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• Esperanto itself has not yet been awarded a Nobel prize, in part because it is difficult to find an appropriate category. It is, however, interesting to note that several Nobel prize winners have been part of the Esperanto community. The most recent is winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, 1994, Prof. Reinhard Selten of the University of Bonn, for his work in game theory. Prof. Selten is a member of the German Esperanto Association and of the Esperanto university group the International Academy of Sciences. He is co-author of “Should we learn Esperanto? An introduction to the theory of language games” with Dr Jonathan Pool. (Noted in Eventoj October/2, 1994.)
• New Cardinal an Esperantist: The Catholic Weekly (Pertersham NSW) in its issue for 30 November 1994 published a three-quarter page article deovoted to Miloslav Vlk of Prague, Czech Republic, under the headline “He believes Esperanto can link people”. The article, which is principally devoted to a brief biography of Miloslav Vlk, ends with the comment “he might become the first Pope to write encyclical letters to the whole Church in Esperanto.” Miloslav Vlk was elected president of the Council of Conferences of European Bishops in 1993. He was made Cardinal Bishop in 1994.
• The International Esperanto Museum in the Hofburg, Vienna, Austria (Internacia Esperanto-Muzeo Wien) has published its statistics for the year 1993:
(From Eventoj October/2, 1994.)
• The first Esperanto radio broadcasts took place in 1922, from two stations in two countries. By 1924, 130 stations in 18 countries were broadcasting in Esperanto. The first professional Esperanto radio staff were trained by Radio Poland in preparation for the Universal Congress of Esperanto in Warsaw 1959. Poland was the original home of Esperanto. In the following 35 years Radio Poland has broadcast 42 306 programs in Esperanto, and at present broadcasts two daily half hour Esperanto programs. It continues to have a professional staff of journalists to produce and broadcast in Esperanto. (From Internacia Ĵurnalisto 4/94.)
At the present time 10 international radio stations broadcast in Esperanto a total of 26 hours and 28 minutes a week, from Austria, Beijing (daily), Brazil (daily), Estonia, Havana, Lithuania, Poland (daily), Rome, Sarajevo, and the Vatican. Local stations with regular broadcasts in Esperanto are found in Australia, Brazil, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, and Spain among others. (Compiled from a table in UEA/Esperanto Nov. 1994.)
• The oldest Esperanto magazine in the world is Dia Regno, a religious journal now in its 92nd year. The oldest national Esperanto magazine is right behind it at 90 years, La Brita Esperantisto, which published its 922nd issue in November-December of last year. Its current editor, William Auld, has served since 1971. (Information from La Brita Esperantisto November-December 1994.)
Our own journal began publication in 1920, but had major breaks in publication, particularly in the years 1909-1919 and 1935-1939 It has been published under a variety of titles, including La Suda Kruco (together with the N.Z. Esperanto Association) 1920-1934; La Rondo 1940-1957; The Australian Esperantist 1958-1992; and at present Esperanto sub la Suda Kruco (also together with the N.Z. Association) 1993 to the present.
RECRUITING ESPERANTISTS
by David H. Wild
I agree with the views expressed by Will Green in the current issue of La Brita Esperantisto and feel that we are in serious danger of missing the targets that we could hit while we pay attention to others which are potentially much less fruitful. During the twenty-odd years of my membership of BEA and EAB we have had numerous recruitment campaigns but with very little return for our efforts. There was a notable article in The Independent on Sunday about Esperanto as a “Design Dinosaur”. Although the conclusions in the article were wrong, I think that we must accept that there is nowhere near enough material available to attract people to learn and use Esperanto. We have worried about criticism that “Esperanto has no literature” without recognising that such critics do not want their objections to be answered, and we have neglected the provision of factual material.
This is not to suggest that the material that exists is no good; just that it is not sufficient to persuade doubters to make the effort. If you go into a large branch of W.H. Smith you will see a whole wall covered with “Popular Fiction” but I doubt whether any of this would be sufficient to persuade someone to learn English, although they might find much of it to be quite acceptable reading once they had done so. People will, however, make an effort to cope with an unfamiliar language if by doing so they have access to information that they would not find in their own. Along with quite a few other people, I buy a book Trams 94 published by an obscure Dutch publisher, because it contains a lot of information about European tramways. I suspect that more people have acquired some knowledge of Dutch because of this book than for all the Dutch literature in existence. A well-researched book, with supporting tables, about, say, narrow-gauge railways in the former Soviet Union would probably attract about a thousand sales in this country [England-ed.] alone— and the buyers would learn some Esperanto to read it.
What I am suggesting is that we should accept that trying to persuade people that Esperanto is a “Good Thing” in itself and that they should join EAB, is unlikely to get us much further. I don’t believe that there are lots of people out there just waiting to join our organisation if only they knew how. Most people do not join associations, even those which deal with things in which they have a particular interest. In Watford town centre there are four specialist photographic shops in addition to the department and multiple stores which also sell cameras. The members of the local photographic society certainly couldn’t spend enough to keep all those shops in business.
This letter isn’t, however, a counsel of despair. I believe that there are many thousands of people out there who could be persuaded that it is worth learning Esperanto as an adjunct to a special interest which they already have. As with photography, of course, only a very small proportion of them would join a specifically Esperanto association.
In a recent issue of the Labour Party magazine there was a description of a new quarterly magazine dealing with European socialism, and I feel that some Esperantists ought to have been in there pointing out the advantages of the international language for the purpose of the magazine. Because of the necessity of political neutrality for the UEA, we seem to have neglected the opportunities which politics could bring. These are made greater by the fact that much political thought these days has to take in discussions of what is happening in other countries.
Politics covers very much more than formal party affairs but, if we are to take advantage of any opportunities, we must ensure that any Esperanto approach must be directed to the theme being discussed and not diverted into a socialist, or conservative, or other specialist Esperanto association. We should be trying to sell people a tool which will enhance their present interests rather than adding another interest to their collection. A few of them, of course, will become sufficiently interested to join our association, but that shouldn’ t be our major aim.
One thing which could work strongly in our favour is the growth of desktop publishing which allows the production of good quality specialist magazines without large investment and for fairly small initial circulation. There are several conditions which such magazines should meet:
• They must be in but never about Esperanto. Don’t forget that the, often heated, debate which takes place about English usage doesn’t take place in Amateur Photographer, Computer Shopper or Railway Magazine, although I have no doubt that their editors get many letters about the “grammatical errors” which readers find in them.
• The content must be original, at least in the sense of having been written for the magazine in which it appears, and not made up of collations from other magazines. This is important because people are more likely to respond to an original article than to a report of an article which has appeared elsewhere.
• The quality of the content should be as good as that of comparable national language magazines, even if we can’t manage the same production quality.
• They must not attempt to recruit readers to Esperanto societies. They could well promote membership of societies which use Esperanto to promote the general aims of their members. We must never forget that our aim is to attract people to use Esperanto to extend their own interests and not to attract existing Esperantists to specialist organisations.
• Any advertisements contained in them must relate to the theme of the magazine itself, and must not be for general Esperanto activities. (It would be right for them to contain a leaflet explaining where Esperanto instruction can be obtained, but this is as far as it should go.) A reasonable extension of the activity of Esperanto groups would be in acting as translator for those advertisers who were unable to reply to correspondence in Esperanto.
In addition to politics, other suitable markets are:
• Transport, especially with the coming of the Channel Tunnel. Groups of interest here are transport workers about technical matters, transport workers as employees and transport enthusiasts. These last are always hungry for information and are prepared to put quite a bit of effort into reading about their subjects.
• Education, which could attract many parents, and teaching, which is related but not quite the same.
• Public health.
• Conservation and the environment. This is a very good example of a subject where the non-professional may have as valid an input as anybody else.
There can be no doubt that we have an urgent need for more users of Esperanto from whom we can recruit new members for our association and I want to put these proposals forward as a reasonable way of achieving our aim…
I see the eventual role of Esperanto Associations as being a “ginger group”, helping and encouraging those who wish to use Esperanto. As I said earlier, most people will not want to join but if we could make my proposals work the pool of potential members would be greatly increased.
[Reprinted from La Brita Esperantisto November-December 1994.]
