AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20781, 29 July 1929, Page 12

AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

Apropos of the decision in the Swedish Itigsdag favourable to English as a world tongue, International Language (Loudon) says;—lt is gratifying that the Swedes should thus recognise the merits of the English langi go, and should support it as the international language This is due largely to the fact that they learn it more easily that: any other nation, owing_ to the similarity in construction’ of their own language and English. Hut it is extremely doubtful whether other nations will 'agree with them. The Inquirer, commenting on the decision of the .Swedish Parliament, puts it concisely:— “ That the decision of the Rigsdag ii naturally pleasing to Englishmen, and the rapid -spread of the study .of English seems to justify the decision. But tl-o idea of u universal ‘artificial’ language that shall be much simpler, while little less adaptable, than any ‘living’ langnage is perfectly sound, and the expert once with Esperanto amptly justifies it. Those belonging to the lesser language groups nifty leam English with euthn sinsm, having no hope of making themselves widely understood in their own tongue. But the matter will not he settled by these: the crux lies in the attitude of the speakers of the other grea* mass languages—Gorman, Spanish, French. It is significant that in France, whose language till League of Nations days was the admitted language of international affairs, Esperanto is very widely taught indeed.’’ National jealousies or. less opprobrious term, national feeling of independence, will always prevent the adoption of any national language, .-itb the consequent cultural and economic supremacy of the favoured country; and patriots of all types would like still lose tlie subtler disadvantage, the’ permeation of their own culture by the ideals an 1 thought processes of another race. In the meantime, the smaller nations are in the unenviable position of having to learn two or three extremely difficult languages before they can trade or establish any contact with other countries.

There is another side tqi\ tho question ; that is whether any nation, in the last resort, will be willing vo nllcw its language to become the international language. for the sacrifice would ■be very heavy. All the possible candidates are very difficult and highly idiomatic, with the result that foreigner? very rarely use them as natives would. There is diways a tendency to simplify, and to translate the idioms of one’s own language. English, it is true, grows year by year, but it grows in its own tradition; if it were international, it would ba mixed with a hundred traditions, would be simplified, tortured to fit other minds and habits, transmorgrified; and our rich heritage, literary and traditional, would he lost.