Chinese: a new Esperanto for the minority languages of Europe? (5)

Esperanto was created in the late 19th century by the Polish doctor Zamenhof in an attempt to create a new universal language. Zamenhof created Esperanto in a linguistic environment that very much resembled the present linguistic map of Europe. He was fluent in Lithuanian, Russian, German, French and Polish and constructed Esperanto as a tool of communication between communities. Zamenhof's intention was to create a language that would be truly neutral by selecting its vocabulary and its grammatical rules from all possible languages. Esperanto was later blamed for being too Eurocentric, ignoring languages outside Europe. Zamenhof's ideal of bringing peace among nations through one single constructed language has long been abandoned but the dream still stands. I would not go as far as to claim that Chinese is the new Esperanto, but I do believe that there are interesting parallels and that at certain points Chinese may make up for expectations that Esperanto failed to meet.

Will Chinese in Europe realise the potential that once lead doctor Zamenhof to create Esperanto? One thing which is certain is that Chinese has the potential to unite groups across national and linguistic lines of divide. Smaller language groups in Europe find in Chinese a global language that rather than supplant the existing linguistic diversity in Europe acts as a sort of ally against languages such as English that increasingly impose themselves as the single tool of communication in Europe. Furthermore, Chinese in Europe has also the advantage of being an outsider. Chinese is not linked to one particular country of native speakers in Europe and in that sense it is neutral. Critics will point out that you cannot think away Chinese culture from Chinese language, suggesting that you cannot introduce Chinese to schools in Europe without "forcing" China's culture onto pupil's mind. If culture refers to Chinese characters I do not see what would be wrong with that. Anyone who has once ever organized a Chinese calligraphy fair in Europe will know much the Chinese characters are a bridge between speakers of various languages. Chinese, through its ideographical script is the only language that can bring together speakers of languages without one having to sacrifice his language to another and without having to recur to a single, dominant language. I do not know what doctor Zamenhof would have thought about the spread of Chinese through the Confucius Institutes in Europe but I think he would certainly have shared our dream.