One Language for the World
by
Mario Pei
Copyright ,1958, Mario Pei ; Devin-Adair Company.
Reprinted, 1968, by Noble Offset Printers
ISBN 68-56449
This book has been reprinted by special permission of the original publishers, Devin-Adair Company.
Permission to reprint material from this book must be obtained in writing from them.

CONTENTS

Introduction , xiii
The PROBLEM IN THE PRESENT : THE NEED
1. The jigsaw puzzle of language
2 . What you can do with each language
3 . What you can't do with each language
4 . The immediate need : political and diplomatic
5 . The immediate need : military and commercial
6 .  The immediate need : cultural and scientific
7 . What a world language will do for us
THE PROBLEM IN THE PAST : THE ATTEMPTS
8 . How languages have grown
9 . Unconscious and partial solutions
10. The growth of consciousness
11. Attempted solutions : the national languages
12. Attempted solutions : language combinations
13. Attempted solutions : modified national languages
14 Attempted solutions : modified national languages
15. Attempted solutions: two- and three-language blends
16. Attempted solutions : a priori languages
17. attempted solutions : mixed systems
18. Attempted solutions : recent projects
Summary of Part 2.
THE PROBLEM IN THE FUTURE : THE SOLUTIONS
20. A partial or a complete solution
21. Two great delusions ; logic and ease
22.The problem of the present generation
23. Present and future status of the main contenders
24. Inefficacy of "movements"
25. The only two possible solutions : war or accord
26. The machinery of a peaceful solution
27. Pro and con : the national languages present their candidacy
28. Pro and con : the constructed languages present their candidacy
29. What a world language won't do for us.
30. What we must do about a world language.

28 . Pro and con : the constructed languages present their candidacy.

Greek - Latin - French - English - Spanish - Italian - German - Russian - Chinese - Finnish - Le Monde Bilingue -- The Devil's Advocate.
    . . .
    "I am the English language, second in number of speakers throughout the world, first in distribution,* in commerce, in industry, in wealth, in economic power, in science and technology. My grammatical structure combines the features of inflectional Indo-European with those of isolating Chinese. My vocabulary is truly international, uniting Germanic, Romance, Greek and Latin elements into an indissoluble whole, and affording the greatest freedom of choice to my speakers. I have spread with ease over the entire world, because practically everyone wants to learn me and use me. I am direct and concise, yet quite expressive. More people want me as an international tongue than want any other."
    "You are a tongue that is extremely confusing, not merely as to spelling, but also as to pronunciation and grammar. You have no standard form, and refuse to have any. Your sounds are among the most confusing in the world, with vowels and diphthongs that have bewildering glides when they are stressed and are completely unclear with unstressed. Your consonant clusters are harsh and unpleasant to the ear. Your stress is unpredictable. Your spelling is ghastly, and if it is phonetized, half of your word-stock, now perfectly recognizable in written form, will become a shrouded mystery. Your grammatical simplicity is a snare and a delusion. Your tricky auxiliary verbs, like do and have (' Do you have a book ?'; ' Have you got a book ?') are the despair of grammarians. Your system of functional change, whereby the same word may be used as any of the three or four parts of speech (' Casualties from cold cut ' say one our your newspaper headlines) leaves speakers of other languages breathless. You are much too given to slang and jargon, and you change far to fast to suit anyone but your own speakers."
    . . .
------------------
* Mandarin has the most native speakers, but when those who have learned English as a second language are added to native English speakers, the total of persons able to speak English exceeds even Chinese.   The point of distribution is also interesting with Mandarin spoken principally in northern and south-western China and English is spoken round the earth. - bei

28 . Pro and con : the constructed languages present their candidacy.

Basic English -- Esperanto -- Interglossa -- Interlingua -- The Devil's Advocate.
    . . .
    A delegate addresses the chair " "Mine is the voice of Basic English, * and the statement that I here make about myself is an example of that small-scale language at work. As a separate language system, I am the invention of one man (C.K. Ogden, 1890-1957), but as a part of English, I am as old as the rest of the language. Man made though natural, springing from the mother tongue like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, I came into being armed with the powers -- though wisely limited -- to full English. Such skill has been used in the selection of my 850 words that with them man may say almost anything -- in business, trade, industry, science, medical work -- in all the arts of living and in al the exchanges of knowledge, belief, opinion, view and news which a general-purpose language has to take care of. Learning to d so is not hard because the rules for putting my words together have been made clear and simple and short. But there is nothing in good Basic which goes against the rules of good English. Great books have been put into me, as well as talks to men and women at the far ends of the earth. Because my word list is so short, all my sounds may be played on one recording, and teaching me with the help of sound motion pictures is becoming simpler and simpler. Moreover, my selection as servant of the earth's needs would give to men everywhere, if not theirs by birth, use of one of the great living languages. I am a door opening on wider English."

The reader should be able to easily rebut the Devil's Advocate. Basic is not the world language, English is today. Basic is an auxiliary for international communication by those without English by using that language that is known round the earth. Notice that Basic has too few words in one place and too many in another. Basic is not to replace English, but to allow others to participate in the existing world. Translation can be into either Basic or into English using electronic aids and is certainly no more difficult that other translation. Combinations of parts of speech is what language is all about. The truth is that Basic makes no attempt to fix the complexities of full English. Even with its many flaws, English is the world language. We suggest somebody uses Interlingua simplification techniques to improve English so as to make full English as easy to learn and use as is Basic.
    In addition, this passage is written in Basic English, the only language of the dozens discussed in the book that is understood by the reader. -- bei

Actually two words are not Basic : "skill" should have been written, "expertly" , and "Moreover" written as "In addition".




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This book has just been received 25 July 2008 and additional comments may be coming in a few days or weeks.

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