Have you ever heard of the philosophical concept of linguistic relativity? If not, there’s the possibility that you’ve already thought about it yourself! Come to think of it, according to the theory, you’ve been thinking about it your whole life, probably without realizing it. According to the theory, the thoughts you are capable of thinking are heavily influenced by your first language. It’s a rather intuitive concept, in my opinion. If you were to compare the way color is expressed in English and in Russian, for example, you might notice an extreme difference in phrasing. In English, we say “the sky is blue.” In Russian, the literal translation of the Russian equivalent is to say “the sky blues.” That is to say, there is a verb devoted to being a particular color. Imagine how much either language alters your perception of the world!
It makes me wonder what implications Esperanto could have as an artificial language. Since most of us learn it as a second language (or so I figure), we already have our own linguistic biases when we turn to Esperanto. What of the person who learns Esperanto as a first language? How profoundly must it affect someone’s way of thinking, to think in a manner that is constructed – planned, in effect – by another human being?
Thinkers have already judged Esperanto in regards to linguistic relativity. The brilliant George Orwell was said to have drawn the inspiration for the totalitarian language “newspeak” in his novel 1984 from his experiences with Esperanto. Clearly a pessimistic interpretation, wouldn’t you say?
What do you think? How could Esperanto as a native language influence one’s thinking? Could it? Does it perhaps defeat the purpose of Esperanto to learn it as a first language?
