Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks: Language Politics, Digital Media and the Making of an International Community
- Автор: Fians Guilherme
- Год: 2022
- Язык: русский
- Жанр: Культурология
Электронная книга - «Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks: Language Politics, Digital Media and the Making of an International Community». Краткое содержание книги:
In the case of national and hegemonic languages, linguistic authority is often concentrated on fully-fledged language councils and similar bodies. These institutions include the British Council for the English language; the Academie fran^aise and the Alliance fran^aise for French; in the Spanish case, the Real Academia Espanola and Instituto Cervantes, as well as, for other languages, several organisations named after prominent nationals, such as Goethe, Dante and Camoes. Some of these bodies seek to stabilise the development of a language and ensure common standards to it, while others publish textbooks and dictionaries, as well as assess people's language skills through proficiency examinations. While national and hegemonic languages evolve organically through use, they are under the watchful eyes of such strong institutions whose authority regu- lates whether any specific language use or vocabulary choice is correct, erroneous or simply different from the norm.
In Esperantos case, both the Fundamentos introduction and the Declaration express a clear refusal of linguistic authority. Even though the Fundamento is deemed 'netusebla ('untouchable'; Zamenhof 1905: VI), both the Fundamento and the Declaration affirm that any Esper- antist is free to and has 'the right to express [oneself] in such manner as he thinks fit' (Zamenhof in Boulet 1905; English translation retrieved from Forster 1982: 90) in case the ideas they want to convey are not conveniently covered by the Fundamento grammar and dictionary. Concentrating the stabilisation of the language on a book, rather than on a person or institution, Zamenhof deemed his own writing and translating style as ' imitinda' ('imitable'), but not equally untouchable. Thus, although Zamenhof's position gave certain stability and direc- tion to language use, any reference to him is conveyed strictly as a prescribed ideal—a recommendation rather than a necessity, such that the Fundamento assumes, alone, the original position of official linguistic authority.
To decouple the creator's persona from linguistic authority, Zamenhof and other Esperantists founded, in 1905, the Lingva Komitato (Language Committee). Responsible for overseeing the evolution of the language, this committee was initially composed of 102 editors of Esperanto magazines and presidents of Esperanto associations. A higher commission within this committee, named Akademio, estab- lished the germ of what, in 1948, would officially replace the Lingva Komitato and become the Akademio de Esperanto (Lins 1974: 664— 669). The Academy of Esperanto fulfils its role to date by mediating between the authority of the Fundamento and the freedom of continuous language development fostered by Zamenhof. Composed of members nominated and elected by their peers, the Akademio issues recommen- dations regarding contentious language forms, registers and neologisms. Through regular e-mail exchanges and annual meetings, the Akademio takes a stand in major reforms, when the Fundamento appears at risk.[19]However, it normally refrains from intervening on everyday language use, thus showing its commitment to the organic, collaborative character that the Esperanto pioneers aimed to instil into the language.
Putting Esperanto and language creation into dialogue with anthropo- logical theory, Monica Heller (2017) argues that both anthropology and constructed languages are acts of imagining new worlds. As both attempt to make the strange familiar through bridging human differences, they experiment with ways of replacing violent nationalist competition and the brutality of cultural and linguistic imperialism with an imagined alternative world of mutual understanding, based on forms of sociality that transcend national and cultural specificities. Furthering Heller's claim, I argue that Esperanto allows not only to imagine, but also to prac- tice and experiment with alternative forms of communicating and using language. Just as any language, Esperanto grows and develops organically through use but, unlike hegemonic and more standardised languages, it invites us to take on board a horizontal, collaborative perception of language.
In this sense, Zamenhof deliberately left the inaugural Esperanto dictionary unfinished, encouraging its speech community to continuously develop vocabulary. Along the same lines, the Akademio's non-hegemonic stance facilitates the emergence of other actors and language users as potential linguistic authorities. In proposing the imagining of alternative worlds, Esperanto fosters a world meant to be plural, inclusive and more egalitarian, primarily at the linguistic level, making room for the multiplication of potential sources to be consulted in case of doubt on language use. As language emerges as a matter continuously under construction—and, therefore, controver- sial—it allows for people such as those gathered at SAT-Amikaro to spend time debating vocabulary choice, through an intricate process of collecting arguments pro and against each of the options available. Yet, for being collaborative and controversial, this process is not always truly democratic and horizontal.
Reaching back to the drone issue, Reza was clearly upset for not having been able to conclude his piece about the US drones in Iran. Puzzled by the turn the debate had taken, he started moaning about the Akademio's lack of action and authority:
There are a lot of new words in other languages that need to be translated into Esperanto. This work was supposed to be done by the Akademio — but they only meet once a year, which is not enough to update the
language. Take a look at how many words the Akademio has created in
the past few years! We need words in Esperanto, for instance, to refer to drone or tablet, but the Akademio doesn't do it...
As the discussion unfolded, Reza, Idris, Juliette and Alain seemed to have found a consensus on neither drono nor droneo. Alain, then, stood up and, ironically bowing his head before one of the dictionaries on the table, said: 'Let's check the PIV, our Bible!' Published by SAT, the Plena Ilustrita Vortaro (PIV, Complete Illustrated Dictionary of Esperanto) is the most popular monolingual Esperanto dictionary, first compiled in 1970 and regularly updated in its online and printed versions. Despite this dictionary's wide scope, after Alain consulted its 2005 printed edition, he could find neither drono nor droneo, meaning that either the PIV was not updated or that neither of those two options was appropriate. Meanwhile, Pascal (another debate participant) went to check the French-Esperanto dictionaries at the association's library, in a large bookcase at the back of the room where we were.
Before Pascal returned, Idris checked his mobile phone. As a computer scientist, he was duly familiar with online dictionaries and language apps of all kinds. Checking the online PIV, he could not find these words there either. He then consulted the multilingual, XML-based Reta Vortaro (Online Dictionary, whose abbreviation ReVo means 'dream'). Originally developed online in 1997 by a German Esperantist, ReVo is partially based on PIV but, as an open-source dictionary, anyone can contact its editor-developer and register to become a collaborator, providing versions of Esperanto words in other languages. Typing drono at ReVo, Idris could not find any result, but typing drone in French, he did find two options: droneo and spavo, followed by a definition, in Esperanto: 'The radical spav is an abbreviation of SenPilota Aera Veturilo (according to the English term UAV, meaning "unmanned aerial vehi- cle" [this expression was originally in English], or of SenPilota AViadilo [unmanned aeroplane]'.
After he read the definition out loud, the debate participants deliber- ated on which word they would stick to. Following Alain—who affirmed 'I still think droneo sounds a bit too English to be real Esperanto'—most people said 'you're right, I also prefer spavo'. Happy for being back to the conversation about US drones in Iran, Reza dismissed the need for this discussion, saying 'It doesn't really matter the word we use, as long as we understand each other! Speaking Esperanto is about being understood, not about sticking to linguistic specificities'. Idris and Juliette, however, insisted that they preferred to use spavo from that moment, which forced Reza to do the same for the rest of his narrative.