Communication among those of different linguistic backgrounds can often be a comedy of errors, as anyone who has traveled to a country where his native language and its native language are not the same. Similarly, trying to help a non-English speaker out in the US can be, at the same time, rewarding and suprising.
Several years ago I was standing near the day lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon and overheard two young women speaking Japanese. They were taking one another's pictures. Figuring they might want a picture of the two of them together, I cautiously approached and in my best (think 5 or 6 phrases gleaned from one year of Japanese many years previous) Japanese, asked "Nihon no kata desu ka?" - "Are you Japanese?" They looked delighted to hear something even vaguely familiar and responded with such a flurry of words that I nearly fell off the mountain! I was able to communicate that I really coudn't speak any more Japanese, but that I would be delighted to take their picture. They hugged one another, and I snapped the photo. Next, they insisted that I get in a picture with one of them while the other. What would they tell their friends and family I wondered?
There have been numerous attempts at creating an artificial "universal language". Esperanto is one was developed at the end of the 19th Century that still has its adherents today. You can check out the Esperanto USA site at www.esperanto-usa.org to see examples of the language and read up on activities of the organization. The librarian in my high school, Miss Glidden ("the Glider" to the students, behind her back, of course), was a big Esperanto fan, had books on it and could actually speak it, much to everyone's amazement.
Another appears in the one-act play "Universal Language" in which playwright David Ives creates "Unamunda", "an absurdist variation on Esperanto (already absurd enough) that blithely substitutes proper names, brand names and ludicrous distortions of familiar foreign phrases for their English equivalents. ("Harvard U" means "How are you?"; "Velcro" is "Welcome.")" - NY Time reviewof December 3, 1993. This is but one of many one act plays from the collection "All in the Timing" by the playwright, and if it's ever being done in town, wherever "in town" is to you, buy a couple of tickets, get a friend to go with you, and be prepared for a totally enjoyable evening.
The honeymoon registry where I work has seen a number of registries created in different languages. American English is the most common, of course, followed by British, Australian and Canadian (eh?) English, but we have seen registries in French, Portuguese, Spanish and others.
I've recently decided to start a program in Teaching English as a Second Language at Portland State University in their Applied Linguistics Department. Tune in later to see if I'm still with it.
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Take a look at http://www.esperanto.net
Esperanto works! I’ve used it in speech and writing - and sung in it - in a dozen countries over recent years.
Indeed, the language has some remarkable practical benefits. Personally, I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries.
Learning Esperanto make even make you a better TESL teacher - more sensitive to what people find difficult in the language learning experience.
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