• Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken" was thus rendered into Spanish: "It takes a sexually aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

• "Puffs" facial tissues tried to introduce its product into Europe, only to learn later that in Germany the product's name meant "Whorehouses," and in Great Britain, "Homosexuals."

• The Chevrolet Nova never sold too well in Spanish-speaking countries, where the car's name means "Doesn't go."

• Coors put its slogan "Turn it loose" into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."

• When Coca-Cola first expanded into China, they named the product using the Chinese characters that when pronounced sounded something like "Coca-Cola." But the characters they chose meant: "Bite the wax tadpole."

• And one last cross-cultural note: When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same cute baby picture on their label (trivia buffs know it's Humphrey Bogart as an infant) as they used in the U.S. Later, when sales turned out to be sluggish, they discovered that in Africa companies routinely put a picture of what's inside the jar on the labels, since most people can't read. Which makes one wonder about the people who did buy it!

• In an Austrian hotel: "Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension."

• Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: "Ladies may have a fit upstairs."

• In an East African newspaper: "A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers."

• In the office of a Roman doctor: "Specialist in women and other diseases."

• On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: "Our wines leave you nothing to hope for."

Creating a global village out of separate nations that speak over 6000 different languages is challenging. Geographic separation, ethnic differences, xenophobia, and lack of cross-cultural experience can make communication quite difficult--even dangerous.

On a UN peace mission to the Balkans a few years ago, an American nurse was treating a Russian at a field hospital. Because the only second language most people know (at least a little of) is English, the medical instructions were given in English. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. After the Russian nodded that he spoke English, the nurse explained that he needed an injection. The Russian turned white and began to struggle to get away. What he heard was the Americans wanted to shoot him rather than give him a shot.

Fear of those who do not share one's language is hardly something new to our century. As long as we have recorded history people of one tribe have feared those of another tribe that do not share a common language. Some look upon the fighting between the Serbs and the Albanians as yet another example of this human tendency we can only suppress with laser guided bombs. So the belief goes the combination of history, religion, racial background and language set these people in an opposition that cannot be resolved except by force.

A Polish man born in 1859 named Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof believed there could and should be a non-violent solution.

It is hard for the English speaking peoples of our United States of America to grasp just how difficult life can be for those living in an area where different languages are spoken, as was the case in Zamenhof's 19^th century Eastern Europe. We get a clue looking north to our neighbors in Quebec as they struggle to preserve French as their first language. The closest we might get here to understanding emotionally what it might mean to have a different language is the discrimination we may feel and see against African American people who speak with a southern accent.

Zamenhof grew up in a Poland controlled by Czarist Russia. The Czars understood how to use this naturally occurring suspicion to divide and conquer. They intentionally used language as a way to turn ethnic groups against each other with favoritism. People were divided according to occupation following ethnicity, language and religion. The Christian Polish nobility ruled speaking Polish, Jews took care of business in Hebrew and Yiddish, the crafts people used German, the country folk spoke Lithuanian and the garrisons of soldiers spoke Russian. Only Russian was allowed to be taught in school keeping the children from learning to understand the different languages they heard around them. By favoring one group and suppressing another, the Czars effectively kept the colony at war with itself rather than with Russia.

It was this language based oppression that primarily inspired young Zamenhof to design a world language to overcome the barriers which separated his neighbors dreaming of unity for humanity based on equality among nations and mutual respect.

Born to a rational, industrious Jewish father and a patient, loving and intuitive Jewish mother, Zamenhof seemed to synthesize the best of both his parents balancing intellect and heart. He was a sickly, small and frail child who they later learned was near sighted. Precociously intelligent, he was reading by the time he was five. His father, Marcus, was a teacher of languages and later worked as a censor for the Czar.

Much as it was hard to be a Pole in these times, it was much harder to be a Jew. During the Middle Ages persecuted Jews had fled to Poland and Lithuania. The Russians turned the Poles against them to continue that persecution. So Zamenhof grew up with intense race and language consciousness that started at school as children beat each other and continued in the streets with harassment by Russian soldiers. Jews lived in fear of the disappearance of any child because many Christians believed falsely that Jews killed Christian children for ritual purposes. Yet Zamenhof didn't internalize this hatred perhaps influenced by his mother's faith that all human beings were children of a loving God. Deep in his young heart, was the naïve belief that if all people spoke a single language, they would cease to hate. This idealistic child dreamed of a united world that would abolish political evil. Even if he was unable to realize his lofty goal in his lifetime to abolish the whole of misunderstanding between people, he was able to make a contribution toward the promotion of understanding.

Zamenhof's father wanted him to be successful so he made sure his son spoke Russian, and Hebrew. Lazar loved the study of language going on to learn Latin, Greek, German, French and English in the equivalent of our high school. It was his fluency in these languages that helped him as he began to work on designing a language for everyone to share.

One approach that first appealed to him was to resurrect Greek or Latin since European languages are based on them. He discarded the idea of reviving dead languages because they lacked a modern vocabulary. Another approach he rejected was to invent a completely new language so no one had advantage in vocabulary. His study of language helped him see that many words had common roots. Rather than go back to something old or invent something completely new, an effective approach would be to synthesize a language out of what they held in common. At the age of 19, Zamenhof had created his first draft of his new universal language. Sadly, his father felt his efforts were misguided and unbeknown to his son, destroyed his manuscripts when he left for college.

His father's betrayal didn't stop him. Reconstructing his manuscripts from memory, he perfected the language, testing it through translation. He would translate famous poetry and prose into and out of his language to see how robust it was seeking to avoid ambiguity, pare away the superfluous and add essentials that were omitted. The language was introduced in a book published with his wife's dowry. Getting the book past the Russian censors wasn't easy but his father helped him, ashamed of his earlier actions. Zamenhof used the pseudonym "Dr Esperanto" for the book lest he embarrass his family or cause his career as an eye doctor to suffer due to his "eccentricity." He intended to name his language Lingvo Internacio or "international language," but his followers adopted loved the word "Esperanto" which means, `a person who hopes.'

The spread of Esperanto is its own story, a story I haven't the time to tell this morning. Suffice it to say that the times were ripe for the introduction of a world language, his language design was brilliant, and his intentions were inspirational to those who were attracted to the ideals behind the project.

Over the last several hundred years, a number of synthetic languages have been attempted. None have had the success Esperanto has had around the world with an estimated 2 million speakers. It is a very sensible language that has no exceptions to the rules and every letter is pronounced the same way. About 75 % of Esperanto's vocabulary comes from Latin and Romance languages (especially French), about 20 % comes from Germanic languages (German and English), and the rest comes mainly from Slavic languages (Russian and Polish) and Greek (mostly scientific terms).

Some have tried to create an optimized version of Esperanto called Ido, others are reinventing the wheel in response to the European Common Market by created a language called Eurolang. What these people are trying to do is like trying to come up with another version of Windows for the computer when almost all computer users are content with Windows. The Esperanto "installed base" is too strong. The vast majority of people interested in interlinguistics have some connection with Esperanto.

I've waited till half way through my remarks this morning to address what is sure to be the question on everyone's mind: what is the point of Esperanto when English is quickly becoming the defacto international language? I must confess that this question has kept me from investigating Esperanto even though Maria has prodded me a number of times. Yet my research has turned up some very interesting motivations for learning Esperanto.

The first and most important reason is to communicate with people in a simple shared language that puts each speaker on an equal footing and gives neither the advantage of using their native tongue. We've learned a lot in psychology about entering into relationships with people where one is "one-up" on the other and gains a superior position on the basis of some advantage over the other. The non-native speaker, unless they are completely fluent in the language, will always be one down to the native speaker. English is a very difficult language to gain fluency. Esperanto offers a way for people speaking different languages to come from different social, religious and ethnic backgrounds to communicate on a level playing field. The value of this is hard to appreciate unless you've been an oppressed minority. The only parallel I can think of that might get at the emotional depth of this experience would be if you moved to a new town and everyone knew and appreciated Unitarian Universalism even if they were of another more conservative faith. Wouldn't that feel great? I think that is how an Esperantist feels at one of their conventions. It is a religious experience.

If that reason isn't a good enough reason to consider learning Esperanto, there are others. Some research has shown that learning Esperanto as a second language assists in accelerating the learning time for a third or fourth language. By studying the grammar of a regular exceptionless language, one gains a better understanding of how languages are constructed and can gain confidence.

This is almost what I did in high school. I took a year of Latin before taking two more years of French. My Latin was pretty useless a child today learning Esperanto could use it right away on the Internet to make international friends as well as get a leg up on the next language to be learned.

One of the major advantages of learning Esperanto is the speed it can be acquired. With no exceptions, logical pronunciation, and a small vocabulary greatly enhanced by the use of prefixes and suffixes one can become fluent quickly. Simple as Esperanto is, its brilliant design allows almost anything one might want to say to be said. This robustness has been tested for over 100 years now and it seems to be holding well - an amazing feat. Over 30,000 books have been written in Esperanto - far more than many native tongues.

I know I could list even more reasons but reasoning will not be enough. I realize that almost all of you are very resistant to thinking about learning another language. It takes effort and motivation that logic and rational argument cannot provide. As one who has resisted learning Esperanto for the last six years I know what I'm talking about.

What has changed in me from doing the research I have done is found in this statement:

One Chinese Esperanto speaker described Esperanto as a linguistic handshake. When two people shake hands they both reach out halfway. When two people speak Esperanto they have both made the effort to learn a relatively easy, neutral language instead of one person making the huge effort to learn the other person's difficult national language and the other person making no effort at all except to correct his/her interlocutor's errors[1].

"For us Esperantists, nationality is not absolute. It means only difference of language, custom, culture, skin color, etc. We look upon ourselves as brothers in one great family, "mankind." For us this is no theory, it is a feeling. Externally, we are joined by a common language; internally, by a common feeling. We may love our own nation. But this love is not such as cannot coexist with love and respect for other nations." --Hasegawa Teru

Zamenhof felt that if there were another way to build that feeling among men and women around the world using another language or method of communication, he would abandon Esperanto in a minute. Esperanto is a means toward an end, not an end in itself. This is primarily why it has succeeded while all other synthetic languages have failed.

I started out doing this sermon as a favor to Maria, our local Esperanto fanatic, and find myself inspired by what I have read and learned scouring the Internet and reading Zamenhof's biography. His inner idea is clearly embedded in the heart of Unitarian Universalism's goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. Zamenhof was reading on the same page we are and has invented a way to do it. I commend his language to you, not as a replacement for any language but rather as a way to bring people together in love.

Esperanto may just be your door to a profound religious experience.

Copyright © 1999 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.

[1] From Internet FAQ (frequently Asked Questions) on Esperanto