International Language - Walter J. Clark (e reader comics TXT) 📗

to membership of one small class of animals. The other members of the class will be denoted by an ordered sequence of words in which only the letter denoting the individual is changed. Thus, if brabo means "dog," braco may be "cat," and so on: brado, brafo, brago... etc., according to the classification set up.

Words, then, are reduced to mere formulae; and grammar, inflections, etc., are similarly laid out on purely logical, systematic lines, without taking any account of existing languages and their structure. To languages of this type the historians of the universal language have given the name of a priori languages.

Directly opposed to these is the other group of artificial languages, called a posteriori. These are wholly based on the principle of borrowing from existing language: their artificiality consists in choice of words and in regularization and simplification of vocabulary and grammar. They avoid, as far as possible, any elements of arbitrary invention, and confine themselves to adapting and making easier what usage has already sanctioned.

Between the two main types come the mixed languages, partaking of the nature of each.

The following list is taken from the Histoire de la langue universelle, by MM. Couturat and Leau:

I. A Priori Languages

1. The philosopher Descartes, in a letter of 1629, forecasts a system (realized in our days by Zamenhof) of a regular universal grammar: words to be formed with fixed roots and affixes, and to be in every case immediately decipherable from the dictionary alone. He rejects this scheme as fit "for vulgar minds," and proceeds to sketch the outline of all subsequent "philosophic" languages. Thus the great thinker anticipates both types of universal language.

2. Sir Thomas Urquhart, 1653—Logopandekteision (see next chapter).

3. Dalgarno, 1661—Ars Signorum.
Dalgarno was a Scotchman born at Aberdeen in 1626. His language is founded on the classification of ideas. Of these there are seventeen main classes, represented by seventeen letters. Each letter is the initial of all the words in its class.

4. Wilkins, 1668—An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language.
Wilkins was Bishop of Chester, and first secretary and one of the founders of the Royal Society. Present members please note. His system is a development of Dalgarno's.

5. Leibnitz, 1646–1716.
Leibnitz thought over this matter all his life, and there are various passages on it scattered through his works, though no one treatise is devoted to it. He held that the systems of his predecessors were not philosophical enough. He dreamed of a logic of thought applicable to all ideas. All complex ideas are compounds of simple ideas, as non-primary numbers are of primary numbers. Numbers can be compounded ad infinitum. So if numbers are translated into pronouncible words, these words can be combined so as to represent every possible idea.

6. Delormel, 1795 (An III)—Projet d'une langue universelle.
Delormel was inspired by the humanitarian ideas of the French Revolution. He wished to bring mankind together in fraternity. His system rests on a logical classification of ideas on a decimal basis.

7. Jean François Sudre, 1817—Langue musicale universelle.
Sudre was a schoolmaster, born in 1787. His language is founded on the seven notes of the scale, and he calls it Solresol.

8. Grosselin, 1836—Systeme de langue universelle.
A language composed of 1500 words, called "roots," with 100 suffixes, or modifying terminations.

9. Vidal, 1844—Langue universelle et analytique.
A curious combination of letters and numbers.

10. Letellier, 1852–1855—Cours complet de langue universelle, and many subsequent publications.
Letellier was a former schoolmaster and school inspector. His system is founded on the "theory of language," which is that the word ought to represent by its component letters an analysis of the idea it conveys.

11. Abbé Bonifacio Sotos Ochando, 1852, Madrid.
The abbé had been a deputy to the Spanish Cortes, Spanish master to Louis Philippe's children, a university professor, and director of a polytechnic college in Madrid, etc. His language is a logical one, intended for international scientific use, and chiefly for writing. He does not think a spoken language for all purposes possible.

12. Societé Internationale de linguistique. First report dated 1856.
The object of the society was to carry out a radical reform of French orthography, and to prepare the way for a universal language—"the need of which is beginning to be generally felt." In the report the idea of adopting one of the most widely spoken national languages is considered and rejected. The previous projects are reviewed, and that of Sotos Ochando is recommended as the best. The a posteriori principle is rejected and the a priori deliberately adopted. This is excusable, owing to the fact that most projects hitherto had been a priori. The philosopher Charles Renouvier gave proof of remarkable prescience by condemning the a priori theory in an article in La Revue, 1855, in which he forecasts the a posteriori plan.

13. Dyer, 1875—Lingwalumina; or, the Language of Light.

14. Reinaux, 1877.

15. Maldent, 1877—La langue naturelle.
The author was a civil engineer.

16. Nicolas, 1900—Spokil.
The author is a ship's doctor and former partisan of Volapük.

17. Hilbe, 1901—Die Zablensprache,
Based on numbers which are translated by vowels.

18. Dietrich, 1902—Völkerverkehrssprache.

19. Mannus Talundberg, 1904—Perio, eine auf Logik und Gedachtnisskunst aufgebaute Weltsprache.

II. Mixed Languages

These are chiefly Volapük and its derivates.

1. August Theodor von Grimm, state councillor of the Russian Empire, worked out a "programme for the formation of a universal language," which contains some a priori elements, as well as nearly all the principles which subsequent authors of a posteriori languages have realized.

This Grimm is not to be confused with the famous philologist Jacob von Grimm, though he wrote about the same time.

2. Schleyer, 1879—Volapük. (See below.)

3. Verheggen, 1886—Nal Bino.

4. Menet, 1886—Langue universelle.
An imitation of Volapük.

5. Bauer, 1886—Spelin.
A development of Volapük with more words taken from neutral languages.

6. St. de Max, 1887—Bopal.
An imitation of Volapük.

7. Dormoy, 1887—Balta.
A simplification of Volapük.

8. Fieweger, 1893—Dil.
An exaggeration of Volapük for good and ill.

9. Guardiola, 1893—Orba.
A fantastic language.

10. W. von Arnim, 1896—Veltparl.
A derivative of Volapük.

11. Marchand, 1898—Dilpok.
Simplified Volapük.

12. Bollack, 1899—La langue bleue.
Aims merely at commercial and common use. Ingenious, but too difficult for the memory.

III. A Posteriori Languages

1. Faiguet, 1765—Langue nouvelle.
Faiguet was treasurer of France. He published his project, which is a scheme for simplifying grammar, in the famous eighteenth-century encyclopaedia of Diderot and d'Alembert.

2. Schipfer, 1839—Communicationssprache.
This scheme has an historical interest for two reasons. First, the fact that it is founded on French reflects the feeling of the time that French was, as he says, "already to a certain extent a universal language." The point of interest is to compare the date when the projects began to be founded on English. In 1879 Volapük took English for the base. Secondly, Schipfer's scheme reflects the new consciousness of wider possibilities that were coming into the world with the development of means of communication by rail and steamboat. The author recommends the utility of his project by referring to "the new way of travelling."

3. De Rudelle, 1858—Pantos-Dimon-Glossa.
De Rudelle was a modern-language master in France and afterwards at the London Polytechnic. His language is based on ten natural languages, especially Greek, Latin, and the modern derivatives of Latin, with grammatical hints from English, German, and Russian. It is remarkable for having been the first to embody several principles of the first importance, which have since been more fully carried out in other schemes, and are now seen to be indispensable. Among these are: (1) distinction of the parts of speech by a fixed form for each; (2) suppression of separate verbal forms for each person; (3) formation of derivatives by means of suffixes with fixed meanings.

4. Pirro, 1868—Universalsprache.
Based upon five languages—French, German, English, Italian, and Spanish—and containing a large proportion of words from the Latin.

5. Ferrari, 1877—Monoglottica (?).

6. Volk and Fuchs, 1883—Weltsprache.
Founded on Latin.

7. Cesare Meriggi, 1884—Blaia Zimondal.

8. Courtonne, 1885—Langue Internationale néo-Latine.
Based on the modern Romance languages, and therefore not sufficiently international. A peculiarity is that all roots are monosyllabic. The history of this attempt illustrates the weight of inertia against which any such project has to struggle. It was presented to the Scientific Society of Nice, which drew up a report and sent it to all the learned societies of Romance-speaking countries. Answers were received from three towns—Pau, Sens, and Nimes. It was then proposed to convene an international neo-Latin congress; but it is not surprising to hear that nothing came of it.

9. Steiner, 1885—Pasilingua.
A counterblast to Volapük. The author aims at copying the methods of naturally formed international languages like the lingua franca or Pidgin-English. Based on English, French, and German; but the English vocabulary forms the groundwork.

10. Eichhorn, 1887—Weltsprache.
Based on Latin. A leading principle is that each part of speech ought to be recognizable by its form. Thus nouns have two syllables; adjectives, three; pronouns, one; verbal roots, one syllable beginning and ending with a consonant; and so on.

11. Zamenhof, 1887—Esperanto. (See below.)

12. Bernhard, 1888—Lingua franca nuova.
A kind of bastard Italian.

13. Lauda, 1888—Kosmos.
Draws all its vocabulary from Latin.

14. Henderson, 1888—Lingua.
Latin vocabulary with modern grammar.

15. Henderson, 1902—Latinesce.
A simpler and more practical adaptation of Latin by the same author—e.g. the present infinitive form does duty for several finite tenses, and words are used in their modern senses.

16. Hoinix (pseudonym for the same indefatigable Mr. Henderson), 1889—Anglo-franca.
A mixture of French and English. Both this and the barbarized Latin schemes are fairly easy and certainly simpler than the real languages, but they are shocking to the ear, and produce the effect of mutilation of language.

17. Stempel, 1889—Myrana.
Based on Latin with admixture of other languages.

18. Stempel, 1894—Communia.
A simplification of No. 17, with a new name.

19. Rosa, 1890—Nov Latin.
A set of rules for using the Latin dictionary in a certain way as a key to produce something that can be similarly deciphered.

20. Julius Lott, 1890—Mundolingue.
Founded on Latin. Lott started an international society for a universal language, proposing to build up his language by collaboration of savants thus brought together.

21. Marini, 1891—Méthode rapide, facile et certaine pour construire un idiome universel.

22. Liptay, 1892—Langue catholique.
Based on the theory than an international language already exists (in the words common to many languages), and has only to be discovered.

23. Mill, 1893—Anti-Volapük.
A simple universal grammar to be applied to the vocabulary of each national language.

24. Braakman, 1894—Der Wereldtaal "El Mundolinco," Gramatico del Mundolinco pro li de Hollando Factore (Noordwijk).

25. Albert Hoessrich (date?)—Talnovos, Monatsschrift für die Einführung und Verbreitung der allgemeinen Verkehrssprache "Tal" (Sonneberg, Thuringen).

26. Heintzeler, 1895—Universala.
Heintzeler compares the twelve chief artificial languages already proposed, and shows that they have much in common. He suggests a commission to work out a system on an eclectic basis.

27. Beermann, 1895—Novilatin.
Latin brought up to date by comparison with six chief modern languages.

28. Le Linguist, 1896–7.
A monthly review conducted by a band of philologists. It contains many discussions of the principles which should underly an international language, and suggestions, but no complete scheme.

29. Puchner, 1897—Nuove Roman.
Based largely on Spanish, which the author considers the best of the Romance tongues.

30. Nilson—La vest-europish central-dialekt (1890); Lasonebr, un transitional lingvo (1897); Il dialekt Centralia, un compromiss entr il lingu universal de Akademi international e la vest-europish central-dialekt (1899).

31. Kürschner, 1900—Lingua Komun.
The author was an Esperantist, but found Esperanto not scientific enough. It is almost incredible that a man who knew Esperanto should invent a language with several conjugations of the verb, but this is what Kürschner has done.

32. International Academy of Universal Language, 1902—Idiom Neutral. (See below.)

33. Elias Molee, 1902—Tutonish; or, Anglo-German Union Tongue. Tutonish; a Teutonic International Language (1904).

34. Molenaar—Panroman, skiz de un ling internazional (in Die Religion der Menschheit, March 1903); Esperanto oder Panroman? Das Weltsprache-problem und seine einfachste Lösung (1906); Universal Ling-Panroman (in Menschheitsziele, 1906); Gramatik de Universal (Leipzig, Puttmann, 1906).

35. Peano—De Latino sine flexione (in Revue de Mathématique,