In varietate concordia (in English: United in
diversity) is the official motto of the European Union. In European Federation
the official version of the motto shall
be “Unuiĝintaj en diverseco”.
In
accordance with Article 8 of the Constitution of the European Union as a federal
state, the Esperanto is the official language of the European Union. A major
problem facing European Union is lack of co-operation and sense of common
identity. We have a Citizenship of the European Union but not union of Europeans
and few people identify as Europeans in serous or meaningful way. Esperanto would strengthen the bonds between
Europeans.
Article 8(1) Esperanto is, without prejudice to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the Member States, the official language of the Union.(2) Member States shall determine their official languages.To ensure harmonious coexistence between linguistic communities, they point out the traditional linguistic structure of the region and take into account the indigenous linguistic minorities.(3) It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Esperanto language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of European Union.
What is Esperanto?
Esperanto is a language
invented by a Polish-Jewish named Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof. He created Esperanto
in the late 19th century and published the first book detailing it, Unua Libro,
in 1887 under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, Esperanto translating as "one who
hopes". Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language that
would serve as a universal second language to foster peace and international
understanding. In essence, Zamenhof combined the main European languages into
one language that everyone could easily learn. This makes it especially
suitables as an European Union language as it merges our different heritages to
form a new unifying symbol.
Today the Esperanto is still
alive and as strong as ever. With about 249,000 articles, Esperanto Wikipedia
is the 32nd-largest Wikipedia, as measured by the number of articles, and is
the largest Wikipedia in a constructed language. About 151,000 users consult
the Esperanto Wikipedia regularly. On 22 February 2012, Google Translate added
Esperanto as its 64th language. There are more that 25 000 Esperanto
books, both originals and translations, as well as several regularly
distributed Esperanto magazines.
Why Esperanto?
1. Esperanto is really easy to learn.
Esperanto was designed to be
as simple and painless as possible to learn. Because the spelling is completely
phonetic and each word sounds exactly as it is spelt. All present tense verbs
end in “-as”, all pas tens verbs end in “-is”, and all future tense verbs end
in “-os”, infinitive mood “-i”, conditional mood “-us” and jussive mood “-u”. Verbs
are not marked for person or number.
|
Verbal tense
|
Suffix
|
Verbal mood
|
Suffix
|
|
Present
|
-as (kantas)
|
Infinitive
|
-i (kanti)
|
|
Past
|
-is (kantis)
|
Jussive
|
-u (kantu)
|
|
Future
|
-os (kantos)
|
Conditional
|
-us (kantus)
|
No long list of verbs groups
or conjugations that must be learned off with a frustratingly list of
exceptions. The vocabulary, orthography, phonology, and semantics, are all
thoroughly European. The vocabulary, for example, draws about two-thirds from
Romance and one-third from Germanic languages; the syntax is Romance; and the
phonology and semantics are Slavic.
2. Esperanto is neutral language.
The European Union as a
federal state will only work if it is voluntary union of equal Member States,
not if one dominates the rest. It is not fair or acceptable for the language of
the one Member State to be imposed on everyone else. Historically we have
examples where one Member State dominated over the other members of the
federation and consequently led to the breakup of such a federation (USSR or
Yugoslavia). The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were unaware of the role of
language in identity, and they tried to develop a Soviet Union and Yugoslavia
language using the language of the largest population (Russian and
Serbian). It did work as a language of
communication but could not be accepted as a language of communal identity,
because it wasn’t neutral. In a time of crisis this was decisive and
fundamentally influenced the collapse of these multi-ethic federal states.
Therefore, the ideas of making one of the languages of the Member States a
working language of the European Union is a very bad solution.
An important fact is that the
capital and headquarters of the European Union authorities are in Brussels, the
capital of Belgium, and Belgium is the tenth largest Member State in the
European Federation. This is why Brussels is the capital of the European Union,
instead of Berlin, Paris, London, Rome, Warsaw etc. Those cities are all larger
and more prestigious, but as national capitals they would leave European
Federation open to criticism that it is dominated by that nation. Choosing a neutral, artificial and
international language like Esperanto will help European Federation and Member
States maintain a separate identity and lessen the claim that it only serves
one culture or national interest. The Esperanto doesn’t have homeland or
its own state actually makes it more, not less suitable for the role official
language of the European Federation. Because it belongs to no one ethic group
or nation, it belongs everyone equally. Similar solution was chosen in
ex-colonial countries, like English in India or Nigeria, French in Democratic
Republic of the Congo or Central African Republic.
Esperanto would even help fix
the language problem the European Union as a federal state faces. It is will
difficult to run an institutions and bodies of the European Federation with 37
official languages and this leads to large expenses and inefficiencies as
everything must be translated into all the languages. It is not feasible to
have 37 working languages and it is difficult to require all employees to
multilingual. No ethic group or nation
gains from the promotion of Esperanto, neither does anyone lose from its
advance.
Co-existence not replacement?
I am not proposing replacing
all other languages of the Member States with Esperanto, merely that it be international
auxiliary language in European Federation. I want it to be the 38the language,
not the only one. Esperanto isn’t supposed to crash or replace other languages,
it was invented to be universal second language. Let me remind you that Article 8 of the Constitution European
Federation says:
(1) Esperanto is, without prejudice to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the Member States, the official language of the Union.(2) Member States shall determine their official languages.To ensure harmonious coexistence between linguistic communities, they point out the traditional linguistic structure of the region and take into account the indigenous linguistic minorities.(3) It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Esperanto language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of European Union.
According to Article 8 of the Constitution European
Federation the Poles will still speak Polish, the Germans will speak German,
the Serbs Serbian etc., but when they meet they could speak Esperanto. Esperanto
would of the main working language European Union, not Member States. According
to Article 8 paragraph 3 of the Constitution European
Union as a federal state would promote teaching it in the schools of Member
States, TV and radio. Actually in most Member States teach students three
languages, the national language, English and a major European language (like
German, Spanish, French etc.), and I am propose to replace one of these with
Esperanto.
All of this would significantly boost the sense of European-ness and build
a common identity. Speaking Esperanto expresses the idea that we are all
European, that we are equals and are willing to cross national borders to
co-operate.
In connection with the above teaching European Federations 605 million Citizens
Esperanto would, so runs the logic, be more cost-effective and better
investment of time and money. There are two false myths however which need to
be exploded. Firstly that “everyone speaks English” and secondly “no-one speaks
Esperanto”. Neither of these are true. The dominant position of English is
result of the dominant position of the USA in every area of life (political,
technology etc.). Esperanto is neutral language and this is his primary and
main asset.
