Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education | Page 9

a statement I often make in my
lectures.
Mr. RIPLEY. We had a man here the other day who has a language
which he claims is an improvement on Esperanto.
Prof. CHRISTEN. Yes?
Mr. RIPLEY. He is from Ohio, I believe.
Prof. CHRISTEN. I know. Since Esparanto began to move forward
there have been at least 30 to 40 different schemes elaborated, and that
is easily done. You can do it overnight. But there is no scheme that has
ever touched and no scheme that can ever touch Esperanto, because it
has hit the mark from the first. (8)
Mr. TOWNER. What do you do with adverbs? Do they have a definite
form?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Every derived adverb ends in "e."
Mr. TOWNER. So you could not distinguish from the form between a
verb and an adverb, could you?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Perfectly. The adverb ends in "e" and the infinitive
ends in "i."
Mr. RIPLEY. It is your contention that children will do better in

English if they acquire a knowledge of Esperanto?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Undoubtedly; this is a statement I make in my
lectures: If you gentlemen will give me a number of children aged 4 or
5 years I will give them a quarter of an hour's pleasant explanation
about grammar, that is Esperanto grammar, and they will understand it
after a quarter of an hour's explanation; then I will jumble together a
number of blocks, with various words on these blocks, and I will say to
these children "pick out every noun," and they will be able to do it--that
is, pick the nouns from the adjectives--and so with every part of speech.
The CHAIRMAN. Because they will know to a certainty?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Yes; every word tells its own tale on account of its
distinctive ending. Now, that is a thing you can not do in English; that
nobody can do in English, because we can not tell the parts of speech
simply by the appearance of the words; we can only know from the
context and that is not always easy!
The CHAIRMAN. How does that apply to other languages?
Prof. CHRISTEN. The same thing applies more or less to all, because
they are all irregular; they were not formed; they have "growd" like
Topsy.
Mr. TOWNER. The Latin language is more regular?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Yes: but it does not begin to compare with
Esperanto. Now, we have had these four words, and I want to proceed a
little further, and I will take up something that will help me to answer
your questions. If I had to teach you gentlemen French I would have to
make you commit to memory 2,667 endings and contractions for the
verb alone; it would take you months and months to learn that alone.
The same absurdities and even worse occur in Italian, in Spanish, in
German, in English, and in all so-called natural languages.
Mr. TOWNER. And we never could learn these irregularities and
exceptions.

Prof. CHRISTEN. Well, if you did learn them you would never
remember them at the right time because the whole scheme is so
complicated. This is only one of the many reasons which make us so
shy at speaking foreign languages. Now, the same thing is true of
German, and of all other languages, but it is not true of Esperanto. I
will teach you the whole Esperanto conjugation in five minutes and you
will never forget it, because there is nothing to remember. You already
know that a noun ends in "o" and that the infinitive ends in "i," and so
on: there is absolutely no difficulty whatever. (9) Now, I am sorry I
have to speak so rapidly, because I would like to give you more
information.
The CHAIRMAN. We would be glad to have you add to your remarks.
Mr. TOWNER. You can extend your remarks.
Prof. CHRISTEN. Since my time is up and, indeed, far exceeded, I will
be very glad to do so. But before I leave you, let me read one or two
items, which will only take two minutes more. Here is a quotation from
the British Esperantist, of November, 1913, showing the progress
Esperanto is making:
The central Esperanto bureau, of Paris, gives the following statistics: In
1889, there had been published 29 books in Esperanto; in 1899, 128; in
1910, 1,554; in 1912 (to August 30), 1,837. Enough already to keep
most readers going for full five years of Sundays, and the output, both
of bookshop and of press, is increasing daily.
Mr. TOWNER. In a general way, what is the character of this
literature?
Prof. CHRISTEN. Up to now chiefly textbooks for learning Esperanto,
such as this little book [indicating], which can be purchased for 10
cents. You can learn the whole mechanism of the