From: "Donald J. HARLOW" <don@DONH.VIP.BEST.COM>
Subject: Re: Using resources
Je 07:14 atm 8/19/01 +0000, James CHANDLER skribis
>Certainly some people will be attracted to the idea of learning an IAL by
>the possibilities for communication with other speakers of the language.
>However, i seriously doubt whether this strategy will ever succeed in
>spreading an IAL beyond 'club' level. The problem is simply this: even if
>there were many millions, or tens of millions of Esp speakers, the chances
>of me finding myself in a foren land, where i do not speak the native
>tongue, and finding that i can use Esp to communicate with anyone there are
>negligible. This will simply never work as a practical incentive to learn
>an IAL.
James, you overlook two fundamental points here:
(1) Communication does _not_ consist _only_ of face-to-face vocal
intercourse, as this list (of whose posters I myself have, in my life, only
ever communicated face-to-face with one);
(2) The possibility of networking.
I myself have encountered Esperanto speakers on the street, but rarely --
the term "negligible" is probably legitimate here. (*) On the other hand,
I've found Esperanto to be _very_ useful when traveling (in countries, e.g.
China, where I don't know the language) simply because, at the current
time, it is possible to network successfully with other Esperanto speakers
(e.g., with pen-pals, through "Pasporta Servo", through the UEA Delegate
Network, etc.). To many people, this _is_ an attraction of the language. (**)
(I should add -- though the case may be rare -- the letter-to-the-editor
that was published in Esperanto USA a decade ago by the guy who decided to
learn Esperanto after a trip through Europe during which he was stopped on
the street at least -- if memory serves -- five times in three different
countries by people who wanted to know if he could speak Esperanto with them.)
>The only way to break thru the barrier is therefore to find someone who will
>start to get the IAL taught on a wide scale, to children or adults. In
>short, you need sponsorship by a state or a large organization with the
>resources to propel the language forward. If Espists think they are going
>to make Esp a universal language by expansion of the club network, they are
>at the very least going to have a very very long time to wait for this to
>come to fruition. They need to find a way now to short-circuit the process
>and find some _sponsors_ for the language. Without them, Esp is doomed to
>permanent stagnation.
"Desuprismo" vs. "desubismo". This is, of course, a chicken-or-egg
conundrum; without the very large number of speakers, or at least
supporters, already developed through grass-roots action, you simply aren't
going to find such a sponsor. Luckily, Esperanto already has (and is the
_only_ planned language that has) enough such grass-roots-level clout to at
least _interest_ some _potential_ sponsors -- and, for the same reason,
enough appropriate human resources to work on developing that interest.
"Stagnation", of course, is a question of perception -- often on the part
of those who neither have nor want genuine information about the current
situation.
>And this is where the language itself comes in. Esp cannot stay forever an
>abstract idea in the minds of those who might come to its aid. No
>organization worth its salt is going to support the teaching of a language
>without first ensuring its quality and suitability for the task. Sooner or
>later, people are going to have to come face to face with the language
>itself, warts and all. And what worries me is that at this point the form
>of the language may jeopardize its chances for serious sponsorship.
Cow pancakes. Even if Esperanto _had_ all the "warts and all" that you
think it does (and that many other people do _not_ think it does), well,
English, which is far worse, is taught all over the world. If a perfect
language were possible and created, it would not be taught without (a)
interest from its potential clientele and (b) political clout. Nobody,
deciding whether or not to support teaching of an IAL, is going to base
their decision on whether the infinitive is formed with an -I or an -AR, or
whether the noun plural is agglutinated or inflected; such decisions will
be based on interest and pressure.
James was answering lojbab's e-mail on the same topic, to which I myself
will address a comment or two. Thanks for kind words, by the way, Bob.
>>From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@LOJBAN.ORG>
>>Subject: Using resources
>>Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 01:03:06 -0400
>>
>>>From: James Chandler <idojc@HOTMAIL.COM>
>>>Subject: Re: Fwd: n-ro 131 - Gazetaraj komunikoj de UEA
>>>
>>>Ken
>>>
>>>You say the Espists will do what they can. This is something i could
>>>understand coming from an idist. After all, idists have only a modest,
>>>one
>>>might even say small movement, the level of organization does not approach
>>>that of the Esp movement, there is very little in the way of financial
>>>resources.
>>
>>While relatively speaking the Esperanto movement is better off than the Ido
>>movement, I suspect that they also have little in the way of financial
>>resources in the amounts needed to make an impact today.
To answer James's comment, the Esperantists (like the Idists, like the
members of the government of the United States) will do "what they can" --
and, perhaps, a bit more. (Actually, the Esperanto movement -- and perhaps
the Ido movement -- seems to be financially better off than the UN today,
which, I gather, is currently operating "in the red".)
>>> In the last four years, since i have been involved, the efforts
>>>of idists have consisted mainly in trying to exploit the new possibilities
>>>afforded by the internet, as a cost-effective way of reaching a wider
>>>audience than was ever possible before.
>>
>>Which is a good description of what the Esperantists, the Occidentalists,
>>probably the Interlinguists, the Klingons, and the Lojbanists have also
>>been doing.
The question of course being -- is that _all_ that they've been doing?
There are many other fields of endeavor as well. Can't answer for the
others, but the Esperantists have been doing quite a number of other
things. For instance, the last three lessons of the fifteen-lesson video
course "Esperanto: Pasporto al la tuta mondo" are now in post-production. I
don't know how well the twelve lessons that already exist are doing, except
that the Flandra Esperanto-Ligo, which produces and markets the PAL version
(the original, created here in the USA, is NTSC), last month had it up in
the top ten best-selling items in their book service (latest issue of
"Monato").
>>>However, coming from an espist, your response seems unambitious, not to
>>>say
>>>even slightly pathetic. Presumably the point of building up the Esp
>>>movement to its current level was to use it as a base to try and finally
>>>get
>>>the language into wider use.
>>
>>I would have the thought that the point of having a greater level of
>>interest in one's language is to make it more likely that you will have
>>someone to communicate with in the language meaningfully. I daresay that
>>the largest percentage of speakers of any of the artificial languages are
>>not so much interested in a "movement" so much as they are in with using
>>the language or in some cases with reforming it.
From my point of view, the advantage to having more speakers in a language
is not to create a base from which to "take off" -- I have no idea how many
speakers that would take! -- but in increasing the services available to
speakers, something which is, to some degree, dependent on the number of
persons out there who can both provide and utilize such services. For
instance, this year (or was it last year?) "Pasporta Servo" -- not to be
confused with the videotape course mentioned above; PS is a hosting system,
like "Servas" (which name, incidentally, comes from Esperanto itself) --
topped 1,000 hosts for the first time. These are people who offer free
lodgings to Esperanto-speaking travelers. The more hosts, of course, the
more useful the service is, and the more people who will be encouraged to
use it.
"The journey of a thousand miles," the Chinese say, "begins with a single
step." They don't add that the rest of the journey consists of putting one
foot in front of the other, over and over again, a million times. The
operation is not very impressive. The result will be. James, of course, is
waiting for the Esperanto movement to put on its Seven-League Boots. Sadly,
there are none.
>>>To be sitting on all that organization,
>>
>>And just how big is "all that organization", and how organized is it? If
>>the organizations have so many as 50,000 members, and they each pay $20 a
>>year, half of which goes to pay for a newsletter, the "movement" has a half
>>million dollars income worldwide. While this sounds like a lot to us small
>>fish, I doubt if that much money can do much more than finance book
>>publishing and provide some support for the large numbers of third world
>>Esperantists who could never afford $20/year.
The former is generally funded not by dues but by sales (though often
without much of a profit). Some organizations _do_ support the latter use
of dues, though also they often ask for additional donations for this.
(UEA's dues are $50-$60 a year, half that for the third world, and they
have special funds set aside for third-world Esperanto speakers who are
active in the Esperanto movement.)
Donations and legacies are a _big_ part of funding, if you can get them
(again, this requires a fairly large number of supporters / speakers in
place). The Esperantic Studies Foundation in the United States inherited
two million dollars a couple of years ago. The Japanese Esperanto Institute
and UEA were each given close to a million dollars, a year or so ago, by a
wealthy Japanese Esperanto speaker. Most of ELNA's current capital base
derives from the sale of a single house, willed to the organization back in
the eighties by a member (this was on the Peninsula south of San
Francisco); dues income, not counting the cost of free services provided to
members (the newsletter), barely serves to pay the annual salary of one of
the two individuals who works full-time in the ELNA central office.
And, of course, there are donations in kind whose value cannot be
calculated. I pay $30 a month for my web site at Best; most of it is
devoted to making Esperanto literature available to those who can best
profit from it (including users of other planned languages -- three days
ago I got a nice e-mail, with suggested corrections of uncaught scanning
errors in a certain pair of files, from an Idist). I rarely, if ever,
donate cash to anybody, including Esperanto organizations (though there are
at least three book services and any number of publishers who have made at
least a little bit of profit from me); but I would expect that, if anybody
ever got around to calculating such "invisible" donations, I would be
providing at least $150-$200 per year through that web site. (James, I am
sure, could make a similar calculation for the IAL movement in general.)
As far as "organization" is concerned, let me just quote from Renato
Corsetti's closing speech at the World Esperanto Congress in Zagreb less
than a month ago (Dankon, Renato!)(:
"Mi volas diri, ke la Esperanto-movado ne multe similas al burokrata
organizajxo aux al regula armeo. Gxi multe pli similas al pirata bando. Oni
devas regajni sian rangon cxiutage denove sur la kampo. La estro estas tiu,
kiu unue saltas sur la malamikan sxipon. Kiam vi ne saltas unue, vi ne plu
estas la estro."
(I want to say that the Esperanto movement is not very similar to a
bureaucratic organization or a regular army. It much more closely resembles
a gang of pirates. You have to win back your rank, every day, in the field.
The leader is the one who first jumps onto the enemy ship. When you don't
jump first, you are no longer in charge.)
>>I haven't seen recent numbers from Don, but my recollection was that ELNA
>>had maybe 1000 subscribing members which is less than 10 times what we
>>Lojbanists have (if we were actively publishing our journal that they are
>>subscribing to).
At the moment, fewer than that, actually. The figures vary from year to
year, going up and down, though the general long-term trend is up. ELNA
started out without about 100-200 members in the 1950s. When I worked in
its central office, the average annual membership was around 500. There was
a spike to around 1100 at the beginning of the last decade (apparently the
result of a lot of free publicity because of the Esperanto centennial in
1887 -- articles in Time magazine, the Smithsonian, etc.). The current
plateau appears to be about halfway in between that of the early eighties
and the 1990 spike. Next step?
>>>and presumably not insignificant financial resources,
>>
>>A million dollars is a lot to an individual, but minuscule on the scale of
>>a single country, much less for a worldwide enterprise. Those conferences
>>probably chew up a large portion of that each time they are held (though
>>such conventions may generate some income to partially or wholly cover
>>their costs).
Can't answer for the World Esperanto Congress, but ELNA's annual congress
is expected to turn a "profit" (i.e., money to be shared between the
sponsoring local organization or group and ELNA's capital fund -- actually,
ELNA is a "not-for-profit" organization). On a more local scale, the
relatively large 1999 (about 70 people) and considerably smaller 2000
(about 30 people) California Esperanto Conference both provided nice little
nest eggs for the organizing groups.
>>>and then
>>>to simply shrug ones shoulders and say 'well do what we can' seems odd in
>>>the extreme. Surely there must be more one can do with the organization
>>>that has been so painstakingly built up.
>>
>>Such as? It sounds like it is everything that they can do to even convene
>>that organization for the various conferences that people joke about.
There are actually plenty of things that can be, and are, done by such
organizations. The problem is that most of them are relatively invisible at
the time; they involve establishing an infrastructure, getting oneself
brought to the attention of various organizations, etc. And, of course,
there are always those who would prefer _not_ to know what is being done,
in order to be able to criticize such organizations for doing nothing. Let
us overlook, for instance, UEA's role in the "Indighenaj Dialogoj" program,
its ongoing representation and interventions at UNESCO and the UN, the role
it has been playing over the last couple of years (both organizationally,
contact-wise, and in the production of materials) in the at-last spread of
Esperanto into the Arabic-speaking world, its publishing program (yesterday
I found out that UEA itself has just published the Esperanto version of
Marco Polo's "Book of Wonders"), its role in organizations consisting of
various NGOs, etc., etc., ad tedium and -- I suspect to some -- ad nauseam.
>>>At this point, i think, much
>>>depends on the language itself. With a large organization you can take
>>>the
>>>language out to people and confront them with it.
>>
>>You mean the 10 postal lessons? Even that is probably difficult to support
>>worldwide with the current level of Esperanto activity.
Seems to be working. There were -- last time I looked -- six or seven
different versions out there being taught (English, French, German,
Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish -- Italian?). But the ten-lesson
course is not, after all, very much a product of organizations; it's
advertised, distributed, and taught by volunteers. Even the paper course,
which is made available through ELNA, gets diverted immediately into
volunteer hands once ELNA has sent out the first lesson; and there are any
number of instructors -- I don't know their numbers -- who simply get lots
of copies of that first lesson, put their own address on it, and set it out
for distribution themselves, without referring to ELNA in any way.
As to "taking the language out to people and confronting them with it" --
no Esperanto organization at the level higher than local is really in a
position to do that. The best that UEA and ELNA can do is provide logistic
support for those individuals and local groups that _do_ present the
language to the people. Granted, they don't always do an outstanding job of
that. But the venues in which they operate almost _demand_ other approaches
to the question. UEA, for instance, is not organized to teach Esperanto
courses in Rotterdam (well, at least not with _my_ dues); it _is_ organized
to keep the language visible at UNESCO and the UN, for instance.
>>>With a really well-designed language, you can leverage the organization to
>>>start to really get people interested in it. If, on the other hand,
>>>people
>>>can see straight away that the scheme has not been thought out properly,
>>>the
>>>organization will be of little use in taking the language to the next
>>>stage.
>>
>>I don't think that language design is a significant issue in getting people
>>interested or not. The bottom line is getting people to see that investing
>>their time in learning the language is worth that time. The Esperantists
>>try to make it worthwhile by providing things for people to read and write,
>>and to get people to use the language. They seem to do this better than
>>any of the rest of us.
Again, if people are willing to learn English, given James's argument far
more should be willing to learn Esperanto. That this is not the case is, I
think, proof -- if any were needed -- that nobody cares much about the
_design_ (or, in the case of English, lack thereof) of a language, but
about its _utility_ -- and to them, not in any sort of theoretical terms.
English is perceived as being of great use; Esperanto is perceived (more or
less correctly) as being of relatively little use. That the design of
Esperanto, whatever its "warts and all", is far superior to that of English
is irrelevant.
---
(*) The gods alone know how many I've _passed_ on the street without
knowing that they spoke Esperanto. This, of course, is a fundamental
problem with this approach -- the ability to speak Esperanto is not
demonstrated for all to see by a halo around the brow or some similar
visual phenomenon. Lest anyone mention the canonical green star, I will
point out that today relatively few Esperanto speakers -- and I'm not one
of them -- wear one in public ...
(**) The financial aspects of this should be obvious. Among the people I
know personally here in the Bay Area, both Joel B. and Amanda H. have
traveled, on a shoestring, for _months_ in Europe and elsewhere using this
sort of networking (in Joel's case, for three years!). After the World
Esperanto Congress in Beijing, Martin P. estimated to me that he saved
between three and six thousand dollars in hotel bills by taking advantage
of lodging opportunities among Esperanto speakers in East Asia for a couple
of months' extra stay in the region. Ed W. and Sandy T. were able to spend
a month traveling in Europe before the 1987 World Esperanto Congress in
Warsaw because they could take advantage of the Pasporta Servo. And, in a
slightly different way, I got my air fare paid to Beijing -- and back -- by
spending a week as an escort for a multinational group of
Esperanto-speaking tourists in Jiangsu Province (_not_, understand, as a
_guide_ -- we had two local ladies, both Esperanto speakers, taking care of
that part for us, as well as local Esperanto speakers and organizations in
Yangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou and Shanghai).
-- Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/don/don.html
Branæetoj nudaj
Antaý æiel' lazura
Lunon a¼uras.
Se vi seræas...
Novelojn, http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Noveloj/
Poemojn, http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Poezio/
Recenzojn, http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Recenzoj/