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Since you asked ... do you know anything about Graham Greene's contact with Esperanto and perhaps some other constructed language? "Stamboul train" has some Es

by bloak 6y ago

Since you asked ... do you know anything about Graham Greene's contact with Esperanto and perhaps some other constructed language? "Stamboul train" has some Esperanto expressions standing in for Hungarian, and "The confidential agent" has a constructed language called Entrenationo, which the Wikipedia article claims is "obviously modelled on Esperanto" but which sounds a look more like Interlingua to me, though there could be other candidates from around that time. It would be nice to know who the Dr Bellows character is based on. (There's almost no resemblance to Dr Zamenhof.)

jhbadger 6y ago
Not the OP, but there is also a brief mention of Esperanto in "The Power and The Glory". As to why, I'm not sure of any direct connection of Greene to Esperanto or other constructed languages, but he was a friend of George Orwell, whose aunt was the girlfriend of Eugene Lanti, an Esperantist who was one of the creators of the standard Esperanto dictionary (PIV). Lanti (whom Orwell didn't care for) may also be the reason Orwell had 1984's "Newspeak" use terms like "ungood" which model Esperanto usages.
- samizdis 6y ago
  Orwell's take on language was at once frustrated and nuanced. He mentions Esperanto, as a made-up language, in his essay New Words" [1] - but not as an absolute negative. The essay, in fact, argues for deliberate invention of language/words - but to improve understanding between people, rather than to diminish meaning and so kill concepts, as happens in his Newspeak. The essay is long, and he expresses his dissatisfaction at his inability to say what he wanted to in it, before finishing with: To most people in any case the whole idea of reforming language would seem either dilettantish or crankish. Yet it is worth considering what utter incomprehension exists between human beings — at least between those who are not deeply intimate. At present, as Samuel Butler said, the best art (i.e. the most perfect thought-transference) must be ‘lived’ from one person to another. It need not be so if our language were more adequate. It is curious that when our knowledge, the complication of our lives and therefore (I think it must follow) our minds, develop so fast, language, the chief means of communication, should scarcely stir. For this reason I think that the idea of the deliberate invention of words is at least worth thinking over. [1] https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/words/english/e_words https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/words/english/e_words

by bloak 6y ago

jhbadger 6y ago

Not the OP, but there is also a brief mention of Esperanto in "The Power and The Glory". As to why, I'm not sure of any direct connection of Greene to Esperanto or other constructed languages, but he was a friend of George Orwell, whose aunt was the girlfriend of Eugene Lanti, an Esperantist who was one of the creators of the standard Esperanto dictionary (PIV). Lanti (whom Orwell didn't care for) may also be the reason Orwell had 1984's "Newspeak" use terms like "ungood" which model Esperanto usages.

samizdis 6y ago
Orwell's take on language was at once frustrated and nuanced. He mentions Esperanto, as a made-up language, in his essay New Words" [1] - but not as an absolute negative. The essay, in fact, argues for deliberate invention of language/words - but to improve understanding between people, rather than to diminish meaning and so kill concepts, as happens in his Newspeak. The essay is long, and he expresses his dissatisfaction at his inability to say what he wanted to in it, before finishing with: To most people in any case the whole idea of reforming language would seem either dilettantish or crankish. Yet it is worth considering what utter incomprehension exists between human beings — at least between those who are not deeply intimate. At present, as Samuel Butler said, the best art (i.e. the most perfect thought-transference) must be ‘lived’ from one person to another. It need not be so if our language were more adequate. It is curious that when our knowledge, the complication of our lives and therefore (I think it must follow) our minds, develop so fast, language, the chief means of communication, should scarcely stir. For this reason I think that the idea of the deliberate invention of words is at least worth thinking over. [1] https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/words/english/e_words https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/words/english/e_words