INTER LANGUAGE AMERICAN ESPERANTO MAGAZINE Ofiaala Organo dc la ESPERANTO -ASOCIO de NORD-AMERIKO MAR-APR, 1953 Fifty Cents AMERICAN ESPERANTO MAGAZINE (Amerika Esperantisto) G. ALAN CONNOR, Editor Vol 67 114 West 16th Street Nos. 3-4 New York 11 N. Y. Associate Editors: Dr. William Solzbacher, Doris Tappan Connor, Dr. S. Zamenhof, V. Rev. Gabriel N. Pausback, Myron Mychajliw. Sustaining Board: Portia Anderson, Dr. Luella K. Beecher, John M. Brewer, Sergio Docal, Preston Davis, Jr., Ernest G. Dodge, Dr. F. W. Breth, Anonymous, George Hirsch, Bertha E. Mullin, Tony Nabby, J. Louise Owens, Bertha F. Sloan, Harold S. Sloan, Dr. William Solzbacher, Sud-Kaliforniano, Mazah Schulz, Flora Wyman. Office Assistants: Lola Mae Muse, H. S. Harris. NEW BOOKS/ NEW BOOKS! La Alia Pasinteco, Rico Bulthuis (Isbrucker), psychological novel about a victim of amnesia, 292 pp, bound...............$1.85 Alaska Stafeto & Kaptitaj de la Glacirokoj, F. Omelka, two stories of adventure, illustrated, 96 pp, bound........... 1.10 Klasifo de Esperantaj Temoj, Montagu Butler, a scientific analysis of classifying Esperanto books, 144 pp.............. 1.75 Esperanto Legolibro, E. Migliorini, selected stories and reading, 3rd edition, revised & enlarged, 187 pp...............80 Cursus Completus Esperanti, Bianchini, Espo textbook in Latin, fascinating notes on derivations, 172pp, bound........85 Tutmonda Loŭdo,H.G.Wannemakers, S. J., Catholic prayerbook ill., incl. several songs & music, 277 pp, cloth bound....... 1.50 N/ko kaj Nina, J.F.Berger, easy reader, original Esperanto, story of childhood & youth in Germany, 71 pp...................70 Kiel Aŭtodidakto al Pedagogia Scienco, K. Wieczorek, essay on the history, art, and psychology of teaching, 39 pp........60 Co V/ Deziras Korespondi?, Margrethe Noll, advice on cor- respondence, model letters, phrases, announcements, 16pp. .15 (Members of EANA deduct 10% from above prices.) Esperanto Book Service of America 114 W. 76 St., New York 11, N. Y. Jarabono eksterlande por kalendara jaro: $1.50 aŭ egalvaloro. Subscription rate in the United States and Canada: $3-00 per year. Make checks payable to the Esperanto Association of North America. Patron Membership in the EANA — $10.00 per year Regular Membership in the EANA— $5.00 per year Student Membership & Armed Forces — $3.00 per year AMERIKA ESPERANTISTO Vol. 67 MARCH-APRIL 1953 Nos. 3-4 AUSTRALIA ISSUES NEW SOUND-FILM IN ESPERANTO £? HE Australian News and Information Service of the Australian Gov- ^»' ernment has just completed a new documentary color-film on Aus- tralia with sound-track in Esperanto. It takes approximately thirty min- utes to run, and is described as a 16-mm. Kodachrome sound-film. It is titled "Aŭstralio Hodiaŭ" (Australia Today), and it portrays in beautiful color the many and varied aspects of the entire island continent of Aus- tralia. Some of its main topics described in Esperanto are: the beautiful ocean approaches to the country, the coral reefs with their myriad forms of strange and brilliant animal and plant life; the great seaports bustling with activity; the coastline mountain barriers to the interior; the brilliant flowering trees and shrubs; strange birds and animals such as the Kooka- burra bird, the "Teddy Bear* Koala, and Kangaroos; scenes of the dry interior regions with the prosperous cattle and sheep-raising industries; the fishing industry; forests and logging; fruit growing; sugar cane indus- try; the northern coast regions; the great cities, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobarth, Perth, Sydney and Canberra; the life of its new capi- tal city; and the modern educational and social services of the country. The original translation for the Esperanto commentary was done in Australia by Mr. Ralph Harry, an accomplished Esperantist, and member of the Department of External Affairs of the Australian Government. His iniative in this matter is exemplary, and it is chiefly due to his experi- ences with Esperanto that this project was developed. In the matter of translating the Esperanto film commentary, minor revisions made neces- ary by changes in the film content were made in cooperation with the Central Office of EANA. The spoken Esperanto commentary was added in New York by G. Alan Connor, General Secretary of EANA. The film will be available for showing before Esperanto audiences throughout the world. Its premier showing in America is scheduled to be a feature of the EANA. Esperanto Congress. June 26-29, 1953, in New York City. The release of this new film will mean that five different countries will have made motion picture films with Esperanto comment- ary, namely Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and now Australia. Let us hope that the United States and Canada will awake to the possibilities that exist in Esperanto films of a similar nature, for spreading a better understanding about America throughout the world via the interlanguage. The Australian News and Information Service is to be congratulated for this timely and worthy endeavor to extend a knowledge and understanding of the beauty and importance of Australia to the many Esperanto clubs and conventions in every corner of the world. 17 ESPERANTO AS A"GENERAL LANGUAGE" Significant Experiments in British Schools ^» I HE British Journal of Educational Psychology (November 1952) and «^/ The Head Teachers' Review (October 1952) contain comprehensive reports about the results of experiments conducted over a number of years in two British schools of different types. The first experiment, at Hems- worth Grammar School, Yorkshire, tested the effect of the study of Esper- anto on the subsequent study of French. The second, at Denton County Secondary School, Lancashire, compared the results obtained in Esper- anto classes with those obtained in French classes. The article in The British Journal of Educational Psychology ("A Four-Year Experiment in Esperanto as an Introduction to French") was written by J.H. Halloran, Lecturer in Education at Sheffield University, the article in The Head Teachers' Review ("A Plea for Esperanto") by N. Williams, Headmaster of the Denton Secondary School. While neither experiment was entirely conclusive in every respect, it would obviously be extremely interesting and useful to relate the results of both to the findings of other educational research, especially the tests conducted in the United States by the late Professor Edward L.Thorndike, of Teachers College, Columbia University, the earlier experiments organized at Ec- cles and Bishop Auckland, England, and the tests conducted on an inter- national basis (in 15 countries) by Professor Pierre Bovet and the Insti- tut Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the University of Geneva, Switzerland. A comprehensive study, which might contain recommendations for additional experiments to clarify such details as may still be in doubt, would pre- sent and evaluate scientific data for judging the claims of Esperanto as a "general language", i.e. as a foundation for the subsequent study of other languages and as a basis of comparison for a better understanding of the student's own mother tongue. The first experiment was conducted at Hemsworth Grammar School, i.e. a college preparatory school, where entrance requirements and the average I.Q. are high. The lowest class corresponds approximately to the first year of junior high school (6th or 7th grade) in America. The whole 1947 intake of 120 students was given three tests, the Shipley Abstractions Test, a Disarranged Sentences Test, and the Lat- tice Drawing Test. Those students who appeared according to the Ship- ley Test to be of higher intelligence (I) were allocated to classes 1A and IB, those of lower intelligence (i) to classes IC and ID. The results of the other two tests were then used to assess the "verbal bias" of each student, the difference between a student's rank in these two tests (ver- bal and non-verbal) being taken as an indication of such bias. Of the I's, those with higher verbal bias (V) went into 1A, those with lower or nega- tive verbal bias (v) into IB. Between IC and ID, no such differentiation on the basis of verbal bias was made. These two classes were made as equal as possible, according to intelligence and verbal bias. For their first year, 1A and ID took French; IB and IC Esperanto. Those who studied Esperanto in their first year dropped it and began French at the beginning of the second year. Thereafter they received the 18 same number of French lessons as the others. They did not remain in se- parate classes, but were promoted from year to year in the usual way, ac- cording to their general school performance, so that in the second, third, and fourth years both those who had started out with Esperanto and those who had studied French from the beginning were to be found in each of the four classes A, B, C, and D. At the end of four years, the 86 students who remained of the original intake (40 of them had begun with Esperanto and 46 with French) were examined in French by means of eleven tests. The first impression gained from the final ranking list was that there was little to choose between those who had had four years of French and those who had had only three years preceded by one year of Esperanto. Four of the top five students had started out with Esperanto, but so had eight of the bottom eleven. In the top half of the list (43 students) were 22 who had started out with Esperanto, but the overall average rank of those who started with French was 1.6 points better than that of the others (40—41.6). This difference, however, Mr. Halloran points out, rflay be partly due to the fact that the scales were somewhat weighted against Esperanto (students in 1A were all V, those in IB all v), "so that, leav- ing out of account the Esperanto which the Esperantists had learned in their first year, and any other advantages which may be held to accrue from the learning of Esperanto, and ignoring for the moment the possible depressive effect of lower verbal bias on the performance of those who started in IB (Esperanto), it would appear from this comparison that, as a first stage in the learning of French, Esperanto is neither a help nor a hindrance." At this point it may be fair to point out, however, that the question was not whether one year's study of Esperanto facilitates the subsequent study of French (no one doubts that it does), but whether such a prepar- ation enables a student to learn more French in three years than he would learn otherwise in four years. Significant conclusions could bp drawn, however, when the perform- ance of the individual classes in each of the eleven individual tests was examined. It is impossible to give all the details here (we hope those especially interested will look up the article in the British journal), but here are the conclusions as stated in the author's own summary: "The investigation was an attempt to throw light on the question whether Esperanto should be learned as an introduction to the learning of French. The results were: 1. In the case of the less intelligent pupils, those who had devoted the first year's language study to Esperanto did better in French (as mea- sured by eleven different kinds of tests) at the end of four years, without spending any extra time on French in the three years. 2. This superiority was even more marked in the case of the less intel- ligent pupils, who were, in addition, deficient in verbal ability. 3- The more intelligent pupils did better if they had begun straight away with French. 4. Those who started with Esperanto had a better 'recognition' know- ledge of French. (The author comments that this ability is, for most of the students, the ability which they will need most in later years.) 19 5. Those who started with French acquired a better active command of the language." The Denton experiment was different in character. It operated with students of a county secondary school for 11 to 15-year-old students, in- cluding many unable to meet the entrance requirements of a grammar school. The average I.Q. in such a school is lower than in a grammar school. Students are divided into"A", "B" and "C" "streams", according to their intelligence. "Intelligence", in this case, is measured mostly by the students'ability to use correct English. The experiment, started in September 1948, was to give the "B-stream" classes the same amount of Esperanto as the "A" classes had French, i.e. 5 periods of 40 minutes weekly. There were about 40 students in each class. There were four classes learning Esperanto, all of them in their first year except the highest class which had had three months of Esperanto before (in a preliminary experiment from April to July), and there were four classes learning French. At the end of the school year, in July 1949, a first test was adminis- tered to all eight classes, of which four "A" classes had had from 1 to 4 years of French, and four "B" classes had had 1 to llA years of Esper- anto. The test took the form of a translation from Esperanto or French into English. The test papers were first compiled in French and then translated into Esperanto. The finished papers were mixed up and graded by a teacher who did not know Esperanto and marked all the papers on his own translation of the French. The results seem to indicate that for written translation into English, one year's instruction in Esperanto in the "B-stream" was at least the equivalent to three years' instruction in French in the "A-stream". A second test was given a year later. During the second year, the number of lessons per week was reduced to 3 for Esperanto except for the first year. The French classes continued to have 5 lessons. Class IB had 4 lessons of Esperanto a week. The approximate number of lessons each of the 8 classes had had by the time of the test was as follows: first year second year third year fourth year "A" classes-French 150 350 550 750 "B"classes-Esperanto 120 290 290 290 The test, given to the whole school, consisted of 20 simple phrases which had to be translated into French or Esperanto. The results looked like this: In the 90th Percentile there were 51 students of French and 70 of Esperanto; in the 50th Percentile, 29 of French and 46 of Esper- anto; in the 10th Percentile, 9 of French and 16 of Esperanto. The results of the tests at Denton would seem to indicate that stu- dents can learn in Esperanto during six months the equivalent of what they need three to four years to learn in French. The headmaster con- cluded his report as follows: "In my opinion, the above results at the very least indicate that a serious inquiry should be made into the rela- tive merits of French and Esperanto as first languages. I believe that it would be better for children to do 6—12 months of Esperanto before pro- ceeding to the study of another foreign language." See also article on experiments of Professor Bovet (AE, Mar-Apr. 1950). 20 ESPERANTO IN ACTION A "Conference of Scholars" on "Interlinguistics" was held at Boston in December 1952, as part of the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association of America. Under the chairmanship of Professor Andre Mar- tinet of Columbia University it discussed "The Claim of Interlinguistics to the Status of an Independent Discipline." The claims of Esperanto were upheld by Dr. William Solzbacher, President of the Esperanto As- sociation of North America. During the Olympic Games in Helsinki, last summer, the Finnish capital's largest Swedish-language newspaper, Hufvudstadsbladet, print- ed a daily news summary in Esperanto. In Montevideo, Uruguay, a comprehensive and very successful Esper- anto exposition was organized a few months ago. Work is already under way for a much larger exposition to be held in the same city on the oc- casion of the General Conference of UNESCO in 1954. Several daily newspapers in the Netherlands, among them the Noord- Amsterdammer Courant, the Nieuwe Noord-Hollandse Courant, and De Typhoon,now publish Esperanto lessons in serialized form which have stirred up extraordinary enthusiasm among the readers. The method used provides for occasional meetings which serve as get-togethers for par- ticipants and enable students to fire questions at the teacher. At Purme- rend such a meeting, attended by about 300 persons, was welcomed by the Editor-in-Chief of the Nieuwe Noord-Hollandse Courant, J. A. W'it. Similar meetings of "serialized Esperanto students" were held with re- markable success at Amsterdam, Zaandam, and Wormerveer. The Swedish magazine "ABF's Tidning , official organ of the As- sociation for Workers' Education, recently reported about a study club in Boras, which discusses conditions in other countries, such as Brazil, Japan, Italy. Great Britain, the Canary Islands, on the basis of first hand information and illustrative material obtained from those countries. The discussions are held in Swedish, but all foreign correspondence is in Esperanto. A Norwegian ferry service "A. S. Larvik-Fredrikshavn Ferjen", of Oslo, has just issued a leaflet in Esperanto on its 1953 schedule of sail- ings. These ferries go from Larvik and Fredrikstad, Norway, to Fredriks- havn, Denmark, across the Skagerrak. Youth magazines in various countries are now publishing Esperanto lessons in serialized form, others have regular Esperanto pages. In the Netherlands, Leon Weijts edits the Esperanto pages of Crescendo, De Engelbewaarder, and De Gouden Wiek, In Sweden, Inga-Maj Adamsson is in charge of serialized Esperanto lessons in Nya Vdgar. 21 The Associated Bulb Growers of Holland have published a magnifi- cent folder in Esperanto, with useful — and colorful — information about the planting of tulips, narcissuses, and hyacinths. The folder is an un- usual example of fine printing. No wonder, since it was produced by the Johan Enschede firm in Haarlem, printers of the Dutch Government's banknotes and postage stamps, which are among the best-looking in the world. Write for a free copy of the Esperanto folder to theCentraal Bloem- bollencomite, Wilhelminastraat 13 rood, Haarlem, Netherlands. The U. S. Minister to Finland, Jack M. McFall, sent an extremely thoughtful letter on the language problem to The New York Times, which printed it in its Sunday edition of January 25, 1953, under title "Lan- guage to Aid Peace -- Use of Common Tongue to Promote Cooperation Advocated." Mr. McFall, after analysing the basic facts about the lan- guage problem, expressed some uncertainty as to what the best solution would be. "As a last resort," he stated, "concord could probably be reached on the teaching of Esperanto." In Italy, Esperanto classes are now becoming extremely popular in a wide variety of institutions and organizations. At the famous health re- sort, Montecatini Terme, for instance, an Esperanto class now under in- struction at the Public School of Technical Studies is being subsidized by both the city administration and the management of the spa. The class is taught by Professor Gaetano Campetti. He also teaches an Esperanto class for members of the Catholic Workers' Association at Lucca. In Indonesia an Esperanto Association was established recently un- der presidency of Mrs. Datoe Toemenggoeng, a prominent journalist and lecturer. She became well-known in the world-wide Esperanto movement through a lecture on "The Social Status of Women in Indonesia," which attracted a great deal of attention at the International Esperanto Summer University at Oslo, Norway, last summer. In Vienna the Austrian Junior Red Cross is sponsoring at present four Esperanto classes, two for girls and two for boys. The Hadley School for the Blind, Winnetka, 111., the only correspon- dence school for the blind in North America, has just announced a Braille Correspondence Course in Esperanto. The course includes a textbook and instruction in Braille and is sent free to any blind student who wishes to register. During the recent UNESCO Conference in Paris about 70 delegates and staff members of UNESCO delegations attended a special discussion meeting in Esperanto. Under the chairmanship of General Louis Bastien, Honorary President of the Universal Esperanto Association, speakers from five countries conducted a debate in Esperanto. The same speakers af- terwards answered questions from the floor about Esperanto, in any of twelve languages. The invitations were sent out jointly by: the Esper- anto Association of France; M. Maurice Duperrey, Past President of Rotary International; the International Association for Esperanto in Science; and General Bastien. 22 SOMETHING FOR BEGINNERS - "GOING FOR A WALK" *%fOT LONG AGO I went for a walk with two little boys. One of them *v has the habit of exclaiming "oh!" at everything he sees. Thus, as we skirted a field, a bird which we had startled rose from its nest and flew to a branch of a neighboring tree, and he shouted "There's a bird — oh!" The other boy, conscious of his younger brother's peculiar habit, followed by saying with a superior air: "Why don't you say it flew from its nest-oh to yonder branch-oh?" "Boys," I said, "do you know that's good Esperanto? Tommy says oh! at every thing he sees. In Esperanto we put -o at the end of the words by which we name things. Therefore, we say: La birdo, pronounced beard-oh,(the bird) flugis (flew) de sia nesto (from its nest) al la branĉo (to the branch). You see, many words in Esperanto are very much like the English words we use every day. "Now, let's see for how many things we already know the Esperanto words without looking up a dictionary. Over there you see a ĝardeno. The owner is at his laboro in the ĝardeno. He is making up a hukedo of floroj (note that the plural ends in of — pronounced as in boy), liliof, rozof, and tulipoj. The florhedoj (flower beds) have a delightful odoro. We reach the rivero, where we see a man in a hoato, trying to catch a fiŝo. We continue our promenado on the road. The doktoro in his auto- mobilo passes us on his way to a paciento who perhaps suffers of gripo or pneumonia. We soon reach the vilaĝo. We enter the hotelo and call for the mastro. He brings supo and salato, and then teo with sukero and kremo for the boys, and for me he brings a botelo of biero and a glaso. A kato sits by the fafro waiting for a muso, but with an eye on the kana- rio, which sings like an anĝelo in its kaĝo. In the korto there is a koko perched on a barelo, which utters many a krio. The master puts on his ŝuoj, mounts his biciklo and rides off to the banko with mono in a sako. We walk through the koridoro and see a maŝino for putting korkof into botelof, and another maŝino lot cleaning knifes and forkof. It is now time to go to our hefmo, which we reach after walking about a mejlo. Our pro- menado has given us much plezuro and ĝofo." In this pleasant way you have learned about fifty Esperanto nouns, and it would be an excellent exercise for you to take a small dictionary or an Esperanto Kev ^ick out such words as closelu resemble English and write them in a notebook. As we did in the walk which I described, always visualize, or make a picture in the mind, of the object which you name. Do not think of tablo as the Esperanto translation of the word table, but imagine that you see the object, the Esperanto name of which is tablo, so that you can point to the objects which you wish to name, saying Jen (pronounced yen) tablo (There's a table), fen birdo, fen barelo, fen doktoro, fen aŭtomobilo. Be careful of the accent of the new words which you learn. Always stress the next to the last syllable, ba-RE-lo, kori-DO-ro, aŭtomo-Bl-lo. Jt will do no harm for you as a beginner to exaggerate the stress; when you become more fluent, the exaggeration will disappear. (Reprinted, with some changes and adaptations, from "The Esperanto Monthly'', London, England, of April 1913.) 23 The Esperanto Association of North America A.E. IN THE LIBRARIES OF NORTH AMERICA