patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring) (10/08/89)
email to: Melcir Erksine-Richmond <GLOBALCP@UVVM.BITNET>
SAMPLE ISSUE
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Electronic Journal of GlobalCP Vol. 1, No. 1 - October, 1989
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******************************** FOR 21ST CENTURY LIVING" **********
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FEATURE:
L'Amour du Cosmos: 21st Century Sustainable-habitat Global Model ..... 1
NEWS CO-OP:
Unitex: United Nations Information Technology Exchange .......... 7
Kidsnet - A Global Network for Children .......... 10
FUTURE ISSUES .......... 11
HOW TO ASSIST GlobalCP'S PROJECTS .......... 12
SUBSCRIPTION TO Proto-Type Journal & MEMBERSHIP TO GlobalCP .......... 12
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L'AMOUR DU COSMOS - 21ST CENTURY SUSTAINABLE-HABITAT GLOBAL MODEL
Melcir R. Erskine-Richmond
| A global sustainable-habitat social-design model - a consortium of |
| world university-cities, linked to the planet by topsail schooner |
| and interactive high-tech telecast and on-line computer electronic |
| network - to model an eco-healthy and aesthetic prototype of the |
| highest socio-cultural order, for 21st Century planetary living. |
What if our social, political and spiritual leaders should decide to unite
to help Earth achieve a super-culture? - Currently, do national policies,
plus the varying world-views of international religious doctrines and
traditional ethnic customs, unintentionally block humankind from achieving
this milestone turning-point in global societal development? Can we bridge
these philosophical gulfs, in order to globalize the planet?
That many third-world nations today suffer deep-rooted socio-economic con-
straints is at least in part due to historic concepts of nationhood deter-
mined by econo-political or geographic boundaries, rather than demographic-
ally, based on true socio-cultural homogeneity. Catering nationally to the
needs of previously unrelated ethnic and cultural groups creates complex and
costly governmental structures. Additional difficulties arise in both the
education and communications sectors, when such fragmented national composi-
tion is further constrained through a multiplicity of regional minority lan-
guages and/or dialects (eg. Nigeria, with a population of some 90 millions,
accommodates some 250 languages; and Papua New Guinea, homeland to some 4
million people, struggles with over 700 local languages), or through geo-
graphic isolation. Can we hope to achieve a universally acceptable world
peace, or restructure our global biosphere, without addressing these and
other issues in global communications and values-unification? Should
contemporary societal goals continue to encourage regional ethnocentricity,
with its cultural and political provincialism, when this practice disem-
powers so many minorities from participating in discussion on the escalating
global and space problems which increasingly demand united planetary action?
As we strive to globalize our society, rapid communications (electronic and
linguistic) becomes an essential planetary facilitator for focussing our
efforts to determine the most desirable future goals. Achievement of this
objective is currently thwarted by the ongoing use of several thousand
languages around the world. However, the mother tongue for approximately
45-50% of earth's people is one of only five languages - Chinese, English,
Spanish, Russian and Hindi. A further 15% speak German, Japanese, Arabic,
Bengali, Portuguese, French, and Italian (1). In our move toward global-
isation of our common heritage (2), should compulsory education curricula,
by the year 2000, be taught in only the world's major spoken and written
languages (English, Mandarin, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, German, Japanese,
French, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili and Italian)? Might we further determine to
provide, by some agreed future date, free language education for the world's
populace in only the then five major languages? Ethnic continuity of lan-
guage, folklore, music, costume, history and cultural traditions, should
rest in the hands of cultural groups, as a social rallying focus. For
formal discussion of global issues, a single lingua franca must be selected.
A SHARED VISION?:
Should we espouse a collective vision as a planetary social goal? What, for
example, would constitute a genuine paradise, utopia or 'heaven-on-Earth'?
Would such a goal provide a universally desirable objective for humanity?
Can humanity even begin to envisage the potentialities of such a fulfilling
life-system in this present culturally and politically fragmented tumultuous
world society? - If we do agree to interweave not only our ancient ethnic
individuality, but also our resources, races and religions, will we achieve
spatial unity and a futuristic planetary culture, able to maturely address
significant world issues, both positive and negative? To assist this pro-
cess, might we not wish to offer through the United Nations an award system
of access to international or world citizenship for international and world
service?
To achieve this inspiring trans-ethnic goal, we must set aside many of our
treasured but increasingly anachronistic traditions and cultural assump-
tions, including that of small socio-cultural groups being necessarily 'sig-
nificant'. While many ethnic minority groups are not only aesthetically and
anthropologically 'beautiful', and live in habitat-sustaining ways, in har-
mony with their local eco-system constraints, their colourful individuality
still creates obvious local problems - such as an inability to outgrow cus-
toms and world-views based on assumption; and lifestyles, languages and
regional customs which are unviable in a global society; plus being restric-
ted by those group processes which limit the social evolution of either or
both the group and its individual members.
Faced with an escalating fullscale planetary emergency in our biosphere, we
need to rapidly attain sustainable-habitat global values. In terms of this
crisis, 'small' has come to mean 'weak', being politically and economically
unviable. While our diverse global cultural heritage should not be subsumed
to political pressure, nor local linguistic birthright or ethnic identity
sacrificed to policy-making, survival of our life-giving biosphere and of
earth's faunal and floral species biodiversity must assume first priority,
and become our reason for voluntarily choosing to adopt national and inter-
national group processes. Resolution of the weighty and emotional issues
attending this major redirection of societal values and norms will require
the concentrated application of world thinkers and activists, to synergize
and bring to fruition this profoundly urgent, but exhaustive goal.
The need for an enlightened and acceptable global lifestyle prototype is our
greatest immediate human goal, being a vital component of planetary ecolog-
ical security and of a lasting and socially viable global peace. Such a
prototype will provide an acceptable role-model for humanity's emulation.
Towards this agenda, the immediate goal for the remainder of this 20TH
CENTURY is simply, to make Earth energy-efficient, by enacting powerful
legislation to redress our apallingly abused energy-systems. These issues
include the need to:
a) premeditate mankind's propensity for divided reaction on certain issues
(eg. security, ethics, safety, and other matters) by mediating super-
science's dilemmas (eg. ensure space-for-peace; resolve the clean energy
v. nuclear fission/fusion debate; ban thermonuclear weaponry and other
war machinery stock-piling; legalise personal patient/doctor discretion
in all medical decisions; define precise pre-natal foetal/infant devel-
opmental stages and health priorities, etc);
b) implement policy to reverse the devastation of our Biosphere (depletion
of the ozone-layer; the greenhouse effect; global weather-change; acid-
rain; water-poisoning; whole-forest destruction; species loss; soil
erosion);
c) establish efficient control-management and recycling of garbage and
toxic waste;
d) rebalance the global economy, by redressing workload/wealth-distribution
and gender/race/age/generation inequities.
e) develop and administer social reform programs to ensure the basic rights
of all people to clean water, adequate food, shelter, clothing, freedom,
safety, sanitation, health-care, and education;
f) determine and advise ecologically-sound global lifestyle patterns.
GLOBAL PLAN FOR SUSTAINABLE HABITABILITY OF LIFE ON EARTH WILL CREATE AN
ENORMOUS GROWTH-SURGE OF NEW POST-INDUSTRIAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT:
GlobalCP believes that the determination of this ecologically-sound global
lifestyle pattern must focus on the use and development of ONLY non-crucial
sustainable/renewable energies - such as harnessing natural earth, air,
fire and water powers (including shared ocean-thermal energy conversion),
and redirecting free electricity and solar energy from space via satellites
and geostationary platforms. As well, we must develop a global off-peak
shared energy-grid (which will tap existing clean-power sources, plus
create and interlink a new network of small-scale distributed tropical and
sub-tropical solar energy power units), to reduce supply costs and enable
presently low energy-yield, remote zones of the earth's inhabited surface
(such as deserts, mountains, islands, and wastelands), to enjoy major
energy-boosts, and thereby to become more habitable.
To prevent continuing environmental degradation from terminating the possi-
bility for continued habitability of life on Earth, we must urgently init-
iate massive reafforestation projects, and redress the widespread problems
of soil erosion, water-poisoning, weather-alteration, and multi-species
habitat loss, which inexpert environment management practices, such as un-
restricted logging, slash-burning, industrial emissions, and toxic waste
pollution have perpetrated upon the planet's surface. We must undertake vast
basic plankton and foodchain-restocking programs, both oceanographically
and in land-based aquaculture projects, as commercial enterprises and in
international aid packages to the damaged foodchains of many 3rd world
nations.
Development of a planetwide evolutionary and ecologically-responsible life-
style, with self-challenging futuristic multi-stage educational curricula,
is necessarily the prime objective for global and space security, and for
the continuing survival of Earth's lifeforms in the coming Age. This global
plan necessitates the dedicated single-minded support of not only the United
Nations and its many Agencies, but also of all Commonwealths of Nations,
Unions, Republics and single-nation states - both privileged members of aff-
luent post-industrial super-nation groups, and struggling 3rd world nations
concerned with overcoming a multitude of internal problems. This goal also
offers enormous potential for future growth and development, an issue of
vital and positive interest to multi-national corporations and institutes.
Since the resources accumulated by these bodies comprise a vast and increas-
ing share of the planet's body of wealth, their decision to allocate size-
able research and development funds to this global project will inject enor-
mous power for worldwide biosphere restoration, increased energy-efficiency,
planetary lifestyle improvement, future trade opportunities, plus business
growth and development, into the launching of this prototype.
SIX 21ST CENTURY PLANETARY CITIES, PLUS OCEANGOING CITY-IN-MINIATURE:
We invite representatives of concerned governmental and corporate bodies
to assist in creating an expanding research and development fund for this
global cultural prototype [GlobalCP] through their local professional and
work environments. Regular institutional and personal contribution to this
fund is advocated, with the goal of enabling development of a consortium of
six multicultural international University-Cities, as models dedicated to
the creation of a planetary lifestyle prototype. These models will be
interlinked by oceangoing schooner/tall ship and by interactive telecom-
munications network, to transmit the emerging lifestyle aesthetics of this
21st Century plan to the rest of the planet.
First phase support-facility plans are for a International Development Com-
mittee [IDC] to fund and equip a Global Electronic Network [GEN] - a high-
technology interactive telecommunications and multi-disciplinary Distance
Education system. This in turn will provide public awareness and promotion
for development of the more advanced stages of the project, including fund-
ing for the oceangoing schooner.
The six cities will be built adjoining navigable waters - in countries both
north and south of the equator. Each will be organized and administrated
on international principles [perhaps under the aegis of the United Nations].
Participation of individuals will be as global citizens, rather than on
national basis. Each city - as part of its highly futuristic orientation -
will utilize top levels of expertise for conceptual modelling, strategic
planning, and prototype development and testing. It will access all levels
of educational facilities and networking, employing 21st Century concepts in
community and environmental integration modelling.
Each will incorporate advanced concepts in precise site-locating, both con-
temporary, including remote sensing, surveying and engineering, and as re-
cently recovered from ancient sites - and based upon a harmony with local
magnetic energies (the genius locii), plus the seasonal pattern of the con-
stellational heavens [Universe], passing directly overhead each site. In
this regard, it is now known that the city-planners of many ancient cultures
conducted a sophisticated site-analysis prior to the establishment of their
cities. Thus the circular astronomical design of each global city will be
unique, its plan reflecting the varying stellar configurations passing over-
head, according to its latitude. Contemporary international research reveals
that such design-principles produce extraordinarily beneficial harmonic and
aesthetic lifestyle qualities, plus improved functionality, in communities
so founded. (More will be said of this in later issues of this Journal.)
THE OCEANGOING CITY/SCHOONER:
Another function of GlobalCP's I D Committee is to provide a suitable ocean-
going schooner, to transport personnel and equipment between port cities,
and act as a floating promotional and educational conference facility and
University-of-the-Seas, audio-visually equipped to demonstrate the concepts
and research programs of each model city to the world. The formation of
links between GlobalCP, its international tall-ship and the many Sail Train-
ing associations, Education-at-Sea programs, maritime corporations, charter
groups and other seafaring bodies worldwide is encouraged, through the ap-
pointment of representatives to GlobalCP by the administrators and commit-
tees of these bodies.
The vessel will be equipped to meet international ocean-sailing regulations,
and to function as a travelling permanent academic community - a university
/city in miniature. Developed as a technologically competent floating campus
/conference center, it will have capacity for live international telecast
transmission and interactive communications [by televised satellite relay,
radio-telephone, on-line computer networking, and other media], with the
many GlobalCP Network nodes [operating at the six land-sites, and at various
points around the planet, including both ports and inland centres], as sup-
port groups emerge. Ease of international movement of peoples, and of a
range of equipment, are intrinsic factors in development of these cities,
which will be established adjacent navigable waters, and with accessibility
to airports, existing or planned. These details correctly resolved, the
movement of students and trainers through the cities can be readily facilit-
ated.
The six land-contributing national GlobalCP committees will liaise with the
groups of other countries, to contribute funds, expertise and resources to
develop each model city, plus the international schooner and communications
network. Ongoing development and training will be the product of shared
expertise.
BENEFITS OF 21ST CENTURY GLOBAL-CITY MODELS:
The cities, schooner and support network will function as an ecologically
balanced and aesthetic cohesive unit, developed to further world under-
standing and cooperation for peace, and to encourage non-partisan resolution
of international and global problems. The environment created for this
emerging matrix will thus be highly conducive to the funding and establish-
ment of a diverse range of future research projects. Additionally, this
international, apolitical and non-sectarian setting will create a superb
showcase for demonstrating new eco-tech developments and prototypes. Whether
for proposed enterprises destined for international commercial marketing or
non-financial global sharing, this prototype habitat of the future will
assist a ready market acceptance and nurturance of new ecologically-safe
products and/or services by the wider global community.
Thus the chief function of the GlobalCP Network is to provide a purposeful
and practical vehicle for peaceful global interaction, to serve as an ideal
model for planetwide sharing and harmonious cooperation - on projects which
would otherwise prove beyond the scope of individual nations to complete and
launch, or which require the combined expertise of the world's leading
thinkers to fulfill. The project is designed to stimulate new creative out-
lets for the concepts of the United Nations and its Agencies, and for mul-
tinational government Consortiums, including the British Commonwealth, and
the various governmental and non-governmental alliances, plus international
tourism, trade and cultural associations.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE:
The project seeks official recognition and funding, with a minimum of direc-
tion, from the world's nations and commercial enterprises. The immediate
goal is to promote this concept through its' efficient and professional
introduction to top-level national and international management, in both
public and private sectors. In this, your sponsorship will prove invalu-
able. May we therefore cordially invite you to table your proposed areas of
participation for your next business agenda, and to liaise with us on your
progress? Local sub-committees will form from such initial efforts, and
from these will emerge the later national and international committees.
To assist expansion of this international University-Cities Consortium and
Network, national and regional development committees [NDCs and RDCs] are
being established, both in land-contributing countries and in other partic-
ipating nations, around the globe. Their specific task is to fund, secure
and develop suitable lands, oceangoing schooner, eco-technical and communic-
ations support systems, and appropriate and aesthetic city design at each
site. At all levels - governmental, institutional, corporate and individual
- funding, equipment, expertise, services and assistance are required. Your
ongoing support is invaluable.
Telecommunications contact and data-flow are being established via computer
networks, as funding is made available. Technical assistance and financial
contributions around the world, including provision of office space, furn-
ishings, and equipment, etc., are urgently needed. GlobalCP needs the pro-
fessional and technical expertise of environmental/urban designers, astron-
omers, surveyors, eco-technical agronomers, engineers, scientists, inventors
analysts, maritime specialists, lecturers, visionaries, artists, writers,
photographers, resource personnel, camera-crews, graphics teams, networkers
and fundraisers, general staff, etc., to contribute expertise, enterprise,
and support, in the various aspects of this task (the contributor list being
as varied as is high human endeavour). It is hoped the infrastructure for
these model cities will emerge by the year 2000, to celebrate the advent of
an age of globalized enlightenment.
(1) Kenneth Katzner, The Languages of the World, 1986, Routledge & Kegan
Paul, London, pp.viii-ix.
(2) World Commission Our Common Future, 1987, Oxford University Press,
on Environment & Oxford.
Development
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GlobalCP has received information on the work of compatible projects. The
following two international projects promote concepts which bring us closer
together as a global community.
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= UNITEX CONFERENCE DISTRIBUTION TO UNIVERSITY NETWORKS =
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UNITEX supplies and disseminates information obtained from United Nations
mainframe databases and related sources. It is a major advocate for the dis-
tribution of 'raw', uncensored and un-edited material obtained from official
UN sources and is playing a key role in the acquisition and distribution of
UN press Releases, UN Radio News, UN International News, UNICEF Press Rel-
eases, Electronic Publishing (DIPA) and related UNICEF documents and World-
wide Disaster News and Relief Plans from UNDRONET.
The UNITEX conference was established in 1987, on microcomputer distributed
networks and had a limited distribution in the United States, Canada and
Australia. Today UNITEX maintains approximately 12 to 16 direct links at any
given time. UNITEX was originally part of the "Socially Conscious 7" and
the only USA link in the group, which included 3 from Canada and 3 from
Australia.
The issues that UNITEX presents are many and are dependent on current poli-
tical topics of interest and timely international news. The key areas are:
Human Rights, Disarmament, 3rd World and Developing Countries, World Peace
Issues, Space News/NASA and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Worldwide Disaster
News & Relief Programs, Technology Transfer and Information Exchange, Envir-
onment, World Health Organization Reports (International health), Reports
from the General Assembly and World Bank.
MISC.HEADLINES.UNITEX: A SUMMARY DESCRIPTION
UNITEX distributes and disseminates current International News and United
Nations News, UN Press Releases and other UN related information obtained
from specific UN agencies and departments, such as the UN Department of Pub-
lic Information (DPI), UNICEF, World Health Organization and various UN
data-bases in New York, Vienna and Geneva. UNITEX also focuses on timely
news and information gathered from other sources, such as, governmental and
scientific databases (NASA, Dep't. of Energy, etc), various newsletters, as
well as environmental and ecological information, vis a vis the UN Environ-
mental Program. It also reports on the UN Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
Committee (UNISPACE), International Treaties and Boundary Issues, Interna-
tional Health and Medical Issues, Laws of the Sea and other information that
affects our universe and reality and that can help foster global understand-
ing.
The news and information sources for much of the material that UNITEX dist-
ributes are direct transcriptions from UN delegates, as well as senior
members of the respective international embassies addressing the General As-
sembly or discussions from UN Special Sessions. This serves as a 'real'
interactive news media when the user replies or responses are made by
government officials, UN delegates, International political leaders, scien-
tists, etc, as they sometimes do on this system or other remote systems
which are linked to this newsgroup/conference.
UNITEX: AN INTRODUCTION and OVERVIEW
The project undertaken by UNITEX falls within the guidelines and categor-
ies of several main United Nations Organizations, such as UNDP, UNESCO,
UNIDO, UNCTAD, UN DPI and UNEP. UNITEX has demonstrated a technology for
information and technology transfer which has resulted in the building of
a truly global network. Direct computer links to its host system have grown
from seven to several thousand. Readership, end-users and participants
have grown from less than a hundred to over one million in less than two
years. The pilot project was financed exclusively from personal and private
funds made available by the principal founders of UNITEX, Dr. James Waldron
and Ms.Dorothy Nicklus, as well as donations and contributions from members.
UNITEX provides the technology and gateways for an interactive international
news forum, in addition to the dissemination of large amounts of UN public
information throughout the United States, Canada, Western Europe, the
Pacific Rim and Australia. This information consists of UN Press Releases,
UNICEF information, Disaster Relief Alerts from UNDRONET, news and informa-
tion on environmental and ecological issues, Disarmament, Human Rights,
Decolonization, safe uses of nuclear energy, papers and articles from UN
Special Committees, abstracts and summaries from the General Assembly, etc,
etc. UNITEX provides information to schools, colleges and universities
which total more than 12,000 sites.
Additionally, UNITEX connects to public and private microcomputer-based net-
works incorporating distributed or wide-area network technology. UNITEX
also receives and distributes large volumes of environmental data and news
concerning the biosphere, through its connections and gateways to major eco-
logy and environmental networks and newsletters, via electronic data feeds
from environmental organizations, such as Audobon, WindEnergy, PeaceNet,
GreenPeace, and various university newsletters. All this information is
categorized and added to its regular online conference database.
UNITEX has expanded exponentially in the two years since the project was
first conceived. It gathers and disseminate UN public information and news
on a daily time schedule (300,000+ bytes or characters per week consisting
of, in part, UN Press Releases, UNICEF News, UN disaster relief alerts,
articles and papers presented at the UN General Assembly, papers from UN
Special Committees) to connected systems worldwide. This information is
delivered via high speed modems (19000+ baud, using state-of-the art data
compression algorithms and the latest protocols, such as Zmodem and Sealink.
On the technical end, UNITEX has been involved directly in the ongoing de-
velopment of proprietary error-correcting and restartable protocols - that
are ideally suited for long distance transmissions over low quality phone
lines. Other outgrowths of this R&D effort have resulted in new electronic-
mail standards for conferencing software, duplicate message elimination and
customized gateway software interfaces to bridge the gap between disparate
systems and so-called non-compatible networks. At the present time, UNITEX
reaches well over one million computer users every day!.
Remote and private networks can be interfaced transparently into public ac-
cess systems while maintaining individual autonomy for corporate or special-
ized data and information handling. In summary, the UNITEX pilot project is
an unequivocal success. A one hundred page document can be sent from New
York to Argentina in less than two minutes (an original, not a facsimile)
*without* the need for human intervention, with automatic scheduling and
matrix-routing techniques utilizing the latest liner programming algorithms
for distribution efficiency and maximizing data throughput, machine-to-
machine transfers, inversion of the standard information transfer process
(delivery of information to the end-user in-place of seeking out and acquir-
ing the data) and several other specialized functions that go far beyond the
commercial email systems in use today.
UNITEX has, by utilizing technology which is low cost and widely available,
been able to develop a network which includes not only the developed coun-
tries, but the developing countries as well. It has demonstrated ongoing
North-South information and technology exchange with increasing country
participation. This outgrowth from what originally started as a communic-
ations 'experiment' and vehicle for various NGO organizations has now
attracted the attention of individual governments. This, it is hoped, facil-
itates understanding between countries. UNITEX supports the Vienna Program
of Action and hopes for increasing participation, perhaps on a more formal
level, by sharing, teaching, and demonstratng the results of its research,
and by participating in and/or assisting the Inter-governmental Committee in
the integration of this research and the implementation for its development.
Apart from its main goal as technology and information provider, UNITEX
helps to make the United Nations' goals and efforts more widely known, adds
to international understanding and reduces misunderstandings. International
news and new technological developments occurring in both industrialized and
developing nations is transmitted, distributed and disseminated by UNITEX
to all direct private and public links, via distributed network and wide-
area network technology.
UNITEX is an independent agency and is not part of the United Nations. It is
*not* a conventional news service with 'clip' data, but a Global Network
that gathers information on behalf of the United Nations. The UNITEX confer-
ence is moderated by Patt Haring. Most sites that receive this newsgroup can
post or enter a message directly, causing the readnews software to auto-
matically route postings to the moderator's e-mail address.
If this is not the case, postings can be sent directly to:
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu or patth@ccnysci.BITNET.
Their host network system in Hoboken, NJ can be reached independently at
201/ 795-0733. The parameters for that system are 1200/2400/9600 PEP/8,N 1.
To be connected, callers give their name and address, pick a password (4 or
more characters) and they are then registered users and can use the system
at the local host level.
UNITEX CONTACTS:
Dr. James Waldron, Director
waldron@newport.rutgers.edu
Dorothy Nicklus, Associate Director
rutgers!rubbs!107!501!Dororthy_Nicklus
Patt Haring, UseNet UNITEX Moderator
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu or patth@ccnysci.BITNET
Michael Keyles, UNITEX Mailing List Administrator
Michael.Keyles@rubbs.uucp or keyles@newport.rutgers.edu
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= JOINKIDS@PITTVMS.BITNET - A Global Network for Children =
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Businesses and universities have come to appreciate the value of electronic
data networks. The inexpensive technology which underlies these networks
could be of equal value for pre-college education. It is proposed to provide
this facility to the world's children by establishing a global network
for the use of children and teachers in grades K-12.
Reading and writing provides us with the means to communicate on a global
level. Electronic networks provide an immediacy to global communication and
allow us to sort the resulting flow of information. This lets us direct our
remarks to an appropriate audience and gain access to information on any
subject we may seek.
If we begin to teach reading and writing in conjunction with the use of an
electronic network, we will provide children with a new global outlook as we
teach them the skills needed to utilize it. Children who grow up with this
outlook will learn that many human problems are universal and that solu-
tions to these problems may often be found through global communication and
cooperation. They will learn that knowledge is distributed around the world
and that this knowledge exists to be shared within the human community.
Simultaneously they will master the skills which will permit them to
distribute and organize the vast store of information that will be available
via electronic media.
The technology required to set up a global children's network already
exists. It is in the national interest of all developed and developing
nations to extend and apply this technology. The establishment of a
children's network would give an international scope to these efforts. It
would provide a focus for technological development and for resolving the
problems of language, standards, etc. that inevitably arise in international
communications.
The first steps toward establishing a global children's network are being
taken by a group which may be reached via KIDSNET mailing list. If you
would like to join this group, the email address is: JOINKIDS@PITTVMS.BITNET
or for further information, send email to:
Robert D. Carlitz using this email path: RDC@vms.cis.pitt.edu
From a BITNET site, use: RDC@PITTVMS.BITNET
Those on gateway-linked systems should write to: RDC@PITTVMS.BITNET
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+ FUTURE ISSUES +
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+ In future issues we will: +
* . Launch a directory (and plans for a database) for worldwide land- *
+ based and marine/maritime operations, and other items of interest +
* to the development of the project (Send in your contributions now!) *
+ . Establish a Mailroom for readers' correspondence +
* . Provide a Calendar of forthcoming international events and items *
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If we plan collectively *NOW* for a healthy and sustainable global bio-
SYSTEM IN THE 21ST CENTURY, WE CAN STILL ACHIEVE THIS GOAL.
Acknowledge-To: <GLOBALCP@UVVM>
--
Patt Haring | United Nations | Did u read
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information | misc.headlines.unitex
patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange | today?
-=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) (10/12/89)
GLOBALCP@UVVM.BITNET (Melcir Erksine-Richmond) writes: >As we strive to globalize our society, rapid communications (electronic and >linguistic) becomes an essential planetary facilitator for focussing our >efforts to determine the most desirable future goals. Achievement of this >objective is currently thwarted by the ongoing use of several thousand >languages around the world. Agreed. >... should compulsory education curricula, by the year 2000, be taught >in only the world's major spoken and written languages (English, Mandarin, >Hindi, Russian, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili >and Italian)? No. I think that would impose an inappropriate burden upon the majority of the world, which do _not_ speak any of those languages. It would be seen and interpreted - correctly, I think - as cultural ethnocentrism, as well as a poor example of the capacity for leadership on the part of world leaders, as the example they would be setting would be, not one of communication at all costs, but, rather, communication in the most concenient fashion ( relative to those making the decision ). >Ethnic continuity of language, folklore, music, costume, history and >cultural traditions, should rest in the hands of cultural groups, >as a social rallying focus. Agreed. But let us discriminate between language for the purpose of cele- -brating our cultural origins, and language for the purpose of synchronizing our actions for the good of all. One exists for reasons of beauty and nature, the other for reasons of efficiency and expediency. Perhaps those conflicting requirements should be regarded as a mandate for separation of the two issues, rather than allowing it to be used to fuel the flames of one or another of the nationalist / linguistic champions. Most cultural groups use one language for their cultural enrichment, but the other, dominant tongue for administrative requirements. I would submit that what we are searching for is a widely acceptable, potentially universal administrative language. >For discussion of global issues, a single lingua franca must be selected. Agreed. I submit Esperanto as the only logical choice, as it is equally strange to all, and thus allows nobody to gain an upper hand or occupy a position of superiority without having earned it, independently of his or her culture and language of origin. I think that is _very_ important. >To achieve this inspiring trans-ethnic goal, we must set aside many of our >treasured but increasingly anachronistic traditions and cultural assump- >tions, including that of small socio-cultural groups being necessarily 'sig- >nificant'. While many ethnic minority groups are not only aesthetically and >anthropologically 'beautiful', and live in habitat-sustaining ways, in har- >mony with their local eco-system constraints, their colourful individuality >still creates obvious local problems - such as an inability to outgrow cus- >toms and world-views based on assumption; and lifestyles, languages and >regional customs which are unviable in a global society; plus being restric- >ted by those group processes which limit the social evolution of either or >both the group and its individual members. I think this is being taken care of by evolution, no need to force it. The people who want to stay at home, should be allowed to stay at home. The ones who want to travel and study and learn and evolve should have their chance. Perhaps a planetary exchange program, not strictly related to scholastic factors, driven by local needs ? Kind of a free-form Peace Corps ... >GLOBAL PLAN FOR SUSTAINABLE HABITABILITY OF LIFE ON EARTH WILL CREATE AN >ENORMOUS GROWTH-SURGE OF NEW POST-INDUSTRIAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT: Indeed. The trick is to get our parents and politicians to accept it. -- richard -- * A CITIZEN: "Who might you be ? Samson ? --" * * CYRANO: "Precisely. Would you kindly lend me your jawbone ?" * * from _Cyrano de Bergerac_, by Edmond Rostand * * ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers *
breen@SILVER.BACS.INDIANA.EDU (elise breen) (10/12/89)
ESPERANTO ??? You have to be kidding when you say that this would be equally difficult for everyon everyone. Anyone who is fairly fluent in a Romance language plus has had some Latin (though the Latin isn't necessary) can get along in Esperanto with a weekend course in the basics of its morphology and syntax! You'd be cutting out the majority of the rest of the world's population, however. This would be like saying "why not make the Chinese character system the universal writing system (not a bad idea, actually, since you could express any language with it)", though of course this would be giving a huge advantage to China, Japan, Korea and a number of other Asian countries... It'd be rough on our word-processing software, though :-) Elise
markxx@garnet.berkeley.edu (10/12/89)
In article <2145@avsd.UUCP> childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes: >GLOBALCP@UVVM.BITNET (Melcir Erksine-Richmond) writes: > >>... should compulsory education curricula, by the year 2000, be taught >>in only the world's major spoken and written languages (English, Mandarin, >>Hindi, Russian, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili >>and Italian)? > >No. I think that would impose an inappropriate burden upon the majority of >the world, which do _not_ speak any of those languages. [etc.] > >>For discussion of global issues, a single lingua franca must be selected. > >Agreed. I submit Esperanto as the only logical choice, as it is equally >strange to all, and thus allows nobody to gain an upper hand or occupy a >position of superiority without having earned it, independently of his or >her culture and language of origin. I think that is _very_ important. > Esparanto is *not* equally strange to all. Consider its rather european liguistic biases. For someone coming from a tonal language, such as Thai or Chinese, it would be very different than someone who came to it from a linguistic background that includeds a relationship, however remote, to Latin. I don't want to start a flame fest over the merits/ etc. of Esparanto, but it is not really as linguistically unbiased as it may at first appear. While in theory a language that is "equally strange to all" (in my opinion an impossibility) would be a good idea, there are a large number of hurdles to get over that Esparanto or any other constructed language would have to deal with. The biggest of these is the installed base of users (to borrow a term :-). While Chinese may be spoken by the largest number of people, it is not as widespread as the use of English. Esparanto is (unfortunatlly or not) an obscure language primarily used by people interested in linguistics etc. In the part of your posting that I deleted before this thought struck me, you mentioned evolution, which may take care of a lot of this. It seems that natural selection has chosen English as the de-facto standard language in global communication. While I agree that other solutions would probably be more optimal, only English has a distribution wide enough (geographically etc.) to consider it the global communication language. While this fact is due also to the historical legacy of American, and British (to a lesser extent) hegemony in the developing world and elsewhere, it is a fact of life. Go *anywere* in the world, and with a wide enough sample, you are more likely to run into someone who speaks English than any other language. I have run into people in remote areas of the Himalayas, Africa and Thailand who all spoke English to one degree or another. Admittidly the sample is small, but serves to illustrate my point. It will be interesting to see if with the decline of American dominance in world affairs, both political and otherwise, if the English language will begin to be divorced from its origins as a "tool of imperialism." I would hazard a guess that this is already happening to some extent. At many international conferences, the participants usually end up speaking English in the discussion sessions, because that is the most common language. In spite of an historical legacy which is more than enough endowed with imperialism, cultural and otherwise, it seems that the de-facto standard that is emerging is English, however unfortunate that may be. Of course in the future the incorporation of loan words from Japanese and other languages may make the common internationally spoken English very different than what it is today. Oh yeah, it should go without saying from the content of my post, but this being the net let me make myself very clear. I am *not* a pro-English/English only etc. fanatic, and in point of fact consider it imperative that people (especially Americans) learn a number of different languages to better communicate with others, even if the person you are talking to may speak English. It represents not only common courtesy, but an attempt to break out of the "I'm an American so you better damn well speak English with me" syndrome, which, to say the least, makes me gag. So don't waste time preaching to the converted by flaming me about English imperialism/the need for bi-lingual education etc. (I guess the above would count as "flame retardant" :-) > >-- richard > >-- > * A CITIZEN: "Who might you be ? Samson ? --" * > * CYRANO: "Precisely. Would you kindly lend me your jawbone ?" * > * from _Cyrano de Bergerac_, by Edmond Rostand * > * ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers * Mark A. Ritchie Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley markxx@garnet.berkeley.edu
chou@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Pai Chou) (10/13/89)
In article <2145@avsd.UUCP> childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes: >GLOBALCP@UVVM.BITNET (Melcir Erksine-Richmond) writes: >... >Agreed. I submit Esperanto as the only logical choice, as it is equally >strange to all, and thus allows nobody to gain an upper hand or occupy a >position of superiority without having earned it, independently of his or >her culture and language of origin. I think that is _very_ important. Esperanto is a Latin/Romance/Spanish based language. The sound system can be very difficult for many people in the world (e.g. consonant cluster, stressed rather than tone, ...) Grammatically, certain languages rely on syntax while others rely on morphology (still others are implicit) to express various attributes of the sentence. It is not natural or intuitive for many people. Moreover, a language is not a closed thing. It changes over time and is used differently in different societies. It is inevitable that the language will borrow words for things specific to a given culture. Sometimes culture and languages cannot be separated. Japanese language has many ways to express humbleness and politeness. If they say the same thing in Esperanto then people from another culture will find it strange (why are they apologizing all the time?) I don't think having one single language for all people can work, especially if the language is an artificial one.
dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/13/89)
In article <18291@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> chou@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Pai Chou) writes: >Esperanto is a Latin/Romance/Spanish based language. Esperanto is based on Romance, Germanic, and Slavic vocabulary and grammar; there is no direct Spanish influence whatsoever. >I don't think having one single language for all people can work, especially >if the language is an artificial one. Esperanto is no more "artificial" than modern Hebrew; witness the way the Academy of Esperanto is blithely ignored. It is a living Indoeuropean language and the charge of artificiality is leveled at it principally by folks who have only a vague notion of what it might be. But I agree wholeheartedly with another poster who observed that English is far more widely taught than any language in history. You can't impose Esperanto - or any language - by fiat, and English has largely won in the marketplace. However, I do think that Esperanto should be the first foreign language studied by most people. It's less likely to put off a beginner, it's learnable in far less time, and (most important) experiments at Columbia University and Sheffield University strongly suggest that it is possible to teach Esperanto and a second Indoeuropean language in about the time it would take to teach the second alone. That is, Esperanto doesn't cost anything (provided you're going to learn another language anyway), so why NOT learn it? Gary -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
scott@vicorp.UUCP (Scott Reed) (10/13/89)
I was of two minds when I read this posting. 1) this looks interesting,
someone's put a lot of thought into this and 2) the ovarall aproach is
so detailed, there's little room for input at this point. It's been
developed to a point that discussion is limited to details such as
which language to use.
Nevertheless, I *do* have input about the overall approach, echoing some of
the the esperanto thread already started. It looks like diversity
is being traded off for compatibility. To my mind replacing cultural elements
(such as language or social structure) in a uniform way is a mistake. While
diversity causes a lot of strife, that's just a symptom of the problem, not
the cause. The root causes do lie in cultural and social systems, but I
think there are ways to change this without coming up with one
socio/cultural solution for everyone.
- scottamanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (10/14/89)
In article <1989Oct13.142526.13122@uncecs.edu>, dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) writes: > It is a living > Indoeuropean language and the charge of artificiality is leveled at it > principally by folks who have only a vague notion of what it might be. I don't keep up with Esperanto developments, but I have two questions about this assertion: 1. Does anyone learn it as a native language, or early enough in life to speak it with "native" fluency? 2. Is it used anywhere for day-to-day casual communication? If it is not (which is what I expect, although I could be wrong), then I would claim that it is not a "living" language. At best it would function as a trade language (not that this is a bad thing, certainly), and at worst a mildly interesting intellectual exercise. The biggest reason that I personally think of Esperanto as artificial is a very simple one: it was consciously designed by a group of people. It did not arise out of the needs of a community's need to communicate, and thus it lacks many of the characteristics of "natural" language, except by importing them. Idioms and expletives, for example... Now, I have nothing against synthetic languages in and of themselves--for instance, I think that Tolkien's Elvish languages are marvelous works of linguistic art. I don't find Esperanto quite so "pretty", but that's beside the point. However, I wouldn't try to use either for day-to-day communication, however much fun they might be for recreation. -- Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.com> "Tobacco is the only drug in America that will kill you if it's taken as directed." --Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General
chou@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Pai Chou) (10/14/89)
Some one asked me information about Esperanto.
Here is some intro from the book
"An Introduction to Language", 4th edition,
by Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, Chapter 7,
pp 287-288; copied without permission from the publisher
La inteligenta persono lernas la interlingvon
Esperanton rapide kaj facile.
("The intelligent person learns the international
language Esperanto rapidly and easily)
Since the scattering at Babel, many people have hoped
for a return to the blissful state when everyone spoke
a universal language. Lingua francas are a step in that
direction, but none has gone far enough. Since the
seventeenth century, scholars have been inventing
artificial languages with the hope that they would achieve
universal acceptance and that universal language would
bring universal peace. With stubborn regularity the world
has rejected every attempt. Perhaps the world has seen too
many civil wars to accept this idea.
The obituary column of artifical languages indicates the
constant attempt and regular failures: Bopal, Kosmos, Novial,
Parla, Spokil, Universala, and Volapuk are but a few of the
deceased hundreds. Most artificial languages never get beyond
their inventors, because they are abstruse and difficult and
uninteresting to learn.
One artificial language has enjoyed some success.
Esperanto was invented by the Polish scholar Zamenhof,
who wrote under the pseudonym of Dr. Esperanto
("one who hopes"). He gave his "language" the advantages
of extreme grammatical regularity, ease of pronounciation,
and a vocabulary based mainly on European languages.
Esperanto is spoken by several million speakers throughout
the world, including some who learned it as one of their
native languages. There is a literature written in it, a
number of institutions teach in it, and it is officially
recognized by some international organizations.
Esperantists claim that their language can be learned easily
by any intelligent person; but despite the claims of its
proponents, it is not maximally simple. There is an
obligatory accusative case (Ni lernas Esparanto_n_
"We're learning Esperanto"), and adjectives and nouns must
agree in number (inteligent_a_ person_o_ "intelligent
person", but inteligent_aj_ person_oj_ "intelligent persons").
Speakers of Chinese or Malaysian (and even English) find
these rules different from those of their own grammars.
Esperanto is regular insofar as all nouns end in -o, with
plural -oj; all adjectives end in -a, with plural -aj; the
present tense of all verbs end in -as, the future in -os,
and the past in -is; and the definite article is always la.
However, to speakers of Thai, a language that does not
have a definite article at all, Esperanto is far from "simple,"
and speeakers of the many languages that indicate tenses
without verb endings (as English indicates the future tense
with _shall_ or _will_) may find that aspect of Esperanto
difficult to learn.
A modification of Esperanto, called _Ido_ ("offspring in
Esperanto), has further simplified the language by
eliminating the accusative case and abolishing adjective
and noun agreement, but the basic problem remains.
Esperanto is essentially a Romance-based pidgin with
Greek and Germanic influence, albeit a highly developed
one with an immerse vocabulary. It therefore remains
"foreign" to most people; speakers of Russian, Hungarian,
Hausa, or Hindi would find Esperanto as unfamiliar as
French or Spanish.
The problems besetting the world community are basically
nonlinguistic, despite the linguistic problems that do exist.
Language problems may intensify social and economic
problems, but they do not generally cause wars, unemployment,
poverty, pollution, and disease.
------------------------------------------------
End of chapter
Here is my view: these are attempts to establish a
SPOKEN artificial language such that the written form
and the spoken form are a one-to-one mapping.
However, for languages like Chinese and especially Japanese
there are a lot of characters which get mapped to the same sound
and tone; while Chinese uses compounds (i.e. group two or
more characters together to make a new compound word)
to resolve the ambiguity, names are impossible to map back
to their original representation once they are mapped to
the phonetic form because Chinese to Esperanto is a
many-to-one mapping.dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/15/89)
In article <1489@intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > 1. Does anyone learn it as a native language, or early enough in life to > speak it with "native" fluency? Yes, there are now quite a number of native ("denaskaj") Esperantists, the offspring of Esperanto-speaking couples. In a few cases the couples in question come from different linguistic backgrounds and use Esperanto as the routine medium at home. In others they simply set out to teach the child both the local language and Esperanto from birth. In addition, it is quite possible for an adult learner to acquire native-level (what I believe the U.S. Foreign Service calls "level 5") fluency in Esperanto. I have personally met totally fluent adults and children. > > 2. Is it used anywhere for day-to-day casual communication? > See above. Also, it is used routinely in an international orphanage in Brazil, at Gressillon castle (an Esperanto vacation resort of sorts) in France, etc. j >The biggest reason that I personally think of Esperanto as artificial is >a very simple one: it was consciously designed by a group of people. It >did not arise out of the needs of a community's need to communicate, and >thus it lacks many of the characteristics of "natural" language, except >by importing them. Idioms and expletives, for example... "Importing" is of course a widespread characteristic of "natural" languages (ever visited le drugstore?). There certainly are idiomatic usages, expletives, and slang in Esperanto. "Conscious design" is characteristic to some extent of any language with prescriptive dictionaries or an "academy." I might note that insisting on these presumed "natural" attributes is arbitrary to begin with. Being an empiricist at heart, I can't help noting that theoretical objections to Esperanto must somehow deal with the numbers of linguists, poets, etc, - people who are presumably qualified to judge the merits of a language and its usability - who have pronounced it a "real" and expressive language. (For example, the current head of the Universala Esperanto Asocio is a linguist at the University of London, and his predecessor is a former professor of English literature now an American university president.) >Now, I have nothing against synthetic languages in and of themselves--for >instance, I think that Tolkien's Elvish languages are marvelous works >of linguistic art. I don't find Esperanto quite so "pretty", but that's >beside the point. However, I wouldn't try to use either for day-to-day >communication, however much fun they might be for recreation. I could be wrong, but this seems to me a rather firm decision to reach based on what strike me as a set of misconceptions. If I'm mistaken and you do know something about Esperanto please correct me. Gary -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/15/89)
In article <18357@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> chou@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Pai Chou) writes: >Some one asked me information about Esperanto. >Here is some intro from the book >"An Introduction to Language", 4th edition, > by Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, Chapter 7, > pp 287-288; copied without permission from the publisher > > >Since the >seventeenth century, scholars have been inventing >artificial languages with the hope that they would achieve >universal acceptance and that universal language would >bring universal peace. Very few artificial languages have been advanced with that aim. With respect to Esperanto, the idea probably grows out of its association with groups favoring international peace and understanding, and what Zamenhof (its inventor) termed the "interna ideo" that motivates many people to be interested in it. No one (to my knowledge) has ever seriously proposed that a univeral language would bring peace, but it has been more reasonably suggested that international understanding wouldn't hurt. This is a radical idea? >despite the claims of its >proponents, it is not maximally simple. True enough. Attempts to "simplify" it by fiat have been largely ignored (which is one attribute one would expect of a living tongue). >A modification of Esperanto, called _Ido_ ("offspring" in >Esperanto), has further simplified the language by >eliminating the accusative case I'm pretty sure that Ido retains the accusative when it comes at the front of the sentence ("Esperanton kreis Zamenhof"). This preserves a stylistic advantage of Esperanto but adds complication, in the form of exceptions, to the grammar. Ido's spelling is less consistent and its vocabulary less based on the Esperanto idea of forming new words by compounding old roots - the single biggest advantage to the language in learnability terms. >Esperanto is essentially a Romance-based pidgin with >Greek and Germanic influence, albeit a highly developed >one with an immense vocabulary. It therefore remains >"foreign" to most people; speakers of Russian, Hungarian, >Hausa, or Hindi would find Esperanto as unfamiliar as >French or Spanish. Nonsense, according to native speakers of Russian, Hungarian, Chinese, etc. I've heard. Indeed, for years Russia had the largest community of Esperanto speakers in the world, and Esperanto is very big in Hungary as well, not to mention China and (to a lesser degree) Korea and Japan. I suspect the authors are going by what they think the case might be rather than relying on any research. >Language problems may intensify social and economic >problems, but they do not generally cause wars, unemployment, >poverty, pollution, and disease.. Gee, no kidding! Gary -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle) (10/16/89)
dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes
a couple of articles defending and expounding the virtues of esperanto.
An Hungarian who knows a little Esperonto told me that the early East
European communists wanted Esperonto to be a universal language, to
spread the word, make the world safe for communism, etc. With commies
as political proponents, it's no wonder the USA doesn't like
Esperonto.
A language professor also offered me the following argument against
Esperonto: Supposing everyone in the world spoke it, and we could all
communicate with each other in Esperanto. Now suppose you want to visit
(for example) the Loire castle area of France. In order to understand
the culture and *REALLY* communicate well with the natives, you will
*STILL* want to speak French with them. Esperanoto will never
communicate cultural subtleties, especially with common folks.
>Yes, there are now quite a number of native ("denaskaj") Esperantists,
I'll bet there are more people speaking Romansch or !Kung. Adding yet
another (artificial!) way of isolating people from each other may not
be the correct road to world peace. When the Esperanto proponents went to
Trotsky for support, he said that the world already had an international
langauge: Russian.
I personally am very bad at foreign languages; I don't like learning
them. However, I am about to learn yet another langauge (Italian) in
order to communicate with more of the people with whom I have daily
contact (our cleaning lady, hotel waiters). These people do not speak
any of the languages I speak (French, German, English, a couple of
others). Therefore, I am tasked with learning their langauge. I do not
do it because I enjoy learning languages, but because I want to
communicate. I have never seen the need to learn Esperonto.
I speculate that some people like languages, learning them, practicing,
etc. These people might even be the majority, but I doubt it.
Oh well, 'nuff said. Cheers, -Mitchurban@randvax.UUCP (Mike Urban) (10/16/89)
In article <1489@intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > >The biggest reason that I personally think of Esperanto as artificial is >a very simple one: it was consciously designed by a group of people. It >did not arise out of the needs of a community's need to communicate, and >thus it lacks many of the characteristics of "natural" language, except >by importing them. Idioms and expletives, for example... > This matter is starting to diverge from the prime focus of the newsgroup, and I must plead guilty as well. Actually, one of Esperanto's advantage is that it was invented by one person. Had it been devised by committee, it would have been an aesthetic mess. But it *did* arise out of a perceived need for a world community to communicate, and spread for exactly that reason. As Americans of the late twentieth century, we cannot truly appreciate this need; we expect everyone to learn English. What many of the past and present reformers and critics of Esperanto have overlooked is that the world has not yet been sold on the *idea* of a lingua franca. Instead of turning their efforts to getting people to understand that a politically neutral and easily learned lingua franca is a Good and Valuable Idea--whether it be Loglan, Lojban, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Novial, Glossa, Aui, Neo, or anything else--they spend their time tinkering or arguing over theoretical matters of vocabulary and grammar. Indeed, it is this tendency to argue over linguistic details that has led to the divergence of topic from the original question of `must a global telecommunications community use English?' >Now, I have nothing against synthetic languages in and of themselves--for >instance, I think that Tolkien's Elvish languages are marvelous works >of linguistic art. I don't find Esperanto quite so "pretty", but that's >beside the point. However, I wouldn't try to use either for day-to-day >communication, however much fun they might be for recreation. > Some comments by J.R.R. Tolkien seem to be in order here: I take an interest, as a philologist, and as every philologist should, in the international-language movement, as an important and interesting linguistic phenomenon, and am sympathetic to the claims of Esperanto in particular. I am not a practical Esperantist, as it seems to me on reflection an adviser should at least in some measure be. I can neither write nor speak the language. I know it, as a philologist would say, in that 25 years ago I learned and have not forgotten its grammar and structure, and at one time read a fair amount written in it, and, since I am trained to that sort of thing, I feel competent to have an opinion concerning its defects and excellencies. That being so, I feel that I could make no useful contribution, except as a philologist and critic. But it is precisely my view of the international language situation, that such services, however good in theory, are in practice not wanted; in fact, that a time has come when the philological theorist is a hindrance and a nuisance. This is indeed the strongest of my motives for supporting Esperanto. Esperanto seems to me beyond doubt, taken all round, superior to all present competitors, but its chief claim to support seems to me to rest on the fact that it has already the premier place, has won the widest measure of practical acceptance, and developed the most advanced organisation. It is in fact in the position of an orthodox church facing not only unbelievers but schismatics and heretics -- a situation that was foretold by the philologist. But granted a certain necessary degree of simplicity, internationality, and (I would add) individuality and euphony -- which Esperanto certainly reaches and passes -- it seems to me obvious that much the most important problem to be solved by a would-be international language is universal propogation. An inferior instrument that has a chance of achieving this is worth a hundred theoretically more perfect. There is no finality in linguistic invention and taste. Nicety of invention in detail is of comparatively little importance, beyond the necessary minimum; and theorists and inventors (whose band I should delight to join) are simply retarders of the movement, if they are willing to sacrifice unanimity to ``improvement''. Actually it seems to me, too, that technical improvement of the machinery, either aiming at greater simplicity and perspicuity of structure, or at greater internationality, or what not, tends (to judge by recent examples) to destroy the ``humane'' or aesthetic aspect of the invented idiom. This apparently unpractical aspect appears to be largely overlooked by theorists; though I imagine it is not really unpractical, and will have ultimately great influence on the prime matter of universal acceptance. N__, for instance, is ingenious, and easier than Esperanto, but hideous -- ``factory product'' is written all over it, or rather,``made of spare parts'' -- and it has no gleam of the individuality, coherence and beauty, which appear in the great natural idioms, and which do appear to a considerable degree (probably as high a degree as is possible in an artificial idiom) in Esperanto -- a proof of the genius of the original author ... My advice to all who have the time or inclination to concern themselves with the international language movement would be: ``Back Esperanto loyally.'' -- Mike Urban urban@rand.ORG
amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (10/16/89)
First of all, thanks for answering my questions about Esperanto--they were not meant rhetorically (although, in hindsight, they probably sounded that way). In article <1989Oct15.142457.9248@uncecs.edu>, dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) writes: > "Conscious design" is > characteristic to some extent of any language with prescriptive > dictionaries or an "academy." I might note that insisting on these > presumed "natural" attributes is arbitrary to begin with. Sigh. I'll be a little blunt here. Prescription, whether of grammar, vocabulary, or usage, is a crock. Even at best, formal descriptions of language of any sort are *descriptive* approximations to how people actually use language. To take an example besides Esperanto: L'Academie Francaise, for all their wishes to "keep French pure," have nothing to say about French usage. The best they can do is to exercise *political* power in an attempt to do so, but despite these efforts, "le parking" or "les jeans" are just as French as "l'Arc de Triomphe." Language, while it can be affected by legislation, is not something that can be prescribed itself. > Being an empiricist at heart, I can't help noting that theoretical > objections to Esperanto must somehow deal with the numbers of linguists, > poets, etc, - people who are presumably qualified to judge the merits of > a language and its usability - who have pronounced it a "real" and > expressive language. (For example, the current head of the Universala > Esperanto Asocio is a linguist at the University of London, and his > predecessor is a former professor of English literature now an American > university president.) Well, I'll make a couple remarks, which perhaps you can address. The first is simply that I'm not saying Esperanto is a bad thing. In fact, I think it could be lots of fun as recreation, especially for anyone with interests in linguistics. It's as far as I know the most complete attempt to "build" a language, and as such it is interesting and useful in its own right. I just claim that it is not in the same class as languages that have developed historically, despite the fact that it shares many of their characteristics. The second is more of a challenge: association does not necessarily imply endorsement, and linguists tend to be just as specialized as any other scientists. If you could supply some quotes or references, I would appreciate it. I can say that I've seen no mention of Esperanto in any of the liguistics journals that I read from time to time... > I could be wrong, but this seems to me a rather firm decision to reach > based on what strike me as a set of misconceptions. If I'm mistaken and > you do know something about Esperanto please correct me. I don't know much about Esperanto. I do know a fair amount about language in general. -- Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.com> "Tobacco is the only drug in America that will kill you if it's taken as directed." --Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General
amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (10/17/89)
In article <2255@randvax.UUCP>, urban@randvax.UUCP (Mike Urban) writes: [An excellent article!] > But it *did* arise out of a perceived need for a > world community to communicate, and spread for exactly that reason. > As Americans of the late twentieth century, we cannot truly appreciate > this need; we expect everyone to learn English. Well, not all of us :-)... point taken, though, mostly (more on this in a minute). > What many of the past and present reformers and critics of Esperanto > have overlooked is that the world has not yet been sold on the *idea* > of a lingua franca. Bingo. Its merits as a language aside, I remain somewhat of the feeling that it is a solution in search of a problem. Not because I think that English, say, will become a universal language, but because language is very tied up with culture. > Instead of turning their efforts to getting people > to understand that a politically neutral and easily learned lingua > franca is a Good and Valuable Idea I don't think that, phrased this simply, this is necessarily true (see? here's your chance to convert a heathen :-)!). For one, I would argue that Esperanto is *not* politically neutral--it is very Indo-European, and more European than Indo [:-)]. I would be surprised if it was as easy to learn for someone from Indonesia or Tibet as it is for someone from Europe or the U.S. Within the northern hemisphere, perhaps, but it still sounds European, and Romance at that. Esperanto feels like linguistic monoculture to me, and I dislike that feeling. Now, I admit that having an extremely good ear for languages probably biases me, but I would *rather* learn the language of the culture I am visiting than a "neutral common ground," even if I would be less fluent in it than I would be in Esperanto. It forces me to see at least a little bit through the eyes of the people I am trying to communicate with, and that is very important to communication, as much as a common language is (cf. the saying [Churchill, maybe?] that "England and America are two countries that are separated by a common language" :-)). Ever-widening communication and a growing sense of global community do not lessen this; on the contrary, they make it more important. > the divergence > of topic from the original question of `must a global telecommunications > community use English?' It depends on what the question means. If it means, "exclusively," I have to say a resounding "No." If it means "as one of a host of different languages," I'd say an equally resounding "yes." English, Chinese, and perhaps Russian will probably be well represented, by virtue of their sheer "installed base" (to borrow a phrase) if nothing else. > [long, nice quote from J.R.R. Tolkien] > My advice to all who have the time or inclination to concern > themselves with the international language movement would be: ``Back > Esperanto loyally.'' > > Mike Urban > urban@rand.ORG I think that this is the best presentation of the case for the use of Esperanto that I have yet seen. I still diagree. I do not think that the world community needs a universal language (or even universal lingua franca) any more than it needs a universal currency, or a universal religion. There are obviously people who disagree with me on all of these points :-), but they all seem to me to be based on an idea of the form, "all we have to do is X, and then that problem will be solved." Over the years, I've learned to distrust claims of that form on any subject (life, language, Usenet... :-)). -- Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.com> "Tobacco is the only drug in America that will kill you if it's taken as directed." --Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General
dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/17/89)
In article <1493@intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: >Sigh. I'll be a little blunt here. Prescription, whether of grammar, >vocabulary, or usage, is a crock. I thought I'd made that very point myself; sorry if I wasn't sufficiently clear. >I >just claim that it is not in the same class as languages that have developed >historically, despite the fact that it shares many of their characteristics. I'm not clear on your point here. Certainly Esperanto can be placed in a distinct class. How does that mean it is necessarily inferior or restricted as a medium of discourse, as I take it you're arguing. >If you could supply some quotes or references, I would appreciate >it. I can say that I've seen no mention of Esperanto in any of the liguistics >journals that I read from time to time... Try Language Problems and Language Planning, edited by Humphrey Tonkin and published by (I believe) the University of Texas Press. Several books on Esperanto have recently appeared in Brittain. The best single work I know of is by Pierre Janton of the University of Clermont-Ferrand; unfortunately it has not yet (to my knowledge) appeared in English. I suspect there are many languages you've never seen mentioned in linguistics journals. As you say, linguists and other scientists (for reasons of practical necessity) tend to be specialized. I would hope, however, that you would not dismiss all such languages simply because they hadn't been cited. >I don't know much about Esperanto. I do know a fair amount about language >in general. Many people know a fair amount about movies in general but wouldn't be so bold as to review one they had never seen! Let me say that if Esperanto were as you imagine it to be, I would probably agree with you in dismissing it as a linguistic curiosity. I'm not asking you to suddenly accept Esperanto as a grand idea; I'm just suggesting that you not jump to conclusions based on incomplete (or nearly nonexistent) information. Best, Gary -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/18/89)
In article <3814@ethz-inf.UUCP> wyle@ethz.UUCP (Mitchell Wyle) writes: >An Hungarian who knows a little Esperonto told me that the early East >European communists wanted Esperonto to be a universal language, to >spread the word, make the world safe for communism, etc. For starters, it's spelled "Esperanto" and the commie plot charge is more than a bit silly. Stalin persecuted Esperantists and the language was for some time outlawed in the USSR. The Russian Esperanto Association was allowed to re-affiliate with the rest of the world only this year. >A language professor also offered me the following argument against >Esperonto: Supposing everyone in the world spoke it, and we could all >communicate with each other in Esperanto. Now suppose you want to visit >(for example) the Loire castle area of France. In order to understand >the culture and *REALLY* communicate well with the natives, you will >*STILL* want to speak French with them. That "argument" applies to any language used internationally, including English, French, Latin, etc. One major undercurrent in the Esperanto movement is support for linguistic diversity, which, they contend, is enhanced if the international language can be learned more rapidly, saving time for studing others. >I'll bet there are more people speaking Romansch or !Kung. The World Almanac puts the figure at 2 million Esperanto speakers, which I personally suspect is high. In any case, the question was whether Esperanto is a "real" language, not whether it had as many speakers as English or Chinese - obviously it doesn't. >Adding yet >another (artificial!) way of isolating people from each other may not >be the correct road to world peace. I doubt world peace will be affected either way, but I would be curious to know how a common language, even an imperfect one, is a "way of isolating people from each other." >When the Esperanto proponents went to >Trotsky for support, he said that the world already had an international >langauge: Russian. Irrelevent even if true, but from what I've read of Trotsky I doubt it. Can you provide a source? >I speculate that some people like languages, learning them, practicing, >etc. These people might even be the majority, but I doubt it. I agree. That's why I favor giving students at least the option of studying an easily-learned one that they have a chance of acquiring to a moderate level of fluency. Our current approach doesn't seem to teach very many Americans to speak foreign languages, sad to say. Cheers yourself, Gary -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/18/89)
In article <1497@intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: >I would be surprised if it was >as easy to learn for someone from Indonesia or Tibet as it is for someone >from Europe or the U.S. This is, of course, obviously the case, and no one argues otherwise. On the other hand, Esperanto is probably the easiest Indoeuropean language for a non-Indoeuropean speaker to learn, which probably helps to account for its current popularity in China, Korea, and Japan. (And, for the record, not all European languages are Indoeuropean, including such important ones as Hungarian. It's interesting to note that one of the most active Esperanto movements in Europe is in Hungary.) The claim of "political neutrality" stems from the fact that Esperanto is not the language of any nation, and in particular not that of a present or former colonial power. I personally consider this irrelevant, for what that's worth. >Esperanto feels like linguistic monoculture to me, and I dislike that >feeling. Feelings are not always an infallible guide. I heartily approve of your desire to learn languages. I'm certainly not suggesting someone learn Esperanto instead of another language - only in addition to. Fortunately, as research at Columbia and Sheffield suggest, this need not cost a significant amount of time. A second foreign language comes much more quickly than a first for most people, and the evidence is that someone taught Esperanto followed by, say, French, learns as much French as if he'd studied it alone for the same total amount of time. I'm surprised to hear you say that there is no need for an agreed-upon international language. With business, science, scholarship, and the arts happening on a global basis, there is an obvious and growing need for intercultural communications, and it simply isn't possible for everyone to learn everyone else's langauge. At the moment the de facto choice is (for historical and not linguistic reasons) clearly English, though this could certainly change. -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
tobolsky@granite.cr.bull.com (Irene Tobolsky) (10/18/89)
The problem with Esperanto or any other spoken universal language is that it does not break down the barriers for disadvantaged people. I boldy propose that a universal language is needed, and that this language ought to be based on sign language. Sign language is easy to learn, regardless of your native tongue. A cat is a cat whether the cat is in England, the United States, or Russia. Furthermore, sign language lets us hearing people with both the deaf and blind community. I think that there will always be native languages in various parts of the world. For instance, if you look at French. The people in Quebec speak a totally different dialect of French than the people in France do. I was at a meeting where someone from Montreal was speaking to another person from France in French. The person from France asked the Montrealian to speak English since he couldn't understand what he was saying in France. Irene
jmk@cbnews.ATT.COM (Joseph M. Knapp) (10/19/89)
In article <1989Oct17.171307.13744@uncecs.edu> dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu.UUCP (D Gary Grady) writes: >In article <3814@ethz-inf.UUCP> wyle@ethz.UUCP (Mitchell Wyle) writes: >>An Hungarian who knows a little Esperonto told me that the early East >>European communists wanted Esperonto to be a universal language, to >>spread the word, make the world safe for communism, etc. > >For starters, it's spelled "Esperanto" and the commie plot charge is >more than a bit silly. Stalin persecuted Esperantists and the language >was for some time outlawed in the USSR. The Russian Esperanto >Association was allowed to re-affiliate with the rest of the world only >this year. I have a (probably naive) question that I've wondered about for years: is it possible that George Orwell's inspiration for the language Newspeak in _1984_ came from Esperanto? The reason I say this is during a linguistic anthropology course I took once, we studied a few Esperanto words. The word for good, we learned, is 'bono' and the word for bad is 'malbono.' Newspeak had 'good' and 'ungood.' Even worse, the Esperanto word for easy was identified as 'facila,' while difficult was 'malfacila.' Also, father was 'patro' and mother was 'patrino.' This seems to be in keeping with the Newspeak goal of reducing the number of words in a language by using affixes (and making it less expressive). Is this the way Esperanto is in general, or were these just simple examples in the textbook (Fundamentals of Linguistic Analysis by Ronald W. Langacker).
shane@underdog.crd.ge.com (Randall H. Shane) (10/19/89)
In article <8910171709.aa15054@granite.cr.bull.com> tobolsky@granite.cr.bull.com (Irene Tobolsky) writes:
] The problem with Esperanto or any other spoken universal language is that
] it does not break down the barriers for disadvantaged people.
] I boldy propose that a universal language is needed, and that this language
] ought to be based on sign language. Sign language is easy to learn, regardless
] of your native tongue. A cat is a cat whether the cat is in England, the United
] States, or Russia. Furthermore, sign language lets us hearing people
] with both the deaf and blind community.
Uh, how can blind people understand sign language? Sign
language as the universal language would not be breaking down barriers
for the disadvantaged -- it would be erecting equal barriers for the
non-disadvantaged -- hardly an improvement. The barriers should be
broken down, but is this the right place to do it from?
Spoken language is more efficient and precise than sign language.
(Furthermore, if everybody spoke German, for instance, then a cat
would still be a cat wherever one went.) Sign language is probably
best as an auxiliary representation of language -- yes, one that more
people should be familiar with -- but as primary 'universal' language
it suffers. First, are sign languages truly universal? Are the
concepts behind Chinese, or Bantu etc. similar enough that a common
sign language is possible? (I don't know.) Second, do sign languages
have the richness of vocabulary of spoken/written languages? Also, I
think that it is generally more important to communicate while holding
something, or driving, or in the dark, etc. that to be able to talk
while one is using one's mouth.
I don't mean to sound flip, and I apologize if I come across
that way. You have a good point -- if a universal language is agreed
upon or developed, an auxiliary sign language will be a necessity
(along with an efficient Braille representation). This sign language
should be taught in schools to all students. I don't think it would
be practical as a primary language, however.
-- Randall Shane [shane@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!crd!shane]
These views are my views,
and are NOT necessarily the views of GE or any of its employees.dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/19/89)
In article <8910171709.aa15054@granite.cr.bull.com> tobolsky@granite.cr.bull.com (Irene Tobolsky) writes: >The problem with Esperanto or any other spoken universal language is that >it does not break down the barriers for disadvantaged people. For what it's worth, there are many blind and deaf Esperantists. The first person I ever saw reading high-speed Braille was doing so in Esperanto. >I boldly propose that a universal language is needed, and that this >language ought to be based on sign language. Sign language is easy to >learn, regardless of your native tongue. A cat is a cat whether the >cat is in England, the United States, or Russia. Furthermore, sign >language lets us hearing people with both the deaf and blind >community. Unfortunately, there are numerous, incompatible sign languages in use in various countries. In the United States the main two are American Sign Language (Ameslan) and Signed English (Siglish). There is also something called "cued speech" which combines lip-reading with manual signs to distinguish otherwise hard-to-distinguish phonemes. Signed English is what it sounds like, but Ameslan is a wholly distinct language developed and used by deaf and mute people. It is grammatically (and obviously verbally) distinct from all spoken languages, and I'm told it is almost never learned to fluency as a "second" language. (Ameslan and Siglish do largely share vocabularly, however.) >I think that there will always be native languages in various parts of the >world. I hope this is true because I prize linguistic diversity, but the extinction or near-extinction of many languages, including those of my own Celtic ancestors, is a disturbing reality. -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
phoenix@crypt1.cs.adfa.oz.au (Leisa Condie) (10/19/89)
In article <3333@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> shane@underdog.crd.ge.com (Randall H. Shane) writes: >In article <8910171709.aa15054@granite.cr.bull.com> tobolsky@granite.cr.bull.com (Irene Tobolsky) writes: >] I boldy propose that a universal language is needed, and that this language >] ought to be based on sign language. Sign language is easy to learn, regardless >] of your native tongue. A cat is a cat whether the cat is in England, the United >] States, or Russia. Furthermore, sign language lets us hearing people >] with both the deaf and blind community. This is not quite correct. A cat *is* a cat wherever you go, but the sign for cat is very different depending on which sign language you use (eg Auslan, British, German etc). For communication with the blind, it is usual to fingerspell onto their hand - and the spelling is usually done in the language used in that country (eg English, German etc). >First, are sign languages truly universal? Are the >concepts behind Chinese, or Bantu etc. similar enough that a common >sign language is possible? (I don't know.) Second, do sign languages >have the richness of vocabulary of spoken/written languages? Also, I >think that it is generally more important to communicate while holding >something, or driving, or in the dark, etc. that to be able to talk >while one is using one's mouth. From my comments above it is clear that sign language is not universal (here in Australia there are even different meanings for one sign depending on which state you are in). The language is certainly richer than most people believe, and with fingerspelling to supplement, as rich as spoken language (simply different and often terser). There *is* a sign language equivalent to Esperanto - it is called Gestuno, and is used to facilitate signing between people from different countries, but I understand it is about as well known as Esperanto (I'm not sure about this though). Leisa Leisa Condie, Dept. Comp. Sc., UC/UNSW, ADFA, Canberra, 2601, Australia. ACSNET: phoenix@cs.adfa.oz Ph: (062) 68 8185 Fax: (062) 68 8581 "And I'll dance in time and the times are rough, And I'll pay the price and I'll pray that it's enough.." (Melissa Etheridge)
dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) (10/20/89)
In article <10351@cbnews.ATT.COM> jmk@cbnews.ATT.COM (Joseph M. Knapp,cb,3c319,(614)8603547) writes: >I have a (probably naive) question that I've wondered about for years: is >it possible that George Orwell's inspiration for the language Newspeak >in _1984_ came from Esperanto? An interesting idea but difficult to check (unless there are hints in Orwell's notes or correspondence). Newspeak was, of course, intended for political purposes, a sort of Loglan (or anti-Loglan) for propagandists. Maybe he was thinking of Basic English :-) To answer your question, yes, Esperanto is highly agglutinative - forming words by combination of roots - which contributes to its learnability. This is a somewhat more complex idea than might first be thought, however, because the combinations involving affixes tend to be restricted in meaning beyond what a simple combination of the roots might suggest. For instance, "vorto" means word and "aro" is a suffix meaning collection, but "vortaro" means specifically a dictionary. (A collection of words in general is a "vortkolekto" and a vocabulary in the sense of "I have a large vocabulary" is "vortprovizo.") >This seems to be in keeping with >the Newspeak goal of reducing the number of words in a language by using >affixes (and making it less expressive). This might be your own linguistic background talking. English has an incredible number of distinct roots. Other languages (ranging from close relatives such as German all the way to to Chinese) have fewer roots and use more agglutination, like Esperanto. As I've noted before, Esperanto-speaking linguists, poets, and the like are, as far as I know, unanimous in pronouncing the language "expressive" and it seems that to me as well. I can't imagine someone declaring that, say, Icelandic isn't expressive because its word for dictionary is "ordhabok" (I'm using dh for a non-ASCII character that looks like a crossed d and is pronounced like a "hard" th), literally "word book." Gary -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
dennis@YANG.CPAC.WASHINGTON.EDU (Dennis Gentry) (10/20/89)
I think this whole thread is just a little off the topic, but it's interesting to me anyway, so here goes: Date: 18 Oct 89 23:47:16 GMT From: ecsvax.uncecs.edu!dgary<harvard!talcott!@mcnc.org> (D Gary Grady) Organization: Datalytics, Inc. For what it's worth, there are many blind and deaf Esperantists. The first person I ever saw reading high-speed Braille was doing so in Esperanto.... I think there may even be a few deaf-blind (that's deaf *and* blind) Esperantists in Seattle. Unfortunately, there are numerous, incompatible sign languages in use in various countries. In the United States the main two are American Sign Language (Ameslan) and Signed English (Siglish).... Someone asked how blind people could use sign language. Well, deaf-blind people use "tactile" sign language. Some of them have severe tunnel vision, but they can still use their remaining sight to watch signing. If that doesn't work, or in addition, they can simply touch the hands of the person signing and figure out what's going on. It's kind of interesting when they have meetings: no more than two or three deaf-blind people can "listen" to one "speaker." Usually, some deaf (but not blind) helpers watch the main "speaker," and they re-sign the "speaker's" message. I think ASL (American Sign Language) is by a large margin the predominant sign language in the U.S. I don't know who suggested that sign language was universal, but it's not. ASL is complex, with its own syntax that differs from English. The British deaf community has a different sign language that is more different from ASL than spoken English and American. I don't know what they use anywhere else, but I'm pretty sure it's not much compatible with ASL. I took about a year of ASL, and I don't think it's any easier to learn than French. (I'm a native English speaker). Dennis
unccab@calico.med.unc.edu (Charles Balan) (10/21/89)
As an interpreter in AmericanSignLanguage, I feel somewhat qualified to respond somewhat to the conversation relating Esperanto to a signed language. I also am fluent in Spanish, French, German, Polish, Russian and Hebrew and am currently learning Esperanto for the fun of it. As has been pointed out, Sign Languages have several dialects ranging from dialectical (as here in the U.S.A I cannot read many signs of the Yankees up north) to complete language differences. Ameslan is based upon communication of ideas and as such is ideally suited to communication between people without the hinderance of a "learned" grammar or fixed construction (yes I mean "learned"..) that is common to most languages. Chinese is the only spoken language I have studied that comes close to expressing ideas rather than assigning vocabulary to items, although I am sure there are other languages (perhaps in New Guinea?) that do so as well. I don't mean that Chinese is only idea-expressive, but that to the extent that I have learned it, I find it to be overwhemingly so. I believe, if I understood the objections correctly, someone wanted to establish a more "universal" language that would not limit blind or deaf participants from being able to communicate. Blind and deaf persons can be signed into the palm (usually it is fingerspelling of words) of the hand (as was done with Helen Keller). I am not sure that such a proposal is a good one (although I appreciate the sentiment of the initiator) inasmuch as it would be more of a "foreign" language to non-signers than Esperanto (or whatever) would be (or is..yes, there are deaf Esperantists) for the signing population. IMohsohumbleO, this is a great discussion and perhaps even more brain-storming can come up with a solution to the *problem* of world-wide communication. Not everyone wants or can learn several foreign languages (although I find it more fun than sex..well, maybe) :-) *Please don't flame me, this is the first thing I have ever posted...but real discussion I would welcome :-) * C C C between people without the hindeP Charles Balan UNCCAB@med.unc.edu , UNCCAB@uncmed.uucp , UNCCAB@unc.bitnet %%%%% They're from Aliens.....I seen 'em! %%%%%%%%%%%%
GLOBALCP@UVVM.BITNET (Melcir Erksine-Richmond) (10/21/89)
And so - As we've seen, a lot of water has flowed under this bridge, but
so far were all at the language debate forum still. I honestly believe
this will be resolved by the will of the people, anyway, and all the
diverse and fascinating discussion about Esperanto - Loglan - signing -
and all the other alternatives will not prove as authentic as this in
the final analysis. As someone has remarked already, English appears to
be already the informal choice - but no one has yet been able to bring
this idea to the UN,for obvious reasons. There at least, time moves at
a slower pace, as the wheels of official representation of national
interests must be seen to be observed, and there will need to be voting
or other agreements by each single nation, prior to their representatives
at the UN being able to agree to such a concept. First we have to bring
this idea sufficiently to national level attention! There may be a long
road to walk before foreign nations are able to assess and report on this.
Are you interested in assisting this or other aspects of the GlobalCP
concept, either informally through the discussions, or in some other
more formal way - which you may be able to initiate. Your views of
interest. Melcir Erskine-Richmond
RETURN ADDRESS:
Melcir Erskine-Richmond
BITNET: GLOBALCP@UVVM * UNIX: globalcp@uvcw.UVic.ca
POSTAL: GLOBALCP - C% U.VIC. CHAPTER - WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY
S. U. BLDG., UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA
P. O. BOX 1700
VICTORIA, B.C., V8W 2Y2, CANADA
FAX: CANADA 604-721-8653 | TEL: CANADA+604-721-4763
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If we work collectively *NOW* TO DEVELOP A HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL
BIO-SYSTEM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, WE CAN STILL ACHIEVE THIS GOAL.GLOBALCP@UVVM.BITNET (Melcir Erksine-Richmond) (10/21/89)
And so - As we've seen, a lot of water has flowed under this bridge, but
so far were all at the language debate forum still. I honestly believe
this will be resolved by the will of the people, anyway, and all the
diverse and fascinating discussion about Esperanto - Loglan - signing -
and all the other alternatives will not prove as authentic as this in
the final analysis. As someone has remarked already, English appears to
have become the informal choice,,but no one has yet been able to bring
this idea to the UN, for obvious reasons. There at least, time moves at
a slower pace, as the wheels of official representation of national
interests must be seen to be observed, and there will need to be voting
or other agreements by each single nation, prior to their representatives
at the UN being able to agree to such a concept. First we have to bring
this idea sufficiently to national level attention! There may be a long
road to walk before foreign nations are able to assess and report on this.
Are you interested in assisting this or other aspects of the GlobalCP
concept, either informally through the discussions, or in some other
more formal way - which you may be able to initiate. Your views of
interest. Melcir Erskine-Richmond
RETURN ADDRESS:
Melcir Erskine-Richmond
BITNET: GLOBALCP@UVVM * UNIX: globalcp@uvcw.UVic.ca
POSTAL: GLOBALCP - C% U.VIC. CHAPTER - WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY
S. U. BLDG., UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA
P. O. BOX 1700
VICTORIA, B.C., V8W 2Y2, CANADA
FAX: CANADA 604-721-8653 | TEL: CANADA+604-721-4763
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If we work collectively *NOW* TO DEVELOP A HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL
BIO-SYSTEM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, WE CAN STILL ACHIEVE THIS GOAL.