Jonathan Pool, born 1942 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, is a

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. He works on the political and economic consequences of linguistic circumstances and

language policy Language policy is an interdisciplinary academic field. Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard SpolskyRobert B. Kaplanand Joseph Lo Bianc ...

. Pool studied

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

in Harvard between 1960 and 1964. He then joined the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John ...

and went to

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, where he taught

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

. After his return he studied in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, where he graduated in 1968 and earned his PhD in 1971. Pool worked at the universities of Chicago, New York (Stony Brook), Washington (Seattle),

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

as well as in

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for th ...

, and

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region ('' Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. After 1996 he worked as a chief strategist for Centerplex, an enterprise in Tukwila, Washington, near Seattle. He now is president of Utilika Foundation. Pool has always been impressed by the degree to which peoples'

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tong ...

and linguistic knowledge influence their lives. When, as a nine-year-old, he had a friend whose parents had immigrated from

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, he decided to learn

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Port ...

while his friend learned English, for reasons of fairness. While teaching English in Turkey he was surprised to find how many people got their jobs on the basis of their knowledge of languages rather than of their professional skills. This influenced the choice of his research field; in 1981 he published a paper on the measurement of the consequences of linguistic discrimination. At that time he met

Reinhard Selten Reinhard Justus Reginald Selten (; 5 October 1930 – 23 August 2016) was a German economist, who won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He is also well known for his work in b ...

, with whom he worked on the application of game theory on problems of linguistic diversity. In 1991 he published a research paper proposing an economic compensation for the need to learn languages.J. Pool, ''The Official Language Problem'', American Political Science Review, 1991 (85), 495–514 This was an early form of the concept of a

language tax The language tax is an economic concept proposed by the Belgian economist Philippe Van Parijs. It is intended to compensate countries with a less widespread language for their expenses for teaching and translation. Van Parijs points out that Jon ...

Some publications

*Pool, Jonathan 1977 : De LMLP al LPLP. Nova vesto por la faka revuo, ''

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...

'', 853 (1), p. 3-4 *Reinhard Selten; Jonathan Pool 1995 : Enkonduko en la teorion de lingvaj ludoj : ĉu mi lernu esperanton? Berlin : Akademia Libroservo, 1995

References

1942 births Living people American Esperantists Harvard University alumni University of Chicago faculty University of Washington faculty Stony Brook University faculty Stanford University faculty Academic staff of the University of Mannheim Academic staff of Paderborn University American political scientists American political philosophers Academic staff of Bielefeld University {{US-polisci-bio-stub

Some publications

Further reading

References