Junularo Esperantista Young Esperantists de Nord-Ameriko (JEN) of North America PUBLICITY SECTION Hews Digest k Central Street Millers Talis, Mass. OI3E9 No. 5 July, 1967 JEN EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBERS MEET WITH CANADIAN YOUNG ESI'EHANTISTS: Montreal , Canada, was the scene of a meeting June 7 between Julie Crandall, Secretary of the Young Esperantists of North America (JEN), Humphrey Tonkin, Executive Board Member of JEN, and Nicole Teasdale, Secretary of the Canadian Young Esperantists (aEJ). The group explored ways in which the two youth organizations might work more closely, exchange news publi- cations and bulletins, and combine forces to work together to promote Esperanto. It was decided that: (l) KEJ and JEN will look into the possibility of holding a joint meeting in a convenient location in the spring of 1968; (2) that the Executive Board members of JEN and KEJ will try to meet at least once a year for discussions; and (3) that KEJ and JEN will work together in the production of their publications where possible. LANGUAGE DISCRIMINATION AT EXPOt During his visit to Montreal, Humphrey Tonkin, who is Secretary General of the World Organization of Young Esperantists (TEJO) , spoke at Expo 67. At the "Hyde Park Corner" section of the Youth Pavilion, a number of young people, mostly from the United States and Canada.heard Dr. Tonkin speak on linguistic discrimination -- in English, and in Quebec! French-speaking Canadians objected to Dr. Tonkin's use of English, and a lively debate ensued. Dr. Tonkin's main argument: cul- tural discrimination by English-speaking nations threatens the cultural life of many parts of the world. The best remedy, in his opinion, is a neutral, easy, flexible language for international communication -- and not English! ELNA CONGRESS JULY 6-9. AT ST. LOUIS: The annual congress of the Esperanto League for North America (ELNA) is taking place in St. Louis, Missouri from July 6-9- The program includes guest speakers Duncan Charters, of the University of Indiana; t.rs. Yukiko Isobe of the Japanese Esperanto Institute; and linguist John Lewinc, from .vew York City. A public meeting, an Esperanto film, a play and a boat excursion are among the items scheduled. Exhibits of teaching materials, posters and Esperanto books will be displayed. EAST COAST CONFERENCE PLANNED: The Esperanto Information Center, New York, is making plans for an East Coast regional conference to be held in mid-September, in order to set up new clubs and classes, and activate old ones. EIC hopes to combine the conference with a workshop for teachers, and plans to meet either in New York or Phila- delphia. Write to the Esperanto Information Center, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 if you have questions, suggestions, or can offer help. ESPERANTO EDUCATION IN CHICAGO; Esperanto-speaker William Vorhauer, a Chicago school teacher, reported in a recent meeting that he was regularly instructing a group of children with daily Esperanto lessons. These twelve-year-olds learn quickly and are now taking the first steps to correspond with other Esperanto-writing children in other lands! Page 2 July, 1967 CONGRESSES AND MEETINGS ISRAEL CRISIS CAUSES TRANSFERRAL OF CONGRESSES! In view of the recent crises in the mid-East, TEJO's 23rd International Youth Congress has been transferred from Natanja, Israel, to Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it will take place from 2-9 August, concurrently with the Universal Congress of Esperanto (originally scheduled for Tel Aviv). This rapid removal of the Congress to TEJO's headquarters city was made necessary by the war in the Middle East. Youth Congress participants will stay in the hotel ship Jan Backx, in Rotterdam harbor. The congress program will form part of the program of the Universal Congress. Highlights of TEJO's part include a series of lectures on the cultural and social background of the host country, a congress ball, and a special session on tourism. TEJO's annual committee meetings will also take place during the congress week. SARTRE AND IONESCO PLAYS AT THE UNIVERSAL CONGRESS: No Exit and The Lesson are two of the plays to be presented at the Universal Congress of Esperanto in Rotterdam. Also included in the program will be comedies by three Yugoslav playrights, and a musical play wri.tten originally in Esperanto , by the late Hungarian author Julio Baghy. EUROPEAN YOUTH CONFERENCE CANCELLED: In view of the urgent and unusual situation created by the transferral of the TEJO congress from Israel to the Netherlands, the Dutch Young Esperantists and the German Young Esperantists have decided to cancel their EuropeanYouth Conference, which was to have been held at Enkhuizen, Netherlands in the last part of August. Mr. Wim Jansen and Mr. Robert Groeneveld, who had been or- ganizing the Enkhuizen conference have turned their full attention to ensuring the success of the TEJO congress by donating their time, and by offering speakers to take part in the TEJO congress. The general topic of the conference was to be "The Thousand-Year Eight Against the Sea." FROM MANCHESTER TO MALMO: Students from the Denton School, a large secondary school in Manchester, England, where Esperanto has been taught for a number of years, will soon be off to Sweden. Mr. Philip Buttinger and Mr. Norman Williams of Britain are to take a party of students to an international Esperanto congress in Malmo' , Sweden. They also plan to visit Germany, Belgium, Holland and Denmark, and will arrive in Malmo on 29 July for the beginning of the congress, returning to Manchester on 10 August. This is the fifteenth such excursion arranged for the Denton School children. TOURIST MEETING PLANNED BY POLISH TEJO SECTION: Bydgoszcz will be the site of a week-long International Tourist Meeting of Esperanto-speaking youth, with an extensive program of cultural and tourist events, under the general direction of the Polish Young Esperantists and the Polish student tourist organization, Juventur. The meeting,from 18 to 20 August, will take place under the auspices of TEJO. NEWS FROM TEJO TRAVEL SERVICE FOUNDED BY TEJO: A new and important addition to the services provided for young speakers of Esperanto, TEJO's Travel Service has recently begun operations. The Service will act as a clearing-house for information on the many Esperanto meetings held each year, particularly those slanted towards youth. It will provide help and assistance in organizing meetings, arranging group exchanges and setting up international lecture tours. Efforts to give Esperanto a larger role in international tourism will also figure in the activities of the new service. The Travel Service was conceived as TEJO's contribution to the 1967 campaign of the United Nations, International Tourist Year. Page 3 July. 1967 NEW TEJO PUBLICATION: The Language Problem in International Youth Relations is the title of the most recent publication of TEJO's External Relations Committee. The report, published in both Trench and English, presents an important new method for the investigation of the language problem in international youth or- ganizations. The 32-page report, the result of more than a year's careful experimen- tation, takes as its starting point the assumption that it is possible to measure the extent of language difficulties with scientific exactitude. The greater part of the report describes the establishment of one such means of measurement, namely a test to gauge language proficiency in Esperanto. Up to now, such tests have not developed for Esperanto, though they exist for most other languages. The new test has been used experimentally among young Dutch speakers of Esperanto, and on a larger scale during the 22nd Congress of TEJO in Pecs, Hungary, last year. The report is a direct continuation of the work initiated by TEJO at the Seminar on the Language Problem in International Youth Relations, held in September 1965 in Podvin, Yugoslavia. At that meeting, representatives of a numoer of international youth organizations discussed the very considerable difficulties stemming from the language problem and the various methods adopted to avoid these difficulties. There seem to be three such solutions: interpretation and translation, the learning of national languages, and the learning of the international language. It is difficult, however, to indicate in what areas of communication each of these solutions is the most appropriate. The solution'adopted by a given organization generally depends on the particular circum- stances which happen to hold sway in that organization, or which a more or less random procedure of definition happens to single out. In consequence, the seminar recommended that each multilingual organi- zation establish a separate subcommittee to look into its language problem and to propose the solution most appropriate to that organization. The present report aims at providing a method by which such an investigation can be carried out. f NEW YOUTH EXCHANGE ORGANIZATION: The first stages of what may become a \ totally new concept in international youth exchange are underway in Argentina, Bulgaria, \ Brazil and the United States. These are the countries contributing members to TEJO's i new subcommittee on youth exchange. Reason for establishing the committee is an Argen- <^ tinian plan going under the title of "Programo Pasporto" — Project Passport. The pur- \pose of Project Passport is to arrange exchanges for protracted visits on an in-family lbasis — and using Esperanto as the means of contact. Project participants will live [with their host families for two or three months, using Esperanto to communicate with i them and the resources of local Esperanto organizations to make wider contacts with their Hrost countries. Details of the plan will, it is hoped, be announced soon. NEWS IN BRIEF Dylan and Seeger in Esperanto: A new LP containing songs by Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, translated by Wouter Pilger of the Netherlands, and sung by Hanny and Adri, well-known Dutch singers, will be on sale in July. Songs include: With God on Our Side, If I uad a Hammer, This Land is Your Land, We Shall Overcome, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, and Don't Think Twice. For details write to: Iramac France, 17 bis Rue des Tilleuls, 92 Boulogne sur Seine, Paris, France. Mexican Songs in Esperanto 1 The Mexican Young Esperantists have recently produced the. first of a projected series of recordings of Mexican popular songs in the international language. Write to: Mexican Young Esperantists, Lauro Aguirre 2E3-3, Mexico 17, D. F. Children Meet in Yugoslavia: Esperanto-speaking children from schools where Esperanto is taught will gather in Debeli Rtic in July for a ten-day holiday by the sea. The meeting, in a children's center on the Yugoslav Adriatic coast, is expected to bring together children from several different countries. More Meetings: Forty-seven international meetings of Esperantists have taken place or will take place during the first nine months of 1967. Seventeen of these are youth meetings. These statistics, gathered by TEJO's Tourist Service, also indicate that during 205 of the 273 days in question, at least one such meeting is in progress. Many thousands of Esperanto speakers attend these and similar meetings each year. Page k July, 1967 PUBLICATIONS PIRST CHEMICAL PERIODICAL IN ESPERANTO: During the past three years, a well-produced and highly qualified periodical in Latin America has been making Esperanto history. The magazine is Kemio Internacia, and its claim to attention is the fact that it is aimed strictly at professionals and those with an advanced knowledge of chemistry and related subjects. In its field, it is already making a name for itself! its articles are abstracted in Chemical Abstracts, Chemisches Eentralblatt and other leading magazines, and it carries advertising material from a whole host of large chemical concerns through- out the world. The articles are clearly of high caliber. A recent issue carried an article on desalination by Barnett P. Dodge, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Yale; a study of oxalates and their relation to certain enzymes, by Aloysy Wenckewski, a neurologist at the Academy of Medicine, Poznan; an article on the mineral content of cresses, by Edgar Jouis, Director of the Agronomical Station, Rouen, and other items on antibiotics, nar- cotics, and the history and importance of benzine. A series of short items dealt with a whole range of other subjects. Clearly Kemio Internacia is an important phenomenon, both for itself (its articles are of value to chemists) and because of its importance in the development of Esperanto. The magazine expands the language by putting it to new uses and at the same time expands the utility of Esperanto itself. Kemio Internacia is not the only professional periodical in Esperanto. Scienca Revuo already has a long and illustrious history. So have Medicina Internacia Revuo, published in Japan, and Geografia Revuo, from Yugoslavia. But Kemio Internacia seems particularly worthy of the attention of all those interested in chemistry or in Esperanto itself. It is abundantly illustrated and it is thoroughly inexpensive. Three issues a year cost Sl.jĵO, which should be sent to the U. S. agent: Pranklin Square Agency, 5^5 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, New Jersey O7666. If you'd like to become a member of JEN and continue receiving News Digest, fill in the application form below and mail it to: Prank Lanzone, Jr., Treasurer, JEN, 2129 Elizabeth Street, San Carlos, California 9L070, and make your check payable to "Young Esperantists of North America". /~7 $2 enclosed for membership in JEN. I am under 30, and understand that I will receive News Digest and the occasional publications of JEN. /~"7 $2 enclosed. I am over 30 and wish to become a supporter of JEN. I understand that I am to receive News Digest. /~~7 $5 enclosed. I wish to become a patron of- JEN (no age limit) . Hame________^_____________________________________ . ________ Addre s s________________________________________Ci ty___________________S ta t e ________Zip______