From the director's desk

Dear ELI Friend:
Inteligenta persono lernas la lingvon Esperanto rapide kaj facile. That's Esperanto, a language I might have used to address you as the director of the Esperanto Language Institute if its inventor, Polish philologist Lazarus Ludwig Zemenhof, had had his way. Zemenhof dreamed of developing a universal language to bring about world peace and understanding. He achieved part of his dream in

Director Scott Stevens

the last years of the nineteenth century by creating the language of Esperanto, whose limited vocabulary and simple, uniform, and logical system of grammar and spelling were designed for ease of learning and use. Esperanto was expected to be widely adopted by millions of people in every nation because it was free of the political and cultural "liabilities" that would, in Zemenhof's view, prevent any other language from becoming the lingua franca of the world. In other words, "Esperanto estas la lingvo por la tuta mondo."

If Zemenhof had been correct in his prediction, there would likely be hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of "ELI's" around the world today, each teaching Esperanto, rather than English, to world citizens wanting to master this universal language for international business, diplomacy, art and scholarship. Yet over 100 years since its creation, only an estimated few thousand individuals can speak Esperanto. Most of us would agree that English has succeeded where Esperanto failed. Roughly one third of the world's population lives in countries where English is either the mother tongue or an official language. Dozens of other countries teach English as a foreign language from secondary or even elementary school through college to prepare their citizens to compete in the global market in which English is spoken. And intensive English programs like ELI continue to attract many individuals who see mastery of English as the gateway to economic and educational opportunity.

I believe the failure of its creators to popularize Esperanto stemmed from the apparent virtue of the language itself -- that is, its divorce from any cultural roots. Lacking a cultural medium through which it might be transmitted, Esperanto could only convey information like some binary code; it remained, however, too sterile for meaningful communication. Passion and perspective, slang and sarcasm, bias and beliefs -- all that culture imparts-- give life and breath to language, permitting one person to truly understand another.

The dream of a universal language is nevertheless steadily being realized in the propagation of English. I would argue, however, that fears of linguistic imperialism are largely unfounded because no country can nationalize the English language. English long ago slipped past its political boundaries, sweeping up words and expressions from every culture, and absorbing the accents, flavor, sound, smells and sights over every land through which it traveled. English is a world language, not through one culture's dominance, but rather through its transformation by all who use it.

There was a time when students came to the US primarily to obtain an American education and to immerse themselves in American culture. For this reason, many programs like ELI were called "American Language Institutes" to emphasize the apparent distinctiveness of American English over British or Australian English, for example. Today's students of English are more globally minded. They study English in order to conduct business, not merely in the US, but in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Central/South America. They come to Delaware, not simply to meet Americans, but to establish contacts with their peers from some 55 other countries. Recently an ELI student gently admonished me for not adequately emphasizing in our promotional literature the international dimension of our program. "More students would attend this wonderful program," he advised, "if they fully understood that their classmates would be ambassadors from so many of the world's nations." He's right, of course. ELI students do far more than work together on class assignments. Transcending cultural and linguistic barriers to understanding, they conduct global business, engage in diplomacy, broaden their artistic horizons, and forge deep bonds of friendshipûand, not incidentally, sometimes romance as well.

Were he alive today, Zemenhof would no doubt be surprised to discover that English is now spoken by some two billion of the world's inhabitants. I would like to think he would not be disappointed, for each time I have the distinct honor of awarding a certificate to another ELI graduate, I feel as though humanity has moved a little further toward greater peace and understanding.

I hope you enjoy this year's ELI Newsletter, which is an annual labor of love by colleagues Barbara Morris, Wendy Bulkowski, Ruth Jackson, Russ Mason and many other contributing writers. As you read about new programs and changes in current courses, may you rediscover the ingredients for excellence that contribute to making ELI a magical slice of the world. I wish you and your loved ones peace and joy in the year to come.

Scott G. Stevens,
Director

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