Preface to the Second Edition
It is a pleasure to add my good wishes for the success of this second
edition of the excellent `Manual'. I seem to read increasingly often today
(but only in England) that English is becoming the international language. I
have travelled a good deal in Europe, and I deny that English is within any
measurable distance of becoming an International Language. I have rarely
met a foreigner who could converse reasonably in English on any serious
subject unless he had lived for some years in England. Apart from the
irritating irregularities of English grammar, English pronunciation is the
great stumbling block, and seems to have been specially designed to confound
the foreigner - perhaps as a defence for our island home! Some time back I
listened to a broadcast in English by Mons. Jacques Rueff, the eminent French
monetary expert. M. Rueff spoke fluently; but although monetary theory is a
hobby of mine, and I am familiar with the accent of the Frenchman's English,
in every sentence that M. Rueff spoke, at least one word entirely baffled me.
If M. Rueff had spent on Ido only a fiftieth of the time that he has
evidently spent on learning English, he could have made himself more
intelligible to me.
Just a word on pronunciation. It is commonly said that the English are not
good at learning foreign languages. This is untrue. The reason why the
foreigner can generally recognise the Englishman from his accent is that we
have been badly taught. From earliest days our textbooks have given as a
model for the sound of the continental vowels the phrase: `Pa may we go too',
in which the second and fourth vowels are quite wrong. Unfortunately also,
British Idists copied this model in their textbooks, and whereas perhaps some
Britons do not mind if their accent in French betrays their nationality, the
sole aim of Ido is to supply one auxiliary language for all nations, and it
is essential that we all pronounce the language alike. I therefore suggest
that in English Ido textbooks, we use the English model for vowel
pronunciation: `Pa there we saw you', and we shall then be able to meet
continental Idists with a brave face.
London, 3 April 1973
Henry Meulen
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James Chandler 1997