STUDY OF ESPERANTO

Northern Advocate, 18 August 1931, Page 7

STUDY OF ESPERANTO

LECTURESHIP AT LIVERPOOL.. RAPID PROGRESS. 1 * ■ Dr W. E. Coffinson, Professor of German at Liverpool University, has recently. been appointed to the John Buchanan, Lectureship in Esperanto—the first such post in England. *

The late Dr John Buchanan bequeathed £4OOO to the^university to found the lectureship and provide prizes for Esperanto open to undergraduates or graduates of any university in the, British Empire. Esperanto is much more widely studied abroad, and such lectureships I: exist in Cracow, Geneva, Vienna, and Prague. Esperanto has been taken up also by the Japanese universities, particularly in the science and medical faculties, and is taught in, the teachers’ training school at Athens. / Dr Oollinsou intends to give at least two courses in 'Esperanto, one elementary and the other more advanced. They will begin in October, and, though they are designed primarily to meet the needs of students, members of the outside public will not be .debarred. A chance purchase of a book On, Es- , peranto on a bookstall when-he was a schoolboy at Dulwich introduced him to the language, and he used to amuse 1 himself by talking it to his friends..| In 1908 he was awarded the diploma, ' ‘ Kun Honora Mencio, ” of the British Esperanto Association. “Esperanto,” he said, “has made up the ground it lost during the war, and. is now going ahead rapidly-—but not so, rapidly in England as we should like. It is making most progress in the smaller countries, especially the Balkan States, Czeebo-Slovakia, J ugo-Slavia, Rumania, and Scandinavia. It is taught in many German schools, and in some is compulsory. It is broadcast ‘ from fifty : four stations in sixteen countries —but not in England.”' Professor Qollinson sees in Esperanto a safeguard 1 against .the despoiling of English, “The reason I don’t advocate English'as an .international language is that I have hkd such, dreadful experiences of hearing English mutilated by foreign speakers, even eminent ones, and I would view with apprehension any spread of English, As . a means! of communication between foreign peoples;

“Even the linguist finds it difficult to master more than three dr four languages, but Esperanto enables a person of no linguist gifts to get into touch’ with people all over the world, and in some cases it gives greater precision of logical reasoning than a national language.' As a medium of translation Esperanto has the advantage pyer national languages that, owing ,to its freer word order and lack of conventional fixity, it can follow, the original more closely. ~

“I think it not impossible .that‘this lectureship will eventually have a profound effect on the study of : Esperanto here. l am out especially to help any teachers■ seeking a knowledge ,of it.**