International Language Part 2

[1]i.e. they do not a.s.sist in attaining its object as a language. One universal way of forming the plural, past tense, or comparative expresses plurality, past time, or comparison just as well as fifteen ways, and with a deal less trouble.

A little reflection will make this truth so absurdly obvious, that the only wonder is, not that it is now beginning to be recognized, but that any one could have ever derided it.

That the "unnecessary" difficulties of a natural language are more than one-half of the whole is certainly an under-estimate; for some languages the proportion would be more like 3:4 or 5:6. Compared with these, the artificial language would be three times to five times as easy.

Take an ill.u.s.tration. Compare the work to be done by the learner of (_a_) Latin, (_b_) Esperanto, in expressing past, present, and future action.

(_a_) Latin:

Present tense active is expressed by-

6 endings in the 1st regular conjugation.

6 " 2nd "

6 " 3rd "

6 " 4th "

Total regular endings: 24.

To these must be added a vast number of quite different and varying forms for irregular verbs.

(_b_) Esperanto:

Present tense active is expressed by-

1 ending for every verb in the language.

Total regular and irregular endings: 1.

It is exactly the same for the past and future.

Total endings for the 3 tenses active:

(_a_) Latin: 72 regular forms, plus a very large number of irregular and defective verbs.

(_b_) Esperanto: 3 forms.

Turning to the pa.s.sive voice, we get-

(_a_) Latin: A complete set of different endings, some of them puzzling in form and liable to confusion with other parts of the verb.

(_b_) Esperanto: No new endings at all. Merely the three-form regular active conjugation of the verb _esti_ = to be, with a pa.s.sive participle.

No confusion possible.

It is just the same with compound tenses, subjunctives, participles, etc. Making all due allowances, it is quite safe to say that the Latin verb is fifty times as hard as the Esperanto verb.

The proportion would be about the same in the case of substantives, Latin having innumerable types.

Comparing modern languages with Esperanto, the proportion in favour of the latter would not be so high as fifty to one in the inflection of verbs and nouns, though even here it would be very great, allowing for subjunctives, auxiliaries, irregularities, etc. But taking the whole languages, it might well rise to ten to one.

For what are the chief difficulties in language-learning?

They are mainly either difficulties of phonetics, or of structure and vocabulary.

Difficulties of phonetics are:

(1) Multiplicity of sounds to be produced, including many sounds and combinations that do not occur in the language of the learner.

(2) Variation of accent, and of sounds expressed by the same letter.

These difficulties are both eliminated in Esperanto.

(1) Relatively few sounds are adopted into the language, and only such as are common to nearly all languages. For instance, there are only five full vowels and three[1] diphthongs, which can be explained to every speaker in terms of his own language. All the modified vowels, closed "u's" and "e's," half tones, longs and shorts, open and closed vowels, etc., which form the chief bugbear in correct p.r.o.nunciation, and often render the foreigner unintelligible-all these disappear.

[1]Omitting the rare _eu_. _ej_ and _uj_ are merely simple vowels plus consonantal _j_ (= English _y_).

(2) There is no variation of accent or of sound expressed by the same letter. The principle "one letter, one sound"[1] is adhered to absolutely. Thus, having learned one simple rule for accent (always on the last syllable but one), and the uniform sound corresponding to each letter, no mistake is possible.

[1]The converse-"one sound, one letter"-is also true, except that the same sound is expressed by _c_ and _ts_. (See Appendix C.)

Contrast this with English. Miss Soames gives twenty-one ways of writing the same sound. Here they are:

[Transcriber's Note: Letters originally printed in _italics_ are here CAPITALIZED for clarity.]

AtE grEAt fEIGn ba.s.s EH! wEIGH pAIn gAOl AYE pAY gAUgE obEYEd dAHlia champAGnE wEIGHEd vEIn campAIGn trAIT thEY strAIGHt hALFpenny[1]

[1]Prof. Skeat adds a twenty-second: Lord Reay!

(Compare eye, lie, high, etc.)

In Esperanto this sound is expressed only and always by "e." In fact, the language is absolutely and entirely phonetic, as all real language was once.

As regards difficulties of vocabulary, the same may be said as in the case of the sounds. Esperanto only adopts the minimum of roots essential, and these are simple, non-ambiguous, and as international as possible. Owing to the device of word-building by means of a few suffixes and prefixes with fixed meaning, the number of roots necessary is very greatly less than in any natural language.[1]

[1]Most of these roots are already known to educated people. For the young the learning of a certain number of words presents practically no difficulty; it is in the practical application of words learnt that they break down, and this failure is almost entirely due to "unnecessary" difficulties.

As for difficulties of structure, some of the chief ones are as follows:

_Multiplicity and complexity of inflections._ This does not exist in Esperanto.

_Irregularities and exceptions of all kinds._ None in Esperanto.

_Complications of orthography._ None in Esperanto.

_Different senses of same word, and different words used in same sense._ Esperanto-"one word, one meaning."

_Arbitrary and fluctuating idioms._ Esperanto-none. Common sense and common grammar the only limitation to combination of words.

_Complexities of syntax._ (Think of the use of the subjunctive and infinitive in all languages: _??_ and _?_ in Greek; indirect speech in Latin; negatives, comparisons, etc., etc., in all languages.) Esperanto-none. Common sense the only guide, and no ambiguity in practice. The perfect limpidity of Esperanto, with no syntactical rules, is a most instructive proof of the conventionality and arbitrariness of the niceties of syntax in national languages. After all, the subjunctive was made for man and not man for the subjunctive.