Word: whatmough
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...despite such case of comprehension, there are still many opponents to Interlingua. One of them is Joshua Whatmough, chairman of the Harvard Linguistics Department. "We won't teach that language here, unless it's over my dead body," he says. And, like the Faculty with its Esperanto decision, he may have a point...
...Whatmough claims that any international language, regardless of how it is formed, has no chance at present for permanent success. There are 3,000 languages in current use, he points out, and it is ridiculous to assume that any one tongue, necessarily based on one culture, can be imposed on the world. Only in a one-culture world will any language become supra-national of its own accord, and such a situation does not exist today. The Soviet Union is currently waging a successful campaign to teach Russian to every one in the USSR--there are about 100 different languages...
...Whatmough further asserts that the language barrier is not removed by Interlingua in any case, since it would be completely unintelligible to the average man in the Orient. Even educated Asiatics acquainted with Western culture, would not find Interlingua more international than English or French...
Barring the unification of East and West, Whatmough believes the eventual answer to the problems of language barriers lies with electronic machines. As he puts it, "In this age it is by no means inconceivable to have electronic symbols which would transcend all linguistic symbols." Whatmough asserts such a system would eliminate the need for Interlingua...
...resolved will there be agreement. Tum demum. Most questions of educational, as domestic and foreign policy, are apt to end in some sort of compromise. This question is pre-eminently one which, in my opinion, calls for compromise based not on tradition but on the actual situation. Joshua Whatmough, Chairman, Department of Linguistics