International Language by Walter J. Clark (the lemonade war series txt) đź“•
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1See the text of this Declaration.
2The non-sectarian nature of Esperanto is shown by the fact that the first two services in the language were held on the same day in Geneva according to the Roman Catholic and Protestant rites. The latter was conducted by an English clergyman, whose striking sermon on unity, in spite of diversity, evidently impressed his international congregation. The Vatican has officially expressed its favour towards Esperanto, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has sanctioned an Esperanto form of the Anglican service, which will be used in London and Cambridge this summer. Cordial goodwill was expressed towards the Vatican, on receipt of its message at Geneva, by speakers who avowed themselves agnostics, but welcomed any advance towards abolition of barriers.
The practical nature of the scheme which Esperantists are labouring to induce the world to adopt is thus sufficiently clearly defined. Dr. Zamenhof himself, speaking at the Geneva Congress with all the vivid poignancy attaching to the words of a man fresh from the butcheries at that moment rife in the Russian Empire,1 declared that neither he nor other Esperantists were naifs enough to believe that the adoption of their language would put an end to such scenes. But he had seen men at each other's throats, beating each other's brains out with bludgeons—men who had no personal enmity and had never seen each other before, but were let loose on each other by pure race prejudice. He did claim that mutual incomprehensibility amongst men who thus dwell side by side and should be taking part in a common civic life was one powerful influence in keeping up cliques and divisions, and artificially holding asunder those whom common interests should be joining together. It is hard to refuse credence to this power of language, thus moderately stated.
1There were bad massacres about that time in Warsaw, where Dr. Zamenhof lives. During the Congress news came of the assassination of one of the chief civic officials of Warsaw.
Another vexed question is whether it is advisable to run an international language on a literary or a commercial ticket. On this rock Volapük split—
and there was no Prospero to conjure away the tempest and send everybody safe home to port to speak VolapĂĽk happily ever afterwards. The moral is, that it is no good to make exaggerated claims for a universal language. To attempt to set it on a fully equal footing with national languages as a literary medium is to court disaster.
1Shakespeare, The Tempest.
The truth seems to be about this. As a potential means of international communication, Esperanto is unsurpassed, and a long way ahead of any national language. As a literary language, it is far better than Chinook or Pidgin, far worse than English or Greek.
A language, no more than a man, can serve two masters. By attempting to combine within itself this double function an international language would cease to attain either object. The reason is simple.
Its legitimate and proper sphere demands of it as the first essential that it should be easy and universally accessible. This means that the words are to be few, and must have but one clearly marked sense each. There are to be no idioms or set phrases, no words that depend upon their context or upon allusion for their full sense.
On the other hand, among the essentials of a literary language are the exact opposites of all these characteristics. The vocabulary must be full and plenteous, and there should be a rich variety of synonyms; there should be delicate half-tones and nuances; the words should be not mere counters or symbols of fixed value, determinable in each case by a rapid use of the dictionary alone, but must have an atmosphere, a something dependent upon history, usage, and allusion, by virtue of which the whole phrase, in the finer styles of writing, amounts to more than the sum of the individual meanings of the words which it contains, becoming a separate entity with an individual flavour of its own. To attempt to create this atmosphere in an artificial language is not only futile, but would introduce just the difficulties, redundancies, and complications which it is its chief object to avoid. Take a single instance, Macbeth's—
Here the effect is produced by the contrast between the stately march of the long Latin words of thundrous sound, and the short, sharp English. A labour-saving language has no business with such words as "incarnadine" or "multitudinous." In translating such a passage it will reproduce the sense faithfully and clearly, if necessary by the combination of simple roots; but the bouquet of the original will vanish in the process. This is inevitable, and it is even so far an advantage that it removes all ground from the argument that a universal language will kill scholarly language-learning. It will be just as necessary as ever to read works of fine literature in the original, in order to enjoy their full savour; and the translation into the common tongue will not prejudice such reading of originals more than, or indeed so much as, translations into various mother-tongues.
Again, take the whole question of the imitative use of language. In national literatures many a passage, poetry or prose, is heightened in effect by assonance, alliteration, a certain movement or rhythm of phrase. Subtle suggestion slides in sound through the ear and falls with mellowing cadence into the heart. Soothed senses murmur their own music to the mind; the lullaby lilt of the lay swells full the linked sweetness of the song.
The How plays fostering round the What. Down the liquid stream of lingual melody the dirge drifts dying—dying it echoes back into a ghostly after-life, as the yet throbbing sense wakes the drowsed mind once more. The Swan-song floats double—song and shadow; and in the blend—half sensuous, half of thought—man's nature tastes fruition.
Now, this verbal artistry, whereby the words set themselves in tune to the thoughts, postulates a varied vocabulary, a rich storehouse wherein a man may linger and choose among the gems of sound and sense till he find the fitting stone and fashion it to one of those—
But the word-store of an international tongue must not be a golden treasury of art, a repository of "bigotry and virtue." On its orderly rows of shelves must be immediately accessible the right word for the right place: no superfluity, no disorder, no circumambient margin for effect. Homocea-like, it "touches the spot," and having deadened the ache of incomprehensibility, has done its task. "No flowers."
Naturally some peoples will feel themselves more cramped in a new artificial language than others. French, incomparably neat and clear within its limits, but possessing the narrowest "margin for effect," is less alien in its genius from Esperanto than is English, with its twofold harmony, its potentiality (too rarely exploited) of Romance clarity, and its double portion of Germanic vigour and feeling. Yet all languages must probably witness the obliteration of some finer native shades in the international tongue.
But we must not go to the opposite extreme, and deny to the universal language all power of rendering serious thought. Just how far it can go, and where its inherent limitations begin, is a matter of individual taste and judgment. There are Esperanto translations—and good ones—of Hamlet, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, the Aeneid of Virgil, parts of Molière and Homer, besides a goodly variety of other literature. These translations do succeed in giving a very fair idea of the originals, as any one can test for himself with a little trouble, but, as pointed out, they must come something short in beauty and variety of expression.
There is even a certain style in Esperanto itself in the hands of a good writer, of which the dominant notes are simplicity and directness—two qualities not at all to be despised. Further, the unlimited power of word-building and of forming terse compounds gives the language an individuality of its own. It contains many expressive self-explanatory words whose meaning can only be conveyed by a periphrasis in most languages,1 and this causes it to take on the manner and feel of a living tongue, and makes it something far more than a mere copy or barren extract of storied speech.
1e.g. samideano = partisan of the same cause or idea. vivipova lingvo = language capable of independent vigorous existence.
Technically, the fulness of its participial system, rivalled by Greek alone, and the absence of all defective verbs, lend to it a very great flexibility; and containing, as it does, a variety of specially neat devices borrowed from various tongues, it is in a sense neater than any of them.
One great test of its capacity for literary expression remains to be made. This is an adequate translation of the Bible. A religious society, famed for the variety of its translations of the Scriptures into every conceivable language, when approached on the subject, replied that Esperanto was not a language. But Esperantists will not "let it go at that." Besides Dr. Zamenhof's own Predikanto (Ecclesiastes), an experiment has been made by two Germans, who published a translation of St. Matthew's Gospel. It is not a success, and further experiments have just been made by Prof. Macloskie, of Princeton, U.S.A., and by E. Metcalfe, M.A. (Oxon), I cannot say with what result, not having seen copies.1
1Cf. also now the "Ordo de Diservo" (special Anglican Church service), selected and translated from Prayer Book and Bible for use in England by the Rev. J. C. Rust (obtainable from the British Esperanto Association, 13, Arundel Street, Strand, price 7d.).
From one point of view, the directness and simplicity of the Bible would seem to lend themselves to an Esperanto dress; but there are certain great difficulties, such as technical expressions, archaic diction, and phrases hallowed by association. A meeting of those interested in this great work will take place at Cambridge during the Congress (August 1907). Experimenters in this field will there be brought together from all countries, the subject will be thoroughly discussed, and substantial progress may be hoped for.
In the field of rendering scientific literature and current workaday prose, whose matter is of more moment than its form, Esperanto has already won its spurs. Its perfect lucidity makes it particularly suitable for this form of writing.
The conclusion then is, that Esperanto is neither wholly commercial nor yet literary in the full sense in which a grown language is literary; but it does do what it professes to do, and it is all the better for not professing the impossible.
The
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