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We cordially thank ELNA and especially those officials who bestow these honors, and we hope to continue to merit such accolades.
I'm giving the book this free plug in our major metropolitan publication not only because of Esperantist fraternalism and the fact that it could be a major boost to our efforts with children, but also because it reminds me of my own incipient Esperantisthood. Although I wasn't exactly looking for a secret code per se, the private uniqueness of the language -- certainly in America -- appealed to me strongly at age 13. I was reasonably certain that no other student at Muirlands Junior High School was studying Esperanto, and I frankly liked it that way.
As I studied, lesson by lesson, I felt a special, private kinship with young Louie Zamenhof across the years and miles -- this, I felt, was the perfect language I would have created myself, but Louie had saved me the trouble. (Being relieved of the duty of creating a new world language myself should have freed up more time for me to pay attention to algebra and other things I was supposed to be studying in school, but somehow it didn't work out that way.)
Author Claude Piron, in showering praise upon Zaft's book, recounts similar experiences. He also learned Esperanto as an adolescent and was dissuaded by his teachers from doing so. Piron says they considered him nuts for pursuing this avocation, and told him so, in the process unwittingly encouraging him along the path to becoming a psychotherapist as well as an Esperantist!
How ironic. Esperanto was created to be as recognizable as possible to the maximum number of the world's people, and has succeeded in that aim probably more than any other language -- once I spoke some Esperanto (upon request) to an English class full of students from all over the world, and many of them, especially the Europeans, said they understood every word. But in America today, one of Esperanto's main attractions, at least to young people, is its appeal as a private, esoteric, mysterious language. A secret garden.
Ironic, yes. But lots of phenomena in this world are ironic and functional at the same time. If it works, it works. So let's go with it. If we can get kids entranced by Esperanto by portraying the language as an ideal vehicle for their penchant for creating their own sub rosa worlds, then let's do it.
Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken" was thus rendered into Spanish: "It takes a sexually aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
"Puffs" facial tissues tried to introduce its product into Europe, only to learn later that in Germany the product's name meant "Whorehouses," and in Great Britain, "Faggots."
The Chevrolet Nova never sold too well in Spanish-speaking countries, where the car's name means "Doesn't go."
Coors put its slogan "Turn it loose" into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."
When Coca-Cola first expanded into China, they named the product using the Chinese characters that when pronounced sounded something like "Coca-Cola." But the characters they chose meant: "Bite the wax tadpole."
And one last cross-cultural note: When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same cute baby picture on their label (trivia buffs know it's Humphrey Bogart as an infant) as they used in the U.S. Later, when sales turned out to be sluggish, they discovered that in Africa companies routinely put a picture of what's inside the jar on the labels, since most people can't read. Which makes one wonder about the people who did buy it!
His father, for example, was taken prisoner of war by the Russians in World War I and sent to Siberia, where he edited a newspaper called The Plank. This periodical was handwritten and nailed to a plank. The authors hid behind the plank and listened to the comments of the readers -- the Siberian version of "letters to the editor." (In case we decide to implement a similar distribution system for La Potomaka Esperantisto, I will soon be appointing a Site Committee to decide where our plank should be. My first choice is on the Mall in front of the Smithsonian Castle if the Park Service will go for it.)
After Schwartz returned to Hungary, he published an Esperanto journal and invested the profits into real estate -- imagine that an Esperanto periodical could be the kernel for the Schwartz/Soros assets, which would become one of the world's great fortunes today! That should shut anyone up who questions the concrete advantages from knowing Esperanto.
When the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944, young George escaped to England to wait out the war, but father Schwartz remained behind in Hungary. George's next reunion with his father was made possible by Esperanto -- they met at an Esperanto conference in Berne, Switzerland in 1947.
There's nary a word in Soros's book on the fact that his father's name was Schwartz, or why George changed his surname to Soros.
Teodoro Schwartz's memories of those years surviving Nazi tyranny are recounted in his Maskerado Cirkau la Morto, definitely an encouraged read for Esperantists.
Besides Mr. Soros's financial activities, he has established a number of foundations promoting various international and intercultural causes, such as Central European University, the Ukrainian Renaissance Foundation, and the International Science Foundation.
UEA is aware of Mr. Soros's Esperanto background and may be planning official contacts. Let's hope that George Soros's Esperanto heritage, coupled with his present-day interest in international cultural affairs, will be the genesis of a new wave of interest in Esperanto.
Rob Hardy, M.D., an Esperantist and a U.S. Air Force psychiatrist, arrived in Zagreb recently with 120 doctors, nurses and others to oversee the health of the UN personnel who have the duty of peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia. Dr. Hardy writes that in order to visit the Zagreb Esperanto club he had to have an escort to protect him against terrorists.
The doctors and nurses agreed that the most vexing problem of their work was the language barrier. Before beginning their service there, each worker had to sign a document attesting that he possesses a sufficient facility with the English language. But some signed falsely. Often a suffering patient would have to translate for another patient, or even with a second interpreter using a bridge language.
Dr. Hardy wrote to Cathy Schulze: "Every nurse can tell a story about a patient who received instructions about some procedure, nodded 'yes,' but in the end could not even follow the simplest steps that had been explained.
"The nurses well remember a patient in Russia whom they informed would have to receive an injection. The patient confused the English word "shot" with "shoot," and immediately began to struggle; he was certain that the Americans were going to blast him. No one doubts that there is always a good chance of serious consequences arising from such misunderstandings."
Thanks again to the instigation and kind financial support of JIM LIEBERMAN which made this possible.
Rep. David Skaggs (D-Colo.) komparis tiajn proponojn al "pasiv-agresiva konduto." John Whitehead, cxefo de la UN-Asocio de Usono, kiu invitis ESV al la konferenco, ankaux trafe esprimis sin: Usono, li asertis, "devas dauxre pagi siajn kotizojn por resti respektata membro de la klubo." Estas bone ke ESV estas membro de la UN-komunumo en Vasxintono kaj oni esperas ke tiaj kontaktoj kreskos.
The charming and talented SARA SU JONES treated us not only to a visit, but also to a duet of classical music with JIM LIEBERMAN on August 20. Sara and Jim (playing violin and cello, respectively) played "Passacaglia" by Hndel and Halvorsen, one of the few musical works specially written just for those two instruments.
From her birth, her father, prominent Chicago Esperantist KENT JONES, decided to speak to her chiefly in Esperanto at home (with a little English and Korean thrown in), and most of the guests who visited their home were also Esperantists. Besides that, her education included many International Esperanto Congress in various countries. (Our DANIELA DENEVA POWER) remembers seeing Sara Su in Varna, Bulgaria in 1978.)
She was most impressed by the Esperanto gathering in China in 1986, "which opened (my) eyes to the power of Esperanto as a medium of exchange between peoples." The biggest potential for Esperanto, she believes, is in Asia. We must have unity in the movement, she believes, and the European and Asian movements must link themselves together more strongly.
Sara Su is now studying at Harvard, where she is one of the editors of the Harvard International Review. Last year she wrote for that journal a very striking article entitled ""Power of Babel: The Struggle to Balance Linguistic Unity and Diversity" which effectively argued for Esperanto as a solution to linguistic imperialism and other language-based problems. This summer she worked as an intern at the "Russian desk" of the U.S. State Department.
Naturally, because of her background, Sara Su has always had a global perspective. In fact, she announced to her parents, "I am a world citizen" at age four! And the whole world could learn something very important from her:
Sara Su met several Iranians during her many years of attending Esperanto conventions in various countries, and when the Iran-Iraq War broke out in the 1980s, her reaction was: "I'm afraid for my friends -- afraid the bombs will kill them."
Here, then, is one of the most invaluable assets of Esperanto: One acquires friends throughout the world and henceforth sees any war as a threat against one's own family of friends, not just as a series of news items from far away. How wonderful it would be if the whole world could view the world -- and wars -- from that perspective.
The event was largely prompted by complaints from several quarters that the Esperanto community is not doing enough in the world of pragmatic information exchange, and the result was this wide-ranging program of mini-courses on all sorts of subjects -- all in Esperanto. Tom spoke on recent developments in the U.S. economy -- after all, his well-known Ekonomia Bulteno pri Usono is the longest-running Esperanto periodical in America.
The programs were headquartered at Hotel "Espero," formerly owned by the Polish Esperanto Association and managed by Esperantotur. It has since been sold to another party, but most of the staffers still speak Esperanto at the hotel, restaurant and deli -- a wonderful environment, Tom says.
After the Bydgoszcz events Tom went to Torun to meet with the managers of "Studio P," a dance troupe of teenagers who have given presentations at several World Esperanto Congresses. Tom hopes to encourage the troupe to perform in the United States, and he persuaded them to make a videotape to show to potential sponsors.
"'Stacia Pilkludo' as played yesterday afternoon between the Cleveland and Washington teams proved a big attraction for the visiting Esperantists, while they themselves were a counter-attraction to the local fans. Many Washingtonians went to the game for the purpose of seeing the language artists.
"Contrary to report, Umpire Connolly did not delight the crowds with the expected stentorian 'Frapumo unua! Frapumo dua! Frapumo tria!' and other transrendered ball terms. And not a local player did he send to the bench to offer thus an opportunity for the visitors to see a real display of American baseball indignation and patriotism, and to hear a choice selection of Americanisms that would tax the strongest adjectives of Esperanto.
"The Esperantists, however, enjoyed the novel experience. Only a few of the delegates -- these being mostly English -- had ever seen a baseball game before, but all relished the novelty of the big, good-natured crowds, eating peanuts, drinking pop, and singing out familiarities to the players.
"The excitement, too, as the Washington players hammered the sphere all over the field, and especially when Killefer crossed the rubber for the first tally, was highly enjoyed by the foreigners. They could not comprehend the play, but they knew from the sentiments and tones of the yelling rooters about them that applause was demanded. American Esperantists were scattered here and there among the visitors, and were kept busy explaining, or rather trying to explain, some of the game's 'insides'.
"A Russian wanted to know why the ball was hard; and why a soft one wasn't used; and what was the reason for the pitcher throwing the ball at the man with the stick in his hand; and why that fellow in the blue suit was peering over the shoulders of the fellow with the 'funny thing' on his head. 'Ze empire! Oh, I see: ze man wits ze funny thing do not hide ze ball.'
"'And why do all of the men run after the -- what you call him? -- at the first base?' asked a Spaniard. This Castilian also wanted to know why nearly every ball was thrown at the man on the first base, and what made the two men in white chase the other one in blue around the bases.
"In between plying the interpreters with a fire of questions, some of the more courageous delegates explored the mysteries of nealkoholaj trinkaoj -- in grandstand parlance, 'pop' -- gingerly juggling the straw in the bottle. Others, too, became real frivolous, and masticated peanuts. This delicacy and seasoner of a good game was listed on a sign as kvin cendoj, and the peanuts were enjoyed the more because of the Esperantist flavor given by the euphonius kvin cendoj." -- Washington Herald, August 19, 1910.
The article fails to mention whether Zamenhof himself was present, but it seems a good bet he was there since it looked like the most interesting ekskurso on the schedule for that day and it seems unimaginable for him to have missed this cultural event. One only wishes someone got a photo of La Majstro enjoying a hot dog with mustard dripping all over him or screaming imprecations in the lingvo internacia at the bum at the plate who just struck out again. ("Kreteno! Reiru al la Arbustaj Ligoj!")
The Esperantists certainly picked a significant year to see this all-American event -- it was the year President William Howard Taft initiated two beloved baseball traditions. First of all, in 1910, for the first time, the President threw out the first ball to commence a game. Secondly, Mr. Taft (America's most corpulent Chief Executive in history, by the way) decided at one game to get up and stretch during the seventh inning. The crowd, figuring they'd better follow their Commander-in-Chief's lead, did likewise -- thus the seventh-inning stretch which is observed at every game in every stadium today.
In case some younger readers don't remember Griffith Stadium (or the Senators) and would like to visit the hallowed shrine where the Esperantists of the world masticated peanuts and saw Killifer score, just go to the vicinity of Howard University and get hit by a car. (That shouldn't prove too difficult.)
After a few hours' wait and the ambulance has arrived and taken you to Howard University Hospital, you will be on the venerated site of old Griffith Stadium. I'm not sure whether the Emergency Room corresponds to left or right field. Seventh-inning stretches are not obligatory for emergency patients.
I pointed out that far from being dead or moribund, Esperanto in fact has far more speakers than ever before and continues to grow, but gets far less publicity now than it did early in the 20th century (especially in the U.S.) principally because the novelty has worn off; it's no longer a brand-new idea.
I touted several of Esperanto's practical modern uses, from computer conferencing and other forms of international networking to the language's utility as an "Edzperanto" -- a tool for finding a spouse from another country and building a trans-cultural household. I also pointed out that the children of such unions are thus native Esperanto speakers, and so the joke "I speak Esperanto like a native" -- the joke being that there's supposedly no such thing as native Esperantists -- is funny, but not really valid.
The exact date when our write-up in "J Street" will appear is not known at this writing, but Mr. Sautter said it's usually about a month from the time of the interview, which would be late March or early April. We have high hopes that this will bring a good number of new people -- the Sunday Post has a circulation of over 1.1 million, the fourth-highest in the nation. Keep your eyes peeled.
The new law affects advertising, contracts, job offers, internal regulations, official memos, all public documents, and scientific meetings. This action is not France's first official governmental attempt at enforcing linguistic purity. President de Gaulle once gave a speech in which he warned that the continued insidious invasion of anglicisms would damage "le standing de la France," apparently unaware that he had just unconsciously employed one of those invading viruses himself.
In 1975 President Pompidou created the High Committee for the Defense of the French Language, and in 1991 tougher anti-anglicism regulations were proposed by the State Secretary for Francophony. (No kidding! Such an office exists. France also has a federal department of rock and roll, by the way. Francophony, for the uninitiated, refers to the French-speaking world, not to someone impersonating the late Spanish generalissimo.) The government of Quebec has also pulled similar stunts, including fining people for speaking English at work.
Sacre bleu! Imagine if the U.S. reciprocated such chauvinism. French-derived words comprise about half of the English language! In our own Declaration of Independence, for example, 42% of the words are of French origin. We should have fined Jefferson and all those other subversives! If you totaled up all the French-derived words in this article, imagine the assessments ESW would have to pay. Just in this one paragraph, for example, the words imagine, reciprocated, chauvinism, French, derived, comprise, language, declaration, independence, example, origin, subversive, totaled, article, assessments, and pay would all draw fines. (Not to mention Sacre bleu! )
I do not intend to suggest that the French are the only linguistic puritans in the world. The Nazis tried to do the same with German. The Japanese police state before and during World War II endeavored to purge Japanese of commonly used foreign expressions such as kare raisu (curry rice -- a favorite dish in Japan), replacing them with long, clumsy Japanese equivalents.
The pice de rsistance (wait -- don't fine me -- I mean, the "important" -- no, "big part at the end") of my argument is: This silliness underscores several advantages of Esperanto. For one thing, the underlying philosophy of Esperanto would never permit such chauvinism to take hold. Furthermore, the very structure of our language Esperantizes every word it absorbs, welcoming it, as it were, into the fold -- pizza becomes pico, sake becomes sakeo, etc. -- so that no word stands out like a sore thumb as a "foreigner" that somehow doesn't belong. The community of Esperantujo, of course, similarly welcomes all people.
Reza first heard about Esperanto when, at age 16, he saw some information about the language on a piece of newsprint which was wrapped around some meat he had bought at the market! (Of all the types of public outreach we try, somehow we never thought of that one.) The phone number was legible, so that became Reza's first contact with Esperantujo. He studied Esperanto and subsequently became active in his local Esperanto group, where he was in charge of levying fines on "krokodiloj" -- Esperantists who lapse into speaking their national language, in this case Farsi, instead of Esperanto. The penalty was 10 rials per offense. Another example other Esperanto groups might consider!
Yet another endeavor worthy of emulation -- Reza became one of the most prolific correspondents in the Esperanto world, writing regularly to about 70 penpals.
In 1983, during the heat of the Iran-Iraq war, Reza was beguiled by Iraqi propaganda broadcasts promising anti-regime Iranians a splendid welcome if they would emigrate to Iraq. Reza walked for 13 days and nights into Iraq, only to find that the Iraqis had only been interested in inducing the emigrations for propaganda value; after that, the Iraqis had no intention of practicing the hospitality they had preached. Reza and other dissident Iranians were first jailed (for four months in Reza's case) and then dumped into a camp for Iranian refugees.
Despite these outrages, Reza kept up both his spirits and his Esperanto activity. He taught clandestine Esperanto classes to fellow refugees (the Iraqi government had prohibited Esperanto activity) purely from memory, without any books or other teaching materials.
After three years in Iraq, Reza's industrious Esperanto correspondence from his Iranian days finally paid off. Through the Canadian embassy, he was able to get off a letter to one of his Canadian Esperantist penpals, the late Ron Ogram, who arranged for a Canadian visa and the requisite five Canadian guarantors to enable Reza to emigrate to our northern neighbor. He now lives in Ottawa and is an engineer for the federal Department of Public Works.
Reza's stirring story is a yet another vivid attestation to the tremendous value of Esperanto and its extraordinary worldwide community of practitioners.
We also took advantage of the occasion to celebrate Detelina's birthday. Daughter MILA played the perfect hostess throughout the evening.
"A wee little man, whose bushy, black beard was topped by large spectacles, was the center of tremulous emotion when the Esperantists wound up their international congress this morning at the Arlington Hotel. This was Dr. Zamenhof, the Warsaw optician-idealist, who invented the new world language, and who has made its propagation his life work.
"Dr. Zamenhof made the final speech, thanked everyone who had contributed to the success of the Congress, and formally taking leave until next year's meeting in Antwerp.
"When he had finished, H.G. King of New York, who used to be a captain in the District of Columbia National Guard, jumped on the platform and shouted: 'Let's wind this thing up right! Let every red-blooded American here join with me in giving three cheers and a tiger in a red-blooded manner for Dr. Zamenhof. Let's show these Europeans what an American cheer is!' The cheers which followed were calculated to do that very thing. The Europeans joined in with a will. The last words shouted were: 'Vivu Zamenhof!' 'Vivu Zamenhof!'
"The doctor was too unstrung to reply. He just bowed to the right and left as tears mingled with the slight smile which played over his face.
"Before this happened, some emotion of another kind had forced its way over the spillway. It emanated from three advocates of American cities for the next convention.
"Sinclair Lewis, a tall, fair-haired youth, thinks San Francisco makes Paris look like a Puritan settlement. Grosvenor Dawes and J.G. Haupt both are convinced beyond the suspicion of a doubt that New Orleans is the grandest and most altogether scrumptious city, not merely in this world, but in the charted universe.
"San Francisco and New Orleans both want the Panama exposition in 1915. They also want the Esperanto congress to be held in that year. Their representatives were present this morning to tell all about their manifold and unquestioned merits..."
"...Also, Mr. Sinclair (Lewis) politely elected one Rudyard Kipling to membership in the Ananias Club for daring to assert that the east and west shall never met; he knows otherwise. It was certainly some speech." -- Washington Star, August 20, 1910.
Several interesting points here. First of all, notice how nobody seemed to think there was any clash between idealistic, intellectual, Europe-bred Esperanto and the lusty, red-blooded American enthusiasm which closed the congress.
To the contrary -- at that time Esperanto was thought by Zamenhof and by many American observers to be perfectly consonant with the sort of forward-looking, fix-the-world-by-lunchtime optimism that characterized turn-of-the-century America during the Teddy Roosevelt era. (Actually Bill Taft was President by 1910, but Teddy's big-stick lan was still the pervading national spirit.) Zamenhof's "Lando de Libereco" keynote speech, so venerated by American Esperantists, illustrates that spirit perfectly.
And note how the American closing speaker even worked in a who-needs-Europe theme (also very typical of the period) when he joshed the European Esperantists that Americans knew best how to cheer for La Majstro. The American Esperantists of 1910 were certainly conceding no Eurocentrality to the language or the movement. Neither should we in 1994.
Also, isn't it fascinating that a not-yet-famous "fair-haired youth" named Sinclair Lewis was there as a pitchman for San Francisco? I checked all the biographies of the author I could find and saw no references to Esperanto in them, although one states that he indeed was in Washington in 1910 -- he was looking for a job as a journalist! Presumably he wandered into the UK because his interest had been piqued, and appointed himself booster for Baghdad-by-the-Bay on the spot.
(By the way, San Francisco did indeed nab the 1915 UK -- how much owing to Sinclair Lewis' boosterism in Washington, we'll never know -- but because of World War I, few Europeans were able to attend, and that UK therefore has the dubious distinction of being the most poorly-attended one ever. (Quite ironic, since San Francisco has been the unofficial Esperanto capital of the U.S. for many years now.) There wasn't another UK in the USA until 1972, in Portland, Oregon, one which many of us attended.
In fact, Esperanto boasts an increasing presence on several online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy and others. More information on this to come in future issues of LPE.
Bingo. That observation puts the finger on a key advantage of our language. Every human being, especially every young person, has every right to aspire to reach out to people, cultures and experiences from different nations. To exchange views and camaraderie with people from anywhere on the globe. Sadly, only a few can afford to globetrot these days, and that number may shrink as the world economy continues to stagnate.
Today's much-touted mass media "global village" provides much of people's needs to expand their horizons, and certainly watching CNN, reading the international press and listening to Radio Wherever on short wave are commendable but such pursuits provide no firsthand, personal link with the world for the individual. As our Ralph Dumain has pointed out frequently, too often international contacts have been reserved for the economic and/or cultural lites, and Esperanto provides a viable road across the borders for the rest of us.
This writer observed the magic in the eyes of children at H.D. Cooke School in Adams-Morgan when he visited their Esperanto class taught by Martha Flores. As Martha pointed out, Esperanto helps these mostly low-income kids realize that there are interesting things in the world out there for them, not just for other people. Everyone deserves that feeling.
So let us cheer on the continuing revolution in global communication systems that seems to be leading us to where we can do our banking through our microwave ovens and access the entire Library of Congress on a Casio wristwatch. But none of that will ever provide the special link with the world provided by the language that is "nenies, do ies." This troubled world needs the contributions of everyone so let us make the most of our language that brings the world to us.
Here is a small random sampling of words I have added to my English vocabulary over the years by initially seeing the Esperanto version somewhere and subsequently learning the English equivalent: coryphaeus, cicerone, calumny, hapax, lycanthropy, cicatrix, histology, troglodyte, appanage, Daltonism, clepsydra, golem, ukase, declivity, paralogism, cuirass, caracole, Cymric, fiacre, fusilier, phaeton -- all though initially learning the Esperanto words korifeo, ierono, kalumnio, hapakso, likantropio, cikatro, histo, troglodito, apanagxo, daltonismo, klepsidro, golemo, ukazo, deklivo, paralogismo, kiraso, karakoli, kimra, fiakro, fusilo, faetono.
There are scores of others; those were just a few examples off the top of my head. I could define all of those for you readers, but I want you to share the same fun I had by looking up yourselves the ones you don't recognize. If anyone out there wants to share his/her list of English words learned through Esperanto, I would certainly be interested.
That is the view and goal of the vast majority of Esperantists. However, there are some people who take a wider view and indeed do envision a one-language world. Here is a quote from one of them:
"I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own good time, to become one nation, speaking one language ... When armies and navies will no longer be required."
Who is the wild-eyed fanatic who said that? Republican President Ulysses S. Grant (my fifth cousin, four times removed, I modestly add), in his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1873. Prescient fellow, that Sam Grant -- that comment preceded the advent of Esperanto by 14 years.
Paris hotel notice to guests: Please leave your values at the desk.
Tokyo hotel sign: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
Paris boutique advertising wares: Dresses for street walking.
Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
Tokyo car rental agency instructing customers: When passenger of foot heave into sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.
Hong Kong dentist advertising tooth extractions: Using the latest methodists.
Tailor in Greece announcing future services: Because is big rush, we will execute customers in strict rotation.
Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, please give it to the guard.
Hungarian hotel elevator sign: The lift's being fixed for the next day. During that time, we regret that you will be unbearable.
Clearly Esperanto is far better suited for international communication than English or any other idiom-ridden national language. If world governments and organizations don't come to their senses and adopt Esperanto, we'll have to get tough and tootle them with vigor.
Among the dysfunctional practices Thornburgh identified is a bloated staff of 500 typists to transcribe dictation from translators, since the UN has yet to employ modern translation word processors. His report estimates that updating translation techniques could save $20 million, but Thornburgh said the UN's Office of Conference Services, "seeking to preserve the status quo at all costs," blocked his efforts.
We Esperantists, of course, have long had an idea that could save a lot more money than that. The UN's use of the International Language, already ideally suited to the purposes of the world body, would lead to enhanced efficiency and dramatic savings of time, money and effort, as well as bringing the UN's practices more closely into line with its supposed philosophical underpinnings.
Your editor, who taught himself Esperanto at age 13, feels, of course, that a new profusion of teenage Esperantists is not at all inconceivable.
In an Austrian hotel: "Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension."
Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: "Ladies may have a fit upstairs."
In an East African newspaper: "A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers."
In the office of a Roman doctor: "Specialist in women and other diseases."
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: "Our wines leave you nothing to hope for."
All this reminded your editor of one of his own favorites. When Holland's William of Orange became King William III of Britain, his first words to his new subjects were: "I hoff come for all your goods!" Let us give King Willy the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant "I have come for the good of all of you!" rather than announcing his intention to plunder all his new subjects. Or do kings have freudian slips too?
Here's a book I wish I had written, and probably would have if I had thought of it first: Peter Jameson's Secret Language, by Sylvan Zaft, is an ingenious way to get children hooked on Esperanto without them realizing that's what the author's doing to them! It's a tale of 11-year-olds who want their own secret language that will be unintelligible to the grown-ups, especially to their narrow-minded teacher with his "English only" mandate. The language which best serves their purpose, of course, turns out to be Esperanto, whose name is not even mentioned until Chapter Eight. The book can be ordered from the author at PO Box 371, Farmington, MI 48332. Cost is $9.95 per copy plus $1.95 shipping for the first copy and $.95 for each additional copy.
More anecdotes from the never-ending struggle to render American advertising slogans into other tongues:
Billionare financier GEORGE SOROS has given Esperanto some (billion-dollar?) publicity for free, so I suppose I may as well reciprocate and give him some free publicity for his book here in La Potomaka Esperantisto. In Chapter 2 ("The Guru in Training") his current best-selling autobiography Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve, currently available at bookstores everywhere, the Hungarian-born financial whiz recounts his fascinating memories of his father, Esperantist author TEODORO SCHWARTZ (or VARC as he was also known by the Esperanto spelling).
From Sferilo, January 1996:
ESW made Esperanto's presence known at the Spring Conference and Exhibition of GWATFUL (Greater Washington Association of Teachers of Foreign Languages) on March 18. BILL WURZEL, TIMOTHY RYAN, VALERY MALYKHIN, VALENTIN GENCHEV, and JOHN DALE (in reverse alphabetical order this time, just for the heck of it) manned our exhibition table and made the rounds talking up Esperanto to teachers and other exhibitors.
TIMOTHY JAMES RYAN and JOHN DALE reprezentis ESV cxe la Konferenco de Vasxintonaj Reprezentantoj pri la Unuigxintaj Nacioj sur la Kapitola Monteto la 23-an de marto. Diversaj usonaj parlamentanoj kaj aliaj altaj postenuloj parolis al la konferenco por pledi ke la usona publiko premu siajn registojn dauxrigi usonan subtenanon por UN, kaj oponi kontraux proponita legxo malpliigi tiun apogadon.
Esperanto plays a major role in the three-and-a-half minute video by pop megastar Michael Jackson to accompany his new compact disk History, both of which are to be released soon. Bernice Garrett, the UEA delegate who did the translating, confirms that the International Language is used extensively in the $6 million film, which presents the pop star as the liberator of an unspecified Eastern European nation. Garrett says the video features children singing "Mi amas vin, Michael Jackson." (No snickers, please -- remember, criminal charges were never filed.) Let's hope this video introduces Esperanto to a huge new audience.
"I'm afraid for my friends -- afraid the bombs will kill them." This sentence, by a 20-year-old Korean-American Esperantist, sums up much of what we cherish about our language and our movement. But, to put the remark into context, let me first tell you about our most recent guest:
TOM GOLDMAN recently took a significant part in a unique international event in Bydgoszcz, Poland: a symposium on the role of culture in the European and world integration, sponsored by Esperantotur, in conjunction with a lecture series in Esperanto on various fields sponsored by San Marino's International Academy of Sciences.
It's April! In Washington that means: (a) cherry blossoms and (b) another wistful springtime of pining and whining for a major league baseball team. I can't quite fix that problem, but in keeping with the season I furnish the following gem from the Washington Herald's reportage on the visit of the attendees of the 1910 Universala Kongreso to Griffith Stadium to see their first American baseball game:
Esperanto will soon make its first appearance in "J Street," the Washington Post Sunday Magazine's section on local -- well, curiosities, shall we say. (I guess that includes us, folks.) Reporter Bill Sautter called me and interviewed me for about an hour. He was an intelligent, charming and knowledgeable interviewer, and it was a genuine pleasure to edify him about the manyfold attractions of Esperanto as well as to dispel some common misconceptions Americans have about the language principally the idea that Esperanto was a nice (or dumb) idea that died out decades ago.
A few years ago Coca-Cola's advertising agency decided to translate the soft drink's slogan "Coke Adds Life" into various languages for world markets. Somebody did the honors for Chinese and then the translated slogan was emblazoned on billboards all over the world's most populous country. Only then did someone inform Coca-Cola that the slogan had been translated "Coke Brings Your Ancestors Back From The Grave!" Gee, was that Coke Classic or Original Coke? And how would Pepsi top that? Wonder what 7-Up does for your ancestors -- bring back seven of them at once?
Linguistic jingoism has reared its charming head once again, this time wearing a beret. French Culture Minister Jacques Toubon has announced plans to levy fines on anyone adulterating commercial or official French with Franglais. Now Frenchmen will have to call Walkmans Balladeurs and the new train running under the English Channel, heretofore known as "Le Shuttle," must now be known as "La Navette." All this under penalty of amercement.
THEY ARREST YOU FOR THAT IN THIS COUNTRY?
SFERILO reports that during the takeoff of an airliner recently a German tourist approached a stewardess and told her "the roof will go off!" On the assumption that this was a bomb threat, the tourist was arrested and spent 10 months in jail. It turns out that "the roof will go off!" was an attempt to translate the German slang declaration that one urgently needs to empty one's bladder very, very soon.
Esperanto definitely adds value to people's lives, but even so, few people can make such a dramatic testimonial to the value of the International Language. On January 12 we were fortunate to meet REZA KARGARPOOR, an Esperantist refugee from Iran now living in Canada, at a reception at the Vienna home of JOHN and DETELINA DALE.
Here, verbatim, is the Washington Star's account of the last day of the 1910 Universala Kongreso here in Washington:
Last month Esperanto got its first mention in Time magazine since the 1987 full-page article both in and about the language for its centennial. In "First Nation in Cyberspace," an article about the Internet online computer network in the December 6 issue, a graphic lists samples of the varied uses of the medium, including: "For Profs: DNA sequences, geologic-fault maps, asteroid databases, taxonomy news, conversational Esperanto."
"To those who say Esperanto is only a hundred-year-old dream, I say that the dream of peace is more than a thousand years old, yet we do not stop dreaming about it." -- I. Bengtsson, President, Swedish Parliament
Adrienne Le Dree, who has introduced an Esperanto program into the Chicago public school system, made an excellent point in her article about it in the November SFERILO: "My students may never have the opportunity to travel around the world, but through the magic of Esperanto, THE WORLD HAS COME TO US!"
Educators and linguists frequently cite the advantage of Esperanto as a springboard to learning other languages, which is completely true. But this writer has found that Esperanto can also strengthen one's English vocabulary, even if you're already pretty strong in that department.
We Esperantists are often hit with a lot of ridiculous misinformation about the language, the movement and its goals. One of the most frequent canards we hear is that we want to "get rid of every other language and make the whole world speak Esperanto." Of course, that is sheer nonsense -- every Esperantist from Zamenhof onward has made it crystal-clear that the principal aim of Esperanto is to be a bridge language between cultures -- an interlanguage which will help nations appreciate and respect each other more. Of course we believe Esperanto should be used in every possible international context because it is the best language for the job, but not to undermine the world's existing languages.
Since certain people believe everyone in the whole world joyfully speaks English, here are some more examples of just how well they do. This is just a small sampling of the sterling examples of language usage collected by European Community translators. (Courtesy of Verda Lumo, the bulletin of the New England Esperanto Society, which reprinted them from Brila Futuro, the new American Catholic Esperantist newsletter.)
Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh fired several parting shots at the United Nations as he finished his one-year tenure as UN Undersecretary General for Administration and Management in February. Thornburgh charged that the world body is hobbled by "deadwood" functionaries and "almost surreal" budget practices.
Mike Donohoo, Director of ELNA's Central Office, reports that a recent ad for Esperanto in Seventeen magazine, along with an article in the San Francisco Mercury, elicited over 1,500 inquiries in only six weeks -- a remarkable showing. These include ten in our own area, whom, of course, we are contacting. Let's hope, in the words of Esperanto supporter Steve Allen, that this could be the start of something big!
In the 1930s, when famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright was working on a new style of architecture for homes to reflect essential qualities and values of the United States, he wanted a name for it specifically referring to the USA -- not "American," he said, "because there are many Americas." So he coined what he thought was a brand-new term for what he had in mind: "Usonian." He might have been surprised to learn that this word was not one of his many innovations. We know, of course, that L.L. Zamenhof, thinking along the same lines, had coined the term "Usono" many decades before. Great minds think alike!
The LOGE (Ligo de Orient-Golfaj Esperantistoj) newsletter "La Orient-Ekspreso", from the San Francisco Bay Area, recently provided another treasure trove of the sort of malapropisms and worse that occur when our "international language" of English is foisted on the world: