Abstract
Roberto Garvía examines the origins, strategies, and struggles of Volapük, Esperanto, and Ido, three of the main artificial language movements that vied for users and international recognition around the turn of the twentieth century, in Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language. Treating artificial languages as both a social movement and a technology, Garvía argues that leadership strategies and path-dependent processes were the key factors in the successful adoption and survival of Esperanto over the other artificial languages.
The book is divided into four parts, two ofwhich are devoted to Esperanto. Using a chronological structure, Garvía begins with Volapük, the earliest of the three artificial languages. Conceived of in 1879 by German Catholic priest Martin Schleyer, Volapük, meaning “language of the world,” was promoted by Schelyer and other proponents as a means of facilitating commercial and academic communication. At its height, it had in operation 28 journals and 283 associations worldwide. However, despite being the first established artificial language, Volapük failed to sustain its success and eventually was displaced by Esperanto. Garvía attributes this to Schleyer’s authoritarian control over Volapük and his concern for protecting and preserving his masterpiece, rather than letting it develop as a living language. Thus, it was difficult for the main proponents and other leaders of Volapük to make reforms or adaptations, eventually leading to internal divisions and ultimately its demise.
The book’s next two parts examine the formation and success of Esperanto. Garvía claims that the success of Esperanto was not due to it being the better or easier language to learn. Instead, Garvía argues that fortuitous timing and the democratic approach of the founder of Esperanto, Ludwik Zamenhof, allowed it to survive as the leading artificial language. Zamenhof, who was Jewish, was troubled by the rise of nationalism and the reinvention of local national languages around Europe. He sought to establish a universal language that could bring the human race together. He published his first handbook in 1887 under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, which means “one who has hope.” Knowing what was happening to Volapük and Schleyer, Zamenhof decided on a different approach—one that was democratic and open to reforms and changes voted on by the users of the language. He understood the importance of establishing a community of speakers, and he quickly published an address book so that fellow Esperantists could communicate with each other. Another strategy was to create a literary corpus, allowing its users to translate literary works into Esperanto. Eventually Esperanto was able to establish itself through a diverse community of speakers that included socialists, philosophical and literary types, and others that sustained Esperanto as a living language.
The final part of the book examines Ido, a name that means “offspring,” which was a derivative language of Esperanto. Garvía tries to add a bit of intrigue and drama to the book by shrouding the origins of the language and then revealing that Ido was established by a former Esperantist—a member of its inner circle who had betrayed Zamenhof. The creators of Ido, along with other defectors, were not fond of Zamenhof’s democratic approach and felt that the language should be left in the hands of an academy of highly educated members. However, its leaders’ strategies focused on constructing the most perfect artificial language, resulting in too many reforms and changes. Thus, it was difficult for users to adopt and use.
While Garvía provides a compelling historical account, his treatment of artificial languages as social movements and as technology seems inappropriate. Social movements are organizations that coalesce around promoting social change, usually targeting a state. These artificial language organizations do not seem to fit the bill. Absent from the discussion are social movement concepts such as mobilization, protest, framing, resources, opportunity structures, grievances, and other aspects that speak to the social movements literature. Additionally, Garvía’s use of path-dependent processes and technology adoption is superficial. As such, the book does little to contribute to those literatures.
A better approach might have been to frame these language movements, which emerged during a period of internationalization and globalization, as international non-governmental organizations, or INGOs, espousing principles of universalism, individualism, and world citizenship. Or perhaps these language organizations and their members are more typical of imagined communities. Garvía mentions this once in the book, likening these organizations to a community of speakers, but fails to consider how print media might have played a crucial role in fostering a sense of community. This leaves one wondering: if one were to examine the corpus of written material in each of the artificial languages, would certain patterns arise that might help explain why Esperanto was more successful than the other artificial languages?
Since the book is lacking any systematic analysis, it is too easy to come up with alternative explanations; and, unfortunately, Garvía does little to dispel any of them. Additionally, we are reminded several times in the book that there were other artificial languages besides the three discussed competing for recognition as well. However, we do not know what accounted for their lack of success or what might have led to their demise. Was it really due to differences in leadership styles? Was it really about bad timing? We do not know. Thus, Garvía falls short of fully supporting his own explanation, the only one given serious consideration in the book.
Given that Garvía is examining a remarkable period of globalization and internationalization—a world that was ready for and wanting of a universal language—the book would have benefited from a more thoughtful examination of the broader debates in this area, addressing whether or not the rise of nationalist sentiment engendered more global and universal ideals, or vice versa. Additionally, considering readers know that Esperanto did not become an official international language, Garvía could have made a better case of demonstrating it was a serious contender. Instead, he speculates on why it did not become the lingua franca and concludes the book with suggestions on what language the European Union should adopt. A better conclusion would have included a discussion of how Esperanto sustained itself from the end of World War II to the present, where Esperanto, despite failing to be the lingua franca of the twenty-first century, is a thriving INGO with millions of members and users from around the world.