FOR THE WORLD

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXI, Issue 8833, 14 October 1942, Page 3

FOR THE WORLD

WORLD LANGUAGE NEEDED 1500 AT "PRESENT SPOKEN “The subject of propaganda raises the question of language avl of iinguistic communication in an Interna tionalised world,” said Dr. I. L. G. Sutliland in a lecture to the Workers' Educational Association, Christchurch on the psychology of international relations.

“Babel now exists. About 1500 languages are at present spoken by Ihc 2,000,000,000 peoples in the world. Seven of those languages account for half of the total population of the world, and in the order of their extent of use they arc: English, Chinese, Russian, German, Spanish, Japanese and Bengali. To about one person out of every three throughout the world English is the administrative if not the natural language. For several centuries thoughtful men have seen the need for some form of international speech. Much more the spread of Esperanto would seem to be the simplification of an existing language and, national prejudice apart. English seems to be the obivous language for this purpose. Tt has already become the main . second language of foreigners of many nations. “There is a movement to make a simplified form of English, known as basic English, the international auxiliary language. The vocabulary consists of SSO words, and by the -use of these, according to simple rules, everything can be said for all the purposes of evervdav life.”