Languages
Sir: In 'The decline of modern languages' (Spectator. January 24) Mr Lockhart correctly diagnoses the disease and offers some remedies. He does not answer the question: which languages and why? Our stress on French, only the tenth language in the world according to the number of its speakers, seems to be a iremnant of the past. I do not suggest, however, that " we burden our pupils, irrespective of talents, with any other foreign language. I know by experience that even among the Dutch, who teach languages well, only a minority become really fluent in a language not their own. Instead I would support the suggestion made by an independent committee of the Council of Europe in a report recently published, that the international language Esperanto be taught experimentally in several countries, at first for a halite!d period, the progress of the pupils tested and comPareu with that in other languages. Esperanto lacks the irregularities which make languages to most pupils boring and burdensome. It has been used in speaking and writing for several generations and has developed an original literature; poetry in Esperanto is being reviewed in the international quarterly Books Abroad. Though its speakers were persecuted under both Hitler and Stalin, it has always been politically „neutral and not linked to any state or ideology.
Albert Goodheir 116 Woodlands Drive, Coatbridge
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