Israel Zangwill (2): Global melting pot?

Though half my manhood has been devoted to the quest for a Jewish State, I have never regarded a world settlement, based on racial differences, as a final goal, nor do I share the current enthusiasm for the smaller nationalities. The mere fact that a group of people hates its neighbors affords no basis for reverence. Moses told the Jews, ''Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and Seneca reminded the imperial Romans that all men are sacred — homo sacra res homini. Moreover, the world always has been and always will be a melting-pot.

* * *

Its [the Jewish people] existence even in dispersion enriches the world, giving in our own day a Meldola to British science, a Bergson to French philosophy, a Schnitzler to Austrian drama, a Berenson to American art criticism, an Ehrlich to Gemian medicine, a Luzzatti to Italian statesmanship, a Josef Israels to Dutch painting, a Brandes to Scandinavian criticism, a Ronetti Roman to Rumanian poetry, a Rubinstein to Russian music, a Vambery to Hungarian adventure, an Enver Pasha to Turkish arms, a Zamenhof to Esperanto internationalism, a Sarah Bernhardt to the world's stage, a Leo Bakst to the newest Nobel Prize-list. Concentrated on a soil of its own, under conditions that might stimulate afresh its spiritual genius, this stock might well produce a superstate, a kultur, not of militarism but of humanism.

SOURCE: Zangwill, Israel. The War for the World (New York: The Macmillan company, 1916), pp. 442, 444-445. [Boldface mine—RD]

Israel Zangwill (1): Global melting pot?

For even if America — humanity's last hope — is narrowing into Americanism, America is, after all, a very large place — a Roman Empire in itself, in fact; and "the culmination of modern history," so far from lying in every petty swashbuckling race setting up for itself, is seen to consist in their fusion. A few such leviathans and we may easily fasten them with a hook. The coming Indian Nationality will also be the synthesis of a sub-Continent. Nor can the wave of rabid racialism long submerge the real "New Europe," which even in war two groupings suffice almost to cover. For our friend the Law of Contiguous Co-operation is still at its Alexandrine quest. And if the ultimate bounds of Nationality are fixed — as they obviously are — by the limits of Contiguous Co-operation, where are those limits to-day? Immensely enlarged by the same factors that have shrunk the planet — Steam and Electricity. Without Steam and Electricity to link America, it would have been by now a Europe, the separate States turned into Nations; with Steam and Electricity no racial rancour can ultimately prevent an America arising in Europe, with our Nations for States. The very disorder of the world to-day is a proof of the world-order that has been broken. With a world-post, Esperanto, and some two hundred international associations, civilisation was fast developing a nervous system. When I go to Barcelona and ride in a penny tram and to Venice and ride in a penny steam-boat, I feel that the pre-national period has returned, if by an ugly route, and, with lower links than cathedrals and universities. The demands for a Peace-League of the Powers are less a desire for an ovine or bovine tranquillity than a recognition that war between any of them is civil war. The very Manifesto of the Allies proclaiming "the principle of Nationalities" proclaims equally the contradictory principle of a World-League — contradictory because with the removal of Danger the essential nerve of Nationality must be dulled and its bristles moulted. For full-flavoured Nationality the price is War.

SOURCE: Zangwill, Israel. The Principle of Nationalities (New York: The Macmillan company, 1917), pp. 94-96. (Conway Memorial Lecture Delivered at South Place Institute, on March 8th, 1917.) [Boldface mine—RD]

Solresol: Libro, video, & grafikaĵoj

Jen plu libro por la bibliografio:

Cherpillod, André. Dore Domilado Solresol: Historio, Gramatiko, Leksikono de la Universala Muzika Lingvo Solresol. Courgenard: La Blanchetière, 2008. 27 paĝoj. ISBN 2906134813. Aĉetebla ĉe UEA @ 3.60 €.

Troviĝas kelkaj pluaj interesaj grafikaĵoj interrete, ekz.:

Solresol Decoder from Zeke Sikelianos on Vimeo.

Kaj jen Zeke Sikelianos pri Solresol. Notu, ke per la "Flash"-versio, vi povas mem manipuli la instrumenton.

Memoro de la Ŝtono

Jen Final Fantasy XI Opening ~ Memoro de la Ŝtono:



Here is a composition with Esperanto lyrics / Jen muzikaĵo Memoro de la Ŝtono:



Composed by / komponis Nobuo Uematsu, Lyrics by / liriko de Masato Kato
Performed by / ludas Gako Konishi

Here are the lyrics in Esperanto with English translation / Jen liriko en Esperanto kun anglalingva traduko:

Final Fantasy Republic [lyrics/liriko]

How to Talk Dirty in Esperanto

Actually, there are lexicons of this sort in Esperanto, along with highbrow erotica and lowbrow porn. On this occasion, however, we will discuss how non-Esperantists have treated the prospect of "obscene" language in Esperanto.

I thought there was an article on Esperanto in Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, but the Maledicta web site doesn't mention anything. I could find only a couple references via Google Books.

(1) "Verbal Aggression, Not Esperanto, is the Universal Language," Behavior Today, 10: 40, 1979. This is a report on an interview with Reinhold Aman, the creator of Maledicta.

(2) Maledicta, Volume 9 (1988), p. 78:

Esperanto. Bonan vesperon, ĉambristino! Mi bedaŭras, mi havas sole B-03-n.
Good evening, chambermaid! I'm sorry, I have only a penile erection caused by a full bladder.

---

Unfortunately, I long ago lost my copy, but there's this famous spoof:

"How to Talk Dirty in Esperanto," by Kichard Bonker and Henry Beard; illustrated by Bruce Cochran; National Lampoon, November 1972, Vol. 1, No. 32 (Decadence issue).

Apparently, this was a popular article, as it was anthologized in National Lampoon's Big Book of Love and The National Lampoon Treasury of Humor. I recall William Auld badmouthing it when I was a student of his in 1975, because the Esperanto was botched, thus not linguistically accurate. I only remember National Lampoon's translation of scumbag—venujo—literally, a container for come (as in "come here"), whereas the correct translation would be ĉurujo (container for cum).

Remininscences, comments, and examples, can be found in several places on the web. Here are a few references:

1. "Estas mia esprima desiro ke fulmo frapus vian pinon"

2. "PARDON ME, SIR, BUT COULD YOU DIRECT ME TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL? MY PENIS HAS BEEN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING"

3. A discussion in which Ros' Haruo comments:

Problem was the NL article reinvented not only the wheel, but the rack and the Chinese water torture to boot. The most egregious mistranslation in the NL article was the constant use of "fuki" ("to rockweed") for "fiki" (the proper F word). The result, to one fluent in Esperanto, was as irritatingly ridiculous as would be an article on "how to talk dirty in English" that gave the seven unmentionables as "shet, piz, count, fick, cockseeker, matherfaqir, Tietz". Pity the poor isolated learner who tried to use the thing to learn the juicy stuff. (Admittedly, NL never did claim language-teaching credentials.)

4. Blog d'Elisson: A LANGUAGE OF OUR OWN, July 31, 2007:

Some thirty-odd years ago, the National Lampoon published an article on “How to Talk Dirty in Esperanto,” containing such useful phrases as, “My penis has been struck by lightning” (Mia peniso estas frapita de fulmo), and “Your genitals look like moldy spinach” (Viaj generaj organoj similas ŝiman spinaco). I don’t remember much about the article itself - it’s no doubt buried somewhere in my basement amongst all the piles of old magazines - but I do remember the Esperanto word for “balls”: pilkojn. Nice.

5. "Tongues of the World, Unite!: Esperanto is alive and kicking, but why hasn't la tuta mondo caught on?" by Alison Gillmor, Walrus, September 2006:

And slang thrives, especially on the Wild West frontier of the Internet, which du Temple sees as the biggest forum for Esperanto education and information in the last decade. Websites by college kids and creative wordsmiths attempt to give Esperanto a little street cred with such phrases as kiel zumas, (how's it buzzin'), neshvite (no sweat), or even fikighu (just in case you forget the interna ideo long enough to say "fuck you"). There is also an X-rated web update of National Lampoon's 1972 classic "How To Talk Dirty in Esperanto." It seems that being filthy is not only more fun in Esperanto, it also retains an adorable innocence, even when sample sentences involve randy Esperantists doing unspeakable things with their pizangoj (big plantains). Proof that this site is the work of sophisticated linguists can be seen in the fine distinction between the transitive and intransitive forms of "to sodomize."

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Finally, here is an introductory lesson in Esperanto with an authentic guide, How To Talk Dirty In Esperanto : Kiel Paroli Maldece en Esperanto, for all of your nasty needs. This is the stuff.

Konstruitaj lingvoj: el hebrea lingvo kaj/aŭ de judaj kreintoj / Constructed Languages: Hebrew-based and/or with Jewish creators

Jen magraj informoj el diversaj fontoj. / Here are the few facts available in various sources.

Languages constructed by Jews
Due to their experiences of persecution, at least two Jews have tried to promote inter-ethnic understanding by an auxiliary language. The most known is L.L. Zamenhof's Esperanto, presented in 1887 featuring influences of the principal European languages of his time. The exile of Charles K. Bliss in the Shanghai ghetto inspired him to create Blissymbolics, a written language that has found more use as an aid to communication with persons with cerebral palsy.

SOURCE: Encyclopedia of Judaism: Jewish Languages

Blissymbolics ja estas fama afero, menciita ekz. en la libro de Okrent. Mi ne sciis, ke Bliss estas judo. Sed estas pluaj artefaritaj lingvoj pri kiuj mi trovis nur magrajn informojn.

Koincide kun la vivo de Zamenhof kaj Esperanto, aperis—ŝajne kiel reago al la Volapuka movado—ankaŭ projektoj iel bazitaj de la hebrea lingvo. . . .

En Historio de la Mondolingvo by Ernest K. Drezen (2a eld., 1931), estas kelkaj obskuraj informeroj.

Ĉe p. 150, jen referenco al Pasilingua Hebraica, ia speco de reformita hebrea:

Dr. Felix Lenz, Pasilingua contra Volapuk, Neuwied, 1887.

Jen referencoj de aliaj fontoj:

LENZ, Felix. 1887. Pasilingua contra Volapük. Allegemeine Betrachtung über die Weltsprache und die Systeme Volapük und Pasilingua mit Anfügung des Versuchs einer Pasilingua hebraica von einem Freunde der Pasilingua (d.i. Felix Lenz). Berlin, Neuwied a. Rh., Leipzig: Heuser. 15 Seiten.

Alia bibliografio listigas la ĉeftitolon jene: Pasilingua gegen Volapük.

Ĉe p. 158 (Drezen): A. Nilson projektis plurajn reformojn de Volapük; la kvara estis Lasonebr (1897). Drezen priskribas ĝin ĉi tiel:

Flanke de tiuj tri skizoj staras la kvara projekto de Nilson "Lasonebr" (Lasonebr—un transitional lingvo) , rilatanta al la jaro 1897, sed konata al ni nur laŭ la nomo. Tiu ĉi lingvo prezentis per si siaspecan provon eŭropigi kaj latinigi la antikvan hebrean lingvon, ĉe kio, malsame, al la "Pasilingua hebraica" de F. Lenz in 1887, la ŝanĝon ricevis ne nur gramatikoj formoj de la antikva hebrea lingvo, sed ankau ĝia fundamenta vortar-materialo.

Mi tute ne komprenas ĉi tion.

Pasilingua Hebraica estas menciita en piednoto en:

Histoire de la Langue Universelle par Louis Couturat & Leopold Leau (1903)

Sed la informoj pri tiuj projektoj estas preskaŭ senutilaj.

Mario Pei menciis ĉi tiujn du projektojn, sen pluaj detaloj, krom bibliografia referenco:

Nilson, A. Lasonebr. Gefle, 1897.

Laŭ Vikipedio:

Lasonebro (Lasonebr) estas planlingvo proponita de A. Nilson en 1897. La aŭtoro ankaŭ proponis West-Europisch, Central Dialekt kaj Dialekt Centralia. Lasonebr estas bazita sur la klasika hebrea lingvo. Ĝi ricevas la bibliotekan klasifikon 417.924 laŭ Biblioteko Butler.

Laŭ respondo de esperantologo:

August Nilson estis sveda volapukisto, mi ne scias ĉu juddevena. Liaj antaŭ­aj projektoj estis Vest-Europish Central Dialekt (1896), Central Dialekt (1896) kaj Dialect Centralia aŭ­ Okcident-Europa Central Dialekt. Vidu Hans Cornioley, Mikra Enciklopedio Mondlinguala, 1937 kaj Marcel Monnerot-Dumaine, Précis d'interlinguistique, 1960, p. 167. Monnerot-Dumaine mencias Lasonebr sur paĝoj 69 kaj 178.

Ĉu ekzistas pluaj tiaj projektoj, mi ne scias.

Nellie Limouzin, Eugène Adam (Lanti), George Orwell, Esperanto

Here are some more descriptions of Nellie Limouzin, George Orwell's aunt.

Orwell used to visit his mother's bohemian sister, Nellie Limouzin, a militant socialist and suffragette. Though he rarely sought her help, his aunt could always be counted on for a small handout. She'd acted in vaudeville and was married to a Frenchman, Eugane Adam, who'd been involved in the Russian Revolution in Petrograd in October 1917. "The marriage was not happy," according to one of their friends. "She had no character. She was soft, without backbone, without willpower." Adam, a fanatic who refused to speak any language but Esperanto, later abandoned Nellie, wound up in Mexico, and killed himself in 1947. If Orwell had gone to Paris with the idea of exploring the French half of his heritage, he must have been disappointed, for he had little contact with French people of his own social class. He inhabited the underworld of downtrodden foreign workers, and Paris reinforced his Englishness.

SOURCE: Meyers, Jeffrey. "Orwell And the Experience of France," World and I, 1 Nov 2003. See slightly different passage in Meyers' book Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation.

Mary Myfanwy Westrope had been a member of the I L P [Independent Labour Party] since 1905 and by 1935 was a veteran of the women’s rights movement. It seems her pacifism kept her out of the militant Pankhurst suffragettes. Francis Westrope was imprisoned as a conscientious objector in the First World War, where he met the pianist Frank Merrick and Fenner Brockway. Merrick says that Westrope and he became interested in Esperanto by accident while in prison: a grammar was the only mind-stretching book available, apart from theological works. Perhaps there was some accident about Westrope’s interest, but Esperanto had an ideology of brotherhood of man and international fraternity about it that must have appealed: the tower of Babel, not Mammon or Eve’s apple, was to him the primal curse. Given one language, there would be perpetual peace. But the Esperantist cause was nothing if not eclectic and ecumenical: it could sail alongside or take up on board many another great cause or small crankery — including vegetarianism in the Westropes’ case. Esperanto led them to meet Nellie Limouzin and Eugene Adam. Like Adam, Myfanwy Westrope had visited the Soviet Union (in 1931), and she too had returned profoundly disillusioned, not with socialism but with what she saw there. She plunged into I L P activity even more heartily on her return.

SOURCE: Crick, Bernard. George Orwell: A Life (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1992), Chapter 7: "Hard Times Or Struggling Up (1932–34)".

Orwell's aunt, Nellie Limouzin,and her lover, the Esperanto language activist Eugène Adam, welcomed Orwell into their home, from which they ran an Esperantist workers' association. The left-leaning couple engaged Orwell in spirited political debate, and Orwell later pointed to his time in Paris as influential in forming his identity as a socialist. Some scholars also believe that some of the Newspeak language created in 1984 can be traced back to his exposure to Esperanto in Paris.

SOURCE: Powell, Jessica. Literary Paris: A Guide (New York: New York Review of Books, 2006), p. 155.