A Universal Language

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3492, 30 October 1926, Page 3

A Universal Language

A thousand delegates from all parts of the world attended Mhe Esperanto Congress at Edinburgh in August last, and proceedings were conducted throughout ■without the need for interpreters. Discussion was carried on through the medium of the Universal Language—Esperanto. From the results of this conference it would appear that Esperanto has taken its place amongst public utilities. For years it was regarded as an interesting but useless hobby. To-day it is an instrument of business and of intercourse between the Nations, and is growing. World conditions are favourable for the spreading of Esperanto. The nations are becoming more and more interdependent, and the process is likely to go on with quickening pace. As Latin was once the language of European literature, and French, in later years, the language of diplomacy, so Esperanto may soon become the language of Commerce, and aspire to even greater dignity than that. A certain amount of interest is taken in the Esperanto classes established in Feilding, and a local resident who was in Edinburgh at the time of the Congress, forwarded a copy of the Congress programme, a volume of some eighty pages printed in the Universal Language. This publication suggests the great possibilities of the language, which has come as -one of the most important practical stops towards hastening Ilia day of which poet Burns sang “Man to man, the world o’er. Shall brothers be for a’ that.”