human
Jack said,
gpt
I thought I had a fairly good working knowledge of the world's more common languages, he said,
human
Let's drop Esperanto so that Dave, Isobel and Cliff can follow us. We can give it a whirl later, if you'd like, just for the practice.
gpt
Then in English,
human
I took it for kicks while I was still in school. Kind of rusty now, though.
gpt
Esperanto? Cliff said.
human
You mean that gobblydygook so-called international language?
gpt
What is wrong with an international language, Mr. Jackson?
human
Search me. But it doesn't seem to have proved very practical. It didn't catch on.
gpt
Well, more than you might think, Isobel told him.
human
There are probably hundreds of thousands of persons in one part of the world or another who can get along in Esperanto.
gpt
What're a few hundred thousands of people in a world population like ours? Cliff's right. It never took hold.
human
All right, Jack and Jimmy. You boys evidently have something on your minds. Let everybody sit down and listen to it.
gpt
We need an official language, he said.
human
The El Hassan movement has set as a goal the uniting of all North Africa. We might start here in the Sahara, but it's just a start. Ultimately, the idea is to reach from Morocco to Egypt and from the Mediterranean to ... to where? The Congo?
gpt
Actually, we've never set exact limits,
human
Ultimately _all Africa_,
gpt
All right, the West Indian said.
human
There are more than seven hundred major languages, not counting dialects, in Africa. Sooner or later, we need an official language, what is it going to be?
gpt
Why _one_ official language? Why not several? Cliff scowled.
human
Say Arabic, here in this area. Swahili on the East coast. And, say, Songhoi along the Niger, and Wolof, the Senegalese lingua franca, and--
gpt
You see, Peters interrupted.
human
Already you have half a dozen and you haven't even got out of this immediate vicinity as yet. Let me develop my point.
gpt
Go on, Jack,
human
To be the hero-symbol we have in mind, El Hassan is going to have to be able to communicate with _all_ of his people. He's not going to be able to speak Arabic to, say, a Masai in Kenya. They hate the Arabs. He's not going to be able to speak Swahili to a Moroccan, they've never heard of the language. He can't speak Tamaheq to the Imraguen, they're scared to death of the Tuareg.
gpt
A common language would be fine. It'd solve a lot of problems. But it doesn't seem to be in the cards. Why not adopt as our official language the one in which the _most_ of our people will be able to communicate? Say, Arabic?
human
And antagonize all the Arab hating Bantu in Africa? It's no go, Homer.
gpt
Well, then, say French--or English.
human
English is the most international language in the world,
gpt
No, any of the European languages are out. The white man has been repudiated. Adopting English, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch, as our official language would antagonize whole sections of the continent.
human
Why Esperanto? Cliff scowled.
gpt
Why not, say, Nov-Esperanto, or Ido, or Interlingua?
human
Actually, any one of them would possibly do, but we have a head start with Esperanto. Some years ago both Jack and I became avid Esperantists, being naïve enough in those days to think an international language would ultimately solve all man's problems. And both Homer and Isobel seem to have a working knowledge of the language.
gpt
So have the other members of my former Reunited Nations team. That's where those books you found came from. Elmer, Bey, Kenny ... and Abe ... and I used to play around with it when we were out in the desert, just to kill time. We also used it as sort of a secret language when we wanted to communicate and didn't know if those around us might understand some English.
human
I still don't get the picture, Cliff argued.
gpt
If we picked the most common half a dozen languages in the territory we cover, then millions of these people wouldn't have to study a second language. But if you adapt Esperanto as an official language then _everybody_ is going to have to learn something new. And that's not going to be easy for our ninety-five per cent illiterate followers.
human
Well, it's a darn sight easier to learn Esperanto than any other language we decided to make official.
gpt
Why?
human
Because it's almost unbelievably easy to learn. English, by the way, is extremely difficult. For instance, spelling and pronunciation are absolutely phonetic in Esperanto and there are only five vowel sounds where most national languages have twenty or so. And each sound in the alphabet has one sound only and any sound is always rendered by the same letter.
gpt
Actually, I don't know anything at all about this Esperanto.
human
Take grammar and syntax which can take up volumes in other languages. Esperanto has exactly sixteen short rules. And take vocabularies. For instance, in English we often form the feminine of a noun by adding _ess--actor-actress_, _tiger-tigress_. But not always. We don't say _bull-bulless_ or _ghost-ghostess_. In Esperanto you simply add the feminine ending to any noun--there's no exception to any rule.
gpt
Still comparing it to English, realize that spelling and pronunciation in English are highly irregular and one letter can have several different sounds, and one sound may be represented by different letters. And there are even silent letters which are written but not pronounced like the _ugh_ in _though_. There are none of these irregularities in Esperanto. And the sounds are all sharp with none of such subtle differences as, say, _bed/bad/bard/bawd_, that sort of thing.
human
The big item is that any averagely intelligent person can begin speaking Esperanto within a few hours. Within a week of even moderate study, say three or four hours a day, he's astonishingly fluent.
gpt
There'd be international advantages. It's always been a galling factor in Africans dealing with Europeans that they had to learn the European language involved. You couldn't expect your white man to learn kitchen kaffir, or Swahili, or whatever, not when you got on the diplomatic level.
human
So far, El Hassan is an unknown. Rumor has it that he's everything from a renegade Egyptian, to an escaped Mau-Mau chief, to a Senegalese sergeant formerly in the French West African forces. But when he starts running into the press and they find that Homer and his closest associates all speak English, and most of them with an American accent, there's going to be some fat in the fire.
gpt
And El Hassan will have lost some of his mysterious glamour,
human
If El Hassan, himself, refused in the presence of foreigners ever to speak anything but Esperanto, the aura of mystery would continue.
gpt
We make it a rule that every school, both locally taught and foreign, must teach Esperanto as a required subject. All El Hassan governmental affairs would be conducted in that language. Anybody at all trying to get anywhere in the new regime would have to learn the official inter-African tongue.
human
Oh, brother, Cliff groaned,
gpt
He brightened.
human
We haven't any books or anything, as yet.
gpt
I'll take on your studies, Cliff. We have a few books. Those that Homer and his team used to kill time with. And as soon as we're in a position to make requests for foreign aid of the great powers, Esperanto grammars, dictionaries and so forth can be high on the list.
human
Where's that bodyguard?
gpt
Hold it, Homer Crawford roared, jumping to his own feet and grabbing the South African in his arms. He glared at the newcomer.
human
Kenny, you idiot, you're lucky you don't have a couple of holes in you.
gpt
Jeepers, he said,