^r^p INFORMATION CENTER ESPERANTO LEAGUE for NORTH AMERICA **4ciTJv Vol.VI No,5 INfcrVaLtl I fcK October 1970 OHIO RADIO STATIONS OFFER ESPERANTO COURSE Two radio stations in Columbus, Ohio, are broadcasting lessons in Esper- anto five days a week in a course for which 94 participants have bought study kits. WOSU-AM, Ohio State University radio station, presents the 15- minute programs in the morning and WCBE-FM, the city Board of Education sta- tion, rebroadcasts them in mid-afternoon. The course will run through the winter and into the spring. Mrs. Jane Wills began taping the lessons during the summer with Jack Babbert, a high school junior, taking the part of a pupil. Listeners can par- ticipate, interjecting their own response into the pause before young Babbert offers his. The $2.50 study kit includes two textbooks, a 50-page study guide and test papers which Mrs. Wills and her associates will grade. Station WOSU will make the material available to other stations free on a tape-return basis or will sell the entire set of tapes, but arrangements must be made quickly before the tapes are cleared for re-use. (Write pro- gram director Tom Warnock, WOSU radio, 215 W. 19th Ave., Columbus 43210 if you think your local station can use the program.) For the course to be ef- fective, some local Esperantist must make ditto copies of the study guide, send the study kits to students and grade the test papers. For information on this, write Mrs. Robert Wills, 84 W. Riverglen Drive, Worthington, 0. 93085. Mrs. Wills, an experienced language teacher, and her husband, Robert, a professor of law at Ohio State University, both took the summer teachers' course in Esperanto at North Adams, Mass., State College in 1969. They have taught classes in Worthington and Columbus. Jack Babbert's interest in stamp collecting brought him to the study of Esperanto. A number of articles and news stories on Esperanto, including one with a picture of Mrs. Wills and Jack before microphones, appeared in the Columbus Dispatch and other papers. With the assistance of Miss Diane Kasler, all the school superintendents and colleges in a 50-mile area were sent notices about the course. Thus publicized, the program started off with nearly a hundred paid-up participants. -o- A UPI dispatch from London going the rounds of U.S. newspapers reports a double wedding ceremony in Esperanto in which German-born Herbert Piatt married Barbara Williams and Armenian-born Raif Markarian married Kimie Ozawa of Japan. Piatt is office manager for the British Esperanto Associa- tion. Markarian, a member of the U.E.A. executive council, is president of the International League of Esperanto Teachers. -2- NL 10/70 r \ Qualifications for Retiree Membership Modified Retired persons of 62 years of age and older must have paid full member- ship dues for five consecutive years in order to qualify for the reduced rate of $4 for retirees. This ruling was adopted by the 1970 E.L.N.A. Congress. Originally conceived to cover hardship cases of reduced income on re- tirement, the "emeritus" category proved to be all too popular. It was not possible to enforce the hardship criterion, and the reduced rate came to be looked upon as a sort of reward of merit for having attained three score years and two. This class of membership doubled between 1968 and 1969, a considerable number being new members. Members who have previously paid the retiree rate may continue to do so but new members and renewing dropouts will no longer be eligible for it. -o- Plena Ilustrita Vortaro Copies Received The mailing to all American pre-publication subscribers of the new Esperanto dictionary Plena Ilustrita Vortaro was completed in August and copies began coming through from England the first week of October. (If you have not received yours, write directly to S.A.Ty 67 Ave. Gambetta, Paris 20, France. If you have moved give both the old and the new address.) The dictionary - henceforth referred to as P.I.V. - sells for $25.00 plus $1.10 shipping charges. Orders sent directly to S.A.T. should be ac- companied by an international postal money order for $26.10. Esperanto book dealers on both coasts do not have a large stock of P.I.V. but will accept pre-paid orders for it. (For their joint "Current Esperanto Book List," add 25 cents to your check.) Address: Esperanto Book Center Esperanto Book Service 29 Windsor Road 2129 Elizabeth St. Great Neck, N.Y. 11021 San Carlos, CA. 94070 The normal interval between receipt of order and delivery is six weeks or more, and the extra volume of mail at holiday time may cause further delay, so it is none too early to order copies intended as Christmas gifts. -o- Limited Edition of Esperanto Poems The production of a slim volume of poems by Berita Kart, Estonian-born (1905) Esperanto poet and translator, was the summer project of Annette Greenland, formerly of Portland, now of McGehee, Ark. She typed and multi- graphed 31 poems and designed and block-printed the cover in an edition of 175 copies. The poems range in subject matter from nature to events in the world of Esperanto. Many of them have appeared in North European journals and on the Polish radio. Copies of the book may be obtained for 50 cents from Mrs. Greenland at 803 N. Third St., McGehee, Ark. 71654. -o- TO DISTRIBUTORS OF THE PEI PAMPHLET "Wanted: A World Language": On Page 21, change the address of J.E.N, from Philadelphia to 35 Violet Lane, Lansdowne, Pa. 19050. -3- NL 10/70 BABEL STILL STANDS Assertive nationalism brings with it a strong tendency to resist the spread of major international languages. Babel is coming back fighting. - This is the themeof an article by Andrew Boyd of The Ecomomist (London) in Vista, the magazine of the United Nations Association in the United States. Without offering a solution to the problem, he cites various manifestations. The pseudo polyglots come in for a good natured ribbing. "After travel- ing the world for years, we feel we ought to be able to make out in almost any language. Haven't we learned to read menus in Portugese, to murmur po- lite nothings in Malay, to find the washroom anywhere from Lima to Leningrad? .... We feel confident that nobody will prevent us finding our way to the airport merely by calling it an aeroport or aeropuerto, flygplatz or flug- hafen. . . . But then the Finns come up with the word lentokentiai" In support of his central theme, Boyd cites the attempts to curb the use of English in Ireland and Quebec; the Flemish-French conflict in Belgium which now involves the dismemberment of Louvain University and its famous library; the imbroglio of India with six main languages and many smaller ones; the substitution of Arabic for English on public signs in Libya and the setback to Arabic in Iraq where the Kurds have won recognition of their own language; Soviet Russia's difficulties not only with the Chinese who claim that the Amur river is really the Heilung, but with the nationalism of Armenians who persist in using their incomprehensible alphabet. "And then there is the Babel battle on the international level," he con- tinues. "When the European Community first began to take shape more than a decade ago, it was hoped that it could operate with only two official lan- guages, French and German. The Dutch accepted this; but those stubborn Flemings insisted that the Community must use Dutch and this led the Ital- ians to put in a claim too. . . Now what if Britain, Denmark, Norway, Ireland and perhaps others join it?" -o- A.A.T.E. Reports on 1969-70 Classes Twenty classes in Esperanto taught as part of grade school and high school curricula were among the study groups reported to the American Asso- ciation of Esperanto Teachers for 1969-70, according to the AATE Bulteno for September. These were in California (6), Oregon (4) New York (3), Arizona, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio and Ontario. Adult classes on school premises were reported by 22 groups in 10 states. In all, reports were re- ceived from 15 states and 3 Canadian provinces. Heading the list for classes of all sorts were California with 15 classes and 208 students and Oregon, 12 classes with 147 students. The three most popular Esperanto textbooks, according to the A.A.T.E., are Teach Yourself Esperanto (Cresswell and Hartley) Paŝoj al Plena Posedo (Auld), and Step by Step in Esperanto (Butler). Local teachers and activists are urged to obtain forms for reports from L.A.Ware, A.A.T.E. education secretary, 1265 Melrose Ave., Iowa City, Iowa 5 2240. Every year many classes are not statistically recorded because formal reports are not submitted. Twenty "rumored" classes are not included in 1969- 70 statistics for lack of details. A- -4- NL 10/70 Within a week after the following Q. & A. item appeared in the "Action Line" column of the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, over 350 requests for in- formation came to the Esperanto Information Center in New York. Dr. Humphrey Tonkin of the University of Pennsylvania's department of English supplied information for the reply. Q. My teacher says that a lot of the world's problems would be solved if we all communicated in the same language. Why hasn't anyone ever done something about this?—H. R., Philadelphia A. They did, 87 years ago. Man named Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof lived in part of Poland where five different languages were spoken. Learning all those tongues bugged him so he created a language called Esperanto, meaning the hopeful one. People who speak it say language is a simple one; has only 16 basic grammar rules. Though more commonly taught in Europe, California public schools offer Esperanto as an elective course. Best guess is that 8 million speak it. If you want to learn the language, folks at U.S. headquarters will send booklet. Write them at Esperanto Information Center, 156 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10010. One teacher wrote: "I teach sixth-graders and one of our reading books mentioned the language briefly but my children would like to know more, in fact, I would like to request 25 copies of your booklet and if there is a charge please let me know." Another letter said, "My oldest daughter who is now in college was very fortunate in having Mr. Paul Mimlitsch give an extra- curricular high school course in Esperanto. She went to Spain with a school group, and really had no language barrier because of having learned Esperanto. -o- People-to-People has turned over to the West Coast Information Center a number of letters from people (mostly in Europe and Asia) who want American penpals and who list Esperanto as a language in which they can correspond. For names of possible correspondents, write West Coast Esperanto Information Center, 410 Darrell Road, Hillsborough, Calif. 94010. -o- ESPERANTO LEAGUE rot NORTH AMERICA 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. N.Y. 10010 HBTUBH POSTAGE GUAHAITBED NON-PROFIT ORG. U. 8. POSTAGE Paid New York, N.Y. Permit No. 657