Jack was shaking his head seriously. "And antagonize all the Arab hating Bantu in Africa? It's no go, Homer."
"Well, then, say French—or English."
"English is the most international language in the world," Moroka said. But his face was thoughtful, as those of the others were becoming.
The West Indian was beginning to make his points now. "No, any of the European languages are out. The white man has been repudiated. Adopting English, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch, as our official language would antagonize whole sections of the continent."
"Why Esperanto?" Cliff scowled. "Why not, say, Nov-Esperanto, or Ido, or Interlingua?"
Jimmy Peters put in a word now. "Actually, any one of them would possibly do, but we have a head start with Esperanto. Some years ago both Jack and I became avid Esperantists, being naïve enough in those days to think an international language would ultimately solve all man's problems. And both Homer and Isobel seem to have a working knowledge of the language."
Homer said, "So have the other members of my former Reunited Nations team. That's where those books you found came from. Elmer, Bey, Kenny ... and Abe ... and I used to play around with it when we were out in the desert, just to kill time. We also used it as sort of a secret language when we wanted to communicate and didn't know if those around us might understand some English."
"I still don't get the picture," Cliff argued. "If we picked the most common half a dozen languages in the territory we cover, then millions of these people wouldn't have to study a second language. But if you adapt Esperanto as an official language then everybody is going to have to learn something new. And that's not going to be easy for our ninety-five per cent illiterate followers."
Isobel said thoughtfully, "Well, it's a darn sight easier to learn Esperanto than any other language we decided to make official."
"Why?" Cliff said argumentatively.