ESPERANTO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20084, 23 October 1928, Page 12

ESPERANTO.

Sir, —Instead of answering precisely niv five plain questions about the League and Esperanto, put with a desire for accurate information and m as clear a way as possible. B. King suggests my hunting up "the general subjects discussed by the League at its annual meetings"—presumably the Assembly—for what certain members of the League had urged should be done. I press for a precise answer to my five questions, and, in addition, for the names of the "members"—only States are members—urging the claims of Esperanto. The rest of B. King's letter is irrelevant. The merits of Esperanto are not under discussion in this correspondence, nor what is or is not asked to be done in schools. Lingua.

Sir, —It is proposal that the French language should bo taught to all the scholars in our schools as soon as they pass from the stage of childhood to that of early youth. Esperanto would he preferable for many weighty reasons. Dr. Zamenhof, the talented inventor of Esperanto, states that one of his objects was to make the study of the international language so easy that its acquisition would be mere play. In this he has certainly succeeded. The complete essentials of his grammar can be exhibited in twenty lines, and there are none of the traps which beset the student of Latin and French up to the latest stage. Each word always retains its original precise from and meaning. The list of words absolutely necessary to be learned is reduced bv a most ingenious device, to an almost incredibly small compass. For a halfpenny you could obtain the grammar, Esperanto and English vocabulary, and the charming story of "The. Ugly Duckling." On mastering this booklet of twenty-four pages, small enough to fit the waistcoat pocket, you would have a facility in understanding the international language, and a power of using it greater than could be gained by years' of weary grind at the dead language, Latin. If Esperanto did succeed in being adopted as an international language it would do much towards breaking down the Chinese wall between nations, and uniting them in a common brotherhood Heubert'Mason, M.A.