Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language
- Автор: Garvía Roberto
- Год: 2015
- Язык: русский
- Жанр: Культурология
Электронная книга - «Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language». Краткое содержание книги:
In the postwar years, this policy was somewhat relaxed and, as a conse- quence of the decision to temporarily stabilize the language, some special- ized organizations (Catholics, teachers, anarchists, communists, and even vegetarians) emerged in the Ido camp. These organizations, however, did not last long. By 1925, the Uniono had only 500 members, and the following year, at the international congress in Prague, the movement split into a reformist and conservative camp. By the second half of the 1920s most of the special- ized Idist journals had ceased publication.44
Certainly the Ido episode was a hard blow to the artificial language cause in general, but retrospectively the Esperantists benefitted from the experi- ence. By abandoning Esperanto in search for a better language, Couturat and similar restless souls reinforced the internal cohesion of the Esperanto move- ment: for when there is only one way to be an orthodox, one can be a reform- ist in a thousand different ways, as the Idists realized too late.45
Idists were not the last contestants in the battle of artificial languages. Rather, their fight against Esperanto unleashed a pent-up linguistic inven- tiveness that they had always tried to contain. If they thought that Ido could dislodge Esperanto, then there were others equally convinced that they could do better and thus dislodge both Eperanto and Ido. These included the ex-
Volapukist and ex-Esperantist Edgar de Wahl; the Danish linguist and pres- ident of the Ido Academy Otto Jespersen; the linguists associated with the International Auxiliary Language Association—a new organization gener- ously sponsored by the philanthropist Alice Vanderbilt Morris—and the Brit- ish linguist and philosopher C. K. Odgen, the only artificial language inventor able to catch the attention and financial assistance of a government. It is time now to turn to them.
"Linguistic Cannibalism"
We have already met Edgar de Wahl (1867-1948), an enthusiast of artificial languages who had felt paralyzed by the success of Volapuk. Probably de Wahl was the most restive mind in the already variegated and querulous tribe of artificial language supporters. A mathematician of Baltic German origins, de Wahl studied in Saint Petersburg when Volapuk was in full swing. There, he made contact with Waldemar Rosenberger, the leader of the Saint Peters- burg Volapuk club, and became a Volapukist. He later abandoned Volapuk to join the ranks of the first Esperantists. A reformist, he left Esperanto, un- happy with the result of the 1894 referendum. He then decided to concen- trate his energies on helping Rosenberger reform his Idiom Neutral, and cooperated with Couturat's Commission for the Adoption of an International Language. But, also disappointed with the Commission, he began working on his own language. In 1922 he published a primer of his language, called Occidental, and launched its journaclass="underline" Kosmoglott (or Cosmoglotta, since 1927). The timing was not accidentaclass="underline" in 1922 the League of Nations had decided to establish a commission to study the introduction of an artificial language in school curricula, and de Wahl did not want to miss the chance to compete in such a forum against Esperanto and Ido.
Occidental was probably the most naturalistic language project in the mar- ket. Broadly based on Latin, it was constructed to replicate Romance languages as closely as possible. There were also political reasons to support this choice, which also explains the language's name. As its inventor put it, the increased number of nations and national languages in postwar Europe made more im- perative than ever a common European language, able to uphold what he called the European soul (europaische Seele). And this implied the restriction of English. As he explained it, if we want to remain Europeans, we have to protect our culture from the "unlimited narrowness of the practical and ma- terialistic American spirit."1 But American culture was not the only threat that concerned de Wahl. More menacing was Bolshevism, a handy scapegoat that de Wahl liberally used, not entirely without reason, to assail both Espe- rantists and Idists. De Wahl could point to the Cominterns 1920 decision to establish a commission to examine the potential utility of an artificial lan- guage for the advancement of communism.2 Although this commission only vaguely approved of the idea of either Ido or Esperanto, de Wahl tried to profit from this episode by framing the contest between his language and its rivals in the larger contest "between civilization and barbarism." As he expressed it in 1922: "It seems to me that the victory of this or that [or] another lan- guage system depends on whether Bolshevism triumphs and (once it has de- stroyed our old culture) constructs a new Esperanto culture with the help of the new nations (and with a Middle Age interim of some hundred years), or the great European nations are able to maintain their cultural dominance, with the end result that Esperanto (a not sufficiently international language), will perish like Volapuk did."3
All his life a passionate reformist, de Wahl naturally tried to find recruits among likeminded reformists in the Ido camp. He had some success. In 1925, the Idist clubs of Prague and Brno (Moravia) joined Occidental. But de Wahl was most successful after the split in 1926 between conservative and reform- ist Idists. He scored a sensational victory in 1927, when the former member of the Central Committee of the Idist Uniono, the Frenchman Louis de Guesnet, converted to Occidental. Similarly, in December 1928, some of the Idists who had organized the Ido congress earlier that year transferred their loyalties to de Wahl and established the international Occidentalist organi- zation: the Occidental-Union.4 And some years later, a thunderstorm broke out, although only a very small portion of the world population noticed it, when the Idist Alphonse Matejka, former editor-in-chief of Progreso, and sec- retary of the Idist Uniono, switched to de Wahl's army.
These conversions aside, de Wahl was never able to collect more than a handful of followers. His political views deterred him from campaigning among the working class and in Soviet Russia.5 But more important, perhaps, was the intervention of a very wealthy woman in the battle of artificial lan- guages, which practically destroyed the tiny Occidentalist movement.
The granddaughter of the railroad mogul William Henry Vanderbilt, Alice Vanderbilt Morris (1874-1947) was a member of one of the wealthi- est American families. She was also a very determined woman. Contrary to her family's wishes, and sparking a sensational scandal in New York's high society, she married a Harvard student who did not belong to the small clique of the extravagantly rich. David Morris was not exactly poor, how- ever. According to the New York Times, his fortune amounted to one million dollars, which he had accrued from a stable of racing horses. Horse racing was a family interest that David inherited from his father, the "Lottery King" John A. Morris, owner of the Louisiana State Lottery Company. Eventually, the Vanderbilts came to terms with the marriage and accepted Morris, who substantially increased his personal fortune and became the American am- bassador to Belgium in the mid-1930s. Their marriage worked out very well, and David never hesitated to use his influence and personal fortune to help Alice pursue her interests.
Most important among these interests was the artificial language ques- tion. In 1921 Alice met the Esperantist chemist Frederick Cottrel, founder of the still extant Research Corporation and a former student of Wilhelm Ost- wald. Alice became very interested in Esperanto and made the issue of an international language her life's mission. After some social gatherings and informational meetings in Morris's mansion in New York City, with dozens of invited academics and influential business people, a resolution was made to create an institution to conduct research on an international language.