Hello Everyone, I contacted the author of this book to get more information and she directed me to her site: http://members.iinet.net.au/~nicolee/bookad.html
After looking over the chapter titles I came to the conclusion that she was promoting Esperanto, which a few members on this list (THOMAS) speak so I asked her about it and this was her response (I got her permission to share). Hi Maria, My view is certainly not that the world should have a single language, I would like to encourage people to learn foreign languages, any and not just the languages most widely spoken,. I do feel that people in non-English speaking countries should have a choice of which language they learn and which culture they want to know better. At the moment people don't really have a choice, they have to learn English. Unfortunately learning English is extremely time-consuming, so many people don't have the time to learn other languages as well. When we look at people who have learned Esperanto, we often notice that they don't stop at Esperanto, they learn other languages as well, but it is usually a bigger variety of languages, not necessarily the languages most spoken in the world. As Esperanto is easier to learn it gives people lots of confidence to tackle other languages too, they don't put learning a language in the too hard basket like many people do whose first foreign language is a difficult language. I do think that if English is used as an International language it will mean sooner or later the death of many not so widely spoken languages, so I see Esperanto as a way of maintaining linguistic diversity in the world and make sure that smaller languages survive. English is certainly worth learning, but lots of other languages are worth learning too and at the moment those other languages don't get at all the attention they deserve. Already now some parents don't speak to their children in their own language, because they want their children to be fluent in English and therefore they are willing to sacrifice their own language. The general aim of my book is to get people to know a bit more about foreign languages, to be more tolerant of migrants who have a hard time learning English, etc. and it gives some short information about Esperanto. Maybe you already guessed that I am not a native English speaker. I hope this helps. Best wishes from Nicole Have a Multilingual Day! tm Maria Johnson http://www.multilingualmunchkins.com Visit http://www.multilingualmunchkins.com. Home of the Multilingual Munchkins Playgroup Database. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multilingualmunchkin/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
