Linguistic Communication: A Comparative Field Study. Esperanto Document 46A.

This paper explores the various options available for dealing with the demands and costs of communication in a world of many languages. Globalization has increased the demand for language services necessary to accomplish effective communication. It is argued that the day is not far off when the complications, costs, and inequalities of language use and ineffective language teaching will cross the threshold of what society can tolerate. The paper explores the best and most cost effective and efficient way, applying the lessons of operations research, to cope with this growing problem. The four options for dealing with this communications problem are laid out and discussed. They include the following: the UN system, using only a few languages; the multinational corporation option, using only one language; the European Union solution, using all languages; the interethnic language solution, using a language that has never been the language of any people, such as Swahili or Esperanto. These 4 systems are evaluated according to 12 criteria, such as duration of necessary language study; prior investment by governments; inequality and discrimination; language costs of meetings and document production; waiting time for document production, loss and distortion of information during translations, and others. It is concluded that Esperanto is by far the most efficient solution to this problem with a "total level of disadvantages" score of 5, while the multinational, European Union, and UN solutions have scores of 39, 65, and 76 respectively. (KFT)