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:
Given these problems and the fact that English is the preferred second language among the young, some have suggested that it should become the official language of Europe.29 But an English-only approach is not going to succeed. Even when the relatively small countries are not radically opposed to this suggestion (given that they cannot expect their languages to have a prominent function internationally), it is difficult to picture the other two main languages gallantly giving up their prerogatives and acquiescing to a linguistic scenario where English would emerge as the uncontested hegemon. Rather, the official policies of both the French and German governments aim at preventing this possibility. Hence, the French Boudon Law passed in 1994, which enforced the use of French in conferences, commercial advertise- ments, radio and TV broadcasts, and publicly subsidized educational institutions. More effective has been the French initiative to promote multi- lingualism, currently the official policy of the EU, which recommends that Europeans learn two foreign languages (or three, if their mother language is not official at the state level). Having to choose a second foreign language, French officials anticipate, more Europeans would pick up French.30 On its side, after the reunification of the country in 1990 and the entry of Austria in 1994, Germany has become more adamant in the protection of its language, in contrast to its laissez-faire approach of the past. This new attitude, rein- forced by its position as the largest contributor to the European coffers, has proven successful, and German has obtained the status of a working lan- guage previously reserved for French and English. This more pro-active German stance is accompanied by growing reservations about the expan- sion and popularity of English, both internationally and inside its own bor- ders, which some perceive as a hindrance to the international standing and visibility of the country. In fact, in 2000 the French and German foreign ministers signed a mutual support agreement to prevent the retreat of their languages vis-a-vis English in the European institutions.31
Fairness also recommends against the adoption of English or any other native language as a lingua franca. If a lingua franca is a public good, fair- ness dictates an even distribution of the burdens required to provide for such a good, a requirement difficult to meet if the lingua franca is a national lan- guage. To begin with, whereas those who speak a different language are forced to invest time and money to communicate internationally, the native speak- ers of the lingua franca have the option to invest those resources in other ac- tivities. Certainly they might resolve to learn languages, but that would be their choice, not an imperative.
This basic inequality translates into economic transfers from the non- speakers to native speakers. As the chair of the British Council reported in his preface to David Graddol's research: "The English language teaching sec- tor directly earns nearly Ј1.3 billion for the UK in invisible exports and our other education-related exports earn up to Ј10 billion a year more."32 Aside from economic transfers, this linguistic inequality also importantly affects the balance of power. Whereas native speakers can use their own language, those who have learned English as their second language are not able to ex- press themselves as fluently, accurately, and convincingly as they do in their native language. This unbalance might not be of importance in many com- municative settings, but at negotiating tables it can undermine the non-native speakers' positions. This is why Danes proposed, when negotiating their en- try in the European Union, that meetings be conducted in English, French, and German, provided that their native speakers did not use them. Some think that the English-only solution can be accepted only if native English speak- ers make substantial compensations to the non-native.33
The adoption of a neutral non-national language such as Esperanto would prima facie solve all these problems at the stroke of a pen by placing all mem- ber states and citizens on an equal footing. It is not surprising, then, that Es- peranto occasionally has been suggested as the best solution, and that European Esperantists have mobilized to advance it.34 In fact, a one-day conference con- vened in September 1992 by the president of the European Parliament and sponsored by a think tank linked to the Bavarian Christian Democrats dis- cussed the potential benefits of an artificial language for the European Union. Also, under the initiative of the German Esperantists, a new, transnational party, Eŭropo-Demokratio-Esperanto (EDE), was launched before the 1994 elections to the European parliament. The EDE's German candidate was the old Esperantist and Nobel Prize winner in economics Reinhard Selten. But these initiatives have yielded no results.
Two large obstacles stand in the way of the Esperantists, still viewed as unrepentant utopians, unable to see that politics is not only about fairness, but also about power.
First, the current international language regime is different from the triglossic linguistic regime of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. Although not de jure, English has become the de facto official language of the European Union and people are aware of it. They also know that English maximizes their communication potential and work opportu- nities. For this reason, and no matter the intensity of the campaign that the EU would need to launch to implement the Esperanto solution, if it decided to go for it, it would be unlikely that Europeans would shift from English to Esperanto when, outside the EU, English still holds the hegemonic position.
Second, and no less important, are philosophical considerations. The EU has never seriously considered the adoption of an artificial language. The clos- est we have come to an official statement were comments released in Febru- ary 2008 by the European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban, in his official blog. Responding to the requests of Esperantists, Orban claimed that, lacking a culture, Esperanto is not a real language. Orban, however, was not referring to the lack of a literary corpus. As he elaborated in 2011, no longer acting as European Commissioner, Esperanto does not stand a chance be- cause it does not have "a people and a culture" behind it, which takes us back to the old mystical thinking that links language and ethnicity.35 This old, taken-for-granted myth is perhaps the most important obstacle to the consideration of an artificial language. For the problem is not artificiality it- self. There is much artifice and linguistic engineering in the construction of national languages (Modern Hebrew is an extreme case), as well as in the cur- rent efforts to "revitalize" non-national languages.36 But while this artifice is glossed over and perceived as a legitimate endeavor when there is an identi- fiable ethnic group behind it, it is considered grotesque in the absence of such a group. As long as this mystical link between language and ethnicity forged by the Romantics two hundred years ago is in full force, the artificial lan- guage solution will not succeed.
Introduction
Bernard Crick, George Orwelclass="underline" A Life (London: Penguin, 1992), 189-90.
On Esperanto in the Spanish Civil War, see Jose Antonio del Barrio and Ulrich Lins, "La danĝera lingvo en la hispana civitana milito," paper presented at the Con- greso sobre la Guerra Civil Espanola, Madrid, November 2006; and Antonio Marco, Laboristaj kronikoj (Baude: SAT, 1996), 53-62.