong points of Esperanto. In it the principle of maximum of internationality has been applied to _sounds_ as well as _forms_, and there are very few sounds that will be a stumbling-block to any considerable number of speakers. Some of its modern rivals seem to forget that a language is to be spoken as well as written.

When a language is unfamiliar to the listener, he is greatly aided in understanding it if the vowel-sounds are long and full and the p.r.o.nunciation slow, almost drawling. Esperanto fulfils these requisites in a marked degree. It is far easier to dwell upon two-syllabled words with full vocalic endings like _patro nia_ than upon awkward words like _nostr patr_.

Yet another advantage of Esperanto is ill.u.s.trated in the same texts.

Owing to its system of inflexion and the possession of an objective case, it is extremely flexible, and can put the words in almost any order, without obscuring the sense. Thus, in the translation of the _Pater Noster_, the Esperanto text follows the Latin _word for word and in the same order_. It is obvious that this flexibility confers great advantages for purposes of faithful and spirited translation.

VI

THE NEWEST LANGUAGES: A NEO-LATIN GROUP-GROPINGS TOWARDS A "PAN-EUROPEAN" AMALGAMATED SCHEME

A perusal of the list of schemes proposed (pp. 76-87 [Part II, Chapter II]) shows that the last few years have produced quite a crop of artificial languages. Now that the main principles necessary to success are coming to be recognized, the points of difference between the rival schemes are narrowing down, and, as mentioned in the last chapter, there is a family likeness between many of the newer projects. The chief of these are: Idiom Neutral; Pan-Roman or Universal, by Dr. Molenaar; Latino sine flexione, by Prof. Peano; Mundolingue; Nuove-Roman; and Lingua Komun.

These have been grouped together by certain adversaries as "Neo-Roman"; but their partisans seem to prefer the collective term "Neo-Latin."

There are more or less vague hopes that out of them may be evolved a final form of international language, for which the names _Pan-European_ and _Union-Ling_ have been suggested. Dr. Molenaar has declared his willingness to keep to his original t.i.tle, Pan-Roman, for his own language, if the composite one should prefer to be called _Universal_.

Prof. Peano says, in the course of an article (written in his own language, of course), "any fresh solution in the future can only differ from Idiom Neutral, as two medical or mathematical treatises dealing with the same subject."

The only definite scheme for common action put forth up to now seems to be that proposed by Dr. Molenaar. In January 1907 he sent round a circular written in French, in which he makes the following propositions:

All authors and notable partisans of Neo-Latin universal languages shall meet in a special academy, which will elaborate a compromise-language.

As regards the programme, the three fundamental principles shall be:

1. Internationality and comprehensibility.

2. Simplicity and regularity.

3. h.o.m.ogeneity and euphony.

Of these principles, No. 1 is to take precedence of No. 2, and No. 2 of No. 3.

The order of discussion is to be:

I. GRAMMAR

(_a_) Alphabet.

(_b_) Articles (necessary or not?).

(_c_) Declension.

(_d_) Plural (_-s_ or _-i_?).

(_e_) Adjective (invariable or not?).

(_f_) Adverb, etc.

II. VOCABULARY

The number of collaborators is to be limited to about twenty, and the chairman is to be a non-partisan.

Such, in outline, is the proposal of Dr. Molenaar. An obvious criticism is that it falls back into the old mistake of putting grammar before vocabulary.

From a practical point of view such a composite scheme is not likely to meet with acceptance. It will be very hard for authors of languages to be impartial and sacrifice their favourite devices to the common opinion. M. Bollack, author of the _Langue bleue_, has already refused the chairmans.h.i.+p. He does not see the use of founding a fresh academy, and thinks Dr. Molenaar would do better to join forces with the Neutralists.

There exists indeed already an "Akademi International de Lingu Universal," which has produced Idiom Neutral, and of which Mr. Holmes is still director, now in his second term (see preceding chapter).

This academy is said to be too one-sided in its composition, and not scientific. But it is hard to see how it will abdicate in favour of a new one.

Meantime, the victorious Esperantists, at present in possession of the field, poke fun at these new-fangled schemes. A parody in Esperanto verse, ent.i.tled _Lingvo de Molenaar_, and sung to the tune of the American song _Riding down from Bangor_, narrates the fickleness of Pan-Roman and how it changed into Universal. It is said that a group of Continental Esperantists, at a convivial sitting, burnt the apostate Idiom Neutral in effigy by making a bonfire of Neutral literature. On the other side amenities are not wanting. It is now the fas.h.i.+on to sling mud at a rival language by calling it "arbitrary" and "fantastic"; and these epithets are freely applied to Esperanto. Strong in their cause, the Esperantists are peacefully preparing the Congress of Cambridge.

VII

HISTORY OF ESPERANTO

Happy is the nation that has no history,-still happier the international language; for a policy of "pacific penetration" offers few picturesque incidents to furnish forth a readable narrative. In the case of Esperanto there have been no splits or factions; no narrow ring of oligarchs has cornered the language for its own purposes, or insisted upon its aristocratic and non-popular side in the supposed interests of culture or literary taste; consequently there has been no secession of the _plebs_. In the early days of Esperanto there was indeed an attempt to found an Esperanto league; but when it was seen that the league did little beyond suggest alterations, it was wisely dissolved in 1894.

Since then Esperanto has been run purely on its merits as a language, and has expressly dissociated itself from any political, pacifist, or other propaganda. Its story is one of quiet progress-at first very slow, but within the last five years wonderfully rapid, and still accelerating. The most sensational episode in this peaceful advance was the prohibition of the princ.i.p.al Esperantist organ by the Russian censors.h.i.+p, so that there is little to do, save record one or two leading facts and dates.

The inventor of Esperanto is a Polish doctor, Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, now living in Warsaw. He was born in 1859 at Bielostock, a town which has lately become notorious as the scene of one of the terrible Russian _pogroms_, or interracial butcheries. This tragedy was only the culmination of a chronic state of misunderstanding, which long ago so impressed the young Zamenhof that, when still quite a boy, he resolved to labour for the removal of one cause of it by facilitating mutual intercourse. He has practically devoted his life first to the elaboration of his language, and of later years to the vast amount of business that its extension involves. And it has been a labour of love.

Zamenhof is an idealist. His action, in all that concerns Esperanto, has been characterized throughout by a generosity and self-effacement that well correspond to the humanitarian nature of the inspiration that produced it. He has renounced all personal rights in and control of the Esperanto language, and kept studiously in the background till the first International Congress two years ago forced him into the open, when he emerged from his retirement to take his rightful place before the eyes of the peoples whom his invention had brought together.

But he is not merely an idealist: he is a practical idealist. This is shown by his self-restraint and practical wisdom in guiding events.

One of the symptoms of "catching Esperanto" is a desire to introduce improvements. This morbid propensity to jejune amateur tinkering, a kind of measles of the mind (_morbus linguificus_[1]) attacks the immature in years or judgment. A riper acquaintance with the history and practical aims of international language purges it from the system. We have all been through it. For the inventor of Esperanto, accustomed for so many years to retouch, modify, and revise, it must require no ordinary degree of self-control to keep his hands off, and leave the fate of his offspring to others. It grew with his growth, developing with his experience, and he best knows where the shoe pinches and what might yet be done. But he has the fate of Volapuk before his eyes. He knows that, having wrought speech for the people, he must leave it to the people, if he wishes them to use and keep using it.

[1]An expressive (h.o.m.oeopathic) name for this malady may be coined in Esperanto: _malsano lingvotrudema_ = officious or intrusive disease, consisting in an itch for coining language.

Contrast the uncompromising att.i.tude of the inventor of Volapuk, Bishop Schleyer. It will be remembered how he let Volapuk run upon the rocks rather than relinquish the helm. He has been nicknamed "the Volapukist Pope"-and indeed he made the great and fatal bull of believing in his own infallibility. Zamenhof has never pretended to this. When he first published his language, he made no claim to finality on its behalf. He called for criticisms, and contemplated completing and modifying his scheme in accordance with them. He even offered to make over this task to a duly const.i.tuted academy, if people would come forward and throw themselves into the work. Again, some years later, in a pamphlet, _Choix d'une langue Internationale_, he proposed a scheme for obtaining a competent impartial verdict, and declared his willingness to submit to it. At one time he thought of something in the nature of a plebiscite.

Later, his renunciation of the last vestige of control, in giving up the _aprobo_, or official sanction of books; his att.i.tude at the international congresses; his refusal to accept the presidency; his reluctance to name or influence the selection of the members of the body charged with the control of the language; his declaration that his own works have no legislative power, but are merely those of an Esperantist; finally, his sane conception of the scope and method of future development of the language to meet new needs, and of the limits within which it is possible-all this bespeaks the man who has a clear idea of what he is aiming at, and a shrewd grasp of the conditions necessary to ensure success.

The word Esperanto is the present participle of the verb _esperi_-"to hope," used substantially. It was under the pseudonym of Dr. Esperanto that Zamenhof published his scheme in 1887 at Warsaw, and the name has stuck to the language. Before publication it had been cast and recast many times in the mind of its author, and it is curious to note that in the course of its evolution he had himself been through the princ.i.p.al stages exhibited in the history of artificial language projects for the last three hundred years. That is to say, he began with the idea of an _a priori_ language with made-up words and arbitrary grammar, and gradually advanced to the conception of an _a posteriori_ language, borrowing its vocabulary from the roots common to several existing languages and presenting in its grammar a simplification of Indo-European grammar.