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ESPERANTO
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ESPERANTO , an artificial See also:international See also:auxiliary See also:language (see UNIVERSAL See also:LANGUAGES), first published in 1887, seven years after the See also:appearance of its predecessor See also:Volapuk (q.v.), which it has now completely supplanted. Its author was a See also:Russian physician, Dr L. Zamenhof, See also:born in 1859 at Bielostok, where the spectacle of the feuds of the four races—each speaking different languages—which inhabit it (Russians, Poles, Germans and See also:Jews) at an See also:early date suggested to him the See also:idea of remedying the evil by the introduction of a neutral language, See also:standing apart from the existing See also:national languages. His first idea was to resuscitate some dead language. Then he tried to construct a new language on an a priori basis. At the same See also:time he made what he appears to have considered the See also:great See also:discovery that the bulk of the vocabulary of a language consists not of See also:independent roots, but of compounds and derivatives formed from a comparatively small number of roots. At first he tried to construct his roots a priori by arbitrary combinations of letters. Then he See also:fell back on the See also:plan of taking his roots ready-made from existing languages, as the inventor of Volapiik had done before him. But instead of taking them mainly from one language, he has selected them from the See also:chief See also:European languages, but not impartially. Like all inventors of artificial languages, he is more ready to experiment with See also:foreign languages than with his own; and hence the See also:Slavonic roots in Esperanto are much less numerous than those taken from the other European languages. Here his choice has been to some extent guided by considerations of internationality, although he has not fully grasped the importance of the principle of maximum internationality, so well worked out in the latest See also:rival of Esperanto—Idiom Neutral (see UNIVERSAL LANGUAGES). Thus he adopts a large number of international words—generally unaltered except in spelling—such as teatr, tabak, even when it would be easy to See also:form See also:equivalent terms from the roots already existing in the language. Where there is no one international word, he selects practically at See also:random, keeping, however, a certain See also:balance between the See also:Romance words, taken chiefly from Latin (tamen) and See also:French (trotuar), on the one See also:hand, and the Germanic on the other hand, the latter being taken sometimes from See also:German (nur, " only "), sometimes from See also:English, the words being generally written more or less phonetically (rajt=right). Most of the Germanic words are badly chosen from the inter-national point of view. Thus the German word quoted above would not be intelligible to any one ignorant of German. Indeed, from the international point of view all specially German words ought to be excluded, or else reduced to the See also:common Germanic form; thus trink ought to be made into drink, the t being a specially German modification of the d, preserved not only in English but in all the remaining Germanic languages. This incongruous mixture of languages is not only jarring and repulsive, but adds greatly to the difficulty of mastering the vocabulary for the polyglot as well as the monolingual learner. The inventor has taken great pains to reduce the number of his roots to a minimum; there are 2642 of them in his See also:dictionary, the Universala Vortaro (from Ger. Wort, " word "), which does not include such international words as poezio, telefono; these the learner is supposed to recognize and form without help. The most See also:eccentric feature of the vocabulary, and the one to which it owes much of its brevity, is the extensive use of the prefix mal- to See also:reverse the meaning of a word, as in malamiko, " enemy," and even malbona, " See also:bad." The phonology of the language is very See also:simple. The vowels are only five in number, a, e, i, o, u, used without any distinction of quantity, as in Russian. There are six diphthongs, expressed by an unnecessarily complicated notation. The consonant-See also:system is simple enough in itself, but is greatly complicated in See also:writing by the excessive and mostly unnecessary use made of diacritical letters not only for simple sounds but also for consonant-See also:groups. c is used for ts, as in See also:Polish. The See also:grammar is, like that of Volapuk, partly borrowed from existing languages, partly a priori and arbitrary. The use of the final vowels belongs to the latter See also:category. The use of -a to indicate adjectives and of -o to indicate nouns as in kara amiko, " dear (male) friend," is a source of confusion to those See also:familiar with the Romance languages, and has proved a See also:bar to the See also:diffusion of Esperanto among the speakers of these languages. On the other hand, the following paradigm will show how faith-fully Esperanto can reproduce the defects of conventional European grammar: Singular. Plural. Nominative . . la See also:bona patro la bonaj patroj See also:Accusative . . la bonan See also:patron la bonajn patr47n. It is difficult to see why the accusative should be kept when all the other cases are replaced by prepositions. The verb is better than the noun. Its inflections are -as See also:present, -is preterite, -os future, -us conditional, -u imperative and subjunctive, -i See also:infinitive, together with the following participles: Active. Passive. Present -anta -ata Preterite -inta -ita Future . -onta -ota The inventor has followed the See also:good example of his native language in using esti, " to be," as the auxiliary verb both in the passive, where it is combined with passive participles, and in the secondary tenses of the active (perfect, pluperfect, &c.), where it is of course combined with the active participles. The participles can be made into nouns and adverbs by changing the final -a into -o and -e respectively: thus tenonto, " the future holder," perdinte, " through having lost." The table of the See also:forty-five correlative pronouns, adjectives and adverbs is also elaborate and ingenious. Much ingenuity is displayed in the syntax, as well as some happy simplifications. But, on the other hand, there is much in it that is fanciful, arbitrary and vague, as in the use of the definite article—where the author has unfortunately followed French rather than English usage—and in the moods of the verb. The following specimens will show the See also:general See also:character of this easy-flowing but somewhat heavy and monotonous language-" bad See also:Italian," as it is called by its detractors: Patro nia, kiu estas en la eielo, sankta estu via nomo; venu regeco via; estu See also:volo via, See also:kiel en la eielo, del ankau sur la tero. Panon nian ciutagan done 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. Estimata Sinjoro. Per tiu ci libreto mi havas la honoron prezenti al vi la lingvon internacian Esperanto. Esperanto tute ne havas la intencon malfortigi la lingvon naturan de is popolo. Gi devas nur servi See also:por la rilatoj internaciaj kaj por tiuj verkoj au produktoj, kiuj interesas egale la tutan mondon. In summing up the merits and defects of Esperanto we must begin by admitting that it is the most reasonable and See also:practical artificial language that has yet appeared. Its inventor has had the See also:double See also:advantage of being able to profit by the mistakes of his predecessors, and of being himself, by force of circumstances, a better linguist. It must further be admitted that he has made as good a use of these advantages as was perhaps possible without systematic training in scientific See also:philology in its widest sense. This last defect explains why the See also:enthusiasm which his See also:work has excited in the great See also:world of linguistic dilettantes has not been shared by the philologists: in spite of its superiority to Volapuk, they see in it the same See also:radical defects. Whether they are rash or not in predicting for it a similar See also:fate, remains to be seen. The Esperantists, warned by the fate of Volapuk, have adopted the See also:wise policy of suppressing all See also:internal disunion by submitting to the dictatorship of the inventor, and so presenting a See also:united front to the enemy. One thing is clear: either Esperanto must be taken as it is without See also:change, or else it must crumble to pieces; its failure to work out consistently the principle of the maximum of internationality for its See also:root-words is alone enough to condemn it as hopelessly antiquated even from the narrow point of view which regards " international " as synonymous with " European "—a view which See also:political development in the Far See also:East has made equally obsolete. (H. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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