THE MAKING OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE.
[By Dr. Zamenhof.]
From the "Fundamenta Krestomatio," which every Esperantist should read.
If the reader should take up this little work with an incredulous smile, supposing that he is about to peruse the impracticable schemes of some good citizen of Utopia, I would in the first place beg of him to lay aside all prejudice, and treat seriously and critically the question brought before him.
I need not here point out the considerable importance to humanity of an international language—a language unconditionally accepted by everyone, and the common property of the whole world. How much time and labour we spend in learning foreign tongues, and yet when travelling in foreign countries we are, as a rule, unable to converse with other human beings in their own language. How much time, labour, and money are wasted in translating the literary productions of one nation into the language of another, and yet, if we rely on translations alone, we can become acquainted with but a tithe of foreign literature.,
Were there but an international language all translations would be made into it alone, as into a tongue intelligible to all, and works of an international character would be written in it in the first instance.
The Chinese wall dividing literatures would disappear, and the works of other nations would be as readily intelligible to us as those of our own authors. Books being the same for everyone, education, ideals, convictions, aims, would be the same too, and all nations would be united in a common brotherhood. Being compelled, as we now are, to devote our time to
