Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec,sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!umn.edu!news
From: Nick Rezmerski <rezm0001@gold.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Languages in the EC
Message-ID: <D403LK.8r8@news.cis.umn.edu>
Sender: news@news.cis.umn.edu (Usenet News Administration)
Nntp-Posting-Host: ford400.che.umn.edu
Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
References: <3h3ci5$qc8@agate.berkeley.edu> <elnaD3KB2I.6uv@netcom.com> <D3o19C.Hvr@midway.uchicago.edu> <3hbcl6$qhl@blackrabbit.cs.uoregon.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:38:13 GMT
Lines: 177

bhelm@cs.uoregon.edu (B. Robert Helm) wrote:
>
> I have some questions about the viability of Latin, or some more or
> less heavily planned language based on Latin, as a common second
> language for the European Union (EU).
> 
> Suppose the EU has decided to promote a common second language for all
> EU citizens.  There are several reasons why it might have done so:
> 
> (1) Political: A common language would simplify citizen and
> parliamentary participation in EU government.  It would simplify
> running that government as well, although mass education in the
> language would not be necessary to accomplish this.

Agreed.  Translation using a single common language is adequate for now.

> (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.
 
> (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.

> (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!

> Assume further that languages of EU member states (e. g. English,
> French, German) have been judged unacceptable, because the common
> language must be neutral. Would Latin or a constructed derivative
> serve the purposes of the common language?  Some considerations:
> 
> (A) Adequacy for modern use: In the discussion of Esperanto, many
> pointed out that Esperanto lacks the necessary legal and scientific
> vocabulary to serve as the political goals of the common language
> (point 1).  Whether this is true or not, Latin seem less handicapped
> in this respect.  Both science and law used Latin extensively until
> relatively recently.  Since then, as I understand it, various
> supporters of Latin have tried to keep its vocabulary current.  Have
> they succeeded?

If Latin is used in conjunction with English, German, French, etc. in
legal and scientific contexts, is there any reason why it could not
also be used in conjunction with Esperanto for these purposes?  Also,
my Esperanto dictionary doesn't seem to be lacking in words for most
of the scientific and technical terms I could think of.

> (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.  What about
> Latin?  My impression (possibly incorrect) is that Latin is still
> widely taught in public schools in the EU, albeit only to a small
> number of students and not for spoken and written fluency.  Could
> Latin, like Hebrew, have enough passive speakers for a modern revival?

"It's pointless trying to increase the number of Esperanto speakers
because there aren't very many current speakers."  Right. Heard it.
My impression is that Latin would have to be extensively modified to
be useful in the modern world, and the resulting modifications would
render traditional Latin texts somewhat obsolete.  Besides, most of
this work has been done, in the course of developing Esperanto.

> Creating a base of speakers would certainly be easier if the language
> were inherently easy to learn.  Esperanto is claimed to be easy, while
> Latin is reputedly difficult.  But I wonder: If Esperanto were being
> taught en masse, instead of to small numbers of highly motivated
> polyglots, and if Latin were being taught as a tool for modern needs
> rather than as a way to read important and difficult literature, would
> the two languages be more equal in difficulty?  To reduce the
> difficulty of Latin, one could also use a simpler planned language
> (e. g. Occidental, Interlingua) based on Latin, rather than the modern
> Latin of the Vatican and Radio Finland.  Latin-based planned languages
> obviously lost to Esperanto in "open market" competition.  But if the
> market knows best, we would probably not be even considering languages
> other than English.

It's a two-way street.  The market will increase with the availability
of courses and materials, but there must be pre-existing market to
make it worthwhile to develop these courses and materials.  The
announcement of Esperanto's selection as an officially supported,
neutral European language would cause that market to mushroom.

> (C) Culture: Latin is not short of literature, although Esperanto obviously
> has more modern and popular works.  But both are equally hard to find
> in the modern mass media of film, television, and radio (point 4).  In
> fact, if one counts the film version of "The Name of the Rose", there
> might be more minutes of film in Latin than in Esperanto :-)

Would you rather translate (for subtitling or dubbing) the current
releases and back catalog of films into Esperanto or Latin?  The
existence of a modern international community of Esperanto speakers
(including TV & radio actors!) might make the task easier.

> (D) Neutrality: Latin is obviously not _linguistically_ neutral in the
> EU.  Some EU members will learn it more easily than others.  On the
> other hand, Esperanto has the same deficiency, to a lesser extent.

The regularity of Esperanto and its agglutinative qualities outweigh
its Latin (and Germanic and Romance) bias, in my opinion.  As long as
people get over the notion that every word in Esperanto must somehow
resemble the French, German, English, Spanish, etc. equivalent.

> Latin is also not culturally neutral, being associated with the Roman
> Catholic church, but I am not certain that this association renders it
> totally unacceptable.  After all, precisely because of that
> association, Latin once was the common language of the intelligentsia
> of Europe.  If one wants the common language to create an "EU
> identity" (point 3), Latin's historical role might therefore more
> positive than negative.  Latin is, at least, politically neutral (dead
> men don't vote, outside of Chicago :-).

Esperanto is no less politically neutral than Latin, since it does not
have a country.  The only danger is the possibility of Esperantists
developing a sort of 'nationalism of Esperantujo'.  Whatever common
language people choose, I think they should not lose sight of their
national heritage in the name of international cooperation.

> Comments?  I'm particularly curious to hear the views of EU citizens on
> the current state of Latin there.
> 
> Rob

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.  Native
speakers of national languages tend to look down their noses at
less-than-competent non-native speakers.  In America, for example, we
often have biases against people whose English is poor; this goes for
Americans as well as visiting foreigners.

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.  However, if Esperanto (or another neutral language) was 
supported as a standard by shopkeepers, local governments, airports, 
hotels, etc., in ALL European countries, don't you think you'd have a
good reason to learn it?  It would be useful no matter where you went.
The key issue is supporting it BEFORE it gains widespread use.  If
you withhold support until it becomes widespread, nothing happens.

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.

In official proceedings, it makes sense to have one language as a 
standard, so that each member nation will need only one translator.
Additionally, any individual member of the body would only need to 
learn that one language to follow the proceedings.  On a practical 
level, it doesn't much matter what that language is; they key issue 
is to be able to communicate quickly and accurately.  An alternative
language can always be chosen later, but member nations must be able
to discuss the issue with each other first, not just with their own 
delegation.

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.

Kiam vi deziras konversacion, ni vidos vin en s.c.e kaj IRC!

Fartu bone,

  - Nick@Nite (Nikolaso on #esperanto)
    rezm0001@gold.tc.umn.edu
