A020 Esperanto-a living language

If you know English you can easily learn Esperanto too and you´ll be master of the two most powerful languages in the world: English for business and Esperanto for friendship. Giorgio

ESPERANTO- a living language According to Council of Europe Report AS/CS/8/ 2, of 500 attempts made from Descartes down to Sir Winston Churchill, the most popular and successful international language is Esperanto. However, despite huge investments since 1945, when Sir Winston Churchill first proposed Basic English, Europe is no nearer to accepting that solution, whereas support for Esperanto has grown steadily. Sir Charles Troughton, Chairman of the British Council, has also recently added that "As far as teaching overseas is concerned, I do not disagree at all that there must be many millions of people abroad who cannot learn a language as complex as English, nor that there is a market for both Esperanto and English, nor that the possession of an international language might well help them to communicate and understand others in the world community". What started as a project has been transformed into a living language, used by a scattered but coherent world-wide speech community. Today more people speak Esperanto than ever before. Esperanto has its own cultural value. The Butler Library in London has some 38,000 items, with literature both translated and original; Radio Peking broadcasts three half-hourly programmes each day in Esperanto; the Russian Government has begun using it for anti-nuclear war propaganda; the Wales Tourist Board produces leaflets for Esperanto-speaking tourists; Norwegian Railways uses it in timetables; countries as varied as Hungary, Switzerland, Brazil and Belgium have issued commemorative postage stamps in its favour; commercial firms such as Philips, Agfa-Gevaert and Fiat use it to sell their products; Manchester University provides courses in linguistics, biology etc., with Esperanto as the language of instruction. Esperanto is not artificial and has developed along natural lines. It is phonetic and because It has a planned grammar, it is easy to learn and to use. It requires all nationals to exert some effort to learn it but having acquired it, it can be used equally well in all parts of the World. As an instance of its relative facility the average Japanese can spend six years trying to learn English with very poor results, while one year at Esperanto produces a usable second language. The status quo of muddling through with a multilingual system, has led to the formation of a European Parliament Esperanto Group. The group is pressing for an experiment in one school of each Community country; Esperanto would be taught for one year and after that period, all of the children from the ten countries would meet at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The experiment would show if, after such a short period, the children could communicate effectively in Esperanto. The experiment would be an unbiased test of Esperanto´s viability, as a living language. Far from making an impossible situation worse, by adding a further language in the European Parliament, research initiated by the European Commission shows that Esperanto will cut costs. In fact research shows that the use of Esperanto, as a bridge language in computer machine translation, will cut up to 60% of translation costs. Esperanto´s acceptance will increase as its long-term potential is realised. For anyone who wants to test its claims, a free introductory "First Lesson" is available from the Esperanto Centre, 140 Holland Park Avenue, London, Wll 4CJF. Please also enclose a large stamped addressed envelope.