Perth Amboy evening news., 1911-05-13
ESPERANTO FOR
THE PLAYWRIGHT
Prominent French Author
Tells of His Expsriance.

translated into other languages;
A French PIaywright's Opinion.
An interesting experiment has just
been conducted in Paris by the well
known daily illustrated paper Ex-
c~elsior. The object was to prove, or
disprove, the efficiency of Esperanto
as an international auxiliary Ian
guage.
The nature of the experiment was
as follows:-Mons. Abel Hermant, a
prominent man of letters, furnished
q text in the French language, which
had to be translated by experts into
English, German, Spanish, Italian,
Russian and Esperanto: After this
first set OF experts had translated the
original into their respective tongues,
another set of experts had to put the
TRANSACTIONS back into the original.
These were then compared with the
French text. The result was tina
the Italian and Esperanto %reproduc-
lions were so closely like the original
that 1t was difficult, indeed, to assert
which was really the better of the
two.
At the matinee organized by the
Excelsior at the Theatre Femma on
Feb. %, Mons. Tristan Bernard, an
eminent Partisan playwright, in an
n%ouncing the result of the competi-
ton, made some observations which
we think will be found of consider
able interest by readers of the Brit
ish Esperantist. After describing
the method of the competition, Mons.
Bernard told how the final ~reproduc-
lions into French from the various
languages were compared with the
original. He goes on:
Then the jury, of which l had
the honor to be a member, along with
my colleagues Abel Hermant and
Alexandra Hepp, saw some astound-
ing things: for instance, that the
Italian and Esperanto texts repro
duced the French text almost exact
ly. What makes this all the more
remarkable is the fact that the orig
inal text by Abel Hermant-an au-
thor whose style is so living, so va
rled, so rich-was of such a nature
as to make one doubt whether
thought of a quality so French SO
delicate, could undergo without de-
terioration this double journey.
ut was not q question Of a COM
petition between the translations and
the translators; the point was to find
| oul lang uooCS II bSot SuS VI
this severe test. Well, the double
translation by way of the German
and Russian did not give very good
results; the English was better; the
Spanish, save for one or two serious
mistakes, gave satisfaction to the
jury; the italian, as already stated,
was admirable. Thus, as might cas-
lily have been forseen, the Latin
tongues proved to have the greatest
affinity with the French. But the re-
markable thing Is this-and herein
lies the interest and d~ecisiyeness of
the test-that Esperanto furnished
a result at least equal to that given
by the Italian.
"The experiment, then, so far as
Esperanto is concerned, seems to me
conclusive.
"a frequent reproach against Es-
peranto on the part Of It's crit1cs-a
priori and without actual knowledge,
it is true-has been that 1t would
prove inadequate as n literary Ian
guage, that it could never be any
thing more than a commercial jar
gon. Now Abel Hermant. Alexand-
DIRE Hepp, and myself are quite
agreed that the Esperanto translation
Is at any rate very close in point Of
excellence to the italian translation,
II not even superior. Well. that to
my mind Is an extraordinary result.
That with an artificial language such
as Esperanto one should have reach
ed q result equal to that obtained
with italian, an old language, work
ed at by generations OF writer's, en-
downed with all the resources that
the French language possesses, and
at the same time so nearly related
to 1t, and above all others capable
Of rendering its least shades of ex-
pression-that is, for Esperanto, l
must say, an admirable perform
ance."
What q benefit to US authors, who
are generally so badly translated
abroad How can it be otherwise?
Relations between France and liter
airy men in England or Germany are
growing more frequent, but progress
Is slow; we have no easy means of
communication. Suppose q foreign
agent buys a work from US and Of
fers US a translator. This trans
lator, perhaps does not seem to us
to have much Of a knowledge of
French, still, we take 1t he knows
German. And the consequence Is,
all sorts of queer things happen.
Zone day Pierre Verber went to
Germany to watch a performance Of
one of his plays. All at once, In the
fourth act, he saw one of his char
acters come into the house, on a
visit, with his hat in his hand and a
white cloth on his arm. All through
the act Pierre Verber was asking
himself: But what on earth does
the white cloth mean?' He got no
explanation till the play was over.
The character in question was a not
airy. In the text was written: Enter
NJ. So-and-so with a 'servlette'* un-
her his arm!'
"This instance shows well enough
the unfortunate situation we French
authors are in as regards the for
eign public. l do not know what my
fellow-writers will say, but I assure
you that for myself l will hesitate
no longer; when I wish to have g
work translated into a foreign
tongue, l shall have a translation
made into Esperanto, under my owr
eyes, by one of the many Esperant-
lists at Paris In whom I have full con
hdence. Once this translation made
1 shall have 1t sent abroad to some
eminent ~Esperantist, and ne viii
translate 1t into his mother tongue
For this experiment has shown us
and it Is an important point-tha.
a French text translated into Esper