See also other languages'
versions:
They
told me, when I was a kid: "Don’t be afraid
to ask your way. Use your tongue and you’ll go to
the ends of the world." But just a few miles
away people spoke another language. To ask them
anything was maddeningly useless.
They told me: "To discuss
with foreigners, learn languages at school."
But 90% of the adults can’t properly express themselves
in the foreign language which they chose as students.
They told me: "With English
you can get along anywhere in the world." But
in a Spanish village I saw an accident in which
a French and a Swedish car were involved. Neither
with one another nor with the police could the drivers
communicate. In a small town in Thailand I saw an
agonized tourist trying to describe his symptoms
to a local doctor. He strained himself in vain.
I have worked for the United Nations and the World
Health Organization on all inhabited continents,
and on a few islands, and I found out in the Congo,
in Poland, in Japan and in many other places that
English is of no use outside of major hotels, big
stores, business circles and airports.
They told me: "Thanks to translations
even the most remote cultures are now accessible
to all." But when I compared translations with
originals, I saw so many distortions, so many omissions,
so little respect for the author’s style that I
was forced to approve the Italian saying Traduttore,
traditore: ‘to translate is to betray’.
They told me that the West helps
the Third World with due respect for the local cultures.
But I saw that it has no regard for language dignity,
it imposes its languages from the very start, taking
for granted that they afford the best means of communication.
I saw that the cultural pressures linked to English
or French change the mentalities and exert their
destructive effects on age-old cultures whose positive
values are remorselessly ignored. And I saw the
countless problems encountered in the training of
local people, because Western technicians don’t
know the local tongues and in these languages textbooks
do not exist.
They told me: "Education for
all will guarantee equality of opportunity for the
children of all classes." And I saw rich families
in the developing world send their young to Britain
and USA in order to master English, while the masses,
imprisoned in their own languages, subjected to
all sorts of propaganda, only have a bleak future,
maintained as they are by language in an inferior
position.
They told me: "Esperanto has
failed miserably." Yet in a mountain village
of Europe, I saw farmers’ children chatting with
Japanese visitors after only a six month Esperanto
course.
They told me: "Esperanto lacks
human value." I learned the language, I read
its poetry, I listened to its songs. In that language
I received confidences of Brazilians, Chinese, Iranians,
Poles and a young fellow from Uzbekistan. And here
I am – a former professional translator - owing
it to honesty to say that those conversations were
the most spontaneous and profound I ever had in
a foreign language.
They told me: "Esperanto is
worthless, because it has no culture." Yet
when I met speakers of Esperanto in Eastern Europe,
Asia, Latin America, most were more cultured than
their fellows of the same socio-economic level.
And when I attended international debates in that
language, the intellectual level really impressed
me.
I tried to explain all this around
me. I said: "Come! Look! Here’s something extraordinary!
A language which solves the communication problem
between the peoples of the world! I saw a Hungarian
and a Korean discussing politics and philosophy
in that language only two years after starting to
learn it. This is impossible in any other tongue.
And I saw this, and that, and also these…"
But they replied: "Esperanto
is not serious. And, anyway, it’s artificial."
I fail to understand. When a man’s
or a woman’s heart, their feelings, the finest nuances
of their thoughts are expressed directly from mouth
to ear in a language born of a luxuriance of intercultural
communications, they tell me: "It’s artificial."
But what do I see as I wander through
the world? I see travelers longing to share with
local people ideas and experiences, or maybe just
recipes, and sadly giving up. I see exchanges by
gestures leading to grotesque misunderstandings.
I see people thirsting for information prevented
by language from reading what they want.
I see masses of people, after six
or seven years of learning a language, hacking away
at it, unable to find the right word, wearing a
laughable accent, missing the point they mean to
make. I see language inequality and discrimination
thriving throughout the world. I see diplomats and
specialists speaking into microphones and hearing
through earphones a voice other than that of their
partner. Is that "natural communication"?
From heart or brain to mouth to ear, that is artificial,
of course, but from microphone to earphone through
an interpretation booth, this is obviously natural!
Has the art of solving problems with intelligence
and sensitivity ceased to belong to human nature?
They tell me much, but I see different.
So I wander, bewildered, in this society which claims
for everyone the right to communicate. And I wonder
if they’re deceiving me, or if I am just plain crazy.
