tm Himsums NEWS OF THE LANGUAGE PROBLEM AND ESPERANTO AS A SOLUTION Published by the Esperanto League for North America, Midsummer, 1973, Vol. IX, No. 1. ELNA CONGRESS RESCHEDULING has been announced by President E. James Lieberman. The previous- ly announced congress at Kennedy International Airport on July 26 will NOT take place. Instead, the ELNA Congress this year will be held in December in Chicago so that members will be able to attend the forthcoming meeting of the Mod- ern Language Association without making a separate trip. More de- tails will be announced soon. THE INTERNATIONAL ESPERANTO CONGRESSES will take place this summer as scheduled. These include the Universal Esperanto Association Congress in Beograd, Yugoslavia, from the 28th of July until the 4th of August and the Congress of the Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda in Toronto, Canada, from the 30th of July until the 6th of August. At both of these congresses, thou- sands of Esperantists from all over the world will demonstrate the fact that Esperanto is a living language as capable of complete communication as any national language in spite of its simplicity. Both congresses will emphasize the idea that everyone ought to learn Esperanto for international communication because of the ease with which fluency can be attained in Esperanto—compared to any national language—and because of its neutrality. The UEA Congress this year is unique in that its SJalta protekt- anto" and head of the state in which it is being held—Josip Broz Tito—studied Esperanto as a young student. Members of ELNA can fly round trip between New York and Beograd for only $268, providing they are willing to make the two flights across the Atlantic on Sundays only. Those interested should write or call the Turkish- American Association, 1472 Broad- way, New York, NY 10036, tel. 212-LA 4-3447. The constant address of UEA congresses is Nieuwe Binnenweg 176, Rotterdam 3002, The Nether- lands, tel. (010) 36 15 39. For further information on the Toronto SAT Congress, write to Esperanto, P.O.Box "F," Toronto, Ontario, Canada. THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION will hold its 88th annual meeting in Chicago from December 27 to December 30 of this year—a meeting that will include a new seminar called the Seminar on Interlinĝuis- tics. In the words of Professor Mario Pei, "There is no reason why an association devoted to modern languages and their prob- lems should not have a section to cover this most important of linguis- tic problems." Professor Richard E. Wood of Louisiana State Univer- sity has been elected the first discussion leader of the new semi- nar, the 1973 topic of which will be Sociolinĝuistic and Cultural Conse- quences of the Emergence of an International Language, and he invites the submission of abstracts or proposals for consideration as part of the program. His address is the Department of Foreign Lan- guages, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803. NOMINEES for ELNA Treasurer and three positions on the ELNA Board of Directors have been named. They are Michael W. Ham, Peggy Linker and Henry 8. Milsted for treasurer; Rex Bennett, Allen Boschen, Lewis Cook, Al Estling, Kent Jones, Charles Power and Richard Sandberg for election to the board. Biographical sketches of the nomi- nees together with a ballot will be sent to each ELNA member in about a month. BY POPULAR DEMAND, the paper delivered by Dr. Margaret Hagler at the 87th meeting of the Modern Language Association is reprinted below. Derived in part from her famous doctoral disserta- tion on Esperanto, its full title is THE ESPERANTO LANGUAGE AS A MEDIUM FOR POETRY: The Esperanto language has been used as a medium for both translated and original literature, especially for poetry, ever since 1887, when the first book on Esper- anto was published. Naturally, the use of Esperanto for literature immediately raises several complex questions: First, what kind of language is Esperanto and how does it differ from such tongues as English? Second, does Esperanto really have the rich and full-bodied vocabulary, as well as the many other qualities, needed for the creation of poetry? And third, do Esperanto words have the multi- dimensional associations and connotations which are a prerequi- site for poetry? Let us consider each of these questions, beginning with a description of the Esperan- to language. In contrast to the ethnic and national tongues, such as Eskimo and English respectively, Esperan- to is a constructed language. The term "ethnic and national lan- guages" refers to "those tongues which have developed over long periods of time, usually many centuries, during which they have undergone the process of more or less unplanned and uncontrolled changes,"' depending chiefly on geographical and historical circum- stances. The term "constructed lan- guage" designates "any planned ianguage offered as a universal communication medium, having as its main characteristics grammati- cal regularity, controlled vocabulary growth, and systematic methods for word-building." As English may be considered a blended na- tional language consisting mainly of Germanic, Romance, and Greek elements, Esperanto may be clas- sified as a blended constructed language with components from Latin, the Romance languages and other Indo-European tongues, and a very small percentage of invented elements. However, since Esperan- to is a planned language, it does not contain the irregularities which make the study of national lan- guages difficult. Let us now go on to our sec- ond question: does Esperanto have the qualities needed for the cre- ation of poetry? We shall first consider its vocabulary and word- structure. The Esperanto vocabulary, which has grown tremendously in its near-century of existence, is varied, flexible, and subtle. In ' Hagler, Margaret. The Esperanto Language as a Literary Medium. Ph.D. Dissertation, Comparative Literature Department, Indiana University, Bloom- ington, Indiana, p. 10. 2 Ibid, p. 40. part, this is due to the word- building system of the language, founded on the idea of roots to which an ingenious, systematically planned set of affixes can be added, making it possible to build fifty or more words on the basis of a single root. Furthermore, the vocabulary is constantly expanding, so that its richness and capability of expressing nuances is always growing. Because of all these features, the Esperanto poet can choose among as many synonyms as can poets using other tongues. For instance, Esperanto has the following synonyms for the verb brili, "to shine:" fajri, "to burn;" flami, "to become ignited, to blaze;" flagri, "to flare," fulmi, ' to flash like lightning;" glimi, "to gleam or glitter;" heligi, "to become bright, to clear up;" and lumi, "to shine, illuminate." Each root can be used to form several more verbs, such as lumeti, "to glimmer faintly," and lumcgi, II. ■ 19 to glare. The word-structure of Esperan- to facilitates the reproduction of all rhythmic patterns, whether these are based on stress, accent, quanti- tative verse, syllabic verse, or the complex rhythmic effects of mod- ern poetry. Esperanto is especially rich in rhyme-much richer, in fact, than English. Esperanto poets insist that their rhymes are not valid unless the roots, as well as the suffixes, rhyme. Thus, we have seen that Esper- anto possesses the vocabulary and other resources needed for poetry. And now for the third question: do Esperanto words have associa- tions and connotations? The answer to this question is that since Es- peranto is a real, living language, its words have the qualities and characteristics of words in other living languages. In the first place, there is the time-depth factor. The great majority of Esperanto roots, selected from or based on languages with hundreds of years of existence behind them, came into being charged with the distilled associa- tions of centuries, and, immediately upon being used, began to release their positive or negative charges. For example, the word koro not only means "heart" in the literal sense, but also carries the conno- tation "the seat of the emotions" as in many other tongues. Esper- anto writers almost immediately began to employ such expressions as bonkora, "good-hearted," mol- kora, "soft-hearted," and senkaraj "heartless," and many more, all of which depend on connotation. Furthermore, as the unique international cultural and speech- community of Esperantists has grown to around a million persons in more than fifty nations, Esper- antists have developed their own associations with and connotations for many words. For example, because green was adopted as the color for the flag and star of the Esperanto movement, the Esperanto word for "green," verda, has some of the same connotations as the English expression "true blue." And now let us look at some actual examples of Esperanto poetry, both translated and original. There are now some thirty national anthologies of translated works in Esperanto, including an English Anthology published in 1957 and covering the period 1000A.D. to 1800, with a second volume in preparation. Our time permits a discussion of only parts of one translation from this anthology, an Esperanto version of William Blake's poem, "Tiger, Tiger," translated by William Auld of Scot- land, one of today's leading Esper- anto poets and critics. The first lines of Blake's poem and Auld's translation are as follows: Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night Tigro, tigro, brile brula En arbaro nokt-obskura In these lines, Auld is not only able to preserve the alliteration of Blake's phrase "burning bright," but also to add a subtle effect of near-rhyme because of the similari- ty of the words brile and brula. Blake's phrase "forests of the night" is preserved very well in the translation. En arbaro nokt- obskura, literally "In the night-dark forest." The fifth verse of Blake's poem contains the famous line: "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?" This line is trans- lated by Auld as: Cu vin Safid-farinto faris? The translation precisely duplicates Blake's cryptic style and symbolic content; in addition, Auld utilized the special features of Esperanto to great advantage. Cu is a particle which indicates a question. The next word, vin, "you," is in the accusative case which lends great flexibility to the word-order of Esperanto. Safid- farinto, "the one who made the Lamb," demonstrates the concision of Esperanto. To the German-' derived root ŝaf-, "sheep," the affix -id, meaning "offspring," is added to form safid', capitalized as in the Blake original. Farinto is a noun formed on a participial base. Blake's repetition of "made" and make" is retained in farinto and faris. Throughout his translation, by skillful and artistic use of the resources of Esperanto, Auld suc- cessfully captures the effects of the Blake poem. An enormous body of original poetry has been written in Esper- anto. The definitive collection of Esperanto poetry, the Esperanto Anthology, covers the years 1887 to 1957 and contains some 350 works by ninety poets from more than thirty countries or language communities. A poet whose influence on the development of Esperanto as a literary language has been com- pared to that of Dante on the development of the Italian language is the Hungarian Kalman Kalocsay, born in 1891 and still working actively as a poet, translator, critic, and anthologist. His origi- nal poetry includes a long work in heroic couplets on the art of Esper- anto poetry, highly polished poems in traditional forms such as the rondel and sonnet, and sophisticat- ed modern poetry. We shall discuss only two of his works, an untitled sonnet and an excerpt from a poem in free verse, both of which I have translated into English. The sonnet is from a larger work, Through the Storm; appearing next are the origi- nal and the translation, which retains the form and meter,- but not the rhyme. el Tra |a Stormo Sur mia forn' muzikas faun' per fluto dutuba, kaj, dum plenabusa blovo, li ŝajnas al mi signi per la brovo, ke mi lin akompanu per liuto. a. Cu kantas al la luno por saluto, jubilas pri sezono de renovo, au spitan nimfon volas per kormovo delogi tiu sonoranta muto? Subite rompas tra I' medito reva kiel stertora ve' de gorĝo kreva, konsterne tranca sono el la tuboj. El mitaj tempoj de horo' fantoma gis ci epoko plena de inkuboj hantas la hojlo de I'sufer'prahoma. from Through the Storm A faun plays music on my mantel- piece blowing with puffed-out cheeks a double flute; he seems to ask me with his arching brows to keep him company upon the lute. Does he sing greetings to the silver moon rejoicing in the season of renewal? Or does the music-making mute desire to move the teasing heart of some young nymph? Suddenly through this dreamlike meditation a hoarse lament bursts through his broken throat, a terrifying blast cuts through the flute. From mythic and fantastic times of horror until this epoch, full of incubi, this blast of dawn-man haunts us through the years. It is noteworthy that the word fauno in Esperanto and faun" in English both have similar denota- tions and connotations and that both even evoke the same image of Pan. The sudden hoarse blast on the double flute recalls humanity's demon-haunted past; this brooding sense of history is characteristic of much Esperanto poetry. Kalocsay's free-verse poem Diboce, "Hung Over," is in a completely different vein. Here is the first section of this work. Diboĉe Hej-farsa ĝojo rugo gutinta en pecon saltigu gapantajn okulojn sur min! facile ebrieto pendas el mi kiel la lango el buso de bubo mokanta kaj eta stulta kanto tra I' kapo sancelpasas la spronojn kunfrapante dancpetole- rifuĝas la nokto mateno gin frapis pugalnaze kaj nun gia sango de nazo rugigas la horizonton la gaslampofloroj velkas eksprucas la domoj miksas balaafon de homa tumulto... Hung Over Hey! farcical joy red dropping into pitch Let their wide open eyes jump on me! I'm a little hung over it hangs from me like the tongue from the mouth of some taunting street-kid and a silly little song keeps running through my head gamboling around in a frolicking dance- The night's buzzed off morning punched it on the schnozzle and now its bloody beak reddens the horizon street-lamp flowers fade mixed sweepings of human tumult gush out of houses... Kalocsay's image of dawn as the nosebleed of night is highly origi- nal, as is the active metaphor comparing street-lamps to flowers. This brief analysis of these poems hardly does justice to Kalocsay, or to the many other poets who have chosen to write in Esperanto. However, it is my hope that this discussion of the qualities of the Esperanto language and of a little translated and original poetry in Esperanto has shown that poets of considerable talent and merit have been attracted to the Esper- anto language and have success- fully used it as a literary medium to create works comparable in quality and interest to poetry in national and ethnic languages. ESPERANTO'S VALUE to tourists was vividly pointed out this year in an article by Mrs. Eleanor Stein of San Diego that won a $100 first prize from the Joyer Travel Report. In this article, Mrs. Stein writes: ___My husband and I have traveled through several countries this year and, although we knew no one in these countries prior to visiting them, we were wined, dined and welcomed everywhere we visited! We were taken on tours of several cities and visited people in their homes, talked with them, played with their children, yes, even saw their home movies! This happened to us because we had a special kind of passport. Our passport was a little pin..a green star which we wore all of the time. It means that we are Esperantists.... In every civilized country of the world Esperantists can be found These Esperantists are people who welcome the traveler as a friend. We have an international directory which lists the Esperantists in each country, including the United States. It doesn't matter whether you speak Esperanto fluently or are only a beginner. You are warmly welcomed. My husband toured Europe in 1969 and lived with 14 different Esperanto families in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. I learned the language two years ago. My husband has spoken it for five years. It is not difficult to learn..It means finding real comradeship, helpfulness and friendship wherever you may travel. ELNA is a non-profit organization dedi- cated to promoting easy-to-learn Esperanto as the international language. Its president is E. James Lieberman, M.D., 6451 Barnaby Street NW, Washington, DC 20015; its treasurer is Mrs. Peggy Linker, 1414 Monroe Street, Walla Walla, Washington 99362. Individual dues are $8.00 a year. Books about and in Esperanto can be purchased from the Esperanto Information Center, 410 Darrell Road, Hills- borough, California 94010. ESPERANTO LEAGUE FOR NORTH AMERICA Post Office Box 275 Fox Lake, Illinois 60020, U.S.A. Address Correction Requested Return Postage Guaranteed Nonprofit Organization U.S. POSTAGE PAID Fox Lake, III. Permit No.32