ESPERANTO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2676, 28 June 1905, Page 78

ESPERANTO.

By J. L. F.

(For the Witness.)

In August this year at Boulognc-sur-mer will be held one of the most remarkable congress ever placed on record. In that town will meet delegates frpm nearly every, if not from tvery, civilised nation in the vrorld, to discuss the propoganda of Esperanto, the latest and best of all proposed international languages. Esperanto will necessarily be the sole medium of Intercommunication at the meetings, and also a- the entertainments and banquets, for any other language would be unintelligible to the majority of the delegates. Now and then, no doubt, by way of relaxation, the persons of each different nation will seek out their fellow countrymen and form into separate groups for friendly chat about "home," and in that way will be caused a picturesque reproduction of the Tower of Babel ; but as scon as the hour arrives for business or for banqueting, Esperanto will wave her fairy wand over the chaos of sounds, the "disintegrated 1 units of humanity will fly together and cohere, and the * whole assembly will instantly become of one language and one speech. Dr Lamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, and the destroyer of Babel, will himself bs present to preside at. the congress, and there is little doubt that reports of the proceedings will appear in all the influential newspapers of the world. As the matter promises tc I*©' of considerable importance, it is interesting 1 to consider briefly some of fhe claims 'of Esperanto t- be suitable for universal adoption as the international language of commerce, science, and diplomacy. The firs + thing that strikes a student of Esperanto is its simplicity. It has only one declension of nouns, and only tone conjugation of verbs, and there are so irvecp.ilarities. The whole grammar may be learnt in an hour. To prevent unnecessary innovation there is a rule that any word which is already international is, ipso fa«to, an Esperanto word. For instance, the word "telegraph" is international, and, therefore, Esperanto- claims it, and treats it as follows: — First, it spells it. phonetically, and then we have the Esperanto root "telegraf."' Next, by means of affixes the root is converted into any part of speech, in any number, case, or tense that may be required. Thus: — Telegrafc — a telegraph Telcgrafa. — telegraphic Telegrafe — by telegraph Telegraf l — to telegraph TelegraSgi — to make someone else tele-

graph Telegrafinda— worth telegraphic » Telegrafanto — one -who telegraphs Telegrafisto — an operator, pjicl so on. As many as 56 words can sometimes be formed in 'this Tray from a single root. It- is, therefore, evident, that the student who has learnt a few hundred rcots .is really minster of many thousands of voids. This helps to account for the ease and rapidity with which the new language is acquired. The "sequence of tenses, which is so puzzling i.n natural languages, does not. exist in Esperanto. The verb in the subordinate clause is no longer the sport of the principal verb, but remains, in every connexion, that which it was at first in direct speech. Thus: — "Ho promised l-hvt lie will come." Xot "would come," observe, because when be spoke he used the future tense. This abolition of the secfuejjce^ cf tenses enormously simplifies the grammar, j The inventor of Esperanto has, never- i tl eless, been careful to avoid the extreme j of too much simplicity. While rejecting*' all superfluous inflections, he has yet very j wisely retained inflections for the* plural number, and for the accusative case "of all rouns, pronouns, and adjectives. The effect is- that; the language is erilirely free from ambiguity. The Shakes peaaian line, "The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose." could not be translated into Esperanto with the double meaning which it has in English. As Esperanto possesses the reflexive pronoun, it never has a sentence of such doubtful meaning as "A gave B his book." In English w& sometimes seek to remove the ambiguity by saying "A gave B his (A's) book," or "A gave B his (Is's) book." The international language resorts to no such clumsy expedient. It says "sian libi-on"' for A's book, and "lian'libron*' for Bs book. Dr Lloyd humorously remarks that there are cases where the ambiguity is vital, as, for instance, in the sentence, "John never mcc Thomas without lining bis hat ofi bis

head." It remains, in English, quite in uoabt lipre whether John -«as extremely polite or extremely impolite to Thomas liie Esperdntisl builds up his worrls is ho requires them. For material he is piovidsd with about a. dozen terminal letn-rs, , , nd about 30 prefixes and suffixes, silica he fits on to the roots. For example, the word "sindoneviia." which means ''armors to oblige"' or "devoted,"" is composed ofc five parts : [Si — the reflexive pronoun N — mark of +ho accusative Don — root of "give"' Em — denoting tendency to A — termination of an adjoctr-p. Tims, the word literally means "having -1 •tendency to give oneself."' One of the most pleasing devices in tha arts of poetry and rhetoric is the separation of an adjective or a relative pronoun from the noun to which it belongs" by intervening -nerds, provided always that the «-epar«ition creates no ambiguity, and no difficulty in the immediate apprehension of tba senss of the passage. Latin, excel* in this elegance of arrangement, and our own language can also do fairly well. Lot us take two examples, one English and one Latir. both familiar: I (1) Sage beneath the spreading oak | Sat the Druid, hoary chief I (2) Qui legitis flores et humi nascentia fraga, Frigidus, o pueri, finite hinc, latet anguis in herba This beautiful poetical device, perhaps more than almost any other, produces surprise and delight in the mind of the reader. In the Latin example it will bo observed that there is a two-fold beauty, for both the relative and the adjective stand in remarkable positions with regard to their respecj tive nouns. Very possibly these two lines ! of Virgil's "Third Eclogue"' have nev>r ! been surpassed for that particular kind of I elegance. j Now Esperanto, in expart hands, is dei veloping that capacity which we so much J admire in Latin and in English. To quota ' Dr LlGyd again, "The Esperanto poet is | nble to invert and entwine the elements of his sentr-nce in a way that might excite j the envy of Horace or Martial." Certainly 1 some of the best French and Polish vvriters i art beginning tc handle the new language i so skilfully as tc make it, already evident ; that when the latent power of Esperanto is fully developed, it will take rank with Latin in uegaid to the special kind of elegance we have been considering. i Higher praise than that would hardly be j possible.

Ths Esperanto student veiy soon finds out that th<* language is '"belsonora," "beautiful-ringing."' Some linguists say that "Spanish held ths first place among the languages of the world for beauty of sound, until the invention of Esperanto, but that now Spanish stands only second, having b&en surpassed by its young competitor. Be that as it may, there can be no two opinions about the musical excellence of spoken Esperanto. It is a thing of beauty, and a, joy for ever.

The idea of an international language has long since passed the- stage of theory, and has become an accomplished fact. Esperanto has already an extensive literature, and one or more Esperanto periodicals are now published in most civilised countries. As a means of international correspondence the new language has amply proved its efficiency. The Esperantists of New Zealand are now in constant communication With nearly every civilised countiy in the world. The following translation of an extract from a communication lately received from a small town in a. remote, part of Russia is well worth noting: — "Your letter I show to many whom I know and wnoyp I do not know. It serves me as a good instrument for the -Esperanto propaganda. Even sceptics wonder at this letter. To them it is very strange that I, a Russian, knowing not one word of any foreign tongue, can perfectly understand you, a New Zealander, so far from me dwelling. Please write to me about jyour people and their customs" ; and so on. The above is only one out of nearly a hundred letters and postcards received by cne person in New Zealand during the present year from a- dozen different countries. Two correspondents in Switzerland and one in Poland express a hope that New Zealanders will attend the Boulogne Congress. A Belgian wants to know what we out here think of the war. A Spaniard, an Italian, and a Hungarian all want their addresses passed on to as many New Zealand Esperantists as possible. Cordial greetings come from Algeria, a»d also from Brazil. As for France — well, there is no doubt at all about the popularity of the entente cordiale in that country. Never since the Crimean war has there been sucTi a good understanding between Britain and France. A French newspaper recently observed that an alliance between Brita-n and France is conceivable. An Esperanto correspondent might almost be tempted to add that a war between the two countries is inconceivable.

It may be worth noting that French ani Spanish magazines have favourably quoted the Otago Witness on account of the Esperanto articles which have appeared in its columns. This indirectly serves to advertise the colony, and a Frenchman in Grenoble has written to inquire whether Dunedin is not the capital of Otago. It is perhaps just as well that he did not ask that question of an Invercargillite. Intending students will be pleased to learn that Esperanto text-books will soca be procurable in New Zealand.

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