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News of the Language Problem and the Progress of the International Language Movement.
A Service of the Esperanto League for North America, Box 275. Fox Lake, IL 60020, U.S.A.
December, 1973, Vol. IX, No. 3-4.
SCANDALOUS
is the word for the linguistic anarchy in the world
today. The world is being brought ever closer to-
gether by the advances in the technology of com-
munication and transportation. Practically instan-
taneous communication between opposite sides of
the globe is now possible. A human being can now
be physically transported to even the most distant
parts of the earth in less than 15 hours. Commercial
airline tours around the world in a week are now
commonplace. Yet no one language is understood
by more than one out of four human beings living
at the present time.
Ironically, the solution to this most basic prob-
lem of a common language for the entire human race
was devised about 85 years ago, about the time
technical means of communication and transporta-
tion began their amazingly fast advances. The so-
lution is Esperanto, the language logically and
deliberately constructed for international use and
introduced to the world in 1887. Its rules of grammar
have no exceptions, it is easy to pronounce, its
spelling is completely phonetic and its vocabulary
is simplified by a system of prefixes and suffixes.
Compared to any of the national languages, it is
very easy to learn, and-unlike the national
languages-it has no political connotations. Today,
Esperanto is spoken in every country of the world,
has been learned by millions of people and has
proven itself as a complete means of
nication by almost constant use in almost every
conceivable context for almost a century. It stands
ready to fill the role of the truly universal language
spoken fluently by all intelligent people in addition
to their national languages-a role the continuing
advances of modern communication and transporta-
tion technology demand be filled soon.
Making Americans aware of Esperanto and its
unique qualities is a primary goal of
League for North America.
SHOCKING
was the news received by Esperantis| ts
States last summer that the William
the Esperanto
in the United
Schulzes had
announced their decision to retire from the operation
of the Esperanto Information Center at the end of
this year. The outlook for the Esperanto movement
in the United States has been brightened, however,
by the announcement that an ELNA Central Office
will be established in Burlingame, California, to
take over the functions to be vacated by the Schulz-
es and to provide ELNA with a permanent headquar-
ters. The director of the new central office will be
Karl Pov, who will initially work under the guidance
of Bill and Cathy Schulze. The new central office
will be specially funded, and those desiring to make
contributions toward this fund should send them to
the treasurer of ELNA, Mrs. Peggy Linker, 1414
Monroe Street, Walla Walla, Washington 99362.
INFLATION AND DOLLAR DEVALUATION
are resulting in increases of membership dues for
Esperanto organizations all over the world.
The 1974 ELNA dues are: ordinary membership,
$10; family, $15; supporting, $25; patron, $50; life,
$200; student, $5; and emeritus, $5. They should
be sent to Mrs. Peggy Linker, ELNA Treasurer,
1414 Monroe Street, Walla Walla, Washington 99362.
Included in the membership dues for a new member
is a subscription to an Esperanto magazine chosen
by the member from several published in Europe
or Asia.
The 1974 dues schedule for the Universal Es-
peranto Association, the largest of the worldwide
Esperanto organizations, is as follows: standard
membership with yearbook and a subscription to the
monthly magazine Esperanto, $14; membership with
yearbook only, $7; sustaining membership, $21;
youth member with yearbook, $3.50; youth member
with yearbook and Esperanto, $10.50. The yearbook
contains names and addresses of UEA delegates
throughout the world who have volunteered to serve
members. Payment of UEA dues (but not ELNA
dues) should be made to the chief delegate of the
UEA in the United States, Armin Doneis, P.O.Box
105, Pharr, Texas 78577. Life membership in the
UEA will cost only $186 until the end of 1973;
thereafter, it will cost almost $300.
THE 1973 ELNA CONGRESS
will be held in the Allerton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois,
from Thursday evening, December 27, through Satur-
day, December 29. The congress will begin with a
get-acquainted meeting and a distribution of 1972-3
reports from 7 P.M. to 10 P.M. A business meeting
will take place from nine to 11:30 the morning of
the 28th and will be followed by a seminar from 1:30
to four that afternoon. At seven that evening, the
members of the congress are invited to attend the
annual Zamenhof Banquet of the Esperanto Society
of Chicago to honor the inventor of Esperanto. An-
other seminar will be held from nine to 11 the morn-
ing of the 29th, and the congress will close with a
business meeting from one to three that afternoon.
The Modern Language Association will be meet-
ing in Chicago on the same dates, but its sessions
will not be open to members of ELNA unless they
are also members of MLA (as many are). However,
some of the MLA participants will address the
ELNA Congress, among them experts in the field
of interlinguistics. Edmund Brent, Duncan Charters,
Richard Wood, Carlton Carroll, Pierre Ullman and
Margaret Hagler are among those who may take part
in some of the ELNA as well as the MLA sessions.
The registration fee for the ELNA Congress is
$5. The cost of the Zamenhof Banquet is $6 per
person. A registration form for both has been printed
for your convenience on page 7 of the October
ELNA-Bulteno (the Esperanto-language organ of
ELNA). If you wish, you may register by sending
your check for $11 together with the words "ELNA
Congress and Zamenhof Banquet" to Mr. R. Kent
Jones, 3318 North Lake Shore Drive, No. 801,
Chicago,IL 60657.
Rooms at the Allerton range in price from
$13.50 a day when occupied by one person to $25.00
when occupied by three people. You may make room
reservations by contacting the hotel directly (be
sure you mention you are part of the ELNA Con-
gress) or through Mr. Jones.
ESPERANTISTOJ ESPERAS POR SUKCESO
is the title of an article that appeared in an October
10 and 11 supplement to the Chicago Sun-Times, a
giant among Chicago's newspapers and considered
by many to be Chicago's best. The article reports
that according to R. Kent Jones, president of the
Chicago Esperanto Society, Esperanto's lack of
acceptance stems from countries not recognizing
its importance. A portion of the article reads as
follows:
r
"Jones equates Esperanto's problem with the
delayed acceptance of the metric system of measure-
ment. 'It took 86 years before the metric system was
accepted in France, its native land,' Jones said.
'The United Nations has not shown much support for
us but it spent more than $23 million last year for
translation. We're prolonging a system that just
should not exist.'
"The 'system' Jones meant is the traditional
learning of languages for each foreign country. Jones
said Esperanto would drastically cut down the 'wast-
ed time' spent on learning the some 3,000 different
languages that now exist."
The article concludes by quoting Sinjoro Jones
as saying that "It's hard to predict when we'll get
enough support, enough funds to carry everything
out. You tell me when everyone's patience is at an
end and I'll tell you when Esperanto begins."
MARIO PEI,
the world-famous linguist and author of numerous
books including Talking Your Way Around the World,
speculates in an article in the September 2, 1973,
Los Angeles Times on whether the recent drastic
drop in college language course enrollments is due
to growing isolationism. Then he lists some sug-
gested remedies.
Suggestion No. 1 is a required introductory
course dealing with the world's main languages
in terms of how many people speak each language,
where they are located, and to what extent we are
doing and probably will do business with them. This
would enable the student to decide on the basis of
his career plans which, if any, of the languages he
wants to learn.
"Suggestion No. 2 is that the entering freshmen
be given a required course in a constructed language
like Esperanto, which is far easier than any national
tongue by reason of a grammatical structure that can
be learned in a couple of hours, ease of spelling and
pronunciation, and an international vocabulary. This
would familiarize the student with the idea of anoth-
er language besides his own while minimizing the
initial difficulties. Then he could pass on to one of
the national languages. He would also gain the bonus
of acquiring an international language that is wide-
spread and already has millions of users all over
the globe."
The third suggestion is that the student be re-
quired to take a course in the people, culture and
country or countries where the language he has cho-
sen is used before being made to decide whether he
wants to go on with the study of the language itself.
The fourth suggestion, if adopted, would replace
literary materials in every second-year language
course with newspapers and magazines presenting
current topics and written in the language as cur-
rently used.
"FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
FOR BUSINESS"
is the title of an article by Russell W. McBride in
the August, 1973, issue of Training in Business and
Industry. The article describes some of the things a
U.S. company learned about language training while
trying to improve the foreign language fluency of its
marketing personnel. The initial effort consisted of
providing the students with self-study materials that
included cassette recordings. After three to four
months, the students' interest and participation in
studying the languages began to slow down, as was
evidenced by late lesson completions and declining
use of lesson materials. "This pattern developed
despite the fact that they seemed to get started well
and made good progress for a period. It also appear-
ed to occur without regard to the amount of progress
they had been making in the course up to that point."
Interest was rearoused largely by the use of live
tutors (both on-site and available by telephone) who
could immediately answer questions related to the
lessons.
Near the conclusion of this article, its author
states, "Tough as it may have been for our execu-
tives or managers (and us) to accept (and despite
what glowing advertisements may claim), it needs to
be recognized and emphasized that there is no royal
road to language learning. No matter how convenient
and effective this or any language learning system
can try to be, it takes continuous and regular effort
on the trainee's part for learning to occur. Frequent
interruptions in the study pattern...not only frustrate
the learning, but also serve to significantly lengthen
the learning period."
LEARNING ESPERANTO REQUIRES EFFORT,
but only a fraction of the effort required to learn any
national language. Many students will be able to
master Esperanto in four months or less of concen-
trated study using the cassette course in Esperanto
authored by William Auld, a poet and editor of high
repute in the Esperanto world. Titled "A First
Course in Esperanto," it consists of six cassettes,
a course manual and two additional books about
Esperanto. Priced at $35.00 postpaid, it comes with
a 30-day, money-back guarantee. The cassettes give
you the purest Esperanto pronunciation, which you
will be able to practice with your local Esperanto
group. (A list of some of these groups and their ad-
dresses appears in the December edition of the Es-
peranto-language ELNA-Bulteno.) Order "A First
Course in Esperanto" by William Auld from the Es-
peranto League for North America, 6451 Barnaby
Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20015.
CHANNING L. BETE, SR.,
publisher of the ABC's of Esperanto, About Esper-
anto and A First Course in Esperanto by William
Auld, died of a heart attack on August 18th. Mr. Bete,
founder of the Channing L. Bete Company, Inc., a
publisher of many educational materials, became
seriously interested in Esperanto in 1970 and took
a course in the language taught by Mr. Auld at San
Francisco State College. His passing is a serious
loss for the Esperanto movement.
THE OLDEST LIVING ELNA MEMBER
is Lehman Wendell, author, photographer and retired
Minneapolis dentist who in four years will be em-
barking on his second century. Doktoro Wendell
learned Esperanto some 70 years ago and has been
active in the Esperanto movement ever since.
After graduating from college in the Middle
West, he worked until the First World War as a
chemist in the flour mills of the Pacific Northwest.
Then, as he was approaching 40, he decided to make
a complete switch of careers and enrolled in the
University of Minnesota School of Dentistry. This
was followed by a career of nearly 50 years both as
a dentist in private practice in Minneapolis and as a
distinguished member of the University of Minnesota
faculty, where he gained renown for his skill and
conscientiousness as a teacher. He also wrote a
column entitled "Lehman Drops" for a professional
magazine. After retiring from dentistry, he began
devoting more of his time to writing and photography
and soon became the published author of a book
illustrated with his own photographs.
In what most men consider middle age—at a
time in life when they are beginning to look forward
to retirement—Lehman, who previously had consider-
ed himself a confirmed bachelor, found the right
girl-a youthful woman-and began to raise a family.
Today he has adult grandchildren.
In the late 1960s, he was corresponding with
Esperantists in Madagascar with regard to his inter-
est in the fossilized eggs of a bird that had become
extinct there some 400 years ago. Today he is corre-
sponding on other scientific topics with Esperant-
ists in Eastern Europe.
Always youthful in outlook, active in mind, uni-
versal in interests, unhampered by the fear of failure
that inhibits most other men, successful in all his
undertakings, a speaker of Esperanto when it was
in its infancy, he is a reminder of the fact that Es-
peranto was invented within the lifetime of men who
are still among us.
THE WIDE RANGE OF INTERESTS
among Esperantists is illustrated by the articles
appearing in current issues of Esperanto magazines.
Here, translated into English, are only a few of the
titles:
From Scienca Revuo, published in Belgrade:
"Aspects of River Pollution" by I. Seceleanu;
"Determination of the Position of Stars Usable for
the Stellar Guidance of Rockets Under Launch Con-
ditions" by A. Heck; "Why Do Mother and Fetus
Not Reject One Another?" by C. Meto.
From Biblia Revuo, published in Ravenna:
"Terminology for Biblical Studies" by G. Rust.
From Fokuso, published in Gothenburg: "New
Biological Nomenclature" by E. Vilborg.
From Oomoto, published in Kameoka: "The
Japanese and the Jews" by T. Nakamura.
From Homo kaj Kosmo, published in Zagreb:
"Does the Earth Actually Have Three Moons?" by
G. Kren.
From Sennacieca Revuo, published in Paris:
"Charles Reade, Novelist, Dramatist, Journalist"
by M. Boulton.
ESPERANTO LANGUAGE MAGAZINE
subscriptions are excellent birthday or seasonal
gifts, reminds R. Kent Jones, manager of the Es-
peranto Language Service Company. For a price
list of 78 Esperanto periodicals from 26 countries,
send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the
Esperanto Language Service Company, 3318 North
Lake Shore Drive, No. 801, Chicago, Illinois 60657.
THE IDEAL COMPUTER LANGUAGE
could be one based on Esperanto, according to an
article in the November 1 Heroldo de Esperanto, a
biweekly newspaper published in Belgium. Such a
programming language is now available from a com-
pany called INFELOR in Budapest (no more detail-
ed address is given). "If," the article states, "Es-
peranto is proven to be better suited for the com-
puter than the unplanned languages, the internation-
al language will be victorious"(in its efforts to be
adopted as the single language used in an interna-
tional computerized information retrieval system).
REMEMBER
that individual membership in the Esperanto League
for North America for the calendar year 1974 is $10.
Please send your check now-while you're thinking
about it-to Mrs. Peggy Linker, ELNA Treasurer,
1414 Monroe Street, Walla Walla, Washington 99362.
BONVOLU SKRIBI VIAJN PLENDOJN
pri ci tiu numero de la Newsletter krajone en la
jenan spacon: a kaj sendi al la redaktoro, Richard
T. Sandberg, P.O.Box 275, Fox Lake, Illinois
60020. Nepre skribu legeblece!
ESPERANTO LEAGUE FOR NORTH AMERICA
Post Office Box 275
Fox Lake, Illinois 60020, U.S.A.
Nonprofit Organization
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