Enkomputiligis Don HARLOW
Editor's Note Dr. Alexander Gode is head of the Interlingua Division of Science Service, the author of Interlingua and President of the American Translators Association.
1. The concept of one language for all mankind contains a powerful mythological element. It is associated with the "Golden Age", both in the sense of a past State of Innocence as also a Future Utopia.
Like all mythological concepts, it has evolved with man's longings, his outer and inner needs, his patterns and principles of thought. As formulated in most current discussions, the concept of a universal language reflects the rationalistic optimism of the Eighteenth Century and is the product of the positivistic faith in orderly progress which inspired the natural sciences during the second half of the Nineteenth Century but which today survives only in popular misconception.
I may clarify these assertions by referring briefly to the Tower of Babel and the Confusion of tongues. What happened on that memorable day was -- in conventionally rationalistic terms -- that God (unaware of the most elementary principles of modern pedagogy) vented his wrath on his hapless creatures by playing on them a dirty trick or practical joke. When they came to, they found that some of them spoke French, others Yiddish, others 0jibway, and so forth. And we are still busy trying to undo the senseless damage He wrought. The adoption of a universal man-made language would be the neatest counter trick.
There is another way of reading the Babel story. What happened -- in terms of this other view -- was that the builders became so engrossed in their respective portions of the venture that after a while they found it impossible to think, and hence to speak, of what went on around them in any but in the concepts of their craft. They did not suddenly begin to talk French and Yiddish and Ojibway but Bricklayerese and Carpenterese, Pipefitterese, and so forth. This way of reading the Babel story -- which by the way is not original with me but cited unaltered from Dante -- is eminently compatible with our contemporary understanding of the phenomenon language and its multiplicity of forms. We know again -- as Dante did -- that the basic differences between languages are differences in conceptual patterns and not in word forms.
The endeavor to undo the "curse" of Babel -- as such endeavor is compatible with Dante's view -- is concerned with a metaphysical and religious objective To bring about -- in preparation for the end of Time -- the ultimate (and original) harmony of human thought, regardless of what individual brain may serve as its culture broth. To replace this metaphysical objective by the physical one of striving to provide all mankind with a common medium of communication is to practice what Reinhold Niebuhr called "the strategy of fleeing from difficult problems by taking refuge in impossible solutions." (1)
I hold that the concept of one language for all mankind -- as commonly defined -- is a misconception and-at-best an interesting museum piece, useful as an exhibit to exemplify a certain kind of intellectual aberration in which our fathers and grandfathers got involved by reason of their enthusiastic endorsement of rationalistic positivism. (2)
2. There can be no doubt but that it is possible to devise artificially an efficient system of interhuman verbal communication. As a matter of fact, it is possible to devise hundreds of such. Pig Latin and Esperanto are examples. I mean to imply that it is nonsense to argue against Esperanto by calling it inefficient, impractical, or ug1y. No language is ugly, except the Saxon dialect spoken in the vicinity of Leipzig, (which uncalled-for remark I insert at this point only to illustrate how naive and subjectively prejudiced are all verdicts of ugly and beautiful when it comes to matters of language). To call Esperanto impractical is hardly less naive than to call it ugly. The man who said, "You can translate everything into Esperanto, but there is nothing you can express in it", was trying to carry the day by a witticism, for the facts would not help him. These are the simple facts There is available a substantial original literature -- both reporting and creative -- in Esperanto. Furthermore, there is more than ample evidence that people can not only converse in Esperanto, they can make love in it and get married in it.
When, a moment ago, I coupled Esperanto with Pig Latin I did not do so because I regard Pig Latin as contemptible. I don't. I take it very seriously, for its existence is at least as interesting as the existence of Shriners, Kiwanis, Lions, Moose, and Elks from the point of view of anyone interested in the psychology of the human delight with secret societies. (3)
Here of course, my Esperanto friends rebel and give me a wonderful chance to counterrebel. At this point in my argument I am often told, Yes, it is true that Esperanto is at present a "language of the chosen". There are those who know it and those who don't. But the point is precisely, I am told, that the knowers (who know that they are in the know and who occasionally cannot resist the temptation of looking down upon their less enlightened brethren) do not want to be or remain the members of a secret society. The point is precisely that they ardently believe and hope that the day will come when Esperanto is taught as a second language in all schools all over the world, with a shrinking body of surviving non-knowers on hand to remind us that the job is not finished (just as today the remaining illiterates throughout the world remind us of an unfinished educational job.) (4)
All right then, if Esperanto and other universal auxiliary-language proposals do not wish but are forced at this time to play the apparent role of secret cants of communities of fortunate initiates, how can this traditional situation be expected to change? There is but one answer By decree by the decision of a world body of authorized representatives; by the wise benevolence of a world dictator. (5)
But I hold that in the realm of the intellect and the spirit -- where language has its roots -- there can be no planning by decree. The economy of the world of the spirit is a free-market economy where planning can guide and direct but never compel. (6)
3. I would define the term "international language" or "interlanguage simply as "any language in use in international communications. I suppose there are few or no languages that do not on occasion answer this definition. There doubtless is none that answers it more often and more extensively than English. In any event, it looks a bit funny when Esperanto or, for that matter, Interlingua -- or any other constructed or planned language -- is placed next to English with the claim that it is fit to crowd out English and destined to do so. The image which comes to mind is not that of David and Goliath but that of the frog trying to blow himself up to the size of an ox. (7)
There are many -- and not only native speakers of English -- who, by extrapolation from past progress, predict that English will sooner or later be the common primary or secondary language for mankind. If this prediction assumes that a world congress of plenipotentiaries will some day decree that every human being -- whatever else he may wish to study in the language field -- must learn English, it is on a par in merit and soundness with the prediction that Volapük will some fine day be selected as the universal language of Terra. If it assumes that the language of the Golden Age of the future must be English because only English is compatible with the concept of the Golden Age, we may smile and pass on. But there remains the possibility that the prediction of a functionally important and even glorious future for English is based on the assumption that English will continue to have what it takes to compete and excel in the free-market economy of international communication. And this makes sense. This view I share. But I hasten to emphasize that there is no exclusivity in this claim. It does not assign to English the role of the international language but of one. In other words, the prediction envisages no revolutionary change but only more and more of what we already have.
I hold that English may be expected to continue to play an outstanding role in international communication and that there is nothing in either the language as such or in the world situation to lend support to the notion that English might usurp a position of monopolistic power. (8)
4. If the world has shrunk, with contacts between nations having become more direct and intense, the immediate cause must be seen in the flowering of science and technology since the renaissance and in particular throughout the past one hundred or one hundred and fifty years. Since science and technology take pride in being concerned with facts, not attitudes, it takes some probing to recognize that it is no accident that modern science and technology did not arise from an Asian or African cultural continuity but from the tradition of occidental individualism. This latter fact is of great linguistic significance. It means that the language of science -- no matter how it evolved, no matter how transvested in diverse linguistic garments -- is basically and originally occidental.
However, to emphasize the occidental origins of the sciences -- ex occidente scientiae -- cannot mislead us to the absurd claim that the sciences are an occidental prerogative. On the contrary, the objective factualism of science and technology has grafted them with amazing speed and ease into the most diverse cultural continuities in all parts of the world. Hence the event that contributions to further advances in all the subfields of science and technology` are being made in the ever increasing number of languages.
We shall have to cope with this situation which is not just a matter of prediction, for it is at hand. We shall cope with it in the dynamics of a free market. We shall have to do more language learning, and not only more, we shall have to make it more diverse. There will have to be more translation, tremendously more, too much more for machines to handle without the help of ever increasing numbers of specialized and expert human translators.
But I hold that in all anticipated evolution of the language of science its occidental linguistic substratum is bound to remain essential and vital. (9)
5. With or without Whorf it is possible to regard the occidental languages -- sub specie latinitatis -- as variants of a common norm. This has led to the concept of a "bridge language". Take any group of closely related languages and you can -- without undue artifice or violence -- reduce them to a common norm in which a message can be transmitted quite effectively to speakers of each and every one of the contributing languages without prior initiation. Interlingua is a pan-occidental bridge language. In it messages can be transmitted with adequate effectiveness to those who by accident or birth or by choice of education know well (or, fairly well) one of the major languages in the Latin orbit.
I hold that this assigns to Interlingua a useful function in scientific communication anywhere in the world. Once and for all, it is no candidate for the role -- glorious or inglorious -- of one common language for all mankind. It is no substitute for language learning and no competitor of translation. It is a bridge language to be used in addressing a heteropolyglot audience or readership. (10)
(1) Let us quickly dispose of the Biblical explanation
for Babel vs. that of Dante. As far as I can tell, the correct way of reading
the Babel story is as follows. At some time in the dim and distant past, some
of our cultural ancestors noticed that different people around them spoke
different languages, thus causing occasional problems in the marketplace. This
was a phenomenon of the world around them, like many others, and -- as with
many other phenomena -- they tried to explain it in terms of an origin that they
could understand. That origin was based in their own cultural preconceptions,
as was Dante's later reworking of the origin. In fact, the origin story is
unimportant. What is important is the phenomenon, and its effect on the people
experiencing it. Gode simply ignores this.
(2) I
can't answer for Couturat and Jespersen and Wahl -- and Gode himself, perchance
(after all, he worked for the "International Auxiliary Language
Association) -- but Zamenhof's concept of "one language for all
mankind" grew not out of an "enthusiastic endorsement of
rationalistic positivism" -- I beg leave to doubt whether the term would
have had any significance to a young boy in Tsarist Russia -- but out of his
experiences in the marketplace at Bialystok. Similarly, Schleyer's interest in
the possibility derived from the tribulations of one of his parishioners, who
couldn't make the U.S. postal authorities understand the address of his son.
These were both men who observed a problem in the world in which they lived,
and developed what they saw as a solution to the problem. One might as well
accuse Alexander Graham Bell of inventing the telephone "by reason of
[his] enthusiastic endorsement of rationalistic positivism".
(3) I
think Gode was here demonstrating an example of "putting your mouth in
gear before starting your brain". Simply put:
(1) Gode coupled Esperanto with Pig Latin. Why? Simply to make
people think of one in terms of the other? But they are very different phenomena.
Pig Latin is a recoding of English; Esperanto is an autonomous language. Since
Interlingua is, in some sense, a recoding of (certain of) the Romance
languages, Pig Latin is perhaps more appropriately comparable with Interlingua
than with Esperanto (though I would not insist that it is, speaking absolutely,
comparable with either one).
(2) Gode did not couple Esperanto with Pig Latin "because I
regard Pig Latin as contemptible"? To me this implies that he does
regard Esperanto as contemptible. I don't think this is what Gode intended to
say (though it might conceivably have been what he intended the reader to
think).
(3) And what's the point of coupling either Esperanto or Pig Latin
with secret societies? I didn't have to join a secret society to learn or use
Pig Latin; the encoding is common knowledge among grade-school students, at
least in the United States (and, one supposes, Britain). Similarly, I didn't
have to join a secret (or even non-secret) society to learn or use Esperanto.
As Pierpaolo pointed out here a few days ago (in response to the opposite
opinion), anybody who wants to can make use of Esperanto.
This all strikes me as being very non sequitur to anything
Gode says earlier or later. But it is a wonderful attempt to sneer at Esperanto,
which Gode implicitly recognizes here as the touchstone against which any other
planned language in the same or a related field must be compared.
(4)
"Chosen" is, of course, a word forced on Gode by the unfortunately
limited structure of the Western languages (of which Interlingua is one). The
correct term is, of course, not elektitoj but elektintoj --
it's a language of anyone who wants to make it their language.
Nice to see Gode coupling the global adoption of Esperanto with the
global adoption of literacy, however. But from the advocacy point of view, this
may not be the effect he was aiming at.
(5)
"One answer"??? Gode chooses here to overlook the whole
range of possible ways in which a polity (local or global) can adopt something.
This includes grass-roots support, local parliamentary action, any number of
other possibilities.
The whole business of a "secret society" is, of course,
nonsense. Perhaps Gode knew nothing about secret societies, but they generally
fall into two categories those who don't mind their existence being known, but
tend to hide their internal workings and limit their membership (e.g. the
Bohemian Club); and those that don't even want their existence to be known (Gode
names none of the latter, for obvious reasons). Neither the Esperanto movement
in general, nor the Esperanto organizations in particular, fall into these
categories. One might as well accuse the world's English-speaking population in
general, and the English-Speaking Union in particular, of being "secret
societies".
But the claim does tend to make the Esperanto movement
look stranger than it is, which may have been Gode's intent.
(6)
The roots of language are in the need to communicate. Language is a tool and,
like other tools, it can be modified (and is, on a regular basis) and even
created from scratch.
As to the rest, I pretty much agree with Gode. But in fact the
Esperanto movement has been functioning for more than a hundred years in what
passes for Gode's "free-market economy of the world of the spirit".
Its main problem has been advertising. All told, it has done fairly well, as
such things go.
(7)
"Destined" to do so? Few make that claim for Esperanto. My own
opinion is that, ultimately, English will shrink on the world stage (but not
disappear; the colonialism of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as
opposed to the imperialism of some other European countries, almost guarantees
that, short of global massacres of native English-speakers -- which, of course,
could also happen). The existence or non-existence of Esperanto or Interlingua
will, as things happen, likely be irrelevant to this. As to whether Esperanto
-- or, for that matter, Interlingua -- is "fit" to crowd out English
either is, certainly, as fit as Russian or German or Chinese or Ido or Lojban.
The image in my mind is neither that of David nor that of the frog, but of the
understudy waiting in the wings and swotting her lines while the diva sings
herself hoarse.
(8)
Remarkably, at the time Gode wrote this the percentage of English
speakers was in the process of shrinking from a max that occurred
around 1950. Gode, like the rest of us, did not envision that turnabout on the
world stage that occurred in and around 1990 and gave English (or, more
precisely, the major English-speaking power) the chance to strut its stuff as
the world's only remaining superpower, before whom all others should quail or
at least suck up. So much for the "free market economy of the world of the
spirit". How long that situation will last, only time will tell. What
other revolutionary turnabouts will occur in the 21st century, we cannot tell
at this point.
(9)
The language of science, like the sciences themselves, is in a constant state
of flux. One currently popular source of scientific vocabulary is the English
acronym (LASER, RADAR, MACHO, WIMP), which gives us words that have no
discernible relationship with words in the "occidental linguistic
substratum". Furthermore, even in some western languages local words are
often used in preference to the more "international" Romance-based
ones.
I would add that Gode is here, again, emphasizing the use of a
language which is primarily aimed at consumers, not producers.
In other words, passive use, usually on paper, rather than active use in a
spoken medium. I hope that this puts paid to the oft-stated belief that it was Mario
Pei, misrepresenting Gode, who popularized this belief in Gode's goals for
Interlingua.
(10)
Accepting as Gospel (which I think I have denied that it is) Gode's assumption
that the Romance vocabulary makes up a common global substratum in the various
fields of science, I would point out here, again, that any planned
language with which I am at all familiar (Loglan and Lojban may be exceptions)
uses exactly that same scientific substratum that Interlingua does,
and so could fulfill this relatively limited role at least as well as
Interlingua could. In fact, even English could do so -- and, currently, does,
thus making Gode's Interlingua (at least for the time being) irrelevant, at
least by Gode's criteria of what the language is intended to be used for.