William Auld; Scottish author who wrote in Esperanto and was three times nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature
Hyfler/Rosner
(Filed: 22/09/2006) Telegraph
William Auld, who died on September 11 aged 81, was a
Scottish poet and writer, and the first person to be
nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for work in
Esperanto.
Although Bill Auld was a prolific author, his output
was largely ignored by the literary establishment.
A quiet and modest man, Auld was regarded as the
world's finest living translator of Esperanto. His
best-known original work was La Infana Raso (The Infant
Race), a long modernist poem published in 1956 and inspired
by the Cantos of Ezra Pound.
His nomination for the world's most prestigious
literary award in 1999 caused some consternation in his
adopted town of Dollar, in the county of Clackmannanshire:
the local library found that they had left him out of an
exhibition celebrating local writers and artists, and it
hurriedly cobbled together a tribute. In the event, however,
the prize went to Gunther Grass. Auld was nominated twice
more for a Nobel prize, in 2004 and again earlier this year.
William Auld was born on November 6 1924 at Erith, in
Kent, but his Scottish parents moved to Glasgow when he was
still a small boy. His early precociousness at school set
him apart from other children, and by the age of 12 he was
immersing himself in books.
At the Gorbals public library, the young Auld spotted
a book on the library shelf written in Esperanto, read it
and was hooked. "I liked the egalitarian nature of the
language," he explained, "the brotherhood-of-man aspect."
He mentioned his discovery to his scoutmaster, who
presented him with his first Esperanto textbook; Auld's best
friend shared the same enthusiasm, and soon the two were
talking exclusively in Esperanto.
During the Second World War Auld flew Spitfires on
high-level reconnaissance missions over North Africa,
teaching Esperanto to his RAF comrades between sorties.
After university he became a schoolmaster (teaching
English), but in 1952 published his first book of poetry in
Esperanto, Spiro de l'pasio (Breath of Passion), the start
of his massive output of poems, anthologies, textbooks, and
translations of Shakespeare, Dickens, Wilde, Tolkien and
Burns - more than 50 volumes in all.
When writing, Auld considered Esperanto to be his
first language and rated it an ideal medium for poetry.
"Many of the words end in 'o' and the lyrical qualities are
especially suited to verse," he once explained to The Daily
Telegraph.
He edited numerous Esperanto magazines and reviews,
and was vice-president of the World Esperanto Association
from 1977 to 1980 and president of the Academy of Esperanto
from 1979 to 1983.
He helped launch Esperanto in the United States while
teaching at San Francisco State University. On his return to
Scotland he worked as a deputy head teacher until his
retirement.
In 2001 Auld presented his huge personal collection of
Esperanto literature to the National Library of Scotland. It
amounted in all to some 4,000 items.
Bill Auld is survived by his wife (with whom he spoke
Esperanto daily) and two children (with whom he did not).
Hyfler/Rosner
> Bill Auld is survived by his wife (with whom he spoke
> Esperanto daily) and two children (with whom he did not).
>
Found this on a newsgroup devoted to Esperanto:
At the beginning of this year, I sent a letter to the editor
of La Brita Esperantisto on the subject of Esperanto
vocabulary. My letter was in response to one written by a
certain Mr. Kirkup, a beginner, who had complained of the
difficulties he encountered in trying to work out the
meaning
of some Esperanto compound words.
I was rather surprised to receive shortly afterwards a
personal reply from the editor, Mr. William Auld. My letter
and his reply were subsequently published in La Brita
Esperantisto (March/April 1992) under the heading "Obscure
Language and Neologisms". I think readers will be
interested in William Auld's views on this subject.
For the benefit of those to whom the name may not be
familiar,
William Auld is one of the greatest poets - perhaps the
greatest poet - ever to have used Esperanto as his medium.
His work "La Infana Raso" is generally considered to be one
of
the classics of the language.
I wrote:
Dear Sir,
I sympathise with Mr Kirkup and his problems with the
Esperanto affixes (BE - Jan/Feb 1992), as I think most
English
speakers have the same difficulties in the beginning. The
Esperanto way of building words is quite alien at first, but
it is surprising how quickly one gets used to it, and soon
one
is able to figure out the meaning of a new word from its
constituent parts with little difficulty.
A much greater problem, however, is posed by the use of
obscure language and neologisms. This has become
particularly
acute in La Brita Esperantisto, as witnessed by the fact
that
it is now necessary to add footnotes to articles to
translate
the expressions used into ordinary Esperanto. Thus in the
same issue Reto Rossetti introduces the word "plakato". I
thought at first that this was the present passive
participle
of "plaki", a word which is to be found in the Teach
Yourself
dictionary. However, participles when used as nouns are
supposed to refer to human beings. A footnote to the
article
defines "plakato" as "montrata au^ surstrate portata afis^o
el
kartono ktp". This sounds rather like our English
"placard".
But is a new root really necessary? The word "afis^o" (with
the meaning of "plakato") is used successfully by Emil Van
Damme in another article printed only five pages later.
In the same issue of BE Krys Ungar writes of "eloj", which a
note helpfully translates into "bieroj". But does Esperanto
really need two words for beer just because English has two?
I suspect the Japanese have more than one word for "sake".
The words "elo" and "plakato" are similar to their English
equivalents, but the editor did not think they would be
recognised easily even by the largely English-speaking
readership of BE. This is supposed to be an international
language. Should we really expect non-English speakers to
learn these words by rote? Again, how many different roots
does Esperanto need for different types of afis^oj?
"Plakato"
is not too difficult for us, but if we accept this word, we
have no right to object to "dazibau^o". I had to look this
up
in the Teach Yourself dictionary to be sure of writing it
correctly, but it's easy enough for our Chinese "samideanoj"
to remember.
It's easy to see where all this is taking us. We will end
up
with a language which is rich and expressive, but difficult
to
learn. The main advantage that Esperanto has over natural
languages is that it is easy to learn. Let's keep it that
way! If you want an international language which is
difficult
to learn, you don't have to look far. It already exists and
it's called English!
Yours faithfully,
Barry Crown
William Auld replied:
Dear Mr. Crown,
You will surprised to learn that I agree with every word of
your letter. I personally abominate the infiltration of
quite
unnecessary neologisms; in this context, unnecessary because
they can be expressed equally well or even better by using
roots and affixes. Unfortunately the problem is not really
simple. I have an acquaintance who constantly teases me by
saying "Esperanto has no word for 'paper-clip'". On the
same
teasing level I tend to reply e.g. "Doesn't the Central
Office
use paper-clips, then?" But when, for example, I turn to
Esperanta Bildvortaro ("La moderna vortaro de la interetna
lingvo en kiu la terminoj por 25,000 objektoj estas
difinitaj
per bildoj"), what do I find? - "paper-klipo"!
When it comes to "plakato" and "eloj", there is another
factor
to take account of: namely, both words, though not all that
frequently used, go back to the thirties and so have a
certain
provenance. Actually, as an English speaker and a devotee
of
so-called "real ales", I nevertheless don't know the
difference between a beer and an ale - do you? Hence, while
"elo" is defined as "angla biero", Cockneys ask for "pig's
ear", not "pig's tail"! Conclusion: "elo" is a word that is
demonstrably superfluous.
Yet I don't like taking it upon myself to "censor" the usage
of competent esperantists. There is too much of that kind
of
imposition of personal likes and dislikes in the Movement
already. I prefer to depend on the commonsense of the
majority, including people like yourself, to keep the
language
stable, as they have succeeded in doing for the past hundred
years. In my own writings I try to make my own contribution
to preserving basic simplicity. I find it sad to think that
our so-called "Academy" consists of many of the worst and
most
irresponsible "reformers", which has destroyed its
credibility, at least for me.
Some people blame the poets for excessive neologisms. This
is
not really true, and anyway poetry has little influence on
popular usage, in any language. No, the main culprits are
lexicographers, who are too inclined to invent words *a
priori* (without a justifying context), and to find it
necessary to create an equivalent for every nuance of their
national language. Yet the greatest culprit of all is the
Plena Ilustrita Vortaro, which, as practically the only
dictionary to give its definitions in Esperanto, is
therefore
regarded as somehow authoritative. "If in PIV, it must be
OK", unfortunately. An all-Esperanto dictionary is utterly
essential, of course, but PIV does as much harm as good.
Actually, Lawrence Mee and others are currently compiling
such
a dictionary, which limits itself to (I think) about 6000
roots in actual usage. This, if successful, should do much
to
improve matters.
Yours sincerely,
W. Auld
Editor
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Hyfler/Rosner <rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> Although Bill Auld was a prolific author, his output
> was largely ignored by the literary establishment.
Gosh, I wonder why.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hyfler/Rosner
"J.D. Baldwin"
>> Although Bill Auld was a prolific author, his
>> output
>> was largely ignored by the literary establishment.
>
> Gosh, I wonder why.
> --
Maybe that's it! Maybe it's Esperanto Dubya's been
speaking.
J.D. Baldwin
Unlikely. Sad to say, he is not widely ignored.
MGW
> Esperanto daily) and two children (with whom he did not).
LOL
--
MGW
Statistics means never having to say you're certain.
(Note: my Hotmail address is seldom checked)