[Membroj] Membroj Digest, Vol 61, Issue 11

[Ralph Dumain]

You're most welcome.  Here are a few more links, from today's updates 
to my web guides.

Here's the Questia link to Mario Pei:

http://www.questia.com/library/book/one-language-for-the-world-by-mario-pei.jsp

The material on the Holocaust Museum came from this Russian site, 
which I've listed in my main biblio thusly:

[Mir Esperanto]
http://miresperanto.narod.ru/
Diversa materialo en la rusa, angla, & Esperanto, pri Esperantologio, 
beletro, ktp., ekz.:

<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/en.htm>Articles in English
<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/esp.htm>La Mondo de Esperanto
<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/esperantologio.htm>Esperantologio kaj 
Interlingvistiko
<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/historio.htm>El Historio de Rusia E-Movado
<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/zamenhof.htm>Verkoj de Zamenhof kaj Pri Li
<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/biblioteko.htm>Nia Biblioteko (beletro k.a.)

On the sociological aspect of the history, this article is of interest:

<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/esperantologio/ido-skismo.htm>La 
Ido-skismo en sociologia perspektivo de Peter G. Forster
en: Li kaj Ni: Festlibro por la 80a Naski tago de Gaston Waringhien 
(1901 - 29 julio 1981),
red. Reinhard Haupenthal (Antverpeno: TK, 1985), p. 393-399.

I'd say this is pretty insightful, particularly the way Forster 
(author of the sociological study The Esperanto Movement, which is 
lacking in my library, dammit) contrasts the cultures of expertise 
and amateurism. As I recall from 40 years ago, some of the 
apologetics by Esperantists do not give a rounded portrait of the 
split, esp. Marjorie Boulton's excessively romanticized Zamenhof, 
Creator of Esperanto. Aside from the ethics of how the Delegitaro 
handled its business, especially the unexpected defection of de 
Beaufront, the partisans of Ido were not just riffraff; they 
comprised some of the most important intellectuals of their 
time--Couturat, Ostwald, Jespersen. There was validity to their 
purely logical view of the merits of Esperanto and possible 
improvements, but in the end their illusions about what they could 
accomplish were more self-defeating than those of the Esperantists.

Drezen is much harsher, and he proffers generalizations about the 
various factions of the international language movement: Volapuk, 
Esperanto, Ido, the latinizers (Latino sine Flexione, Occidental, 
etc.)  He views Schleyer, creator of Volapuk and a priest, as a 
purveyor of a feudal-authoritarian style of organization, the 
Latinizers as representatives of western European chauvinism and 
imperialism (which might be true in the case of Occidental), and the 
Idists as representing of the elite scientific/technical 
intelligentsia (true enough). Esperanto he views as the sole 
democratically organized and inspired constructed language movement. 
This perspective didn't do him or the rest of the leading Soviet 
Esperantists much good later in the 1930s when they wound up on the 
wrong end of Stalin's firing squads.

The ambitions of the Idist intellectuals became casualties of World 
War I. See, for example:

<file:///c:/autodidact/other/ostwald1.html>Wilhelm Ostwald's 'The 
Bridge' by Niles R. Holt


At 01:20 PM 8/30/2009, David Gaines wrote:
>On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 12:00 PM, 
><<mailto:membroj-request at esperantosocieto.org>membroj-request at esperantosocieto.org> 
>wrote:
>
><<http://miresperanto.narod.ru/en/articles/holocaust.htm>http://miresperanto.narod.ru/en/articles/holocaust.htm>About
>Esperanto Society of Washington and the Holocaust Museum
>
>
>Thanks for posting this, which I missed the first time around. Also 
>a blanket thank you for various things you've posted here which I 
>wouldn't know about otherwise but never thanked you for  LOL   For 
>example, Arika Okrent's new book.
>
>dg
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