MODERN LANGUAGES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 5, 1 October 1929, Page 12

MODERN LANGUAGES

Sir, —If Mr. King furnished examplee instead of persisting in generalities he would be much more convincing. 1 notice he still persists in his absurd statement “that whilst each natural tongue unlocks only one door, Esperanto unlocks every door.” It is quite easy to take a very large number of French words and show how very similar they are to words in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, and even Rumanian. And if Mr. King would like a few samples I can quite easily give them, and all words in common use. I have some knowledge at least of two of the Slav languages, and I have noticed quite a number of similar words in these two. Anyone with a knowledge of the Teutonic languages would also be able to find numerous examples in a similar comparison too. Neither Mr. King nor any Esperantist can prove that Esperanto opens the door to all languages. And here is the reason why. Mr. King, himself, states that there are reported to be 3424 languages in the world. Even in the most highly civilised countries the number of words in general use certainly does not average 3000 per language. Therefore, on an average Esperanto does not supply one word per tongue. If Esperanto is based solely on European tongues, as it appears to be, then Mr. King’s figures of 587 European languages would give us th-- tremendous average of 6 words per tongue for European languages alone. A very wide open door isn’t it? A language in order to open the door to another must necessarily contain similar elemental 1 words and grammatical construction. I have known what the green star stands for for quite a number of years. The first I saw I asked its meaning and got the reply in German. I’ve seen stars many times—yes, the kind some of you are thinking of too, but very, very few green Esperanto stars. I am still fixed in my belief—unchanged by unproved ' vague generalities—that the only possible world auxiliary language is English. One hundred years ago it was the mother tongue of less than 40 millions, and little studied abroad. To-day it is the mother tongue of over 200 millions, studied more than any other foreign language in all the most progressive of the world’s countries, the language of world commerce, sport, and travel. And it is destined to spread with even greater rapidity. My tip to New Zealanders is, learn a practical language by practical methods, Spanish for preference, the language of your nearest non-English-speaking neighbours in South ■ America. Leave Esperanto until the world is a Utopia—it might be useful then. —I am, etc., J.B. Wellington, September 24. [This correspondence is now closed.]