Discord in Harmony Hunt

Quest for World Language Called Brawling Competition

NYU Conference Told Interlinguistics
Floundering in Chaos of Bad Manners

NEW YORK, Aug. 14 (HTNS)—Cannot one look into the future to that fine morning when all mankind, from Brazzaville to Brooklyn, will wake up speaking a common language, thereby usher in a world where all is in mutual understanding and harmony?

No, one cannot. The fact, it was disclosed yesterday, is that man’s quest for an international language has degenerated into a brawl.

Floyd Hardin, editor and publisher of International Language Review, with a philosophical shrug told the International Conference on General Semantics at New York University yesterday:

“The so-called growing science of interlinguistics is floundering in a chaos of name-calling, bigotry, bad manners and from time to time, psychopathic symptoms.”

Part of the trouble is the natural bitterness of increased competition. Since World War II the establishment of the United Nations has led many would-be creators of an international language to believe that the millennium is just around the corner.

At that time there were perhaps 500 international language systems. Today there are 700 or 800—no one can know for sure because new ones are coming out literally every day.

A few of the best-known are Esperanto, Interlingue, Ido, Suma, and Loglan—although not to mention the other 694 or 794 is a risk not to be taken lightly.

“Internaciaj linguistoj unuvin.”

That’s Esperanto for the appeal that Mr. Hardin made Tuesday:

“International linguists, unite!”

SOURCE: “Quest for World Language Called Brawling Competition,” The Blade [Toledo, Ohio], Wednesday, August 14, 1963, p. 9.

International Language Review (issues listing + selected contents)

“Signs and Symbols Could Have Saved the World” by Floyd Hardin

“Language and the Rhetorical Representation of Life” by Floyd Hardin

Circular: Letter to Floyd Hardin, October 3, 1958
from Mario Pei

The International Language Association: A Prospectus and Report

Two Poems by A. D. Foote
(Eco-logos, 4th quarter, 1976)

Philosophical and Universal Languages, 1600-1800, and Related Themes: Selected Bibliography

Esperanto & Interlinguistics Study Guide / Retgvidilo pri Esperanto & Interlingvistiko

On other sites:

Lalortel, a New International Language by Robert N. Yetter
(International Language Review, April-June 1959)
[dead link, also not archived]

Five Theses to Hammer on the Gates of Babel by Alexander Gode
(International Language Review, October 1962-March 1963)

The Gode-Lapenna Debat
(International Language Review, April-June 1963)

Remarks on the Esperanto Symposium by Mario Pei
(International Language Review, July-September 1963)

Whorfian linguistic relativism and constructed languages
by W. A. Verloren van Themaat
(International Language Reporter, 3rd quarter 1969)

Esperanto and the ideology of constructed languages
by Donald Broadribb
(International Language Reporter, 2d quarter 1970)

Quest for World Language Called Brawling Competition
(The Blade [Toledo, Ohio], Wednesday, August 14, 1963, p. 9)