(Since this article anchors ESF's ongoing Interlingualism project, it occupies a separate web page.)
Two articles published in Esperanto in a recent issue of GRKG Humankybernetik (vol. 39, no. 1, March 1998) may be of interest to readers as well. They are summarized here by ESF treasurer Jonathan Pool, whose own article, Optimal Language Regimes for the European Union, was reprinted in English in the same issue.
Zlatko Tishljar. Lingvo-Orientiga Instruado (LOI) cele al rapidigo de la lernado de fremdlingvoj: Sloven-kroat-astra eksperimento 1993-1995. (Language-Orientation Instruction (LOI) With the Aim of Speeding the Learning of Foreign Languages: A Slovenian-Croatian-Austrian Experiment, 1993-1995.) Pp. 28-35.
Tishljar asserts that the results of the indicated experiment show that an investment of 70 hours in the study of Esperanto before the study of English or German causes a reduction of more than 120 hours in the amount of time needed for the achievement of a particular level of competence in the target language. The experiment made use of control groups. Statistical significance would appear to be an issue, however, because the numbers of subjects were small, in the 6-14 range per group, and the inter-group variability in the Esperanto payback was great (even negative for some groups). The author does not discuss any test of statistical significance. The article includes a bibliography of related prior work.
Helmar Frank. Farebla plurlingveco en Europo kaj en la scienca mondo. (Manageable Plurilingualism in Europe and in the Scientific World). Pp. 36-40.
This article is somewhat similar to the statement on interlingualism in this issue of ES. Frank asks whether we should want the masses to be bilingual in a native language and a neutral language or plurilingual. He argues that we want not only linguistic diversity but also coexistence, communication, and cooperation and asks how linguistic diversity can be compatible with them. He asks whether this compatibility could be achieved with automatic translation, the use of a widely used language such as English as an interlanguage, or improvements in language-teaching methods allowing mass multilingualism. (He cites Claude Hageges proposal that, if the use of English as an interlanguage is a cause of the death of all other languages, then the non-native learning of English should be boycotted or banned.) He also asks whether our aspiration for communication should be moderated, with implications that people would know only their native languages and neighboring languages and that fields of science would be language-specific, with the native users of particular languages specializing in their own languages fields. He asks whether he has omitted any means of compatibility that deserve investigation.
When Languages Collide: Sociocultural and Geopolitical Implications of Language Conflict and Language Co-existence is the title of a conference to occur November 13-15, 1998, at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. U.S.A.
The conference is intended to provide an opportunity to discuss issues relating to language or dialect hegemony within societies, including language planning, designation of national or official languages, orthographic reform, dialect and language prestige, language endangerment and death, minority language status, gender or race-based linguistic hegemony, the spread of English as the international language of science, business, etc., and the reaction of non-English speaking peoples to this. The intention, according to organizers, is to include social, political, historical, and linguistic dimensions of these issues, as well as broad geographic coverage. Featured plenary speakers will include Joshua Fishman, Standard University, and Victor A. Friedman, University of Chicago. Featured Panelists include S. Robert Ramsey, University of Maryland, College Park, and Yona Sabar, University of California at Los Angeles.
Contact: Office of International Studies, Attn.: Language Conference, 300 Oxley Hall, 1712 Neil Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1219. U.S.A. Tel.: 1-514-292-8770; E-mail: wolr.5@osu.edu
Esperanto Studies and Interlinguistics.
Esperantic Studies Foundation.