Baha'u'llah's Early Proposal for the Implementation of a World Language, Part I
by John Taylor; 2009 Jan 05, 06 Sharaf, 165 BE
Originally written April 18, 2002; revised January, 2009
I have not found any direct, written mention of either universal language or an international inter-language before Baha'u'llah's "Great Announcement," the letters He wrote to world leaders in the late 1860's. It would be surprising though if some mention does not turn up, especially from the Edirne period, which was Baha'u'llah's most prolific. However the earlier writings of Baha'u'llah do not ignore the general question of language. For example, the moral dimensions of words and speech come into play in at least twenty of the Hidden Words. The 68th Arabic Hidden Word in particular points out the direction for universal language by reminding us of our fundamental equality as humans and directing us to "dwell in the same land."
In His last book-length work, the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Baha'u'llah recalls a conversation that took in Constantinople (now Istanbul) during His stay there in 1863. During a visit, Baha'u'llah made the following informal suggestion to a former prime minister of the Turkish Empire, Kamal Pasha in 1863.
"He said that he had learned several languages. In reply We observed: "You have wasted your life. It beseemeth you and the other officials of the Government to convene a gathering and choose one of the divers languages, and likewise one of the existing scripts, or else to create a new language and a new script to be taught children in schools throughout the world. They would, in this way, be acquiring only two languages, one their own native tongue, the other the language in which all the peoples of the world would converse. Were men to take fast hold on that which hath been mentioned, the whole earth would come to be regarded as one country, and the people would be relieved and freed from the necessity of acquiring and teaching different languages." (Epistle, 137)
Kamal Pasha, Baha'u'llah says, agreed that an official second language for the world is a good idea and promised to bring the matter forward in future contacts with his government. There is no evidence that he did, though. Baha'u'llah's practical emphasis in Istanbul was in stark contrast to what had gone on before in the evolution of religious thought.
The Bible emphasizes that universal language is an outcome of the unity of God Himself. From Adam until the Tower of Babel was built, humans had only one language. Jan Amos Comenius, inspired by this legend, is said to have attempted to devise a perfect language where an untrue proposition would be impossible even to express.
This idealistic bent of scripture was taken to the most sublime heights in the Writings of the Bab, especially His latter period. In his recent study of the Bab's body of work, Nader Saiedi calls the result of the Bab's teaching a kind of "spiritual linguistics." For example, the Bab's highly abstruse "Book of Names," versions of which are extant in both Arabic and Persian, reduces (or I should say, exalts) all words and all possible language into some kind of name for God. A universal language based upon names of the perfect Being is impossible to imagine, though the virtues of the Badi' calendar seems to broach upon it. It is to be hoped that further study of the Bab's works will take us closer to understanding how a true universal language based upon the Holy Spirit might exist.
As mentioned, Baha'u'llah in the last year of His life wrote the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf as a sort of summing up of His entire Mission on earth. For that reason, it is important to bear in mind that He recalls his interviews with Kamal Pasha in determinedly pragmatic terms. It would take almost no effort by one generation to end forever the language barrier, a blight that has crippled most of the potential of most humans from time immemorial.
"How often have things been simple and easy of accomplishment, and yet most men have been heedless, and busied themselves with that which wasteth their time!" (Epistle to the Son, 137)
On 10 October, 2003 I made the following further comments about this incident in Constantinople in 1863.
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"Instead of playing the power games that were expected of Him, during the visit of Kamal Pasha Baha'u'llah instead brought up "topics profitable to man." This was probably a shocking novelty for the Pasha. Baha'u'llah's suggestion of an international language would have challenged any government; even the most enlightened and advanced ones of today, much less the warren of oppression and intrigue that was Constantinople at the time.
"Just think of the opportunity that was missed. This suggestion of Baha'u'llah to the Pasha came 22 years before Esperanto was announced by Ludwig Zamenhof and 17 years before its predecessor, Volapuk, was devised.
"In 1880, Johann Martin Schleyer, a German cleric proposed Volapuk for use as an international second language that would be not only for science but for everyman. Before that there had been no hint of a popular movement to actually implement this idea, other than theorizing among an elite few. If Kamal Pasha's Turkey had taken this up, it would have been way ahead of its time. The step, even had it failed, would have been long remembered by posterity. As long as people spoke the official world language, the `Turkish Convention' deciding upon a world language would have been on the lips of historians.
"Instead of taking the path to unity and enlightenment, what path did Turkey actually take? Well for one thing they veered the other way, towards seething religious and ethnic hatred over the next several decades, culminating in the murder of over a million ethnic Armenians living in that empire during World War One."
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Had the Turkish Empire considered this advice at this early point in the modern era they would have gone down in history as an innovative "Camelot" rather than the notorious "sick man of Europe." Ironically, the Turkey of today still periodically makes world headlines through its policy of suppressing the Kurdish, Armenian and other minority languages. By ignoring their own language problem, they have only got sicker. Parallel struggles are going on in every nations of the world, irrespective of whether they are "developed" or not. All factions, ethnic, local, regional and national, cling to their own language and refuse the advice to "cast away that which ye possess" and work for a simple international standard.
In the "Great Announcement," one of a series of letters to world leaders written in and around 1868, Baha'u'llah introduced most of the Baha'i principles to the peoples of the world. This series is collectively called the Proclamation to the Kings. It was written over several years beginning towards the end of Baha'u'llah's four years exile in Edirne (Adrianople). The Great Announcement called upon the people to give up their ties to past ways and adopt principle, the harmonious combination of thought and action,
"Cast away that which ye possess, and, on the wings of detachment, soar beyond all created things. Thus biddeth you the Lord of creation, the movement of Whose Pen hath revolutionized the soul of mankind." (Proclamation, 115-6)
Baha'u'llah then declares that this "soul revolution" starts with that most cherished of intellectual tools, language. As such, the challenge demands unprecedented levels of detachment.
The following passage as far as I have been able to determine is the first mention of a universal language in written, translated Baha'i scripture:
"The day is approaching when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own home. These things are obligatory and absolutely essential. It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action." (Proclamation, 117)
Years later Baha'u'llah again quoted this passage from the Great Announcement word for word in the Tablet to Maqsud (Lawh-i-Maqsud, Tablets, 166). A good teacher repeats the most important lessons and this repetition surely shows how essential Baha'u'llah considered the principle to be.
Note that Baha'u'llah places the main burden of enacting this principle on the shoulders of the individual world citizen. We the people, not institutions or experts, are to see to it that anyone, in every town and city, will be welcomed and able to feel at home, free of language barriers. He assumes that anyone of "insight and understanding" will realize that it is essential that the peoples of the world be empowered to communicate directly one with another through a single language.
The last sentence of this passage I find particularly witty, subtle and ironic. In this age we do not just hear and obey the Word of God. Now the task of eliminating the need to constantly translate among a multiplicity of languages will be accomplished by an act of "translation" of what God has said into "reality and action." This is a good definition of principle: principle is a greater type of "translation;" translating the holy command of God into deeds comes first and makes all lesser kinds of translation redundant. Like a tested theory in science this involves a more holistic knowledge. Religious principle is a process of translation in this age because it uses the whole individual and the whole social fact. We begin in search, our end is promotion of human oneness, and the result is economy of knowledge and technical potential.
This practical leaning of Baha'u'llah is more than a prophesy, more even than a mandate. It constitutes a change in the nature of religion itself, a shift from idealism to pragmatism. Not only is there a great peace but now a transitional "lesser peace." By coming together to agree upon a common language, be it natural or planned, we put in place a neutral ladder to the heavenly linguistic ideal of earlier faiths. A standard, official second language for all leads beyond treaties and ineffectual mediation institutions to real peace, to an inexorable unification of the human race. Such decisive action is what matters most, not endless jawboning about the attributes of a particular language.
In the next instalment we will look at how this principle evolved in the 1870's and beyond.
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For those who receive the Badi essays by email, I have posted directly to the Badi' Blog the following contributions lately:
Passive House Construction
A couple of videos about passive house standards, posted on January 04, 2009, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/passive-house-construction.html
Universal Language as a Baha'i Principle
Reader feedback on recent essays about Comenius and the principle of Universal Language, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/universal-language-as-bahai-principle.html
The Seasons of Reform
Two time lapse films demonstrating words of the Master about reform, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/seasons-of-reform.html
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