E-Lingvo Citizen’s organization E-Lingvo Citizen’s organization E-Lingvo

Europe without language barriers
Why can’t we speak the same language? Because nobody is interested in it! And the least interested are politicians. Their knowledge of English keeps away their competitors – often much better experts because instead of learning foreign languages they invested time into increased qualification and experience. Languages are big business not only for language schools, translators and interpreters. Great Britain and Ireland save billions of Euros yearly. Other Europeans lose large amounts of money either from their own pockets or indirectly through taxes invested into endless learning of foreign languages. This Sisyphus effort leads to doubtful results and a considerable time loss. Why those who daily benefit from the existing situation should be for the introduction of one easy, regular language – the European? It would take them additional time for its learning. During discussions about common currency in Europe, politicians did not select any national currency but created the new EURO instead. Why they do not think likewise in case of a much more important matter of common language? Many dealers make good business because of your lack of knowledge of foreign languages. They import goods for you but you will have to pay many times the original price. You cannot get it directly, because you do not know the language. It is up to you, people with common sense, to ask your politicians to, at long last, make something really useful for you. E-Lingvo is fighting for you. Join us and help us to accomplish a good thing. When the lack of language knowledge would complicate only the buying of a hot dog, it would be nice. However, the general European non-communication has profound economical consequences which affect us all. Effects of all possible factors on the economy have been studied. Yet, nobody worries about the impact of languages on the EU economy. How to evaluate what was not achieved because of noncommunication? What are we losing? In reality we are losing a lot! Do you think that the USA would ever become the leading economical power in the world if each of its fifty states would have a different national language? Hardly! In the EU every country pushes its own languages to get maximal benefits. When many people tear at a blanket, it will break and in a frosty night all will freeze. The same will happen in the cold time of global economy today and we will not survive or badly. Europe still has one of the most educated population in the world and a long tradition in many fields. This treasure will be efficiently used only if we communicate together and collaborate. This can be accomplished only if we accept a common European language, which will be much easier than any existing national language. Only so, it will be possible that almost everybody will be able to learn it and use it for efficient communication in the EU. The European will not endanger our mother tongues but on the contrary will protect them. On these pages you will see in short how economy and languages are interconnected. It is probably the most comprehensive collection of arguments, so far. Help us to make pressure on our politicians so that they finally do the necessary, as long as we still have time. Join us. Four hundred years ago Comenius (the teacher of nations) advised to create a regular, easy to use language for international communication and invest time rather to learn “things” instead of languages… Because of the information explosion the necessity to do so is even more crucial today, than it was ever before. Communication is essential in all fields of human activity. Communication always occurs by means of a language. The vast majority of information flows in English and is therefore not understandable to over 90 % of the world population! The great majority of people will never learn about what is available in English and vice versa, English speaking people will not learn what the rest of the world knows. New ideas will not emerge, collaboration is impossible and, thus, big problems will remain unsolved… Nations remain imprisoned in their language ghettos. Is this not a real catastrophe? Likewise, collaboration is essential for our survival in EU. We are told, that English will allow us to speak with most people in Europe. Experience shows that the level of such communication is pretty low and never comparable to a communication in the mother tongue. In fact, from all European national languages English is in many aspects one of the worst choices. Learning English just because of its spread as a second language in Europe has the same logic as to use the most used medicine for curing one’s illness! If we decide to introduce one common, easy, regular and up to ten times easier to learn language we will not only have a good solution of our actual problem, but we will all save huge amounts of money, spend less time in ever starting learning of English and allow large masses of population to be able to communicate in Europe and in the whole world. No doubt, that if successful in Europe such language will also become global. A Czech proverb says: 'as many languages you know so many times you are a human' This is correct. Are you really a human in a country where you cannot express yourself and do not understand what others tell to you? You are on the level of deaf-mute person or a small baby. Through the introduction of the European language you would immediately be a human hundred times! Due to historical reasons Europe has about three dozens of languages and even many more dialects. Nobody can ever learn so many languages and even the mastering of only one national language (for ex. English, Spanish, German, French and so on) is so work intensive, expensive and time consuming that the vast majority of the population of any nation will never learn it well enough. Even though some learn it to a certain extent they will partly forget it and when the need arises the language knowledge is not satisfactory. Additionally, very often, as if done on purpose, you will meet people that do not speak the foreign language you have learned so hard. Thus, it’s preferable not to travel abroad and if it was really necessary, then the communication is mostly reduced to a kind of monkey-like gesticulation. This is humiliating, insufficient and it limits the communication to an unbearable and ridiculous minimum of a “traveler’s crutch”… The learning of natural languages is so difficult because they are very irregular (English being among the worst). All natural languages have “historical sediments” and many exceptions. The introduction of one common, regular and easy to learn non national language would fundamentally change the situation. An absolutely regular language, which is strictly phonetic and has a logical grammar and vocabulary, can be learned in up to ten times less time. Such a language will be mastered by a vast majority of Europeans (and of the world population later on). No nation will be privileged by using its mother tongue. All nations will benefit equally. Can you imagine a European Union, where everybody will understand you and you will no more need monkey-like gestures for the expression of your needs? Can you imagine the huge benefits in all fields of human activities, at home and all over the world? Ask your politicians to finally make something really useful for you! Join us and help us so that this good goal becomes reality for all of us. Ah! We would like it very much to be able to speak with people from other countries, but it is not possible! We all have our mother tongue and it is complicated, very irregular, has many exceptions that were collected during hundreds of years of its history. Mothers teach us the language for several years before we go to nursery school. We learn our mother tongue at school, while playing with our friends, through hearing of stories and tales, while watching the TV or listening to the radio and in many other occasions of our daily life. When we are grown up, the language learning starts every morning already by listening to the daily news and it continues on our work place and in the evening when watching a film, reading a newspaper or a book or discussing in the family or with friends in a pub. It seems that we use our mother tongue even in our dreams.This all represents a language course of incredible intensity. At the age of 10 years it may already add up to 30'000 hours! This very intensive 'life learning' of our mother tongue allows us to be able to communicate efficiently with others, to perfectly understand and precisely express our ideas and feelings and to attain our private and professional goals. Now, politicians in Brussels try to convince us, that besides our mother tongue we should learn one or more foreign languages. This should solve communication problems and in the EU all nations will understand each other well. In the Czech Republic, teenagers at high school have 550 hours of foreign language classes (mostly in English). This costs every citizen yearly at least 1'200 CZK per year. The level attained is not even sufficient to understand a simple operation manual. Language studies may go on at the Philosophy faculty of any university. Even then, the foreign language will not attain the level of the mother tongue. A quite substantial improvement of the foreign language knowledge can be achieved if you live in the corresponding country. However, even after many years of daily practice abroad the knowledge will still not be comparable with the mother tongue knowledge. Thousands of our emigrants from 1968 will confirm this fact. How many times should we move to other countries and to which countries...? The concept of multilingualism proposed by Brussels is an illusion that cannot be achieved. It would be an incredible waste of our time and money. Everyone with common sense will understand it. Surely, some people will learn exceptionally well several foreign languages. But, this cannot be generalized for the majority of the population. The biggest argument against the use of any national language as a general communication language in the EU, however, is the fact, that it would be against the most basic principle of the EU which guarantees the equality of all nations and persons in the EU. Can we speak of equality if somebody has the privilege to communicate in his mother tongue while others must do it in a much less mastered foreign language? This would inevitably lead to two classes of Europeans. What the EU really needs is a common European language. The European must be very easy to learn, logical, regular, phonetical and without exceptions. Such a European will be mastered in a fraction of time compared to any other existing national language. Therefore, the majority of the European population will be able to learn it in a short time and at low cost. No doubt, that if successful in the EU, such a language will become universal in the whole world. Such a language is known for 120 years already and shown to be very efficient. It will provide the solution to our communication problems if the EU will make the right decisions in this direction. E-Lingvo's goal is to describe the important communication problems we have and how they can be solved. All Europeans should know about it, so that the essential political decisions will finally be made.
News

Actual list of news is in Esperanto section.

Action

Clever people will understand and help, the others hardly…

An efficient, high quality, easy and low cost solution is available!

Economics
Political
National
The English language
Education
The solution exists
Help us!
Provoking questions