Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-26
ENGLISH TONGUE SPOKEN
BY NEARLY 2OO,OOO,OOO
May Become Language of Majority of
Mankind in Next Century If
Pace is Maintained.

guage, is fashionable and distinguished
1t is not always easy to detect thai
words pronounced as "yotz," weekend
and football" mean "iazz," week end
is one of the most frequently used anc
abused phrases in Germany, and one
often hears such curiosities as "folger
Sic die line of least resistance
Russia Is not much behind Germany
in her eagerness to capture the spirit
of America through her language. Be-
fore TIE war English stood in third
French as the language of the intelli-
gentsia. German still leads, due - the
fact that there ara large German
speaking settlements along the Volga
comprised in an autonomous republic
but French has been replaced by Eng
lish. There are all kinds of language
schools in Russia in which. the COM
missariat of instruction estimates, the
enrolment of students in English
classes is more than double those ii
French classes
The Russians are experimenting and
are said to have achieved good results
with new method of English for for
etgners, the main feature of which is
a so-called probationary period, when
the students are required to read Eng
lish text without an attempt at under
standing it.
Hungary was the first country to rec
ognlze the American" language in an
unoflcial way. Magyars place a pre-
MUM on nasal accent which they take
for unadulterated Yankee language
This is all the more remarkable because
before the war the oxford accent was
la mode. There is a surprisingly
large number of English classes in
what are known as labor colleges which
| reality 0Xfnrcinf1
Marsaryk FavOrs English.
Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia,
has gone one better than the large
cities of the neighboring countries in
that it has both gymnasium" and a
college In which English is the language
of instruction. Thomas c. Marsaryk,
| President of the republic and an ad-
| mtrer of America, is said to favor Eng
lish as sort of superlanguage to facili-
| tate intercourse among the nationalities
| OF his country. Although German is
| still spoken by most CZechs as their
secondary language, English has lately
| become its competitor.
South America Is no longer an an
mex of France so far as language is
concerned. Business men now expect
| their foreign correspondents to write to
| them in Spanish or Portuguese, as the
case may be. Out of perhaps growing
sense of solidarity or due to their pride
in their northern neighbors the South
| Americans have adopted English as
their second choice.
Talkies and the radio play an i'm
| portant part in making the southern
! part of this continent more proficient
in English. The pan-American ideals
have thus received powerful impetus.
| Often American firms write to their
South American customers in Spanish
and the South Americans reply in
! English.
In at least one country the sugge-
ton was seriously considered to adopt
English as the official language. The
country is Finland, in which both Fin
niSh and Swedish have official stand
/ ing. 1t was a FinniSh-speaking member
of Parliament who proposed that Swed-
ish should be replaced by English. The
| project was tabled for the time being
to avoid internal complications. The
SwediSh-Speaking population reSents the
proposal, which 1t considers an attempt
on the privileges of its native tongue.
1t is not in the least surprising that
New Guinea should have adopted pidg-
in English as its official language. 1t
is spoken by millions and is extremely
popular in the islands and seaports of
the Pacific Ocean. Its main advantage
is its utmost grammatical simplicity,
| which enables even the most primi-
| tive native to acquire it in no time.
| A prominent publicist of the Far
East went so far the other day as TO
suggest that this brand of corrupted
English. with all its Portuguese, Malay
and Chinese words, has the best chance
of becoming the universal language Of
the future. A language which trans
forms business" into "pidgin," one OBJ
server said. has the great advantage of
being untrammeled by linguistic ira
ditions.
! Compulsory Subject.
Friends of the idea of the United
States of Europe have the greatest
confidence in English ultimately be-
coming the Super-language of the
world. 1t is an important article in
the program of the Europeans to
have English taught in the high schools
of all nations as compulsory subject,
so that the younger generation should
understand one another in spite of the
difference in their native tongues.
Count Coudenhove-Kaler founder
Of the movement, advocates the intro
duction of English even in the primary
schools, Since M BRAND, former prime
minister of France, has definitely
aligned himself with the movement, it
| Is no longer classed with the idle
dreams of Utopians. The agitation is
| taking root and there is hope that
every European country will fall in
line. making English an important and
organic part of their school instruc-
| ton.
There are, of course, those who say
that what the world needs is an arti-
| fetal language in general use. The
| an-Europeans and the other advo-
| Gates of English. on the other hand,
| point to the high rate Of mortality
| among artificial languages. Where Is
Volapuk, they ask, which once gave
rise to such sanguine hopes? Where
are SolreSol and Lingualumina, recog-
| niZed as mastery products of the hui
man brain, but devoid of life?
It Is true that Esperanto and lido are
still fourishing, have their literatures
and thousands of ardent supporters,
but are they not greatly handicapped
in face of the competition of English?
OF what avail are their thousands
against the hundreds of millions of
those who speak, or at least under
stand, English? Living languages have
q vitality which no artificial language
no matter how perfect it is, seems to
possess
Study of ''Pole of Wind
| CI j