(ii) Two Europeans of different nationalities conversed in their common language, English, so, of course, I understood them.
(iii) Two Ramnuans from widely separated areas converse in Anglic!
(iv) In 49 A.D., west of the Elbe and south of the future site of Hamburg, three Time Patrol agents converse in twentieth-century English. Everard reflects:
"English will sort of play the role that Latin does today. Not for as long a while."
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT 11, p. 563.
We need a politically neutral universal international second language.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I know you are something of a fan of Esperanto, but that artificial, rootless language will never become a world wide international language. It's far more likely that if and when the world is unified, the dominant language will be the one belonging to the unifier. And I think that will be either English or Chinese.
Btw, I've been working on a new guest article I hope you might be willing to place in the PA blog. Mostly done, but I will want to go over it one or two more times.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I will put the article on the blog provided there are no formatting probs. If it comes to me as an email, I should be able to copy and paste.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Many thanks! That is how I plan to send it to you, by email.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A dominant language is not a universal second language. The latter would have to be agreed by governments.
Esperanto is rooted in European languages. It can be and is used for communication and expression.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Alas, I don't share your faith in human rationality! No group of governments will ever voluntarily agree to adopt a universal second language. Jealousy, pride, suspicion will always act to prevent such a thing from happening.
I am convinced Esperanto will never be more than a fad for a small number of people. As of now, English is the language which comes closest to being a universal second language.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But, as you also know, we can say what we think SHOULD happen without believing that it WILL happen - or without believing that it is likely to happen soon.
Besides, people used to tell me that the Berlin Wall would never come down and that Apartheid could not be overthrown.
International cooperation is unlikely in the present world order but this world order is very fragile and vulnerable to self-destruction.
Michael Moorcock has written some evocative book titles. One is BREAKFAST IN THE RUINS.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Your first paragraph: I agree.
Second paragraph: again, I mostly agree. I think there were times in the 1970's and 1980's when I wondered if the grim, ruthless men in the Soviet Politburo would make a bid for world supremacy by openly attacking the US and the NATO alliance. Esp. during the weak and incompetent Presidency of Jimmy Carter.
FORTUNATELY, even as the USSR seemed at its most aggressively menacing, more competent leaders came to power in the UK and US, who were willing to push back against Moscow. And the internal contradictions of the Soviet regime finally caught up with it.
The closest we might get to "international cooperation" would be if the Anglophone nations decided to form an alliance to restore some kind of order in the world. And this alliance wight accept as members civilized, advanced nations like Japan, Taiwan, or S. Korea. That seems to be how the Solar Commonwealth arose in Anderson's Technic stories.
I fear Michael Moorcock never "grabbed" me. I did not care for his antihero, Elric of Melnibone. And I did not agree with the hostility he had for Tolkien.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
About Moorcock, sure, although I did not know about the hostility to Tolkien. But BREAKFAST IN THE RUINS is a beautiful title, expressing much of contemporary consciousness. We expect to wake up in ruins.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Certainly! BREAKFAST IN THE RUINS is an evocative title, I agree. I thought just now of how the Romans wake up every day to have breakfast amidst the ruins in their City.
I even once had lunch at the restaurant in Castel Sant Angelo, formerly Hadrian's Mausoleum, in Rome.
Ad astra! Sean
English is in fact spoken by a larger percentage of the human race than any previous widespread language -- there are more English-speakers in India than in Britain, for example, and vastly more both absolutely and proportionately than was the case in 1948.
And in fairly extensive areas (much of Africa, for instance) it's increasingly becoming a native language, because people of different linguistic backgrounds marry and raise their children in it.
The same thing has happened in Singapore, where English is now the largest single native language, despite very few of the inhabitants being descended from the British.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I am not surprised! The British Empire is gone, but it left its mark wherever it had once ruled. Esp. in such "cultural" ways as the vastly widespread use of English.
Just a bit surprised about Singapore, tho! I thought that city state was mostly populated by Chinese speakers, so I would expected Chinese, not English, to be dominant there. Yet again, we see the Empire leaving its mark.
Ad astra! Sean
So maybe Anglic is ahead of us.
Kaor, Paul!
That just may well be the case. And, by and large, I think Western civilization, and what ever might succeed it, to be more beneficial than not to mankind. So I would be glad if something called "Anglic" ever came to exist.
Ad astra! Sean
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