Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-01-12

WASHINGTON, ID. g., Jan. D.
People are asking If some of the
delegates and officials at the disarm-
ament conference are not handicap
ped by tho use of languages unfa-
miliar to them. English and French
are the official lang uages of the con-
ference. English was decided upon
first, and then French was added out
of consideration for the French del
egation and because French has SO
lonx beer The accepted language OF
diplomacy.
This means that the delegates
have to d. their own translating or
have the speeches translated for
thea whoever any tongue except
their w is being used. 1t is often
impossible 70 carry over into a trans
lation' exact shades of meaning n
therefore the question of an inter-
national language is again raised.
Would not an artificial language. rs
peranto Tor instance. solve the prop
lem?
Considering the diplomatic atu-
tude toward language, it probably
would not. The diplCmat knows that
much of his conversation can be m
teroreted IN halls a dozen ways. He
intends it to be so. To show his
cards before gauging carefuhy the
other Llayers' hands and being alb
solutely sure of his own is general
ly fatal. AS it isn't often in the game
that all of the cards are on the table,
so It isn't often that the diplomat
speaks unr~eservedly. g.,
This is where the manufactured
language is inadequate for diplomacy
a professor of ~philology points u TO
us, He says that In a language IKE
Esperanto or Volapuk it is practical
ly impossible to hedge or to vel a
meaning.
In a manufactured language there
are equivalents for ordinary Eng
lish words, but the vocabulary is lin I.
tied. If Esperanto had a wealth Oh
such as we have in Eng
lish. half The simplicity of the arti-
fetal language would be lost. so
only when diplomats talk straight
from the sL oulder will ARTIFICIAL IAN
guaGe be of any use to them. ne
says
Another objection to n universal
language made b the same language
scholar is the pronunciatlons dlf1er
so that the exact words spoken by
an Italian. a Swedc, and an Anerl-
can would not SOUND at all alike.
Difficulties of Esperanto
Even leaving OUT the question OF
| forelen accents thus difference is not
| able. \ in Esperanto is always
broad. as in all, but an American
used to sounding his as rather hat
| would be apt to produce kampo
| field quite differently from the way
giyan in the BOOK. The foreigner
| not allowing for the influence of To-
| ca, pronunciation might not under
| stand the word at all.
The end.ngs. o for n noun. a fof
an adjective, and e for al adVerp
| which make reading of Esperanto
easy. are another source OF coniu'
sion in conversation, as they tend to
he obscured in rapid talk. So that!
| from his experiments with artificial
| languages this professor doubts
whether diplomats could understand
| one another as well in Esperanto as
i'm English or French, and the op'
securities which would arise migh'
not come where the diplomats IN
tended.
Tine BINDINGS of words in Esperanto
have been quite y bone of conten'
ton. They are designed to simpll'
fy the grammar. But some Ian
guase students htld that in practice
extremely simple grammar IS !
weakness. This has been pointed
| out by Hugo Munsterberg, the psy'
| chologist. He finds that our com
| plicated system of having a piura
noun and u special form of the vert
to go with it is wise.
Ii we use run" for all forms o
the verb, tor instance, and depended
on the noun to show plurals W.
would have, the boy rum" the boys
run" This sort of thing nigh
make tho language easier to learn
but Munsterberg shows that 1t woule
be false economy.
1--WE should need an excessive
strain of attention and reading AM
listening would become an exnaTs
tive labor he says. Having SC
eral signpusts in n sentence |
point out the same meaning make
conversation far less exacting.
q Becaus, of the controversies i've
Esperanto and similar invention
they faye rever achieved the wide
spread use that their advocate
hoped for. Indications point now 7
English as the popular medium Q
intercourse between nations officiall.
and in trade as well.
Once, German, French and Eng
fish were the three contestants 10
international recognition. Now
German has lost much of its popu