Esperanto could make the EU democratic
By
Lovisa Gustafsson Yulia Gordiyenko Did you know that about 15% of what the member states pays to the EU go to running a huge and complicated language machine? Well, you think, that it can be worth to secure the democracy and equal rights between the states. But did you know that even though this is the thought behind giving equal status to all languages, it looks totally different in reality. For practical reasons some languages have become ”more equal” than others, and many minority languages are not represented at all. Also among the state languages problems occur. For instance whenever a Finnish or Portuguese speaker enters the podium. There are no interpreters for this language pair and therefore interpretation has to be done through a third language. This will give a less correct translation. Here for instance, the English and French languages are privileged, being bigger and more commonly thought as foreign languages. Also translation of documents are mostly made only in some languages - simply because of lack of time and resources. The situation is getting out of hand, and the acceptance of new members only makes it worse. However, this problem can be solved.
Use of one common planned language as the working language would save a lot of time and tax-money but more important make the language situation in EU more democratic. Many such languages were created during the years. The one which has proved most livable and successful is Esperanto.
If one should decide to replace the current communication system of the EU with for instance Esperanto, the first step would be to teach the language to the interpreters. No more need for interpreting between each and every language pair, but only between Esperanto and the national languages. Only later, when the delegates on their own initiative starts to learn the working language to be able to speak directly to each other without having to use interpreters (which is much more convenient and less tiring), begins the real effective communication and flow of information in the Union. Furthermore this would give greater opportunity to include more and smaller languages into the community, and the status between all official languages would be more just.
Esperanto was published in 1887 by Ludovic Zamenhof. The main purpose of the language was to facilitate communication between people of different countries and cultures and thus create peace and understanding among them. The obvious advantage of E-to in this case is that it does not belong to any nation, any ethnic group, but it could provide communication on the same level, not lifting up one language or land over others.
Esperanto is easy to learn because of logical grammar structure (only 16 rules) and because it is based on international word-roots, to make it easier for as many as possible to remember the words. Fortunately, it has no declinations or irregular verbs. The alphabet is Latin, including 6 new letters, so every sound has one letter and the spelling is completely phonetic. The accent in always on the second to last syllable. This means that Esperanto can be learned very fast, between 5-10 times faster than a national language, and learning becomes more fun.
Nowadays people in more than hundred countries use it. The number of appeared books is around 40 000. It is both translation from national languages as well as original literature, from scientific reports to poetry and songs. Everything that can be expressed in any national language can just as well be expressed in Esperanto. Furthermore are published over a hundred magazines and newspapers, and several radio-programs can be listened to every week. Many international meetings, festivals, congresses, science conferences etc are held all over the world. During these arrangements all the people communicate with each other in the same language, without interpreters.
In conclusion, there is a solution to the communication problem that can work for everyone, not least the minority populations of the union, and the reason it has not yet been put to practice is lack of interest and knowledge among those who decides.
