LOVE’S NEW LANGUAGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19964, 4 December 1926, Page 15

LOVE’S NEW LANGUAGE.

AN ESPERANTO WEDDING. A NOVEL CHURCH SERVICE. Flags with green stars on a white ground, distributors of propagandist journals, sellers of souvenirs, a crowd of onlookers on the steps of the church, and inside a congregation listening to an English service spoken in a strange tongue. So was celebrated recently at St. George’s, Bloomsbury, London, the first Esperanto wedding in an Anglican church. The edzigonto (bridegroom) was Mr S. Jackson Coleman, a barrister of the Middle' Temple, and Barcombe avenue, Streatham, South London, and the edzigontino (the bride), Fraulcin Muzza Schonau, a charming young Austrian music teacher, daughter of Herr Thomas Schonau, an Austrian State official. There was a large assembly of the Esperanto faithful in the church. “Had I known earlier that this was going to take place,” said one of these afterwards, “J. would have had an Esperantist guard of honour here.” But there were enough enthusiasts present, with Esperanto Hags and English confetti, to give the newly-married couple a hearty send-off as they left the church. They sang a hymn in Esperanto. Intruding on a brisk conversation in Esperanto between two women, who could hardly have spoken more fluently to one another in English, the question was asked if the clergyman, the Rev. A. J. Ashley, vicar of Farnley Tyas, near Huddersfield, hail spoken good Esperanto during the service. “To be frank,” replied one, “I would not call his a very pure, classical Esperanto. He had not a pretty enunciation. Esperanto is so liquid.” The bride and bridegroom met at Salzburg at an Esperanto meeting two years ago, and afterwards corresponded in Esperanto. Their wooing was all done in the international language. The bride took a vow when she learnt Ms >c; a [tv years ago that she would never marry a man who did not sp. ak the tongue, is nice then she has refused three otters of mar-riage-—one a wealthy Austrian noble who did not speak it.