Jonathan Pool

{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}} thumb|Jonathan Pool. '''Jonathan Pool''', born 1942 in Chicago, is a political scientist from the United States. He works on the political and economic consequences of linguistic circumstances and language policy.

Pool studied political science in Harvard between 1960 and 1964. He then joined the Peace Corps and went to Turkey, where he taught English. After his return he studied in Chicago, 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 as well as in Germany (Mannheim, Paderborn and Bielefeld). After 1996 he worked as a chief strategist for Centerplex, an enterprise in Tukwila, Washington, near Seattle. He now is president of Utilika Foundation.

Jonathan Pool was co-founder in 1968 of the Esperantic Studies Foundation, together with E. James Lieberman and Humphrey Tonkin.

== Linguistic justice == Pool has always been impressed by the degree to which peoples' first language and linguistic knowledge influence their lives. When, as a nine-year-old, he had a friend whose parents had immigrated from Brazil, he decided to learn Portuguese for reasons of fairness, while his friend learned English. 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 as in 1981 he published a paper on the measurement of the consequences of linguistic discrimination.<ref>J. Pool: ''Sprachliche Gleichheit, sprachliche Ungleichheit und Sprachdiskriminierung: Begriffe und Messung'', Grundlagenstudien aus Kybernetik und Geisteswissenschaft, 22.</ref> At that time he met Reinhard Selten, with whom he worked on the application of game theory on problems of linguistic diversity.<ref>R. Selten, J. Pool: ''The Distribution of Foreign Language Skills as a Game Equilibrium'', in Game Equilibrium Models, ed. Reinhard Selten, vol. 4, Social and Political Interaction, Berlin: Springer, 1991, pp. 64–87</ref> In 1991 he published a research paper proposing an economic compensation for the need to learn languages.<ref>J. Pool, ''The Official Language Problem'', American Political Science Review, 1991 (85), 495–514</ref> This was an early form of the concept of a language tax by Philippe Van Parijs

== Utilika Foundation == Jonathan Pool established the Utilika Foundation was a Seattle-based, non-profit research entity (2004–2011) to advance communication and collaboration among diverse human and artificial agents, by means of pure and applied research<ref>[https://app.candid.org/profile/6995244/utilika-foundation-20-1097721 Utilika Foundation], Candid</ref>. It also focused on language diversity, semantic web technologies and fostering "universal interactivity" by reducing language barriers in human-machine communication. It was involved in the development of multilingual accessibility projects.

The Utilika Foundation was also funded by ESF for research in interlinguistics and Esperantology<ref>[https://canadacommons.ca/artifacts/19901860/utilika-foundation-and-esperantic-studies-foundation-overview/20802390/ Utilika Foundation and Esperantic Studies Foundation Overview], ESF</ref>.

== Some publications == *Pool, Jonathan, ''De LMLP al LPLP. Nova vesto por la faka revuo'', ''Esperanto (UEA)'', 1977, 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

==Further reading== *[https://old.panlex.org/people/pool.shtml PanLex: Jonathan Pool] Short biography and list of Research and other writing

==References== {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pool, Jonathan}} Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:American Esperantists Category:Harvard University alumni Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:University of Washington faculty Category:Stony Brook University faculty Category:Stanford University faculty Category:Academic staff of the University of Mannheim Category:Academic staff of Paderborn University Category:American political scientists Category:American political philosophers Category:Academic staff of Bielefeld University