Why is Esperanto not a universal second language?
A made-to-measure second language? Or a nightmarish vehicle for thought control?
The story of the early life of L.L. Zamenhof, the man who invented Esperanto, has a bleak modern resonance. He came from Bialystok, then part of the Russian Empire but now part of Poland.
The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Białystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. In such a town a sensitive nature feels more acutely than elsewhere the misery caused by language division.
Zamenhof hoped to resolve the ‘misery caused by language division’. He began work on creating a universal second language to replace, or at least supplement, the ones that were causing all the division. This new language would benefit from the appliance of science, a fresh start based on the elimination of the dreary chores associated with learning a new language. The unique selling point would be ease-of use.
Esperanto (‘hope) aspired to be ‘an international auxiliary language’ or lingua franca. Grammatically it would have a purity not available to its dusty old ancestors. There would be no irregular verbs and phonetic spelling. Nor would there be associations with a particular nationality or country.
George Orwell’s aunt was an early proponent of Esperanto. She also supported its more militant wing, which campaigned for the new language to replace the old ones. When he went to stay with her in Paris, she insisted on speaking Esperanto. This did not please Gloomy George, who was hoping to practise his French.
Irritation with his aunt aside, Orwell had some more substantive objections to the political focus of some parts of the Esperanto movement. He was particularly disturbed by what he saw as the attempt to control and curtail ‘acceptable’ language. In his dystopian novel, 1984 he identifies this as as key feature of totalitarianism. Newspeak is a variant on Esperanto, the ‘world language of peace’.
Newspeak
Was Orwell unfair to Zamenhof invented language? The linguist’s intentions were benign — is blaming the misuse of some of his innovations like implicating The Beatles in the Manson Family murders?
And Esperanto has had some minor success. There are a significant number of fluent speakers of the language — though nobody is sure how many. Some say 100,000, others claim an improbable 2.5 million.
There are even Esperanto native or first language speakers, up to 1,000 according to some estimates. Perhaps more telling is the fact that Esperanto has never been an official secondary language of any country in the world.
The fundamental problem with Esperanto has always been that it reflects the aspirations of its founders rather than a practical worldview. It continues to flow in the opposite direction to historical currents regarding identity and nationality
Idealistic notions of multi-culturalism — the building of a common purpose amongst those from linguistically different backgrounds — still shape the constitutions of institutions like the United Nations and the EU. At ground level, however, these aspirations remain elusive.
Still a limited market
Even within the corridors of the European Union, for example, different language blocs compete for influence. The UK may have left the building but a large number of countries still prefer to do business in English. French fights its corner but there has been no rush to buy Esperanto dictionaries.
Zamenhof observed in his own town, ‘language division’ was also a tool for establishing distinctiveness and national identity. He saw this as negative: the counter argument would be provided by the nationalist of countries who feel that language is central to their independence and freedom.
Sometimes language can become the focus of competing national identities. In Ireland, for example, the native language had dwindled to the point that it was restricted to tiny populations in remote areas. Put simply, it had limited functional purpose in the wider society — which was why only Synge of the major contemporary writers wrote in Irish.
Nationalists were reviving a seemingly moribund language at precisely the moment that Zamenhof was advocating his shiny new one. Yet by the 1930s my parents would be learning all their school subjects in a second language that was entirely new to them: Irish
The Irish example is instructive because the issue remains contentious on both sides of the border. One of the central demands of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland is that the Irish language be given equal official status to that of English. Unionists respond that only 0.2 % of the population of the province speak Irish as their main home language. Could Esperanto step up as an honest broker? A second language with no baggage? Proposing this would provide some rare light relief in the assembly — but no votes.
As Latin lovers will know, there will always be a limited market for languages that are not widely spoken. English looks set to be the de facto official second language of the world for a while yet.
