In my mind, though, I think of the NATURAL linguistic injustice people experience. Think— a person born in the United States or England, speaking English as a native language, currently does not need to master any other language to get an education or a job, or to interact with folks around the world. People around the world who don’t learn English as a mother tongue have to learn English in school, and their English classes are far more serious than our foreign language classes are. We can travel the world and everywhere find people who know enough English to talk to.
But think of people born in Finland. Finland is a complicated language, and unrelated to most European languages. So it is harder for a native Finn to learn more useful language because of that lack of relationship, and Finns are not surrounded by foreigners who learn Finnish at school.
Because Finland is a literate nation, there are universities where Finns can learn in Finnish, and I suppose there is a medical journal and a scientific journal or two in Finnish, though probably both are filled with articles translated from other languages. An educated Finn probably has to master a foreign language or two to be counted educated. Likely a Finnish university professor would subscribe to scholarly journals in English in his field, or in some other more widespread language.
But what about some person whose native language is NOT the official language of the country, and in a country less literate? Perhaps an African tribal person, speaking a language that doesn’t go beyond the tribal territories and hasn’t been a written language for long, in which perhaps the only book was once the Bible.
Such a person, speaking the tribal language, probably can get basic literacy in his language at school. But soon, one will start learning the national language— English, in some African countries. Even to stay in school through eighth grade, one probably has to get used to being taught in the national language.
A tribal language speaker, if educated, probably begins to adopt the national language as his own. The national language is where the books are, after all. If his own tribal language is large, maybe there are a few books printed in it each year, and perhaps a magazine. But if the language is small, there may be little to nothing— and what IS printed may be things like devotional booklets and hymn books, not a comprehensive choice of reading material. The tribal language speaker may teach his children the national language first, which might make the tribal language a boring chore to the children.
There may be laws to try to bring justice. A nation like Finland may subsidize books and periodicals in Finnish, and perhaps tax imported books in other languages. An African nation with tribal groups might pass a law saying that every child has a right to basic instruction in the tribal language— might even pay for the printing of reading books in the tribal languages. Such efforts, even if fully funded, don’t change things. It is still more practical for a person with a non-global language to master a global language.
The ‘practical’ global language can vary from country to country, and change over historical periods. At one time, many nations near China found it very practical for their noble caste to master Chinese. Once French, as the language of diplomacy, was widely learned. English was only later recognized as a useful world language.
After World War I, people gave some thought to more idealistic solutions. Perhaps a simple-to-learn invented language could be adopted by the world as a second language. It would be neutral, see? No more having to learn the language of your nation’s enemy because that nation had better armies.
There were already such invented languages available. Solresol and Volapük had gotten some press coverage, and Volapük societies had been founded to promote that language, to the extent it was said that the international language problem was solved. When Esperanto came along in 1887, using many international word roots to the point that many speakers of Latin-based languages could read Esperanto texts at first sight, many Volapük groups adopted Esperanto as their new international language.
One thing many Esperantists (Esperanto speakers) bickered about was possible changes and improvements to Esperanto. A Frenchman decided to reform Esperanto by removing all the ‘ugly’ words of German or Slavic origin and replacing them with something more French. He called his ‘improved’ Esperanto ‘Ido,’ in token that it was a child of Esperanto. Ido is still spoken by a few people today, and propagates by sending leaflets to members of Esperanto societies. (I can actually read Ido, just from knowing Esperanto.)
How does a strange invented international language lead to linguistic justice? It does even now, but mostly for middle-class people who adopt Esperanto as a kind of eccentric hobby, correspond with other Esperantists, go to Esperanto conventions, and such. They have an international connection normally only wealthy people with expensive schooling or expensive translators have.
Esperanto is good technology, for all it was invented by an eccentric Polish-Jewish oculist. I have read of a study that shows that Esperanto can be learned in 1/10 the time it takes to learn a ‘natural’ language like English or Spanish. I learned it in about four months, well enough to read some books in Esperanto from a library. Now, I was a language geek, I knew English and was studying German seriously, and I had picked up a lot of Spanish, so that was an advantage for me.
I had read of another study, in which two classes of school children were compared. One group had four years of French instruction. The other had one year of Esperanto instruction, followed by three years of French instruction. Both groups did equally well at French at the end of the study. Among other things, that shows a bit of Esperanto instruction can be inserted into language instruction programs without causing the students to get behind in their more important languages.
Here is the thing: if, at any time, some nation began to promote the use of Esperanto, that would at least lead to more linguistic justice. If Finland, for example, added Esperanto as a first foreign language, and perhaps subsidized an Esperanto magazine and perhaps a scientific journal in Esperanto, with perhaps summaries of each journal article in Finnish, Finns would have the advantage of a simple, easily learned second language. Given the Esperanto community, Finland would become a destination for Esperanto tourism and Esperanto conventions. If Finland kept up its Esperanto support for years, Esperanto tourism to Finland would become a regular thing. Other countries might find it practical to follow suit. As a result, Finnish people, just from knowing Esperanto along with their Finnish, would be a little more like people from England or the US. They would still be at somewhat of a linguistic disadvantage, but it would be lessened.
Why didn’t Esperanto catch on then, in its heyday? You must remember, big nations with widely-learned languages had an economic advantage. When French was the international language of diplomacy, native French speakers with any degree of education could go abroad to become French teachers, tutors or governesses. French books would be sold widely outside France. And France had greater prestige.
The same happens now with English. English speakers whose educational deficiencies appall me can still get jobs abroad teaching English. English language movies are shown around the world, often undubbed. But when was the last time you went to see a Hungarian movie, or Nepalese movie? Airline pilots around the globe have to know English. Globally a lot of people angrily resent Americans or Englishmen, but they learn our language anyway, in spite of its difficulties.
I believe English speakers as a group will never, while English is dominant, embr
ace a need to learn Esperanto or any other language. At best, we might adopt a year of Esperanto instruction in schools for children to help them improve their ability to learn other things, and likely only after some small nations have adopted such a program. But Esperanto can’t be put back into the box. There are books printed every year in Esperanto, radio broadcasts, many turned now into podcasts, in Esperanto, internet groups in Esperanto. Esperanto music groups recording Esperanto pop music, and many other things. It will be there when people start feeling a need to use it.
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