International Language Part 19

Contrast Esp. _bon-o_ with French _bon_, Eng. _good_, Germ. _gut_. By this means Esperanto is not only rendered slower, more harmonious, and easier of comprehension; it is also able to denote the parts of speech clearly to eye and ear by their form. Thus final _-o_ bespeaks a noun; _-a_, an adjective; _-e_, an adverb; _-i_, an infinitive, etc.

Now, since all adjectives end in syllabic _-a_, it is much harder to keep them uninflected than if they ended with a consonant like the Eng. "good." To talk about _bona patroj_ would not only seem a hideous barbarism to all Latin peoples, whose languages Esperanto most resembles, but it would also offend the bulk of Northerners. After a very little practice it is really easier to say _bonaj patroj_ than _bona patroj_. The a.s.similation of termination tempts the ear and tongue.

The grammar is also simplified. For if adjectives agreeing with nouns and p.r.o.nouns expressed were invariable, it would probably be necessary to introduce special rules to meet the case of adjectives standing as nouns, or where the qualified word was suppressed.

Again, is the price too high compared to the advantages?

II

ESPERANTO FROM AN EDUCATIONAL POINT OF VIEW-IT WILL AID THE LEARNING OF OTHER LANGUAGES AND STIMULATE INTELLIGENCE

(1) Esperanto takes a natural place at the beginning of the sequence of languages, upon which is founded the scheme of language-teaching in the Reform Schools of Germany, and in some of the more progressive English schools.

The principle involved in this scheme is that of orderly progression from the easier to the more difficult. Only one foreign language is begun at a time. The easiest language in the school curriculum is begun first. Enough hours per week are devoted to this language to allow of decent progress being made. When the pupils have a fair grip of the elements of one language, another is begun. The bulk of the school language-teaching hours are now devoted to the new language, and sufficient weekly hours are given to the language already learnt to avoid backsliding at least. Thus in a German school of the new type the linguistic hours are devoted in the lowest cla.s.ses to the mother-tongue.

When the pupils have some idea what language means, and have acquired some notion of grammar, they are given a school year or two of French.

After this Latin is begun in the upper part of the school, and Greek at a corresponding interval after Latin.

Now, it is one of the commonest complaints of teachers in our secondary schools that they have to begin teaching Latin or French to boys who have no knowledge whatever of grammar. Fancy the hopelessness of trying to teach an English boy the construction of a Latin or French sentence when he does not know what a relative or demonstrative p.r.o.noun means!

This is the fate of so many a master that quite a number of them resign themselves to giving up a good part of their French or Latin hour to endeavouring to imbue their flock with some notions of grammar in general. They naturally try to appeal to their boys through the medium of their own language. But those who have incautiously upset their cla.s.s from the frying-pan of _qui_, _quae_, _quod_, into the fire of English demonstrative and relative p.r.o.nouns get a foretaste of the fire that dieth not. _Facilis descensus Averni._ Happy if they do not lose heart, and step downward from the fire to ashes-reinforced with sackcloth.

"I contend that that 'that' that that gentleman said was right." This is the "abstract and brief chronicle" of their woes-sometimes, indeed, the epitaph of their pedagogical career, if they are too sickened of the Sisiphean task of trying to teach grammar on insufficient basis.

And this use, or abuse, of the hardworked word "that" is only an extreme case which ill.u.s.trates the difficulty of teaching grammar to babes, through the medium of a language honeycombed with synonyms, h.o.m.onyms, exceptions, and other pitfalls (can you be honeycombed with a pitfall?)-a language which seems to take a perverse delight in breaking all its own rules and generally scoring off the beginner. And for the dull beginner, what language does not seem to conform to this type?

Answer: Esperanto.

In other words, it would seem that, for the grinding of grammar and the advancement of sound learning in the initial stage, there is nothing like an absolutely uniform and regular language,[1] a _type tongue_, something that corresponds in the linguistic hierarchy to Euclid or the first rules of arithmetic in the mathematical, something clear, consistent, self-evident, and of universal application.

[1]Cf. Sir Oliver Lodge: "It would certainly appear that for this purpose [i.e. educative language-learning for children] the fully inflected ancient languages are best and most satisfactory; if they were still more complete and regular, like Esperanto, they would be better still to begin with" (_School Teaching and School Reform_, p. 21: chapter on Curricula and Methods).

Take our sentence again: "I contend that that 'that' that that gentleman said was right." If our beginner has imbibed his first notions of grammar through the medium of a type language, in which a noun is always a noun, and is stamped as such by its form (this, by the way, is an enormous aid in making the thing clear to children); in which an adjective is always an adjective, and is stamped as such by its form; and so on through all the other parts of speech,-when the teacher comes to a.n.a.lyse the sentence given, he will be able to explain it by reference to the known forms of the regular key-language. He will point out that of the "thats": the first is the Esperanto _ke_ (which is final, because _ke_ never means anything else); the second is _tiu_ (at once revealed by its form to be a demonstrative), the fourth _kiu_, and so on. As for the third "that," which _is_ rather hard for a child to grasp, he will be able to make it into a noun in form by merely adding _-o_ to the Esperanto equivalent for any "that" required. He will not be doing violence to the language; for Esperanto consists of roots, which habitually do duty as noun, verb, adjective, etc., according to the termination added. Those who know the value of the concrete and tangible in dealing with children will grasp the significance of the new possibilities that are thus for the first time opened up to language-teachers.

To sum up: Natural languages are all hard, and the beginner can never go far enough to get a rule fixed soundly in his mind without meeting exceptions which puzzle and confuse him. Esperanto is as clear, logical, and consistent as arithmetic, and, like arithmetic, depends more upon intelligence than upon memory work. If Esperanto were adopted as the first foreign language to be taught in schools, and all grammatical teaching were postponed until Esperanto had been begun, and then given entirely through the medium of Esperanto until a sound notion of grammatical rules and categories had been instilled, it would probably be found that the subsequent task of learning natural languages would be facilitated and abridged. From the very start it would be possible to prevent certain common errors and confusions, that tend to become engrained in juvenile minds by the fluctuating or contradictory usage of their own language, to their great let and hindrance in the subsequent stages of language-learning. The skeleton outline of grammatical theory with concrete examples afforded by Esperanto would shield against vitiating initial mistakes, in much the same way as the use of a scientific phonetic alphabet, when a foreign language is presented for the first time to the English beginner in written form, shields him against carrying over his native mixed vowel system to languages which use the same letters as English, but give quite a different value to them. In both cases[1] the essentials of the new instrument of learning are the same-that it be of universal application, that it be sufficiently different from the mother-tongue or alphabet to prevent confusion by a.s.sociation of ideas, that each of the new forms or letters convey only one idea or sound respectively, and that this idea or sound be always and only conveyed by that form or letter.

[1]i.e. scientific regular type grammar and scientific regular phonetic alphabet.

(2) From a psychological point of view Esperanto would be a rewarding subject of study for children.

The above remarks on sequence of languages show that, by placing Esperanto first in the language curriculum, justice is done to the psychological maxim: from the easier to the harder, from the regular to the exceptional. It may further be argued (_a_) that Esperanto is educative in the real sense of the word, i.e. suitable for drawing out and developing the reasoning powers; (_b_) that it would act as a stimulus, and by its ease set a higher standard of attainment in language-learning.

(_a_) Amidst all the discussion of "educationists" about methods, curricula, sequence of studies, and the rest, one fundamental fact continues to face the teacher when he gets down to business; and that is, that he has got to make the taught think for themselves.

In proportion as his teaching makes them contribute their share of effort will it be fruitful. This is, of course, the merest truism, sometimes dignified in the current pedagogical slang by the name of "self-activity," or the like. But whatever new bottles the theorists, and their extreme left wing the faddists, may choose to serve up our old wine in, the fact is there: children have got to be made to use their own brains. The eternal question that faces the teacher is, how to provide problems that children really can work out by using their own brains. The trouble about history, geography, English literature, and such subjects is that the subject-matter of the problems they offer for solution lies beyond the experience of the young, and to a large extent beyond their reasoning powers. In teaching all such subjects there is accordingly the perpetual danger that the real work done may degenerate into mere memory work, or parrot-like cramming of notes or dates.

The same difficulty is encountered in science teaching. Heuristic methods have been devised to meet the difficulty. Though they are no doubt psychologically sound, they tend to be very slow in results; hence the common jibe that a boy may learn as much by them in five years as he could learn out of a shilling text-book in a term.

The old argument that "mental gymnastics" are best supplied by Latin is sound to the extent that Latin really does furnish a perpetual series of small problems that have to be solved by the aid of grammar and dictionary, but which do involve real mental effort, since mere mechanical looking out of words does not suffice for their elucidation.

But for various reasons, such as the remoteness of the ancient world in time, place, modes of thought, etc., Latin tends to be too hard and not interesting enough for the average boy. He gets discouraged, and develops a habit of only working enough to keep out of trouble with the school authorities, and is apt to leave school with an unintelligent att.i.tude towards intellectual things in general. This is the result of early drudging at a subject in which progress is very slow, and which by its nature is uncongenial. The great desideratum is a linguistic subject which shall at once inculcate a feeling for language (German _Sprachgefuhl_), and yet be easy enough to admit of rapid progress.

Nothing keeps alive the quickening zest that makes learning fruitful like the consciousness of making rapid progress.

Hitherto arithmetic and Euclid have been the ideal subjects for providing the kind of problem required-one that can be worked out with certainty by the aid of rule and use of brain, without calling for knowledge or experience that the child cannot have. The facts are self-evident, and follow from principles, without involving any extraneous acquaintance with life or literature, and no deadening memory work is required. If only there were some a.n.a.logous subject on the literary side, to give a general grip of principles, uncomplicated by any arbitrary element, what a boon it would be! and what a sound preparation for real and more advanced linguistic study for those who showed apt.i.tude for this line! Arithmetic and Euclid both really depend upon common sense; but partly owing to their abstract nature, and partly because they are always cla.s.sed as "mathematics," they seem to contain something repellent to many literary or linguistic types of mind.

With the invention of a perfectly regular and logically constructed language, a concrete embodiment of the chief principles of language structure, we have offered us for the first time the hitherto missing linguistic equivalent of arithmetic or Euclid. In a regular language, just because everything goes by rule, problems can be set and worked out a.n.a.logous to sums in arithmetic and riders in Euclid. Given the necessary roots and rules, the learner can manufacture the necessary vocabulary and produce the answer with the same logical inevitability; and he has to use his brains to apply his rules, instead of merely copying words out of a dictionary, or depending upon his memory for them.

In this way all that part of language-study which tends to be dead weight in teaching the young is got rid of in one fell swoop, and this though the language taught and learnt is a highly developed instrument for reading, writing, speaking, and literary expression.

This dead weight includes most of the unintelligent memorizing, all exceptions, all complicated systems of declension and conjugation, all irregular comparison of adjectives and adverbs, all syntactical subtleties (cf. the sequence of tenses, oratio obliqua, the syntax of subordinate clauses, in Latin; and the famous conditional sentences, with the no less notorious _??_ and _?_ in Greek), all conflicting and illogical uses of auxiliaries (cf. _etre_ and _avoir_ in French, and _sein_ and _haben_ in German), besides a host of other old enemies.

Some of these things of course are not wholly memory work, especially the syntax, which involves a real feeling for language. But these would be much better postponed until one easy foreign language has been learnt thoroughly. Every multilinguist knows that each foreign language is easier to learn than the last. With a perfectly regular artificial language you can make so much progress in a short time that you can use it freely for practical purposes. Yet it does not come of itself, like the mother-tongue. _This free manipulation of a consciously acquired language is the very best training for forming a feeling for language_-far better than weary stumbling over the baby stages of a hard language. When you can read, write, and speak one very easy artificial language, which you have had to learn as a foreign one, then is the time when you can profitably tackle the difficulties of natural language, appreciating the niceties of syntax, and realizing, by comparison with your normal key-language, in what points natural languages are merely arbitrary and have to be learnt by heart. Those who have early conquered the grammar and syntax of any foreign language, but have had to put in years of hard (largely memory) work before they could write or speak, e.g., Latin Latin, French French, or German German, will realize the saving effected, when they are told that Esperanto has no idiom, no arbitrary usage. The combination of words is not governed, as in natural languages, by tradition (which tradition has to be a.s.similated in the sweat of the brow), but is free, the only limits being common sense, common grammar, and lucidity.

To those who do not know Esperanto it may seem a dark saying that language riders can be worked out in the same way as geometrical ones. To understand this some knowledge of the language is necessary (for sample problems see Appendix A, p. 200). But for the sake of making the argument intelligible it may here be stated that one of the labour-saving, vocabulary-saving devices of Esperanto is the employment of a number of suffixes with fixed meaning, that can be added to any root. Thus:

The suffix _-ej-_ denotes place.

" " _-il-_ " instrument.

" " _-ig-_ " causation.

Final _-o_ denotes a noun.

Given this and the root _san-_ (cf. Lat. _sa.n.u.s_), containing the idea of health, form words for "to heal" (_san-ig-i_ = to cause to be well); "medicine" (_san-ig-il-o_ = instrument of healing); "hospital"

(_san-ig-ej-o_ = place of healing), etc.

This is merely an example. The combinations and permutations are infinite; they give a healthy knowledge of word-building, and can be used in putting whole pages of carefully prepared idiomatic English into Esperanto. Practical experience shows that, given the necessary crude roots, the necessary suffixes, and a one-page grammar of the Esperanto language, an intelligent person can produce in Esperanto a translation of a page of idiomatic English, not Ollendorfian phrases, _without having learnt Esperanto_.

(_b_) Experience also shows that the intelligent one thoroughly enjoys himself while doing so; and having done so, experiences a thrill of exhilaration almost amounting to awe at having made a better translation into a language he has never learnt than he could make into a national language that he has learnt for years, e.g. Latin, French, or German.

And what is exhilaration in the dry tree may be sustained working keenness in the green. The stimulus to the young mind of progress swift and sure is immense. A child who has learnt to read, write, and speak Esperanto in six months, as is very possible within the natural limits of power of expression imposed by his age, not only has a sound working knowledge of grammatical categories and forms, which will stand him in good stead in subsequent language-learning; he has also a quite different att.i.tude of mind-_une tout autre mentalite_, to use recent jargon-towards foreign languages. His only experience of learning one has been that he did so with the object and result of being able to read, write, and speak it within a reasonable time. "By so much the greater and more resounding the slump into actuality," you will say, "when he comes to grapple with his next." Perhaps. But even so, the habit of acquiring fresh words and forms for immediate use must surely tell-not to mention that he will incidentally have acquired a very useful Romance vocabulary, and a wholly admirable French lucidity of construction.

(3) And this question of lucidity brings us to the third great educational advantage of Esperanto. Its opponents-without having ever learnt it to see-have urged that its preciseness will debauch the literary sense. Surely the exact opposite is the fact. _Le style c'est l'homme_, and the essence of true style is that a man should give accurate expression to his thoughts. The French wit, satirizing vapid fine writing, said that language was given to man to enable him to conceal his thought. There is no more potent instrument for obscuring or concealing thought than the ready-made phrase. Take up many a piece of journalese or other slipshod writing, and note how often the conventional phrase or word slips from under the pen, meaning nothing in particular. The very conventionality disguises from writer and reader the confusion or absolute lack of idea it serves to cloak. Both are lulled by the familiar sound of the set phrase or word and glide easily over them. On the other hand, in using a language in which you construct a good deal of your vocabulary according to logical rule _tout en marchant_, it is impossible to avoid thinking, at each moment, exactly what you do mean. Where there is no idiom, no arbitrary usage, no ready-made phrase, there is also far less danger of yielding to a fatal facility.

Take an instance or two. In the Prayer Book occurs the phrase "Fulfil, O Lord, our desires and pet.i.tions." At Sunday lunch a mixed party of people, after attending morning service, were asked how they would render into Esperanto the word "desires." They nearly all plumped for _dezirajo_. Now, the Esperanto root for "desire" is _dezir-_. By adding _-o_ it becomes a noun = the act of desiring, a desire. By adding the suffix _-aj_, and then _-o_, it becomes concrete = a desire- (i.e.

desired) thing, a desire. A reference to the dictionary showed that the English word "desire" has both these meanings, but none of these people had a sufficiently accurate idea of the use of language to realize this.

It was only when a gentleman pa.s.sed his plate for a second helping of beef, and was asked which he expected to be fulfilled-the beef, or his aspiration for beef-that he, under the stimulus of hunger, adopted the rendering _dezir-o_, thereby saving at once his bacon and his additional beef.

It is not of course necessary for people to define pedantically to themselves the meaning of every word they use, but surely it must conduce to clear thinking to use a language in which you are perpetually called upon, if you are writing seriously, to make just the mental effort necessary to think what you do mean.

Again, consider the use of prepositions. This is, in nearly all national languages, extremely fluctuating and arbitrary. Take a few English phrases showing the use of the prepositions "at" and "with." "At seven o'clock"; "at any price"; "at all times"; "at the worst"; "let it go at that"; "I should say at a guess," etc. "Come with me"; "write with a pen"; "he came with a rush"; "things are different with us"; "with a twinkle in his eye"; "with G.o.d all things are possible," etc. Try to turn these phrases into any language you think you know; the odds are that you will find yourself "up against it pretty badly." The fact is, that prepositions are very frequently used on no logical plan, not at all according to any fixed or universal meaning; all that can be said about them in a given phrase is that they are used there because they are used. To remember their equivalents in other languages hard memory work and much phrase-learning is necessary. In Esperanto all that is necessary is: first, to become clear as to the exact meaning; secondly, to pick the preposition that conveys it. There is no doubt, as the Esperanto prepositions are fixed in sense, on the "one word one meaning"

plan. The point is, that there is no memory searching, often so utterly vain, for there are few people indeed who can write a few pages of the most familiar foreign languages without getting their prepositions all wrong, and having "foreigner" stamped large all across their efforts.

In Esperanto, provided you have a clear mind and know your grammar, _you are right_. No arbitrary usage defeats your efforts and makes discouraging jargon of your literary attempts.

This training in clear thought, the first requisite for all good writing, is surely sound practical pedagogics. By the time you can give up conscious word-building in Esperanto, and use words and phrases by rote, you have done enough bracing thinking to teach you caution in the use of the ready-made phrase and horror of the vague word.

Fools make phrases, and wise men shun them. Here is a phrase-free language: need we shun it?

III

COMPARATIVE TABLES ILl.u.s.tRATING LABOUR SAVED IN LEARNING ESPERANTO AS CONTRASTED WITH OTHER LANGUAGES

(_a_) WORD-BUILDING

The following tables are meant to give some idea of the number and variety of different ideas that can be expressed by a single Esperanto root, with the addition of affixes (prefixes and suffixes). By reading the English, French, and German columns downwards, the reader will see how many different roots and periphrases these languages employ in order to express the same ideas.

As the affixes have fixed meanings, they only have to be learnt once for all, and many of them (e.g. _-ist_, _-in_, _re-_) are already familiar. When once acquired, they can be used in unending permutation and combination with different roots and each other. The tables below are by no means exhaustive of what can be done with the roots _san-_ and _lern-_. They are merely ill.u.s.trative. By referring to the full table of affixes in Part IV, Chapter IV, the reader can go on forming new compounds _ad libitum_: e.g. san-o, san-a, san-e, san-i, saneco, sanilo, sanulo, malsane, malsani, saneti, malsaneti, sanadi, eksani, eksanigi, saninda, sanindi, sanindulo, sanajo, sanajero, sanilo, sanigilo, sanigilejo, sanigilujo, sanigilisto, malsanemeco, remalsano, remalsanigo, sanila, malsanulino, sanistinedzo, sanilingo, sanigestro, sanigestrino, sanigema, sanega, sanigega, gesanantoj, sanigontoj, sanigistido, sanigejano... and so on (kaj tiel plu).