Part 21 (2/2)

”All right,” the West Indian said. ”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?”

”Why _one_ official language? Why not several?” Cliff scowled. ”Say Arabic, here in this area. Swahili on the East coast. And, say, Songhoi along the Niger, and Wolof, the Senegalese lingua franca, and--”

”You see,” Peters interrupted. ”Already you have half a dozen and you haven't even got out of this immediate vicinity as yet. Let me develop my point.”

Homer Crawford was becoming interested. ”Go on, Jack,” he said.

Jack Peters pointed a finger at him. ”To be the hero-symbol we have in mind, El Ha.s.san 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.”

Homer said thoughtfully, ”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?”

Jack was shaking his head seriously. ”And antagonize all the Arab hating Bantu in Africa? It's no go, Homer.”

”Well, then, say French--or English.”

”English is the most international language in the world,” Moroka said. But his face was thoughtful, as those of the others were becoming.

The West Indian was beginning to make his points now. ”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.”

”Why Esperanto?” Cliff scowled. ”Why not, say, Nov-Esperanto, or Ido, or Interlingua?”

Jimmy Peters put in a word now. ”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 nave 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.”

Homer said, ”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.”

”I still don't get the picture,” Cliff argued. ”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.”

Isobel said thoughtfully, ”Well, it's a darn sight easier to learn Esperanto than any other language we decided to make official.”

”Why?” Cliff said argumentatively.

Jack Peters took over. ”Because it's almost unbelievably easy to learn. English, by the way, is extremely difficult. For instance, spelling and p.r.o.nunciation 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.”

Dave Moroka said, ”Actually, I don't know anything at all about this Esperanto.”

The West Indian took him in, with a dominating glance. ”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.”

Jack Peters was caught up in his subject. ”Still comparing it to English, realize that spelling and p.r.o.nunciation 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 p.r.o.nounced 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.”

Jimmy Peters said, ”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 astonis.h.i.+ngly fluent.”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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