Rilke
once said that a writer is someone who writes because
he cannot not write. That is how the young Zamenhof
came to establish the fundamentals of Esperanto:
he could do no other. Bialystok's different cultural
communities were at one another's throats. And they
showed themselves most strongly of all in language
and in accent. In this context, using someone else's
language was not just granting him a kind of superiority
which your own ethnic pride had to revolt against,
it was also submitting yourself to a contortionist's
struggle against grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.
It was running a gauntlet of snares which seemed
almost to have been set on purpose to make you into
a laughing-stock.
This
climate of hostility and humiliation was traumatic
for the young Zamenhof, a sensitive and gifted boy.
The situation was intolerable. He had to try and
do something so that everyone could stay loyal to
his own culture but nevertheless be able to communicate
with others without the insults to social and cultural
identity which were an everyday fact of life in
Bialystok.
This
meant having a language belonging to no one group,
with a structure conforming as far as possible to
the natural flow of linguistic expression, a language
that did not force you into contortions, a language
which even people lowest on the social scale could
master. No such language existed? Never mind! He
would create one. With the naive enthusiasm of youth,
he set to work. He brought together the remorseless
logic of the child (he was scarcely more than a
child) and the systematic working methods of an
artist, eyes firmly fixed on an aesthetic ideal,
never ceasing to polish and refine what he had done.
Had
he, seriously, the slightest chance of success?
Look at it from a betting point of view. Would you,
in say 1876, have risked a wager that this 17-to-l8-year-old
youth, hidden away in a small provincial town in
an obscure country (relative to what were then the
centres of influence), was likely to achieve his
ambitious goal of being midwife to a new language?
Let us look at the story stage by stage. The young
man's father sends him away to study at a distant
university and makes him promise to give up playing
around with language. Surely the boy must see how
absurd his project is? Yet he goes on. At the age
of 27 he decides to get the fruit of his labours
published. He goes the rounds of the publishers.
They are not silly: none of them says yes. So he
has an unprepossessing booklet printed at his own
expense (he is not rich). With no distribution network
to place it in the bookshops, what chance does he
have to bring it to people's attention? Would you
have bet money, then, on this unknown?
All
the same, the project attracts a handful of supporters,
mainly in the Russian Empire. A periodical is launched,
written in this infant language. Fired with enthusiasm,
Tolstoy writes for it. But he falls into disfavour
with the state, and the tsarist censorship bans
the magazine, the only link between the first users
of the language. Hearing this, would you have bet
that a living language could spring from a project
plagued by such an abortive beginning?
But
life obeys a different logic. In all quarters of
the world there are people who hear about the language
and set about learning it. The linguists sneer:
everyone (they say) will slavishly follow his own
habits of pronunciation, grammar, and semantics.
No one will be able to understand anyone else. Now,
which would you bet on? The young amateur? Or the
specialists, unanimous in their rejection?
At
the first congress, in Boulogne, in 1905, the speakers
of the new language do understand one another. But
why would anyone take such a tiny bunch of cranks
seriously! Looked at from the standpoint of the
salons of Paris, which at the turn of the century
are the arbiters of value for everyone, the language
does not look attractive. It is full of un-French
letters like k and j, and has consonants with ridiculous
accents on top. It looks repulsive, barbaric. The
world over, intellectuals reject it. The author's
unrealistic attitude is shown in his perverse decision
to adopt accented letters which no printer has available,
so that publishing anything in the language means
first casting new printing sorts. Common sense tells
you that betting on the survival of this language
would be throwing money down the drain.
It
is 1914. War breaks out. Zamenhof dies. Lay your
bets, gentlemen . . . Who will bet on this orphaned
language, symbol of a relationship based on equality,
in a world ruled by the law of the jungle?
It
is the twenties. At the League of Nations, Iran
proposes the adoption of Esperanto for international
relations. All are astonished. The great powers
swing into action. "This project must be buried.
It would jeopardise our cultural superiority."
These member-states are rich and influential. Their
delegates do not hesitate to distort the truth in
the most shameful manner. Once again the project
is ridiculed and rejected. Honestly, would you have
bet on it then?
Stalin
and Hitler rise to power. Hitler regards Esperanto
as the language of conspiring Jews and freemasons;
Stalin, as the language of bourgeois cosmopolitanism.
As we reach the forties, these men exercise totalitarian
power over almost the whole of continental Europe,
Esperanto is forbidden, books in the language are
burnt, many of its supporters are sent to concentration
camps. In Japan, China, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere,
the authorities are less severe, but have the same
general attitude. Tell me: would it not be wise
at this juncture to bet on the disappearance of
Esperanto in short order?
The
Second World War comes to an end. Simultaneous interpretation
comes onto the scene. This device might seem to
solve the communication problem in congresses and
conferences: but in fact it scarcely serves to disguise
a development which leads to the uncontested supremacy
of English. Everyone can see that English has a
tendency to monopolise international relations.
It is the language of the news agencies, the multinationals,
scientific publishing and the pop music which young
people, dressed in American- style clothes, dance
to throughout the world.
Up
against this Goliath, Esperanto is a David so small
as to be practically invisible. Looking at these
rivals, who would rationally vote for the second
of them? Is there any sense in betting on a language
not backed by any vast social movement, ignored
by financial powers, unsupported by the media, and
which the intellectuals either jeer at or else believe
to have been stillborn? Under regular attack politically
and intellectually since first published, it has
neither ally nor external aid. In an age when image
is all, it has no means of gaining publicity. It
spreads only by its own intrinsic qualities.
And
yet, judging by objective criteria - books published,
participation in international meetings, the geographical
spread of small ads in the Esperanto press, the
number of Esperantist events, regular radio broadcasts,
the number of places where a representative of the
language can be contacted, and the like - in the
face of this, it can be seen that in the ebb and
flow of political and economic vicissitudes Esperanto
has never ceased to spread; and over the last dozen
years, in particular, its progress has accelerated
remarkably.
In
1976 there were thirty university-level institutions
teaching the language. Now there are 125 - more
than a four-fold increase in ten years. Esperanto
is the medium of a considerable body of literary
activity which continues to grow. More songs are
translated into Esperanto than into any other language
in the world. It is in daily use in public broadcasting
in countries as different as China and Poland. It
is the everyday common language of numerous married
couples of different national backgrounds, and the
first language of some of their children. In intercultural
communication, objective cost benefit analysis shows
it to be clearly superior to English or to systems
based on translation and simultaneous interpretation.
If
your had held Zamenhof's little booklet in your
hands back in 1887, the new and untried proposal
put forward by an unknown 27-year-old, could you
ever have imagined have a century later the largest
international conference ever held in China would
take place in this language? Would you have bet
that by 1986 not a day would pass without a congress,
a conference, a meeting or some other cultural event
in Esperanto somewhere in the world? Yet that is
what has come to pass.
The
mismatch between rational forecasting and the actual
outcome of` events makes one think. Looking into
matters more deeply it is clear that negative views
on the future of Esperanto are based on one repeated
error, namely the failure to check on reality, the
failure to investigate how Esperanto works in practice,
as compared with the other systems available for
intercultural communication. Furthermore, there
is a tendency to over-estimate outside pressure
and to underestimate the role of the individual's
affective feelings in the process of spreading a
language and giving it fresh life. Why does Esperanto
display more vitality than some languages with official
status, such as Irish or Romansch? Because human
beings like creativity, play, the enjoyment of freedom
and loving relationships.
Esperanto's
structural qualities stimulate linguistic creativity,
which in most languages is firmly repressed from
the moment a child enters school. They give the
language a kind of playfulness which unsettles those
who take themselves too seriously, but which corresponds
to a psychologically important yearning hidden deep
within us. With its great flexibility in grammar,
vocabulary, and style, Esperanto gives the user
a feeling of freedom in self-expression such as
no other foreign language permits, all without the
necessity for years of dull study. Above all, it
lets the user form real and lasting friendships
across cultural frontiers, thus satisfying a psychological
need which is deeper than most people imagine.
These
are the facts: in the one hundred years of its existence
Esperanto has woven over the whole surface of the
globe an abundance of networks of friendship, linking
men and women from all social strata from every
cultural background. In this field it has no rival.
It would have every right to look down on all those
who have bet against it for a hundred years and
who have consistently lost. But that is not its
style. It does not push itself forward. It is enough
for it to be and to be alive. Available, for those
who care to join in. Discreet, even invisible, for
those who prefer to communicate using systems which
are more expensive, more unfair, and more complicated.
It is rather disappointing that its aims and achievements
are so often misunderstood, and that people continue
to overlook the valuable contribution it can make
not only to friendly and easy relations between
the peoples of the world but also to fairness and
respect for everyone's linguistic dignity.
