esperanto The ELNA Newsletter: News of the language problem and Esperanto as a possible solution liV 2/1997 Look inside for: Presidential Message How to. Esperanto Culture's Errors 4 A Perfect Language 4 Esperanto Video Course 5 Leteroj 6 Language Education 6 Esperanto in the Media 7 Language & Language Problems 8 From the Central Office Summer Report 9 Recenzoj (Brancugi & Qenetiko) 10 Anoncetoj La Estraro Regione kaj loke 11 11 11 Esperanto Examinations 11 w a /A fiomuna /a6 VfH^J L After a too long period during which our newsletter was hardly seen by our shrinking membership, it won't be easy to regain the lost members and their con- fidence in our organization and in its newsletter. It would be impossible for one person — the editor — to regain what was lost, therefore we need to work together. Together we can bring this newsletter to the level it deserves — the highest. Consequently I urge ,-. every and all of our members to reach for their writing tools and start writing and sending in their long-awaited contributions. I specially request all editors of Esperanto periodicals published throughout the U.S. to please send regularly copies of their publications to ELNA's CO. They are a much needed source of information about Esperanto activities at local level for both the CO. and the editor of this newsletter. As the newsletter of the national Esperanto organization in the U.S., Esperanto USA will concentrate mostly on the following topics, in no particular order: Esperanto activity in the U.S. and neighboring countries; activities of U.S. Esperantists at all levels, from local to international; Esperanto events that could have an impact upon the U.S. Esperanto movement and its members, and from which we can learn how to improve ourselves and the movement to which we belong; language problems and Esperanto as a possible solution; Esperanto teaching issues here and else- where. I will request regular contributions from the members of the Board as well as from the CO., and from ELNA members who have attended Esperanto events worth our attention. Book and periodical reviews will appear regularly beside news about our members and information from our clubs. Since Esperanto USA is a newsletter, essays, news and information will have priority over literary works, which we will consider for an eventual literary supplement (although not this year). Your suggestions and comments about the immediate future of this newsletter are much welcome. On them depends not only the newsletter itself, but also the welfare of the organization that publishes it. Ek al skribiloj, do! Ionel ONET We are profoundly indebted to Phil Brewer (Champaign IL) and Mark Lambert (Des Moines IA) and many others for their contribution to this issue. Esperanto League for North America P.O. Box 1129, El Cerrito CA 94530, USA/USONO tel: 510/653-0998; fax: 510/653-1468; e-mail: elna@esperanto-usa.org President/Prezidanto: David T. Wolff Vice President/Vicprezidanto: Derek S. Roff Secretary/Sekretario: Ellen M, Eddy Treasurer/Kasisto: Anna Bennett Other Board Members/Aliaj estraranoj: Steven G. Belant, Randy Dean, Mike Donohoo, Thomas Eccardt, Grant T. Goodall, D. Gary Grady, Dorothy B. Holland, Reginald Jaderstrom, R. Kent Jones Director, Central Office/Direktoro de la Centra Oficejo: Miko Sloper Vice Director, Central Office/Vicdirektoro de la Centra Oficejo: lonel One| esperanto USA Newsletter published by the Esperanto League for North America Novajletero publikigita de Esperanto-Ligo por Norda Ameriko Vol. 33, No. 2 ISSN 1056-0297 Editor/Redaktoro: lonel OneJ tel. 510/653-0996; fax: 510/653-1468; e-mail: ionel@esperanto-usa.org Materials for esperanto USA should be sent to/Materialojn por esperanto USA oni sendu al: esperanto USA, P.O. Box 1129, El Cerrito CA 94530, USA/USONO, or by e-mail/aŭ e-poŝte al: e-usa@esperanto-usa.org. The opinions expressed in this news- letter are those of the authors, and don't necessarly represent the point of view of ELNA or its newsletter/La opinioj esprim- itaj en 61 novajletero apartenas al la aŭto- roj, kaj ne nepre prezentas la vidpunkton de ELNA au ties novajletero. Reprinting materials from this newsletter is permited, provided that due credit is given, and a copy of the reprinted mater- ial is sent to ELNA/Estas permesate re- aperigi materialojn el ĉi novajletero, kon- diĉe ke oni ĝuste indiku la fonton kaj ke oni sendu ekzempleron de la republikig- ita materialo al ELNA. Deadline for the next issue/Limdato por la sekva numero: 28.11.1997. Je.z t/ie ŝfir*ez: Saluton ĉiuj! ELNA has been busy since you last received an EspercuitoUSA. We've had a very successful Landa Kongreso, a JES (Junnlara Esperantista Semajnfmo) convention, and we've created a new e- mail "mini-bulletin" for members and non-members. We have also decided that volunteer editors for EspercuitoUSA just have not been adequate. Although their work has been excellent, their responsibilities in the outside world keep interfering and making it difficult to produce the news- letter regularly. We have therefore con- tracted with lonel One| for the next year's worth of this newsletter, and we have high hopes that it will appear as regularly as Esperanto verbs conjugate. A few notes on this years LK. Our national convention took place in San Francisco. The location was the confer- ence center of the University of San Francisco, once a Catholic women's college, and a remarkably beautiful location. Wre could see much of the city from this hilltop, including the Golden Gate Bridge. I've been to many of our national conventions, and sometimes they have been good, and sometimes they have been... well... boooooring! But this one was outstanding. And not just because of Steve "Bucknaked" Belant's re- markable performance in the Oratory contest. Orlando Raola led a vigor- ous discussion of the Convention theme, "Esperanto: Village or Con- tinent?" (People took every possible combination of positions, including "kaj-kajistoj" and "nek-nekistoj"!) Gary Grady's magic tricks ("Mi ne povas hudi... sed la belulino povas hudini.") And Bill Harmon, who is leaving the Board after many years of service, re- ceived a long standing ovation when we presented him with a plaque in honor of his work. We elected four new Board members: Anna Bennett (Treasurer), Nike Donohoo, Grant Goodall, and Reg Jaderstrom. Their terms run until mid-2000. And the Convention unan- imously voted Eugene II. Thomp- son an Honorary Member for his many years of support. Other news: ELNA has new membership categories and options. You can now support ELNA with a Patron membership. A supporting membership is twice the basic dues, and a Patron will support ELNA with three times the basic dues. If you wish, you can also pay for multiple years at one time (avoiding possible future dues increases and saving wear and tear on your checkbook). Of course, the usual membership categories will still be available and the rates have not chang- ed. The JES convention in May was great. (And for those of you who were there... Pep-ludilo is fine.) I met many young Esperantists, including the President of the Washington local group, Tim Ryan, who has long produced a fine local newsletter. And as always, our thanks and an Ege Bone! to various people: » Dr. Gertrude Novak, who spent a week in Denver helping teach and set up a new local group. Dr. Novak's work will be the model for "Strike Teams" that the Board has funded for the next fiscal year. » Stanley Neil Glass, who donated to the CO a Macintosh Performa 6200 with CD, 40MB of RAM, 1GB of disk space, Esperanto fonts, Claris Works, Canvas, Nisus, and more. » Joseph Truong and Daniel Cuth- bert, for putting together an outstanding JES! T97. » Orlando Raola and Aleksandr Shlyafer, for putting together an excellent Landa Kongreso; and David and Becky Harris, for the Hospitality Room there. And Steve "Buckna- ked" Belant for his unforgettable entry in the Oratory Contest! » Maya Kennedy for a letter cogently supporting Esperanto in the Mens a Bulletin. Thank you all! David WOLFF, President esperanto USA 2/1997 SVte/ A/arigi /itan (i/e/w/t P ■ ■ [La plej oft a demando al esperantistoj de w neesperantisloj est as "Kio est as Esperanto? " En tin ci artikolo. /una ĉikaga esperantisto skizas strategion par doni kiel eble plej bonan impreson al la publiko, kiam prezent- iĝas demandoj pri la celoj kaj deveno de- Esperanto.] On the internet, in areas known as news- groups, each of which revolves around a certain theme, there frequently appear mes- sages from newcomers who ask the most basic questions about the topic. Whenever these questions address knowledge that would be common to anyone who knows anything about the topic, the response is never the simple answer, the response is, "Consult the FAQ." A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is a compilation of those basic questions, with answers. They serve as a beginner's guide or overview to the topic in question. Similarly, Esperantists on a daily basis are asked over and over again the basic question, "What is Esperanto?" Rather than viewing this as a chore, every Esperantist should assume the role of an ambassador and view this as an opportunity to make a new friend of Espe- ranto. Moreover, giving the right response is crucial to creating a good public image for | our cause. Flowever, one shouldn't oversell Esperanto. The wrong response would be "It's the most wonderful thing in the universe, you should run out and learn it right away." What you must realize is that the first step in any move- ment is to raise awareness of the problem. Once a person has an idea of the language problem, then that person can later be moti- vated to move to the next level, which is taking steps to solve the problem. When someone asks the question, you have that person's attention for anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds. Therefore it is necessary to provide an answer that is as concise as possible, yet sticks in the person's memory. Then, when the person has his or her next encounter with Esperanto, there is a greater possibility that they will move to the next level of action. There are several things that must be con- veyed when providing an answer to the ques- tion. You must let them know that Esperanto is a language, and that it is an international language. Expand on this by clarifying that the idea is that people from all different language backgrounds can just learn one easy language. You must punctuate the response by asserting that this is not a ridiculous con- cept, and that the goals of the movement are | attainable. So a possible response is, "It is a language, which was made up about 100 years ago, and is going to be the language for all international communication." This ad- dresses all of the major points, as well as noting that Esperanto is a planned language, and that it has more than a century of history behind it. It has been documented that the response to this is generally negative. For us in the U.S., we have to confront the general belief that this role is already fulfilled by Fnglish, and many will follow up by saying so. It's not tough to smash this notion, by simply yet politely laughing it off by saying "If it were only that easy..." or something similar (you would know best with each individual per- son). You can explain that while Fnglish is certainly, at this stage in history, one of the most valuable languages to know for travel- ing and doing business, it is certainly not an easy language to learn, and that a hundred years ago, the "international language" was French and before that, Latin. But tread lightly around this question, because Ameri- cans do not like to think that English is in anyway endangered. Obviously Esperanto is not going to re- place English, or any language for that mat- ter. Say that in many respects Esperanto is like the metric system, standard international music notation or standardized international time zones, although concede that the parallel is not perfect, if you must. Partly because the word "Esperanto" is similar to the widely-known Spanish word for hope, esperanza, it is frequently necessary to explain that Esperanto is in fact not Spanish. To do this, you can explain that the sound system is based on Italian, which is similar to Spanish. This is an oversimplification, but remember that in the days before the phono- graph, Zamenhof suggested Italian as a model for the pronunciation of Esperanto. The issue of the origin of Esperanto is likely to arise in questions such as "is that based on Portuguese and German?" or whatever language they think it sounds like. The key point to address is that Esperanto is based on many languages, with the idea that it be as easy as possible for everybody to learn. (Although stated like that it is another harmless oversimplification). A good illustration of this is the fact that every word is pronounced as it is spelled. In addressing the ease with which Espe- ranto can be learned, don't exaggerate. Some polyglots have been able to learn Esperanto in a few hours. But most Americans are not polyglots. Here, it would be good to say how you learned Esperanto, or relate some of the more typical stories. Most people who leam Esperanto do so without a teacher, on their own and in their spare time. Two months' time is enough to gain a good degree of useable fluency, although one probably would not be able to tell someone in Espe- ranto how to take apart an engine. If you are talking to a person who has studied a foreign language in high school, you can point out that students of Esperanto do not waste their time learning the kinds of irregularities that are present in national languages. Many people simply won't accept Espe- ranto or its ideas. Don't waste your time trying to convince someone who totally opposes it. Accept that you will just disagree, and move on. (Unless of course you know the person well and like to argue in complete futility.) But there are those people who will think that the idea is simply brilliant, or will at least be warm to it. For example, I once talked about Esperanto with a friend who had the previous evening had a drunken conversa- tion with colleagues, none of whom had ever heard of Esperanto, in which they all agreed that it would be a good idea if someone just made up a language to solve the language problem. Or it may be the case that the person in question has talked to someone about Esperanto before and, after reflection, came to fully agree with the idea. When someone is that open-minded, you can tell them that such a fantasy is a reality even now, by explaining about the Universala Kongreso, the Delegita Reto, and the Pasporta Servo. You can illus- trate further by saying that there are even children who grew up speaking Esperanto. There is a myriad of possible follow-up questions, which could range from "Does Esperanto have punctuation marks?" to "Isn't that all pure empiricism by virtue of its method excluding metaphysics?" Answer questions to the best of your ability, and where you don't know the answer, say so. Say something in Esperanto if asked. (Perhaps the Pledge of Allegiance or the numbers to ten). But remember what the goal is, and that is that the person should walk away knowing that Esperanto is a distinct, living language destined to become the language for all inter- national communication. Once someone is warmed up, you can invite them to an Esperanto meeting in your area, or direct them to Esperanto resources. Esperanto textbooks (usually Teach Yourself) can frequently be found at supermarket-sized bookstores (Barnes and Noble, Border's, Media Play, etc.). You can also direct them to Esperanto resources on the internet. But try to answer all the easy questions before they ask the newsgroups. Cluistopher ZERVIC (Buffalo Grove IL) esperanto USA 2/1997 3Ŝ7u*ee (S/vo/w pft/ie iDsheiKinto GuftufH? I think that the Esperanto culture has failed to recognize three important prob- lems. The first problem is not recognizing the mistranslation of lingvo arta, the term the initiator, Zamenhof, used to de- scribe Esperanto. The term is usually translated in English and many other languages as "artificial language" which implies something inferior and unnatu- ral. Lingvo arki really means a language which is truly a work of art, a language which is much better than a language, like English, which was created in a piecemeal random fashion by amateurs over many years. The term artificial or unnatural is wrong and misleading. We are really talking about a language that was initi- ated by one man, compared to a lan- guage that was initiated by many people. Yes even these purely descriptive terms mislead to some extent. Although Esperanto was initiated by one man, Zamenhof, most of the words in the Esperanto vocabulary were added after Zamenhof s death. Surprisingly you can also say that English was initiated by one man. When the Norman, William the Conqueror, invaded and occupied England in 1066, he and his invading nobles decided to try to make the natives abandon their native Saxon and speak only French. Written Saxon was abandoned; all significant writing was done in French (or Latin). Within two or three generations the poor common people spoke various pidgin mixtures of more French words than Saxon. Although rudiments of Saxon grammar remained, Saxon itself become a dead language. In the 14th century, a man who spoke one of the pidgin mixtures became king. The people, led by Geoffrey Chaucer, began to write the "king's English". In contrast to the peaceful, scholarly birth of Esperanto, English was bom in op- pression and confusion. The second problem is the almost total ignoring by the Esperanto culture of the cost of the widespread teaching of the intercultural language. If even 10% of the students of the world were taught Es- peranto, the cost would be in the bil- lions. Who would pay for this, and more importantly, what would the world and its people gain by such a tremendous effort? You can say that Esperanto would re- place much of the teaching of other lan- guages in the schools of the world. Therefore there would not be a big increase in teaching costs. But that only applies to countries which widely teach foreign languages. In North America where foreign language teaching is very limited, the increase in costs would be very high. The result of widespread teaching is that most educated people would be able to easily converse with one another no matter where they were or who they were with. This is a great mental and spiritual advantage. But although that would help in commerce and tourism, it is not easy to translate this advantage into dollars. The third problem is that Esperanto speakers have failed to latch on to the idea that probably the most urgent and practical use of Esperanto would initially be as the neutral working language for UN peace-keeping and rescue forces. Some Esperanto speakers may be unhappy with the idea that the language designed for peace would be used in international armed forces to keep the peace, but that may be the easiest path to success. Since Esperanto can be learned in 1/3 the time needed for Spanish and 1/10 that for most other languages (including English), it is tailor-made for this role. All that is necessary is to have the UN agree to set up a standing peace-keeping force and be willing to choose the best working language as determined by fair and just field tests. 1 don't think that is too much to hope for early in the next century. Joe GAMBLE (Portland OR) [Before I suggest Mr. Gamble to try to persuade the world police (i.e. USA), whose language is used by most of the UN peace- keeping troops, to adopt Esperanto as their working language, I would like to ask him what does he mean by "North America "in the text above. —ed.J i /Set feet-faiiguqye? "Perfect" is one of those deep words which cause all of us great confusion, because its meaning is so slippery and various. Remember that its etymology shows its roots in per (through or thorough) + factum (past participle ot'Jacio [to do]) -> thoroughly done. For Aristotle, the concept was simple and reflected a craftsman's art: a chair is perfect when it is thoroughly done. For Plato and Christians, of course, it is much more complex, and means entirely without fault or sin: being in accordance with an ideal. Regarding planned languages, many users tend to be Aristotelian, and simply enjoy using a planned language that is thoroughly done, which the maker has finished polishing and released for worldwide distribution. Others are Platonic and search for a flawless language completely in accordance with some ideal of language. They also tend to constantly tinker with a language project, rather than using a language. They cannot understand why their explanations of the sins and faults of various modes of speech are either ignored or responded to with irritation. Imagine being repeatedly told that the chair you are sitting in is not a perfect chair, that you are using a less- than-perfect computer, or not living a perfect life. Yes, some even drone on about the imperfections of (un)planned languages. This is irritating, and misses the point. A chair which is thoroughly done is useful when you want to sit; and a language which is thor- oughly done is useful when you wish to com- municate with somebody. There is little point to striving for a transcendental perfection. Yet there is no lack of language projects which have just this goal! Not only are there hundreds of people who endlessly praise their suggested "improvements" to Esperanto, but there are even projects for new "more perfect" languages which appear every year. Umberto Eco wrote a chamiing book on this theme: "The Search for the Perfect Language", Fie places these linguistic tinkerers in a long line of folks trying to counteract the effects of the Tower of Babel! There are, of course, a few kooks [extrem- ists?] who believe that this is the ideal goal of Esperanto—to be the perfect language which re-unites humanity in a spiritual unity un- known since the time before the Almighty punished the offspring of Noah who dared build the Tower. Most Esperantists are not kooks: they have simply discovered that using a planned language somehow enriches their ^^ life or captures their fancy. Miko SLOPER (Berkeley CA) esperanto USA 2/1997 Sew i&cuisjbort i (oai/a6/e doo/t. ĝĝ UEA subtenas nian Pasporton EXim la UK en Adelajdo, la estraro de UEA konsentis aŭspicii la ELNA-pro- jekton krei videon por instrui Esperan- ton. "Pasporto al la Tuta Mondo" far- iĝos parto de la Kampanjo 2000 de UEA por krei taiigajn instnimaterialojn por la nova jarcento. Inter aliaj helpoj, UEA subvenciis ĝin per aljuĝo de la plej granda aktuala monpremio "Sali- ko" je 20,000 nederlandaj guldenoj. Gi ankau ricevis 3000 germanajn markojn de la Fondajo FAME. Do la familio Bonvolo fariĝas eĉ pli internacia. Ape- ros interesa intervjuo kun Paul Gub- bins, la scenaristo, pri lia metodo kaj la enhavo de "Pasporto" en la oktobra nu- mero de Esperanto. Tie li klarigos ke kvankam "Pasporto" celas komenc- antojn, ĝi distros eĉ spertajn Esperant- istojn. Li deziras ke ĉiu spektu ĝin kiel televidan serion kaj identiĝu kun la roluloj. Li emfazas ke ĉi tiu laboro estas la plej ambicia dramprojekto iam | ajn entreprenita en Esperantio! Kiel gi malsimilas al Mazi? Gi uzas vivantajn esperantistajn ge- aktorojn anstatau desegnajojn. Krome ĝi celas pli aĝajn lernantojn, kursanojn; kaj, eĉ pli grave, ĝi enkondukas ilin ne nur en la lingvon, sed ankau en la Espe- rantan kulturon. Pro la fakto ke la dra- mo estas tute originala, ni nature en- kondukas nian kulturon. La ĝisfunde strukturita kaj zorge prilaborita lerno- sistemo konvinkos profesiajn instru- istojn kaj fakulojn, ke ankau esperant- istoj kapablas krei, ne nur adapti, taii- gajn instnimaterialojn. La aktoroj bone prononcas, sed iliaj malfortaj naciaj ak- ĉentoj montras ke Esperanto estas tute komprenebla malgraŭ la veraj akĉentoj kiuj ekzistas en la mondo. Kiuj estas la geaktoroj? Patro - Miko Sloper (Usono) Patrino - Leonora Torres (Meksikio) Filino - Jenja Korp (Usono) Filino - Mingchi Chien (Ĉinio/Usono) Filo - Stephen Boddington (Britio) Gasto - Gi Menahem (Usono) Raportisto - Katsunori Syozi (Japanio) Butikistino - Vesna Roguluja Heyman (Kroatio/Usono) Detektivo - Steve Wagenseller (Usono) (Vidu la unuajn tri en la foto) Kiel aspektos la videokurso? Lavideokurso konsistos el 15 kolor- plenaj horduonaj lecionoj, en rekta metodo por ke ili estu uzeblaj ie ajn en la mondo. La lecio- noj havas preter- tempan econ, tiel ke ili povu esti uzataj senŝanĝe dum multaj jaroj. La amuza in- trigo havas daŭran historion, kiu tenos viva la intereson de la studantoj. La rakonto progresas "sap-opere" kaj enhavos "hokojn" kiuj instigos al pli da lernado. La lecionaro uzas fotojn, mapojn, desegnajojn, ekzercojn paroligajn kaj gramatikajn. Laborkajero en Esperanto kaj naciaj lingvoj estos verkita por akompani la videon. Kiam ĝi pretos por uzo? La unuaj 4 lecionoj jam filmiĝis kaj nun redaktiĝas. La piano estas ke la unuaj 4 estu pretaj por individua uzo je lakomenco de 1998. Sed televizia dis- sendo devos atendi ĝis ni kolektos sufi- ĉe da mono por fini la tutan projekton. Laŭ nia piano, ni filmos 5 pliajn lecio- nojn somere de 1998 kaj la lastajn 6 so- mere de 1999. Intertempe, la unuaj 4 uzeblos por klasoj aŭ kluboj. Hi bezonas vian helpon Ni uzas profesiajn ekipajojn, fotistojn kaj reĝisorojn kaj multajn dediĉitajn es- perantistojn. Pro la senpaga laboro de la esperantistoj, ni povas produkti la le- cionojn por po $20,000—entute $300,000. Ni devas ruj kolekti sufiĉe da mono por filmi la venontan someron. Antaŭmendoj estas bonvenaj: $85 por la unuaj 4 lecionoj, aii $300 por la 15 lecionoj. La mono por antaŭmendoj multe helpos, sed ne sufiĉos. Por plen- financi la tutan projekton (el kiu tiras profiton nek ELNA, nek la kunlabor- antaro) necesas peti la helpon de mece- natoj, ĉu individuaj, ĉu gnipaj. Memoru ke ankoraŭ restas parto de la dekmil- dolara instiga donaco de anonimulo, el kiu ELNA duobligos individuajn don- acojn ĝis la $10,000 estos elĉerpitaj. La nomoj de tiuj, kiuj pli profunde helpas al la Familio Bonvolo per donacoj de $500 ad pli, menciiĝos fine de leciono. Antaŭmendojn kaj donacojn bonvole sendu al: ELNA - Video-Projekto, P.O. Box 1129, El Cerrito CA 94530, au al UEA-konto nmvm-n. Se vi havas ideojn pri fontoj de mono, bonvolu kontakti la produktanton - lusiharmon@aol.com. Lusi HARMON (Oakland CA) esperanto USA 2/1997 -{etenqj D. Gary Grady tute pravas (Espe- ranto USA 1/1997), ke ni bezonas pli zorgeme rigardi nian mesaĝon. Kvankam ni ne forgesu nian revon pri pli paca mondo (fakte, ni daŭre forte laboru por pli konkrete vivigi tiun revon en nia agado), estus necese pripensi ankaŭ aliajn strategiojn. Nia plej forta avantaĝo estas manko de granda denaska klaso, kiu "nature" superas tiujn kiuj jus eklemis la lingvon. En preskaŭ ĉiuj aliaj lingvoj, ekzistas homoj kiuj rajtas diri, ke ili parolas inn lingvon pli bone ol aliaj car tin estas ilia denaska lingvo. hi, kiu iam hontiĝis kiam denaskulo iom sarkasnie au ride devis korekti lin aŭ ŝin, certe pli bone komprenas tiun koncepton. Cetere, ni memoru ankaŭ la gravecon de tio, kion ni faras post kiam iu interesiĝas pri Esperanto. Ne indas multege reklami Esperanton se oni fak- te havas nenion konkretan, eĉ regione, poroferti. Pli danĝera ol perdita intere- sato estas perdita entuziasmo. Por iom kuraĝigi pli kreivajn ideojn kaj respon- dojn, kion vi farus se Esperanto estus ne lingvo sed, ekzemple, universitato? Ekzistas facilaj paraleloj inter la du (ekz., ambaŭ instruas) tamen ekzistas aliaj ideoj, Ekzemple, en universitatoj oni devas tre zorgeme kaj atente kon- troli la liston de studentoj kiuj interes- iĝas (aparte kiam ne estas multe da ili). Oni devas tre zorgeme reklami al speci- faj aŭdiencoj diversajn mesaĝojn pri kial ĝi estas preferinda lernejo. Esper- eble ĉi tin cerbludo kunportas freŝajn konceptojn en la movadon. Laste, mi ŝatus publike danki al la Esperanto-Societo de Washington, DC, kiu ludis tre gravan rolon en la organiz- ado de la ĉi-jara Junulara Esperantista Semajnfmo de USEJ. Sen la helpo de ESW certe la organizado fariĝus tre malfacila. Jam venas entuziasmo de la Esperanto-Societo de Chicago, kiu kunlaboros kun Christopher Zervic por organizi JES-on ankaŭ tie. Ke ĉi tin regiona kunlaboro por junuloj daŭru! Joseph TRUONG (Lancaster PA) L-tfjbe/vi/ifo a/u/ fWowign -fa/iguage Sc/ucation Even year approx. $2 billion are spent in the U.S. for the teaching of foreign lan- guages in our elementary schools. This fi- gure refers to teaching foreign languages to English speaking young people. (The approx. $10 billion spent on bilingual education arc not considered here.) What arc we getting for our money? We need only to consider the foreign language skills of our adults in order to assess the results. Which of them can speak the foreign language they studied'.'' My observations arc that the only ones who have succeeded arc those who studied intensively elsewhere, or who lived among the speakers of the language. That couldn't be more than one percent of our native bora citizens. All that money for this meager result! Despite declarations that foreign languages are important, it is apparent tliat they are not seriously taught. Oh, the teachers are zealous—but they know that they are programmed to fail. Few students study more than two years. Bui even four years of high school French are insufficient to produce usable proficiency. The graduate may have a succession of A's on the report card, but the ability to converse on an adult level is lacking. It seems to me that, in addition to the insufficiency of course duration mentioned above, schools short-change children by delay. Neuroscience now confirms that the 14 year old brain is decidedly less capable of language acquisition dian is the 8 year old brain. A serious program to achieve foreign language proficiency must not wait until the child is over-age. So why do our elementary schools avoid teaching foreign languages9 I surmise that there are three chief reasons. The first is that the policy makers are those same monolingual adults who either failed to gain usable proficiency as a student or didn't stud)' a foreign language al all. Their esteem for foreign language skills probably is insufficient to inspire spending in this specially. We need to help them understand that the overall cognitive abilities of students are greatly improved by skill in a second language. A second reason is the practical difficulty of paying for a 6 or 8 year sequence of effective foreign language instruction. Where will the salary money come from9 Many elementary schools have difficult) affording even basic school supplies. A third reason is decisional paralysis due to genuine puzzlement. Which language or languages should be taught9 The matter of language choice is both intellectual and political. Spanish for compatibility with neighbors9 Japanese for a future career there9 Russian in anticipation of a diplomatic career9 Others9 How should parents decide9 How can Esperanto help? It can provide good solutions for the problems of money and of language choice. Esperanto can relatively quickly be learned by the existing elementary school teachers. No new budget money is necessary for hiring additional teachers. fjjj Esperanto permits the choice of a particular ethnic language to be made later. Its generalized nature makes it ideal as a base for future intensive study of any ethnic language, including English. Two years of Esperanto provide the equivalent of the first two years of these languages. Thus 4 years of high school foreign language stud}' can produce 6 years worth of skill. No longer is it necessary to lock the elementary child in to any particular foreign language. Esperanto can serve as the foundation for all. In summary, teaching Esperanto early in elementary' school can transform our chronically failing foreign language pro- grams into successes. ELNA members should bring these facts to the attention of their local elementary schools. The 46 page booklet, Tlie Esperanto Language in Elementary Schools ($5 from ELNA), may be helpful with its quotations from linguists and school teachers. Kent JONES (Chicago IL) Commissioner for Education, ELNA esperanto USA 2/1997 The Oxford Dictionary of the World by David Munro (Oxford University Press, 1996) states (p. 204) that "Its words are based mainly on roots com- monly found in Romance and other European languages, and while it has the advantage of grammatical regularity and ease of pronunciation it retains the struc- ture of these languages, which makes Esperanto no easier than any other Euro- pean language for a speaker whose na- tive tongue falls outside this group." We would like to know what our Asian sam- ideanoj have to say about this statement. This column has mentioned before that a New York watchmaker changed its name to "Movado". Movado has many models of watches. The latest is called "Vizio." The watch was adver- tised recently in the New York Times magazine. The ad states: "Vizio means 'vision' in the international language of Esperanto." [New York Times, Nov 24 1996]. Wired magazine has again mentioned Esperanto. In discussing a new interna- tional standard format for libraries that share electronic bibliographical records, the magazine calls it an "Esperanto inter- face." Following that, the article talks about Esperanto directly, mentioning a website on which you can view high- lights from "Angoro, the first horror movie in Esperanto." The article men- tions that the website "also reveals the tenacious demands of demonstrators in England to make Esperanto the official language of the European Union." The website address is: http:// www.filmlinc.com [Wired, Dec 1996]. The British magazine The Economist (Dec 21 1996) contained an article ex- tolling English as the international lan- guage. The article, entitled "The coming global tongue," took a gratuitous slap at Esperanto. ETNA Commissioner for Education R. Kent Jones shot out a letter pointing out the fallacies in article, and the advantages of Esperanto over Eng- lish as the international tongue. The magazine ran his letter (Jan 18 1997) , but edited out all references to Espe- ranto ! Washington Post columnist William Raspberry wrote recently about the Ĝsfie/Hinto i/i t/te< ffecfia challenges of teaching inner-city youth. Raspberry opines that one of the prob- lems is a belief that teaching approaches that work for experts will work for non- expert teachers: "I think that, while a few teachers with special skills and interests (in linguistics, for instance) may be able to work wonders with Ebonics or Esperanto or Latin, for most the attempt is likely to be a disaster." [Charlotte Observer, Feb 1, 1997] The Library of Congress's magazine Civilization recently published a letter by Dr. E. James Lieberman of the Espe- rantic Studies Foundation. Lieberman's letter was in response to an article by David Crystal entitled "Vanishing Languages." Lieberman argues that "Esperanto explicitly recognizes the tendency of powerful languages to subordinate less powerful ones. Providing a neutral, workable second language for everyone takes nothing away from lesser-known mother tongues; the same cannot be said for the impact of English." [Civilization, Apr- May 1997]. ELNA member Mark Lambert (Des Moines IA) had a letter to the editor published in the Des Moines Register recently, in response to a series of articles about teaching foreign languages in Iowa schools. Said he: "The articles missed one important point, however. There are more than 6,000 languages on this planet. Learning one or two other languages is to be encouraged, but in the long run it will do little to solve the world communication problem. Fortunately, there is a solution: the international language Esperanto." [Des Moines Register, May 5, 1997]. A lengthy article about Esperanto by Robert J. Coontz, Jr. in the bimonthly Muse (Aug 1997) generated a letter from a 12-year old girl in the October issue of the same magazine. Under the title "Say What?", LA Week- ly published in August 1997 a one-page article by Scott S. Smith about the language Babel in L.A. The author (a former ELNA member) dedicated a whole paragraph to Esperanto. A short report by Renter's about the 82nd Universala Kongreso in Adelaide, Australia appeared in several news- papers throughout the country, e.g. San Jose Mercury News, The New York Times International. A letter about Esperanto by ELNA member Dorothy Holland (Santa Bar- bara CA) appeard in Santa Barbara News-Press and in The Independent on Aug 21, 1997. The Mensa Bulletin (Sep 1997) pub- lished more than 2 pages of letters deal- ing with language issues. Among them, one by ELNA member Maya Kennedy (Pacifica CA) in support of Esperanto, and two by "senmensanoj" against our language. The Washington Times' Insight pub- lished on Sep 29 1997 a two-page article about Esperanto by Leslie Alan Horvitz, which is, by far, the most positive mate- rial about Esperanto lately published in the U.S. An Esperanto ad will run for a whole year in the bimonthly Children's Advo- cate published in Oakland CA. Katie Couric and Al Roker from the Today show were hosting the Tourna- ment of Roses Parade. When Al Roker announced that one of the floats was a replica of the ships that patrolled the California coast a hundreds years ago, he tried to say "one hundred years" in halting Spanish. Couric remarked about the lack of clarity, Roker replied, "Well, that was Esperanto." [Seen on television by Gary Miller]. A reader who recently saw an old re- run of the futuristic cartoon series The Jetsons reports on a scene in an episode: The Jetsons took a long trip across the solar system to see a circus. There, the owner of a trained-flea act sold them his fleas. George Jetson picked the fleas up and heard them making some noises. He knew they were trying to talk to him, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. George turned to his son, Elroy, and said, "You're the one taking Espe- ranto lessons—you talk to them!" Elroy was able to translate for the fleas! On Oct 24th the feature film Gattaca will premiere throughout the U.S. Espe- ranto is used as one of the languages of the public address system in the space station sequences. esperanto USA 2/1997 jfitfujucige tC* .fatiguiige ŝBfH)6/enm Linguists from around the world have been flocking to New Guinea in a race against time, to study language diversity and attempt to save or at least to catalog dying languages. The island currently boasts 1,300 separate languages, about one-fifth of the world's languages. Lin- guists currently working on the island include, among others, representatives of UNESCO's Endangered Language Pro- ject, Tokyo University, and U.S. mis- sionaries determined to translate the Bible into the world's lesser-spoken tongues. The missionary group reports they have translated the Bible into 94 New Guinea languages, and they are working on 185 more. The Associated Press reports that seven New Guinea languages are "isolates," meaning that they have no relationship to any other known language. New Guinea's linguis- tic diversity includes the languages with fewest basic sounds (Rotokas, with 13) and the most basic sounds (Yele, with 96) of any language the world. Like minority languages around the world, many of New Guinea's languages, too, are dying. 117 of the languages have fewer than 100 speakers. The official language of Papua New Guinea (whose government controls about one-half of the island of New Guinea) is English. [Mainichi Daily News, Jim 13 1996]. South Africa continues to struggle with language issues. There are 11 of- ficial languages in South Africa. All government documents are supposed to be available in all 11 languages, but this has not occurred. Members of Parlia- ment can opine in any of the official lan- guages. English is the dominant lan- guage, and Afrikaans is a close second. The Dutch derivative Afrikaans was the language of the nation's rulers during apartheid, and is still used on street signs, by law enforcement and in the court system. The National Party has ac- cused the Mandela government of con- ducting "language terrorism" against Afrikaans. After English and Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa are the next largest lan- guages. Native speakers of Zulu and Xhosa were discriminated against during apartheid, but now these two languages are being taught at some mainly white schools. Language issues have become such a concern that the government re- cently held a summit to try to develop a "national language plan" that would please everyone. [Japan Times, Jul 2 1996]. Eighteen countries recently accused the U.N. of increasingly favoring En- glish and French at the expense of the other four "official" languages of the U.N. The other official U.N. languages are Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spa- nish. The letter demands that the U.N. ensure equal treatment of all six official tongues. The letter implied that English, in particular, was dominating other languages, leading down a pathway toward "a virtually monolingual United Nations." [Japan Times, Jul 28, 1996]. Quebec's revival of a law requiring that store signs be predominately in French has created another backlash. Pro-English-language activist Howard Galganov is apparently leading boycotts against stores that obey the law and display French-dominant signs, and he is attempting to get Wall Street investors to boycott Quebec companies as well. [Mainichi Daily News, Aug 16, 1996]. The tax assessor in Madison County AL, is being sued by Julio and Carmen Telleria. It seems that in order to apply for a property tax exemption, the Tel- lerias (who don't speak English) had to take an oath. Tax Assessor Wayland Cooley would not let them take the oath in Spanish through an interpreter. Then, according to the lawsuit, the couple of- fered to state the words of the oath in English. Cooley reportedly refused that request, saying that the oath would be meaningless because the Tellerias wouldn't know what they were saying. The lawsuit accuses Cooley of erecting an "insurmountable barrier" to the cou- ple's ability to get their tax exemption. [The Birmingham News, Jan 4 1997]. Language authority and author David Crystal's article "Vanishing Languages" appeared recently in Civilization maga- zine. The article discussed the impen- ding demise of many of the world's less- spoken languages, due to domination by more-spoken languages, including Eng- lish. [Civilization, Feb-Mar 1997]. Speaking of domination, the European organization The Society for Threatened Peoples recently released its study of Europe's minority languages. The group identified 48 minority languages within the European Union, and concluded that 23 have either "limited capacity for sur- vival" or no "vital force" to guarantee their survival. The group reports that the Frisian and Saterland Frisian languages (spoken in northwest Germany's coastal regions) are imminently in danger of extinction. [The Week in Germany, Apr 18 1997]. A new organization called the Lan- guage Rights Project has been formed in California to provide legal assistance to persons who have been discriminated against based on language. The Project maintains a Language Rights Line to provide counseling and other assistance. [From their press release, Apr 1997]. Here's some more ammunition for your arguments with those people who insist, "But English is the international language!" Once again, a government is taking action to limit the use of English. A new law in Turkey requires that busi- ness names in English are prohibited —businesses must now have names in Turkish. Broadcasters are also prohib- ited from using English words; penalty for violators is banishment from the airwaves. [Reason, Jun 1997]. In a letter published in National Geo- graphic (Sep 1997) Tarun Roy (Chester VA) points out that "Only a negligible 5 percent of the Indian population speaks English. Hindi is understood and used for communication by almost 65 percent of the total population. Learning Hindi along with one's own regional vernacu- lar is considered the literacy passport in India." Where are the myths? Where is reality? The situation isn't better in the neigh- boring Pakistan where "More than 50 languages are spoken, mirroring the nation's ethnic diversity. To unify the country, the government has tried to en- courage the use of Urdu, the national language, but only 8 percent of Paki- stanis consider Urdu their primary lan- guage." {National Geographic, Oct 1997) 8 esperanto USA 2/1997 £/y