LANGUAGE CONSTRAINTS TO WATER RESOURCE UTILIZATION1

ABSTRACT: Worldwide development of water resources and control of pollution would be improved by the ability for direct, multilateral communication between workers in the dozens of different language communities involved. Current language-based problems which should be eliminated include (1) incomplete diffusion of scientific knowledge, (2) technical inbreeding, (3) unsatisfactory international conferences, (4) money wasted on translation, and (5) unstandardized technical terminology. General education in a common second language for international use can eliminate these conditions. Ethnic languages are not qualified for this purpose, because of their national biases and extreme learning difficulties. The Esperanto language is free of these limitations, and its application is recommended as a means for improving the overall performance of the industry.