I am reacting to the word "nous" as a form of political thinking, quoted in your article. I had to smile because to me, having grown up with the philosopher Kant's way of thinking, "nous" is the antonym of "phenomenon" and refers to an intellectual thinking stripped of all perceptual attributes and thus without any feelings or emotions attached to it. From this perspective it is hard to imagine that people with a "political mind" are without feelings and emotions in their evaluation of a political setting.

Another observation from the perspective of some one who speaks five languages, when returning to my native The Netherlands, the amalgamation of English into the Dutch language was becoming more and more evident. Eventually I can see that English is accomplishing naturally what Esperanto failed to do, which is creating a natural way of communicating between peoples of different tongue and ethnic background.

Welcome a-Board Mr Fish. I hope you decide to stick around and post some more - your multi-lingual perspective will be fascinating on many topics. Did you 'hear' what David Crystal had to say today in the chat forum on the subject of Esperanto and other lingua franca issues?

When "nous" was coupled with "political" it was a ludicrous mesalliance.