The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-01-12

People are asking if some of the
delegates and officials at the dis
armament conference are not hand.-
capped by the use of languages I'M
familiar to them. English and
French. are the official languages
of the conference. English was
decided upon first, and then French
was added out OF consideration for
the French delegation and because
French has so long been the &C
cepted language of diplomacy.
This means that the delegates
have to do their own translating
or have the speeches translated for
them whenever any tongue except
their own IS being used. 1t is oft
en- impossible to carry over into a
translation exact shades of mean
ing, and therefore the question Of
an international language is again
raised. Would not an artificial
language, Esperanto for instance,
solve this problem?
Considering the diplomatic at
titude toward language, it prob
ably would not. The diplomat
knows that much of his conversa-
ton can be interpreted in half a
dozen ways. He intends it to be
So To show his cards before
gauging carefully the other play
ers' hands and being absolutely
sure of his own IS generally 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 unreservedly.
This is where the manufacture
language is inadequate for diplo-
macy, professor of philolOgy
points out to US. He says that i'll
a language like Esperanto or VIOLA
puk it is practically impossible to
hedge or to veil a meaning.
In a manufactured language there
are equivalents for ordinary Eng
lish words, but the vocabulary is
limited. If Esperanto had a wealth
English, half the simplicity of the
artificial language would = be lost
So, only when diplomats talk
straight from the shoulder will
artificial language be of any use
to them. he says.
Another objection to a universal
language made by the same Ian
guage scholar is that pTonuncia-
tons differ so that the exact words
spoken by an Italian, a SWede, and
an American would not sound at
all alike
Difficulties of Esperanto.
Even leaving out the question of
foreign accents this difference is
notable. A in Esperanto is always
broad. as in ali, but an American
used to sounding his as rather fiat
would be apt to produca kampo,
field, quite differently from the
way given in the book The for
eigne-. not allowing for the influ-
ence of local pronunciations, might
not understand the word at all.
The endings, for a noun, for
an adjective, and for an adverb.
which make reading of Esperanto
easy. are another source of confu-
sion in conversation, as they tend
to be obscured in rapid talk. So
that, from his experiments with ar
tif1cial language, this professor
doubts whether diplomats could un-
derstand one another as we'll in
Esperanto as in English or French.
and the obscurit'es which would
arise> might not come where the
intended
The endings of words in Esper-
anto have been quite bone OF con-
tention They are designed to sim
plyfy the grammar. But some Ian
guage students hold that in prac-
tice, extremely simple grammar
is a weakness. He finds that our
complicated system of having a
plural noun and special farm OF
the verb to go with it is wise
If we used run" for all forms OF
the verb, for instance, and depend
ed on the noun to show plurals we
would have. 1.-The boy run" the
boys rum" This sort of thing might
make the language easier to learn, |
but Munstsrberg shows that it
would be false economy.
Eve should need an excessive
strain of attention. and reading and
listening would become an exhaus-
tive labor" he says. Having sew