Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language

For his part, Couturat, the initiator of Ido, opted for a technocratic and elitist strategy. Confident that the outside world would distinguish between the better and the satisfactory, and always choosing the former over the latter, Couturat focused on attracting the intellectual elite to his side rather than building a grassroots movement. Since, for the improvement of the language, linguistic engineering was preferable to speakers' intuitions and feedback, he drew a clear line between the Academy, composed by scientists and linguists, and common speakers who would be required to abide by their decisions. Only a small coterie of wise people had voice in the process. After a first wave of defections, Couturat reacted by decreeing a transitory stabilization period. This was a smart move, since putting a temporary end to the constant improvement of the language let the movement diversify. Communist, Catholic, and even vegetarian Idist organizations materialized, but only ephem- erally: when the stabilization period came to an end, the quarrel between conservatives and reformists, who claimed to better represent the original drive of the language, recurred. The movement practically collapsed, fracturing into several even tinier language movements.

Operating against the backdrop of a standardization battle where posi- tive feedback mechanisms were critical, Zamenhof's democratic strategy was the most expedient. Also critical for the final success of Esperanto, however, were the messages and purposes associated with each of the languages.

While Kerckhoffs emphasized the utility of Volapuk for international com- merce, and others concentrated on scientific communication, Schleyer was content to broadly depict his language as a new Latin. Couturat pursued a similar hands-off policy. He wanted the language movement to be free of "vac- uous and chimeric ideas."9 As rational and circumspect as they were, pro- nouncements like this deprived these two language movements of a hard core of faithful speakers willing to sustain the movement in critical times. We have seen that all three movements split at one point in their history. But whereas a new Latin, or a language tailored for international commerce or scientific communication, can hardly motivate speakers to sustain an artificial language through the crises, the association of such language with a set of ideals that vaguely refer to a future society based on peace, justice, and mutual respect, can. Thus, when the reformists left Esperanto after the 1894 referendum, Za- menhof put his cards on the table and reinforced the political message that he and many others in the Pale of Settlement associated with his language. The movement was then able to survive until it could gather new momen- tum in Western Europe at the turn of the century.

But, while important, the interna ideo did not create a homogenous Es- perantist community. Zamenhof never tried to impose his political agenda in the movement, which became quite heterogeneous. In fact, as we have seen by exploring the secondary characters and membership of the three language movements, all of them had the potential to diversify. But it was only the Es- perantists who could realize this potential, since only they had been able to agree on the basics of their language and, thus, to make it useful to promote different and sometimes conflicting agendas, which resulted in a vibrant con- stellation of distinct social movements.

Esperanto triumphed, in sum, not because of its linguistic qualities. In the same way that there was nothing preordained in the triumph of QWERTY or VHS over their rivals, there was nothing preordained in the final triumph of Esperanto. A combination of organ izational factors and ideology can better explain the final outcome of the battle of artificial languages.

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Contrary to Esperantist dreams and expectations, their language was not ad- opted as the international language. How can we account for this? One pos- sible explanation has to do with the rivalries between the artificial language movements and their incapacity to reach a consensus when the issue of an artificial language, in the abstract, was seriously considered and had a chance of success. Consider, for example, the International Research Council's dis- cussion about the possible introduction of an artificial language. In its 1919 meeting, it agreed to publish an international journal of abstracts of chem- istry. Since the open policy of the Council was to ostracize German scientists and language (which by and large was the dominant language in chemis- try), they had to agree upon the language that could successfully substitute for German.10 In 1920, the British Association for the Advancement of Sci- ence took matters in hand and narrowed the issue to three possible solutions: Latin, a national language (preferably English), or an artificial language. To make an informed decision, the British Association gathered informa- tion from the Catholic Church, Latin scholars, the English Language Union, English-speaking scholars, the British Ido and Esperanto associations, and scientists from different fields. In September 1921, the British Association made the results of its deliberations public. Latin was discarded. Although many technical and scientific terms, especially in botany, zoology, and anatomy, were directly derived from Latin, the British Association rejected it because of its difficulties as an inflectional language, and the tremendous work to coin modern terminology that this solution would create. Although it was the "probable world language of the future," English was also discarded.11 The formal adoption of English would not require coining new words, and, compared with Latin, the British Association considered it easier to learn, or at least more expedient to acquire. The spelling difficulty with English was a minor problem that could be solved by a spelling reform. Despite all these advantages, the British association rejected it for essentially political rea- sons: "The great international languages of the past, Greek, Latin, Arabic, French (in the East), and English at the present day have all borne the marks of imperial prestige which prevented them from being welcomed by alien races. To spread a national language by international effort would be, in effect, to extend the power of that nation or race, however impartial might be the intentions of the promoters."12