The Loom Of Language

Language Planning for a New Order 495
requirements and difficulties of nations within the pale of Western
civilization So their first concern has been to accommodate the claims
of countries where official speech is a language of the Teutonic and
Romance groups Within this framework compromise leads to a
hybrid vocabulary very much like that of English This shows up in
comparison of a random sample of English words and their equivalents
m Jespei sen's Nowah
NOVIAL ENGLISH
danka (Teutonic) to thank
demands (Romance) to demand
dennste (Romance) * dentist
dilu (Teutonic) thick
dishe (Teutonic) dish
distribu (Romance) distribute
dome (Teutonic) thorn
There is a further objection to the eclectic principle A few, yet by no
means isolated, examples suffice to illustrate what it is A Frenchman
or an Italian will link up the root alt- with altitude (French) and altwra
(Italian), suggesting height The German will recall his own alt (old)
and go wrong. The Italian or Spaniard will at once recognize the root
cakd- in the Italian word caldo and Spanish cahente^ both meaning hot
A Gennan is more likely to assoaate it with halt (cold). Even if he is a
student of Latin or familiar with such words as Kalone or Kalonmeter,
a language based on a mixture of Romance and Teutonic materials will
supply no clue to the correct meaning. Clearly., there is only one way
of getting over the difficulties arising from unfamiliar material and of
making a vocabulary with roots which leadily suggest their meaning
to men and women of different nationalities Our first concern should
be to choose roots present in words which people of different nations
use.
Is this plan practicable? It is possible to answer this question without
going to the trouble of making statistical word-counts in different
languages. The impact of scientific discovery on human society has
affected our speech, as it has affected other social habits Though a few
speech communities in Europe, notably Iceland and to a lesser extent
Germany and Holland, have shut their ears to the growing stock of
internationally current terois for machinery^ instruments, chemicals,
electrical appliances and manufactured products, the vocabulary of
modern technics is equally the word material of the U.S.A. and of the
U S S R , of modem Iran and of Italy It is already invading the Far