International Language Part 6

Perhaps the least tedious way of giving an idea of this kind of opposition, and the way in which it may be met, is to give some extracts from a scholar's letter, and the writer's answer. The letter is fairly typical.

"MY DEAR --,

"Many thanks for your long letter on Esperanto....

According to the books, Esperanto can be learnt quickly by any one. This means that they will forget it quite as rapidly; for what is easily acquired is soon forgotten.... In my humble opinion, an Englishman who knows French and German would do much better to devote any extra time at his disposal to the study of his own language, which, I repeat, is one of the most delicate mediums of communication now in existence. It has taken centuries to construct, while Esperanto was apparently created in a few hours. One is G.o.d's handiwork, and the other a man's toy. Personally, any living language interests me more than Esperanto. I am sorry I am such a heretic, but I fear my love for the English language carries me away....

"Yours ever, "--."

The points that rankle are artificiality and lack of a history.

_Reply_

"MY DEAR --,

"I really can't put it any more plainly, so I must just repeat it: we are not trying to introduce a language that has any interest for anybody in itself. An international language is a labour-saving device. The question is, Is it an efficient one? If so, it must surely be adopted. The world wants to be saved labour. It never pays permanently to do things a longer way, if the shorter one produces equally good results. No one has yet proved, or, in my opinion, advanced any decent argument tending to show, that the results produced by a universal language will not be just as good _for many purposes_[1] as those produced by national languages. That the results are more economically produced surely does not admit of doubt.

[1]And those very important ones, relatively to man's whole field of activity.

'Personally, any living language interests me more than Esperanto.' Of course it does. So it does me, and most sensible people. But what the digamma does it matter to Esperanto whether we are interested in it or not? It is not there to interest us. The question is, Does it, or not, save us or others unprofitable labour on a large scale? Neither you nor most sane persons are probably particularly interested in shorthand or Morse codes or any signalling systems. Yet they bear up.

"Do try to see that we think there is a certain felt want, amongst countless numbers of persons, which is much more efficiently and economically met by a neutral, easy, international language, than by any national one. That is the position you have got to controvert, if you are seriously to weaken the argument in favour of an international language. If you say that it is not a want felt by many people, I can only say, at the risk of being dogmatic, that you are wrong. I happen to know that it is.[1] The question then is, Is there an easy way of meeting that want? And the equally certain and well-grounded answer is, There is....

[1]I have before me a list of 119 societies, representing many different lines of work and play and many nations, who had already in 1903 given in their adhesion to a scheme for an international language. Technical terms alone (in all departments of study) want standardizing, and an international language affords the best means. The number of societies is now (1907) over 270.

"As to your argument that what is easy is more easily forgotten-it is true. But I think you must see that, neither in practice nor in principle, does it or should it make for choosing the harder way of arriving at a given result. Chance the forgetting, if necessary re-learning as required, and use the time and effort saved for some more remunerative purpose.

"'One is G.o.d's handiwork, the other a man's toy.' I should have said the first was man's lip-work, but I see what you mean. It is G.o.d working through his creature's natural development. The same is equally true of all man's 'toys.' Man moulded his language in pursuance of his ends under G.o.d. Under the same guidance he moulded the steam engine, the typewriter, shorthand, the semaph.o.r.e, and all kinds of signals. What are the philosophical _differentia_ that make Esperanto a toy, and natural language G.o.d's handiwork? Apparently the fact that Esperanto is 'artificial,' i.e. consciously produced by art. If this is the criterion, beware lest you d.a.m.n man's works wholesale. If this is not the criterion, what is?

"'An Englishman who knows French and German would do much better to devote any extra time at his disposal to the study of his own language.' Yes-if his object is to qualify as an artist in language.

No-if his object is to save time and trouble in communicating with foreigners. You must compare like with like. It is unscientific and a confusion of thought to change the subject-matter of a man's employment of his time on grounds other than those fairly intercomparable. You have dictated as to how a man should employ his time by changing his object in employing his time. This makes the whole discussion irrelevant, in so far as it deals with the comparative advantage of studying one language or the other.

"Time's up! I have missed my after-lunch walk, and I expect only hardened your heart.

"Yours, "--."

And I had!

XII

WILL AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE DISCOURAGE THE STUDY OF MODERN LANGUAGES, AND THUS BE DETRIMENTAL TO CULTURE?-PARALLEL WITH THE QUESTION OF COMPULSORY GREEK

There is a broad, twofold distinction in the aims with which the study of foreign languages is organized and undertaken.

It serves: first, purely utilitarian ends, and is a means; secondly, the purposes of culture, and is an end in itself.

An international auxiliary language aims at supplanting the first type of study completely, and, as it claims, with profit to the students. The second type it hopes to leave wholly intact, and disclaims any attempt to interfere with it in any way. How far is this possible?

The answer depends mainly upon the efficiency of the alternative offered by the new-comer in each case as a possible subst.i.tute.

Firstly, if it is true that a great portion of the human race, especially in the big polyglot empires and the smaller states of Europe, are groaning under the incubus of the language difficulty, and have to spend years on the study of mere words before they can fit themselves for an active career, then the abolition of this heavy handicap on due preparation for each man's proper business in life will liberate much time for more profitable studies. It is certain that the majority of mankind are non-linguistic by nature and inclination rather than linguistic-i.e. that the best chance of developing their natural capacities to the utmost and making them useful and agreeable members of society does not lie in making all alike swallow an overdose of foreign languages during the acquisitive years of youth. By doing so, vast waste is caused, taking the world round. As to the attainment of the object of this first type of language study, not only is it as efficiently secured by a single universal language, but far more so. _Ex hypothesi_ the object is utilitarian; the language is a means. Well, a universal language is a better means than a national one-first, because, being universal, it is a means to more; secondly, because, being easy and one, it is a means that more people can grasp and employ. In fact, it is in this field an efficient subst.i.tute; it saves much, without losing anything.

For the second type of language-study, on the other hand, where the end is culture and the language is studied for itself and in no wise as an indifferent means, a universal artificial language offers no subst.i.tute at all. This end is not on its programme. Why, then, should any language-study that is organized in view of culture be given up on its account?

It may, of course, be said that the time given to it by those who pursue culture in language will be taken from the time devoted to more worthy linguistic study, and will therefore prejudice the learning of other languages. This is a point of technical pedagogics or psychology. There is very good reason, from the standpoint of these sciences, to believe that a study of a simple _type-tongue_ would, on the contrary, pay for itself in increased facility in learning other languages. But this is more fully discussed in the chapter for teachers (see pp. 145-55) [Part III, Chapter I].

The question, however, is not in reality quite so simple as this.

There is no water-tight part.i.tion between utilitarian and cultural language-study. They act and react upon each other. There really is some ground for anxiety, lest the provision of facilities for learning an easy artificial language at your door may prevent people from going out of their way to learn national ones, which would have awakened scholarly instincts in them. The cause of culture would thus sustain some real hurt.

The question is another phase-a wider and lower-grade phase-of the great compulsory Greek question at Oxford and Cambridge. It affects the ma.s.ses, whereas the Greek controversy affects the few at the top; but otherwise the issue at stake is essentially the same.

In both cases the bedrock of the problem is this, Can we afford to put the many through a grind, which is on the whole unprofitable to them and does not attain its object of conferring culture, in order to uphold the traditional system in the interests of the few? In neither case do the reformers desire to suppress the study of the old culture-giving language; rather it is hoped that the interests of scholarly and liberal learning will benefit by being freed from the dead weight of grammar grinders, whose mechanical performance and monkey antics are merely a dodge to catch a copper from the examiners.

When Greek is no longer bolstered up by the protection of compulsion, some of the present bounty-fed (i.e. compulsion-fed) facilities for its study will no doubt disappear from the schools which are at present forced to provide them. With them will be lost some recruits who would have been led by the facilities to study Greek, and would have studied it to their profit. On the other hand, the university will be open to numbers of students who are at present shut out by the Greek tariff.

Another barrier against modernity will go down, and democracy make another step out of the proverbial gutter towards the university.

Similarly, the possession of a universally understood medium of communication will in some cases deter people from making the effort to study real language, with all the treasures of original literature to which it is the key.

"Tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true.

But-and this is the great point-it will open the cosmopolitan outlook to countless thousands who could never hope to grapple successfully with even one national language. This cannot be a small gain.

It all comes back to this-you cannot eat your cake and have it too.

_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle._ The international language has the defects of its qualities. But then its qualities are great, and the world is their sphere of utility.

XIII

OBJECTION TO AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE ON THE GROUND THAT IT WILL SOON SPLIT UP INTO DIALECTS

This is a particularly unfortunate objection, because it displays a radical ignorance of the history of language, and of the conditions under which it develops.

In the first place, the whole tendency of language in the modern world is towards disappearance of local dialects, and their absorption into a uniform literary language. The dialects of England are almost dead before the onset of universal education, and the great work of Dr.

Wright was only just in time to rescue them from oblivion. Even one generation hence it will be impossible to collect much of the local speech recorded in his dictionary. It is the same in Germany and everywhere, though, of course, all countries are not equally advanced in this respect. A standard form of words and grammar is fixed by print for the literary language, and when every one can read and write, it is all up with national evolution of language, such as has produced all national languages. A gradual change of the phonetic value given to the written symbols there may be. This has been pre-eminently the case in England, though even this will now be arrested by universal education.

But a change of forms or of grammar can only be indefinitely slight and gradual. When it takes place, it reflects a common advance of the literary language, and not local or dialectical variation (though the common advance may have originally spread from one locality).

In the second place, dialects are variations that spring up under the stress of local circ.u.mstance in the familiar every-day unconscious use of a common mother tongue among people of the same race and inhabiting the same district. Now, these are the very circ.u.mstances in which an auxiliary international language never can, and never will, be used. The only exception is the case of people meeting together for the conscious practice of the language or using it in jest.

There are no occasions when an international language would be naturally used when any variation from standard usage would not be a distinct disadvantage as tending to unintelligibility. In short, a neutral language consciously learned as a means of communication with strangers is not on an equal footing with, or exposed to the same influences as, a mother tongue used by people every day under like conditions.

A cardinal point of difference is well ill.u.s.trated by Esperanto. The whole foundation of the language, vocabulary, grammar, and everything else, is contained in one small book of a few pages, called _Fundamento de Esperanto_. No change can be made in this except by a competent elected international authority. Of course, no text-books or grammars will be authorized for the use of any nation that are not in accordance with the _Fundamento_. People will make mistakes, of course, just as they make mistakes in any foreign language, and they can help themselves out with any words from other languages, just as they do now when their French or German fails them. But the standard is always there, simple and short, to correct any aberration, and there is no room for any alterations in form or structure to creep in.

XIV

OBJECTION THAT THE PRESENT INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE (ESPERANTO) IS TOO DOGMATIC, AND REFUSES TO PROFIT BY CRITICISM

It is true that Esperantists refuse to make any change in their language at present, and this is found irritating by some able critics, who wrongly imagine that this att.i.tude amounts to a claim of perfection for Esperanto. The matter may be easily put right.