An international language organisation has been forced to apologise to Yorkshire West Euro MP Barry Seal after comparing him to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The London-based Esperanto Association accused Dr Seal of joining Hitler and Stalin in opposing education for international understanding through Esperanto. And, to mark Esperanto Week, it has also put him on a blacklist along with more than 20 other Euro MPs who are opposed to the saving of taxpayers' money through the use of a common language.

But today, Dr Seal said he was outraged by the association's claims.

"I think it is over the top and almost libellous," he said. "The reason I am on a blacklist is that I don't think it will ever take over. You can't build an artificial language, - you can't separate language from culture. What I would like to see is everybody speaking their mother tongue with at least one other language being used fluently.

"The idea of trying to make an artificial language is not feasible. And it really is highly offensive to lump people like myself with people like Hitler and Stalin.

"I will let people form their own views but this is not the way for them to gain support. It just shows how fanatical these people are.''

The Esperanto Association says the language has a history of persecution - with Hitler sending Esperanto-speakers to concentration camps. It says Hitler decreed that Esperanto was a language of the Jews and in Russia 30,000 Esperanto speakers died following a decision by Stalin because, he claimed, "Esperanto is the language of bourgeois imperialism."

Brian Barker, lobby organiser for the association, said: "I do apologise to Dr Seal for any offence caused and will gladly put that in writing.

But he added: "He has written to us on more than one occasion saying to us that Esperanto has no cultural value and no value as a living language.

"It is a living language. The United Nations has recommended it be taught in schools world-wide."

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