Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education | Page 7

same in most
languages. They may not be spelled the same or pronounced the same,
but they are international, and therefore they are Esperanto. That was
the foundation of the vocabulary in Zamenhof's new language--take
words that everybody would know and use them in Esperanto (6).
Mr. TOWNER. How do you determine those common names?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Well, he formed his vocabulary; he selected these
words because they were international--to the exclusion of anything
else.
Mr. TOWNER. Well, that was not definite; it might be enlarged?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Oh, yes.
Mr. TOWNER. What was the vocabulary that he first issued?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Offhand, I think, about 963 words.
Mr. TOWNER. What is the vocabulary now?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Probably about 3,000 words. Now, I have dealt with
the so-called international words; but the bulk of every language
consists of what I would call home words, which every country has for
its own; and the only way to bring equivalents for such words into the
language was to select them from all the principal languages under
consideration, which means, of course, the European languages and to
select these words on the principle of greatest internationality--that is to
say, such verbs as to come, to do, to write, etc., or the nouns, hand,
knife, water, table, etc., or adjectives, like good, bad, healthy, etc.
Before he put these words into his vocabulary, Zamenhof had their
equivalents in all the European languages before him, and then he took

from the whole list the root which was the most prominent, the root that
occurred oftenest, and this became Esperanto, the idea being that the
words selected should be common to at least four or five different
languages.
Mr. TOWNER. You do not mean that, do you? You do not mean that
the only words you would put into the Esperanto vocabulary would be
those that might be common to at least four or five of the principal
languages?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Yes; whenever it is possible to find such words, and
the words do not conflict with the general harmony of the language.
Mr. TOWNER. That is what I thought you meant.
Prof. CHRISTEN. The consequence is that a language formed on these
lines must be a Latin or Romance language because Latin gave birth to
at least six languages: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Roumanian,
and English, and besides, Latin and French have influenced and
enriched the literature and languages of every other modern nation. The
dictionary of Latin words contained, for instance, in Russian or German
would be a very large volume indeed. It is a fact that all modern
attempts at making an artificial language, and their name is legion,
especially since the acknowledged success of Esperanto, are based on
Latin. Consequently also, the international language must be largely
English, because mostly those Latin words will be chosen that are
common at least to French and English. I have lectured to hundreds of
English audiences, and I have given them numerous examples of
Esperanto words in my lectures that could be easily understood by
everybody. Take the words "skribi," to write; "lerni," to learn;
"mangxi," to eat; "trinki," to drink; "tablo," a table; "glaso," a glass;
"nazo," the nose, and "busxo," the mouth; "mano," the hand; take the
adjectives, bona, bela, granda, kapabla, etc. Few, indeed, are the
Esperanto words that do not connect at all with the English; in most
cases, in at least 87 cases out of 100, you will find those words connect
with one or many English words.
Mr. TOWNER. You mean that 87 per cent of the words now in the

Esperanto vocabulary are formative words?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Yes: they are connected with the English language,
and from each Esperanto word you can form mechanically absolutely
every word that sense and logic can possibly connect with the one and
only meaning of the original Esperanto word. I am accustomed to
lecturing before audiences and making this statement, which I make
without fear of contradiction, that "if all of you were to take up
Esperanto now and carry it on until you were as expert in it as I am,
you would not in the whole of your studies come across more than 60
words, probably not more than 50 words, which are entirely new to
you."
Mr. TOWNER. Of course, a vocabulary of 3,000 words is a very
limited vocabulary; it is a primitive vocabulary?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Yes?
Mr. TOWNER. How are you going to increase it? For instance, how
are you going to make it a literary language? How are you going to
write poems?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Personally I should not want an international
language for poetry, although Esperanto does in fact lend itself
excellently to the purposes of the muses. But to answer your question:
First of all, the