Why Mondlango?
by Oscar Mifsud
Well, to begin with, the in-thing nowadays is, unification and oneness. The trend is to have ONE system of measurement, currency etc., etc.. This is helping to bring peoples together and to ward off conflicts and wars between nations. So far nearly all attempts to unify have had very good results in recent years. But the change that is needed most urgently has so far been neglected for rather selfish reasons. What is needed most, is better communication, and for this to happen there is no better way than to have a common language for all. A world-language is the key to most of our global problems. Someone might point out that there is English . Everybody is learning English all over the world! Be that as it may, the fact remains that no particular native language belonging to any particular nation or country, is ideal for a world-language; for the simple reason, to name just one for the moment, that they all have their difficulties which it would be preposterous to expect them to remove for the convenience of others.
Take English, since there is a global craze for it. True, It is not only useful but it has now become necessary. However, meaning no offence to anyone, everything about it is full of difficulties and irregularities. When I ask my students to suggest the qualities of a suitable world language, they come up with things like: it must be easy to learn; it should be 100% phonetic; should have no fancy letters and accents on letters; should have easy spelling; no double consonants; no exceptions; easy conjugation of verbs; have an economic way of word-building to cut down on the strain on memory; easy grammar, etc... Now we all know that no existing national language has ALL these fine attributes to qualify it for a world language. English, it must be admitted, has absolutely none - not even one of these. The vowels alone give you a headache with regards to reading and writing. Pronunciation in general drives you crazy [ bed, bedevil ]; the spelling drives you mad [ belie, believe, receive, piece, peace, cat, kitten ]; and the grammar ?.Oh boy!
All this, very unfortunately, makes English most unsuitable for foreigners to learn quickly. I say very unfortunately, because we do need English and I am not in any way suggesting that people should not learn English at all. What I am on about is that besides English one could/should study a common language ,a world-language. And here I imagine someone saying: that there is Esperanto. But although it has been in use for over one century, it hasn't somehow caught on; not to a large extent anyway. It has all those fine characteristics mentioned above except one, because it has accented letters.
It may be argued that any new language must necessarily be artificial. So what? All man-made things are artificial by definition, Are we then to reject them on that account? What would we do without electricity, machines, vehicles and so many other things? Esperanto is just one such artificial language which has been proved to solve many language problems. Unfortunately, like most things on this earth, it is not perfectly smooth and without blemish. It has some though very few warts? such as letters with accents, and the non-use of some familiar letters like q,w,x,and y; and the introduction of some letters in used but with an added accent on them. These unfortunate defects have antagonized many, who nevertheless fully agree that there should be an easy world-language. The coming of the computer has made things worse mostly because of the accented letters. Requests by many to remove them have fallen on deaf ears, and Esperanto has begun to lose ground especially with people using Internet. I am a keen Esperantist, and had the accents been removed and w, x and y introduced in its alphabet I would have been satisfied; but something even better has happened.
A new world language, Mondlango (also known as Ulango) was born in China in July 2002. Its author/s, very wisely in my opinion, based it on Esperanto, removed all accents on letters and introduced the missing letters mentioned above. He/they went one better. Admitting the increasing popularity of English, they substituted English roots (phonetically) for the established Esperanto ones in many cases. This very wise step should, I think, satisfy everybody; because, in Mondlango we have exactly what we want: A very easy common language, 100% phonetic, employing no double consonants, streamlined grammar, no exceptions, no accents on letters, and, most important, very similar to spoken English. Naturally, Mondlango, being in its babyhood, is far from perfect and the least we can do is to give it a sporting chance to mature, prove itself and reach adulthood. This it can and will do because unlike Esperanto it is not cast in bronze and never to change. It will evolve and mature in due course to the delight of those who adopt it.
That is WHY, without abandoning Esperanto completely, I have chosen to switch to:
Mondlango.
译文:
说到当今最重要的事就是统一和一体化，今后的发展趋势是：同一种计量标准系统、同一种货币制度等等。这将有助于民族的和解和防止国家间的冲突和战争。近年来几乎所有的这类促进统一的努力都产生了很好的结果。但是由于一些相当自私的原因，到目前为止，最迫切需要的事却被忽视了。那就是更好地相互交流和沟通。要做到这一点莫过于全世界通用一种共通的语言。一种世界通用的语言是解决我们全球绝大多数问题的关键。
有人可能会指出，不是有英语吗？全世界人不都在学习英语吗！即使是这样，实际情况仍然是没有一种属于任何特定国家的本民族语言可以理想地作为世界通用语言来用，原因很简单：每一种民族语言它们都有其自身的特点，这种特点对于其他人来讲都会产生交流上的困难。而为克服这种困难去掉其特点显然又是很荒谬的。
就以英语来讲，现在全世界都已经表现出一种狂热。 是的它不仅是有用的，而且现在也已成为一种必须。然而，任何人都不要见怪，英语的一切都充满了难度和不规则。当我要求学生们谈谈一种大家能接受的国际通用语言应具有的品质时，他们的回答是：这种语言必须容易学；应当是百分之百地音形一致；应当没有编造出来的字母和字母上的标音符号；应当容易拼写；没有双辅音；没有例外；动词变化简单；构词法简单以便轻松记忆；语法明了易懂等等。我们知道没有一种现在的民族语言具有以上所有的特性，而有资格充当国际通用语言。应当承认，英语绝对没有具备以上属性中的任何一条。在阅读和写作时，仅仅元音字母就够你头疼了。而发音和拼写会逼得你神经失常，至于语法呢？就不必多说了，老弟！
非常不幸的是所有这一切都使英语成为最不适合外国人速成学习的。我说不幸的意思是因为我们确实需要学习英语，我也决不会建议人们根本不要学习英语。我的意思是除了学习英语外，人们应当、可能学习一种国际共通的语言，即一种国际的语言。在此，我料想有人会说，那就是世界语（Esperanto），但是虽然它已经被使用了一百多年，在很大程度上还是没有被人们广泛地接受。它除了几个加帽子的特殊字母之外，不是具有以上的所有优点吗？
任何新的语言都必须是人造的，对此有人会争辩道：这算得了什么？从定义上讲，所有人造出来的东西都是人造的，我们会因此而拒绝它们吗？如果没有电、机器、汽车和如此诸类的人造的东西，我们该如何办呢？世界语不过是一种人造的语言，它已经被证明可以解决不少语言问题。不幸的是它也象地球上的绝大多数事物一样，它不是十全十美、没有问题和缺点的。它的有些想法显得有点罗嗦。如使用了加帽子字母，而不使用人们都很熟悉的字母，如q、w、x和y，却在已经使用的字母上加上一顶小帽子。这些不幸引起了不少人的不满，虽然他们也完全赞同要有一种容易掌握的国际语。由于有加帽字母，在计算机中常常造成一些出错。很多人将世界语作为一种摆设，这样在因特网网民中失去了群众基础。我是一名热心的世界语者，如果在世界语中去掉加帽字母，并引入字母w,x和y,我会很满意。但更好的事已经发生了。
一种新的国际语—大同语已经于2002年7月在中国诞生。依我看来，它的创始者们非常聪明地在原世界语基础上开发了这种语言，移去了所有的加帽字母，并用上了上述的一些遗漏的字母。他们还在继续完善它。考虑到英语正不断增长地普及，他们用了更多的英语词根代替世界语词根。这是非常明智的一步，会使大家都为之而满意。因为在大同语中确实存在我们所希望的一切：容易的语言；百分之百地音形一致；不用双辅音；流畅的语法，无一例外，没有加帽子字母，最重要的是非常类似英语。当然大同语还处于婴儿阶段，还没有达到完美的程度，但至少我们可以做的是给它一个逐步成长壮大的机会，以证明它自己并走向成熟。它会这样做的，因为它不同于世界语，它还没有定型，还会有发展变化，最终演变到成熟，让使用者满意。
这就是为什么我并没有完全放弃世界语，同时也选择转向大同语的原因。
