The International Terminological Key - universala esperanto

The big and decisive difference between these two subcategories is that
naturalistic projects are easy to read at first sight (passive character) ― at
least for people knowing the original source languages ― but hard to learn
and use actively, while schematic ones are easy to learn and use (active
character) ― even for non-European people 19 ― though unfamiliar looking at
first glance. As a result the former (especially those based on English-
French-Spanish) will easily recruit sym-pathisers among the academic
circles, but few real active users, while the latter will find relatively few
sympathisers among the (often polyglot) academicians, but a great number
of (monoglot) “simple folk” from all civilizations, willing to rapidly acquire
mastery of an international language. 20
Of course, there are also systems on the market which only simplify and
abridge a given natural language, in order to make it easily digestible for
foreigners, the best known example being perhaps C.K. OGDEN's Basic
English; but this category cannot be really considered as being constructed ―
rather: “deconstructed” ― and thus least of all apt for embedding the ITK.
Only candidate left: the schematic Esperanto.
3.2 Fortunes and Misfortunes of Esperanto
Why concentrate on Esperanto and give only scant regard to any of the other
constructed candidates, like perhaps WÜSTER's pet Occidental? Simply
because to date it is the only project which has grown into a real and
interactively spoken language, so that in fact it can no longer be classified as
a mere “project”. So let us get better acquainted with this language and its
adherents.
1. The first question which invariably pops up, when someone is confronted
with a propagandist for Esperanto and has been assured that, yes, it still
exists, is: How many people speak it?
– The answer to this question, invariably of great importance to the layman,
is nearly impossible to give in exact numbers. First, because already four or
19. We use the name Western or European in a very large sense, since of course non-Indo-European
languages like Basque, Finnish, Maltese etc. belong to the same geographical realm.
20. More details and aspects of this subject can be found in, among others:
Mario Pei – One Language for the World – Biblio & Tannen, New York 1968
and Andrew Large – The Artificial Language Movement – Blackwell, New York 1985.
It must be considered a great pity, that most studies about and compilations of planned languages – a
whole library – have only been published in... Esperanto. A specialized centre, CDLI, collecting and
cataloguing anything on the vast subject and in any language, operates in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Rue
du Progrès 33, CH-2300 Switzerland.
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