World language needs planning not power

Since its birth, Esperanto has withstood a variety of criticisms. It’s not a real language, some say. Then how do thousands of delegates from dozens of different language communities meet in a global conference and discuss complex issues at length without any translation, all in Esperanto? It has no literature, say others. So how do you explain the many thousands of volumes - original and translated, fiction and otherwise - available in Esperanto? Frequent shots are taken at its European stock of word-roots, yet the agglutinative structure of this language relates it to Chinese, Japanese and other non-European tongues. The number of active Esperantists in Asia and Africa also tends to neuter this criticism. (Inquiring readers may be interested in this FAQ page)

Nevertheless critics have demonstrated a few weaknesses in Esperanto. The use of the circumflex is an example, especially in typing on the computer. Another is the requirement that adjectives must be inflected to show number and case. So it was inevitable that there would be attempts to improve on Esperanto, such as Ido and Slovio, but they seem to have found no convincing support.

One of the latest, however, is very interesting in that it acknowledges the valuable attributes of Esperanto and tries to preserve them while also capitalising on the contemporary English-learning craze in China. “Mondlango” is the creation of Chinese researchers. It uses the Esperanto structure with word-roots mainly taken from English and phoneticised, while also eliminating the circumflex symbols. If this language takes off among the huge population of China, it will stand a good chance of spreading to the extent that Esperanto has dreamed of.
(For further information see here.)

The notion of a planned, auxiliary world-language deserves the support of humankind as a means of facilitating peace, linguistic democracy, trade, science, and other worthy endeavours. When proponents present its case, however, even when all the specific objections have been countered, derision seems to be a frequent response. People from the full spectrum of educational backgrounds, professions and nationalities tend to say things like, “It simply won’t happen”, and “Get your head out of the clouds”. The scorn is not founded on reason, so where does it come from?

A psychotherapist, Claude Piron, may have come closest to the answer. From his personal experience and therapeutic work he found that individuals form a powerful attachment to their native language from infancy, when it seems to be a magical art imparted by the mother-figure. It literally becomes the “mother-tongue” and on a deep psychological level seems to give great power. Viewed from this deep level in the mind, any threat of being deprived of it, or of its being changed in any marked way, triggers immense fear. So the suggestion that Esperanto or other constructed languages may be the key to human progress provokes anxiety, which tends to choose ridicule as its primary weapon.

Yet despite our undeniable need for relationship with our roots, we do need to find a lingua franca for our planet. The two needs will be met in the most balanced way if we can adopt an effective, new global language that does not replace the many existing tongues used across the earth in their own particular communities. Pushing the language of one or several nations, such as English, upon all other nations will not work. Whether the answer is Esperanto, Mondlango or something else, our hope lies in planned linguistic construction.