There is another type of argument which may also be classed as aesthetic, but which differs somewhat from the one just discussed. It emanates chiefly from literary men and scholars, and may be presented as follows:

"Language is precious, and worthy of study, inasmuch as it enshrines the imperishable monuments of the thought and genius of the race on whose lips it was born. The study of the words and forms in which a nation clothed its thoughts throws many a ray of light on phases of the evolution of the race itself, which would otherwise have remained dark. The history of a language and literature is in some measure an epitome of the history of a people. We miss all these points of interest in your artificial language, and we shall, therefore, refuse to study it, and hereby commit it to the devil."

This is a particularly humiliating type of answer to receive, because it implies that one is an ass. In truth the man who should invent an artificial language and invite the world to study it for itself would be a fool, and a very swell-headed fool at that. It seems in vain to point this out to persons who use the above argument; or to explain to them that they would be aided in their study of languages that do repay study by the introduction of an easy international language, because many commentaries, etc., would become accessible to them, which are not so now, or only at the expense of deciphering some difficult language in which the commentary is written, the commentary itself being in no sense literature, and its form a matter of complete indifference.

Back comes the old answer in one form or another, every variation tainted with the heresy that the language is to be studied as a language for itself.

Perhaps the least tedious way of giving an idea of this kind of opposition, and the way in which it may be met, is to give some extracts from a scholar's letter, and the writer's answer. The letter is fairly typical.

"MY DEAR ——,

"Many thanks for your long letter on Esperanto.... According to the books, Esperanto can be learnt quickly by any one. This means that they will forget it quite as rapidly; for what is easily acquired is soon forgotten.... In my humble opinion, an Englishman who knows French and German would do much better to devote any extra time at his disposal to the study of his own language, which, I repeat, is one of the most delicate mediums of communication now in existence. It has taken centuries to construct, while Esperanto was apparently created in a few hours. One is God's handiwork, and the other a man's toy. Personally, any living language interests me more than Esperanto. I am sorry I am such a heretic, but I fear my love for the English language carries me away....

"Yours ever, "——."

The points that rankle are artificiality and lack of a history.

Reply

"MY DEAR ——,

"I really can't put it any more plainly, so I must just repeat it: we are not trying to introduce a language that has any interest for anybody in itself. An international language is a labour-saving device. The question is, Is it an efficient one? If so, it must surely be adopted. The world wants to be saved labour. It never pays permanently to do things a longer way, if the shorter one produces equally good results. No one has yet proved, or, in my opinion, advanced any decent argument tending to show, that the results produced by a universal language will not be just as good for many purposes[1] as those produced by national languages. That the results are more economically produced surely does not admit of doubt.

[1]And those very important ones, relatively to man's whole field of activity.

'Personally, any living language interests me more than Esperanto.' Of course it does. So it does me, and most sensible people. But what the digamma does it matter to Esperanto whether we are interested in it or not? It is not there to interest us. The question is, Does it, or not, save us or others unprofitable labour on a large scale? Neither you nor most sane persons are probably particularly interested in shorthand or Morse codes or any signalling systems. Yet they bear up.

"Do try to see that we think there is a certain felt want, amongst countless numbers of persons, which is much more efficiently and economically met by a neutral, easy, international language, than by any national one. That is the position you have got to controvert, if you are seriously to weaken the argument in favour of an international language. If you say that it is not a want felt by many people, I can only say, at the risk of being dogmatic, that you are wrong. I happen to know that it is.[1] The question then is, Is there an easy way of meeting that want? And the equally certain and well-grounded answer is, There is....

[1]I have before me a list of 119 societies, representing many different lines of work and play and many nations, who had already in 1903 given in their adhesion to a scheme for an international language. Technical terms alone (in all departments of study) want standardizing, and an international language affords the best means. The number of societies is now (1907) over 270.

"As to your argument that what is easy is more easily forgotten—it is true. But I think you must see that, neither in practice nor in principle, does it or should it make for choosing the harder way of arriving at a given result. Chance the forgetting, if necessary re-learning as required, and use the time and effort saved for some more remunerative purpose.

"'One is God's handiwork, the other a man's toy.' I should have said the first was man's lip-work, but I see what you mean. It is God working through his creature's natural development. The same is equally true of all man's 'toys.' Man moulded his language in pursuance of his ends under God. Under the same guidance he moulded the steam engine, the typewriter, shorthand, the semaphore, and all kinds of signals. What are the philosophical differentia that make Esperanto a toy, and natural language God's handiwork? Apparently the fact that Esperanto is 'artificial,' i.e. consciously produced by art. If this is the criterion, beware lest you damn man's works wholesale. If this is not the criterion, what is?

"'An Englishman who knows French and German would do much better to devote any extra time at his disposal to the study of his own language.' Yes—if his object is to qualify as an artist in language. No—if his object is to save time and trouble in communicating with foreigners. You must compare like with like. It is unscientific and a confusion of thought to change the subject-matter of a man's employment of his time on grounds other than those fairly intercomparable. You have dictated as to how a man should employ his time by changing his object in employing his time. This makes the whole discussion irrelevant, in so far as it deals with the comparative advantage of studying one language or the other.

"Time's up! I have missed my after-lunch walk, and I expect only hardened your heart.

"Yours, "——."

And I had!

XII

WILL AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE DISCOURAGE THE STUDY OF MODERN LANGUAGES, AND THUS BE DETRIMENTAL TO CULTURE?—PARALLEL WITH THE QUESTION OF COMPULSORY GREEK

There is a broad, twofold distinction in the aims with which the study of foreign languages is organized and undertaken.

It serves: first, purely utilitarian ends, and is a means; secondly, the purposes of culture, and is an end in itself.

An international auxiliary language aims at supplanting the first type of study completely, and, as it claims, with profit to the students. The second type it hopes to leave wholly intact, and disclaims any attempt to interfere with it in any way. How far is this possible?

The answer depends mainly upon the efficiency of the alternative offered by the new-comer in each case as a possible substitute.

Firstly, if it is true that a great portion of the human race, especially in the big polyglot empires and the smaller states of Europe, are groaning under the incubus of the language difficulty, and have to spend years on the study of mere words before they can fit themselves for an active career, then the abolition of this heavy handicap on due preparation for each man's proper business in life will liberate much time for more profitable studies. It is certain that the majority of mankind are non-linguistic by nature and inclination rather than linguistic—i.e. that the best chance of developing their natural capacities to the utmost and making them useful and agreeable members of society does not lie in making all alike swallow an overdose of foreign languages during the acquisitive years of youth. By doing so, vast waste is caused, taking the world round. As to the attainment of the object of this first type of language study, not only is it as efficiently secured by a single universal language, but far more so. Ex hypothesi the object is utilitarian; the language is a means. Well, a universal language is a better means than a national one—first, because, being universal, it is a means to more; secondly, because, being easy and one, it is a means that more people can grasp and employ. In fact, it is in this field an efficient substitute; it saves much, without losing anything.

For the second type of language-study, on the other hand, where the end is culture and the language is studied for itself and in no wise as an indifferent means, a universal artificial language offers no substitute at all. This end is not on its programme. Why, then, should any language-study that is organized in view of culture be given up on its account?

It may, of course, be said that the time given to it by those who pursue culture in language will be taken from the time devoted to more worthy linguistic study, and will therefore prejudice the learning of other languages. This is a point of technical pedagogics or psychology. There is very good reason, from the standpoint of these sciences, to believe that a study of a simple type-tongue would, on the contrary, pay for itself in increased facility in learning other languages. But this is more fully discussed in the chapter for teachers (see pp. 145-55) [Part III, Chapter I].

The question, however, is not in reality quite so simple as this. There is no water-tight partition between utilitarian and cultural language-study. They act and react upon each other. There really is some ground for anxiety, lest the provision of facilities for learning an easy artificial language at your door may prevent people from going out of their way to learn national ones, which would have awakened scholarly instincts in them. The cause of culture would thus sustain some real hurt.

The question is another phase—a wider and lower-grade phase—of the great compulsory Greek question at Oxford and Cambridge. It affects the masses, whereas the Greek controversy affects the few at the top; but otherwise the issue at stake is essentially the same.

In both cases the bedrock of the problem is this, Can we afford to put the many through a grind, which is on the whole unprofitable to them and does not attain its object of conferring culture, in order to uphold the traditional system in the interests of the few? In neither case do the reformers desire to suppress the study of the old culture-giving language; rather it is hoped that the interests of scholarly and liberal learning will benefit by being freed from the dead weight of grammar grinders, whose mechanical performance and monkey antics are merely a dodge to catch a copper from the examiners.

When Greek is no longer bolstered up by the protection of compulsion, some of the present bounty-fed (i.e. compulsion-fed) facilities for its study will no doubt disappear from the schools which are at present forced to provide them. With them will be lost some recruits who would have been led by the facilities to study Greek, and would have studied it to their profit. On the other hand, the university will be open to numbers of students who are at present shut out by the Greek tariff. Another barrier against modernity will go down, and democracy make another step out of the proverbial gutter towards the university.

Similarly, the possession of a universally understood medium of communication will in some cases deter people from making the effort to study real language, with all the treasures of original literature to which it is the key.

"Tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true.

But—and this is the great point—it will open the cosmopolitan outlook to countless thousands who could never hope to grapple successfully with even one national language. This cannot be a small gain.

It all comes back to this—you cannot eat your cake and have it too. Il faut souffrir pour tre belle. The international language has the defects of its qualities. But then its qualities are great, and the world is their sphere of utility.

XIII

OBJECTION TO AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE ON THE GROUND THAT IT WILL SOON SPLIT UP INTO DIALECTS

This is a particularly unfortunate objection, because it displays a radical ignorance of the history of language, and of the conditions under which it develops.

In the first place, the whole tendency of language in the modern world is towards disappearance of local dialects, and their absorption into a uniform literary language. The dialects of England are almost dead before the onset of universal education, and the great work of Dr. Wright was only just in time to rescue them from oblivion. Even one generation hence it will be impossible to collect much of the local speech recorded in his dictionary. It is the same in Germany and everywhere, though, of course, all countries are not equally advanced in this respect. A standard form of words and grammar is fixed by print for the literary language, and when every one can read and write, it is all up with national evolution of language, such as has produced all national languages. A gradual change of the phonetic value given to the written symbols there may be. This has been pre-eminently the case in England, though even this will now be arrested by universal education. But a change of forms or of grammar can only be indefinitely slight and gradual. When it takes place, it reflects a common advance of the literary language, and not local or dialectical variation (though the common advance may have originally spread from one locality).

In the second place, dialects are variations that spring up under the stress of local circumstance in the familiar every-day unconscious use of a common mother tongue among people of the same race and inhabiting the same district. Now, these are the very circumstances in which an auxiliary international language never can, and never will, be used. The only exception is the case of people meeting together for the conscious practice of the language or using it in jest.

There are no occasions when an international language would be naturally used when any variation from standard usage would not be a distinct disadvantage as tending to unintelligibility. In short, a neutral language consciously learned as a means of communication with strangers is not on an equal footing with, or exposed to the same influences as, a mother tongue used by people every day under like conditions.

A cardinal point of difference is well illustrated by Esperanto. The whole foundation of the language, vocabulary, grammar, and everything else, is contained in one small book of a few pages, called Fundamento de Esperanto. No change can be made in this except by a competent elected international authority. Of course, no text-books or grammars will be authorized for the use of any nation that are not in accordance with the Fundamento. People will make mistakes, of course, just as they make mistakes in any foreign language, and they can help themselves out with any words from other languages, just as they do now when their French or German fails them. But the standard is always there, simple and short, to correct any aberration, and there is no room for any alterations in form or structure to creep in.

XIV

OBJECTION THAT THE PRESENT INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE (ESPERANTO) IS TOO DOGMATIC, AND REFUSES TO PROFIT BY CRITICISM

It is true that Esperantists refuse to make any change in their language at present, and this is found irritating by some able critics, who wrongly imagine that this attitude amounts to a claim of perfection for Esperanto. The matter may be easily put right.

The inadmissibility of change (even for the better) is purely a matter of policy and dictated by practical considerations. Esperantists make no claim to infallibility; they want to see their language universally adopted, and they want to see it as perfect as possible. Actual and bitter experience shows that the international language which admits change is lost. Universal acceptance and present change are incompatible. Esperantists, therefore, bow to the inevitable and deliberately choose to concentrate for the present on acceptance. General acceptance, indeed, while it imposes upon the present body of Esperantists self-restraint in abstaining from change, is in reality the essential condition of profitable future amendment. When an international language has attained the degree of dissemination already enjoyed by Esperanto, the only safe kind of change that can be made is a posteriori, not a priori. When Esperanto has been officially adopted and comes into wide use, actual experience and consensus of usage amongst its leading writers will indicate the modifications that are ripe for official adoption. The competent international official authority will then from time to time duly register such changes, and they will become officially part of the language.

Till then, any change can only cause confusion and alienate support. No one is going to spend time learning a language which is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. When the time comes for change, the authority will only proceed cautiously one step at a time, and its decrees will only set the seal upon that which actual use has hit off.

This, then, is the explanation of the famous adjective "netusxebla," applied by Dr. Zamenhof to his language, and so much resented in certain quarters. Surely not only is this degree of dogmatism amply justified by practical considerations, but it would amount to positive imprudence on the part of Esperantists to act otherwise. If the inventor of the language can show sufficient self-restraint, after long years spent in touching and retouching his language, to hold his hand at a given point (and he has declared that self-restraint is necessary), surely others need not be hurt at their suggestions not being adopted, even though they may in some cases be real improvements.

The following extracts, translated from the Preface to Fundamento de Esperanto (the written basic law of Esperanto), should set the question in the right light. It will be seen that Dr. Zamenhof expressly contemplates the "gradual perfection" (perfektigado) of his language, and by no means lays claim to finality or infallibility.

"Having the character of fundament, the three works reprinted in this volume must be above all inviolable (netusxeblaj).... The fundament must remain inviolable even with its errors.... Having once lost its strict inviolability, the work would lose its exceptional and necessary character of dogmatic fundamentality; and the user, finding one translation in one edition, and another in another, would have no security that I should not make another change to-morrow, and his confidence and support would be lost.

"To any one who shows me an expression that is not good in the Fundamental book, I shall calmly reply: Yes, it is an error; but it must remain inviolable, for it belongs to the fundamental document, in which no one has the right to make any change.... I showed, in principle, how the strict inviolability of the Fundamento will always preserve the unity of our language, without however preventing the language not only from becoming richer, but even from constantly becoming more perfect. But in practice we (for causes already many times explained) must naturally be very cautious in the process of 'perfecting' the language: (a) we must not do this light-heartedly, but only in case of absolute necessity; (b) it can only be done (after mature judgment) by some central institution, having indisputable authority for the whole Esperanto world, and not by any private persons....

"Until the time when a central authoritative institution shall decide to augment (never to change) the existing fundament by rendering official new words or rules, everything good, which is not to be found in the Fundamento de Esperanto, is to be regarded not as compulsory, but only as recommended."

XV

SUMMARY OF OBJECTIONS TO AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

An attempt has been made in the preceding chapters to deal with the more important and obvious arguments put forward by those who will hear nothing of an international language. The objections are, however, so numerous, cover such a wide field, and in some cases are so mutually destructive, that it may be instructive to present them in an orderly classification.

For there we have them all "at one fell swoop," Instead of being scattered through the pages; They stand forth marshalled in a handsome troop, To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages.

BYRON.

Let us hope that they will die of exposure, like the famous appendix pilloried by Byron, and that the ingenuous one will be able to regard them as literary curiosities.

If the business of an argument is to be unanswerable, the place of honour certainly belongs to the religious argument. Any one who really believes that an international language is an impious attempt to reverse the judgment of Babel will continue firm in his faith, though one speak with the tongues of men and of angels.

Here, then, are the objections, classified according to content.

OBJECTIONS TO AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

I. Religious.

It is doomed to confusion, because it reverses the judgment of Babel.

II. Aesthetic and sentimental.

(1) It is a cheap commercial scheme, unworthy of the attention of scholars.

(2) It vulgarizes the world and tends to dull uniformity.

(3) It weakens patriotism by diluting national spirit with cosmopolitanism.

(4) It has no history, no link with the past.

(5) It is artificial, which is a sin in itself.

III. Political.

(1) It is against English [Frenchmen read "French"] interests, as diverting prestige from the national tongue.

(2) It is socialistic and even anarchical in tendency, and will facilitate the operations of the international disturbers of society.

IV. Literary and linguistic.

(1) Lacking history and associations, it is unpoetical and unsuited to render the finer shades of thought and feeling. It will, therefore, degrade and distort the monuments of national literatures which may be translated into it.

(2) It may even discourage authors, ambitious of a wide public, from writing in their own tongue. Original works in the artificial language can never have the fine savour of a master's use of his mother tongue.

(3) Its precisely formal and logical vocabulary and construction debauches the literary sense for the niceties of expression. Therefore, even if not used as a substitute for the mother tongue, its concurrent use, which will be thrust on everybody, will weaken the best work in native idioms.

(4) It will split up into dialects.

(5) Pronunciation will vary so as to be unintelligible.

(6) It is too dogmatic, and refuses to profit by criticism.

V. Educational and cultural.

(1) It will prejudice the study of modern languages.

(2) It will provide a "soft option" for examinees.

VI. Personal and particular.

It is prejudicial to the vested interests of modern language teachers, foreign correspondence clerks, interpreters, multilingual waiters and hotel porters.

VII. Technical.

This heading includes the criticisms in detail of various schemes—e.g. it is urged against Esperanto that its accent is monotonous; that its accusative case is unnecessary; that its principle of word-formation from roots is not strictly logical; that its vocabulary is too Romance; that its vocabulary is not Romance enough; and so forth.

VIII. Popular.

(1) It is a wild idea put forth by a set of cranks, who would be better occupied in something else.

(2) It is impossible.

(3) It is too hard: life isn't long enough.

(4) It is not hard enough: lessons will be too quickly done, and will not sink into the mind.

(5) It will oust all other languages, and thus destroy each nation's birthright and heritage.

(6) It will not come in in our time, so the question is of no interest except to our grandchildren.

(7) It is doomed to failure—look at Volapk!

(8) There are quite enough languages already.

(9) You have to learn three or four languages in order to understand Esperanto.

(10) You cannot know it without learning it.

(11) You have to wear a green star.

Pains have been taken to make this list exhaustive. If any reader can think of another objection, he is requested to communicate with the author.

Most of the serious arguments have been already dealt with, so that not many words need be said here. As regards No. VII. (Technical), this is not the place to deal with actual criticisms of the language (Esperanto) that holds the field. The reader will not be in a position to judge of them till he has learnt it. Suffice it to say that they can all be met, and some of the points criticised as vices are, in reality, virtues in an artificial language.

As for Nos. II. and IV. (Sentimental and Literary), most of these objections are due to the old heresy of the literary man, that an artificial language claims to compete with natural languages as a language. Once realize that it is primarily a labour-saving device, and therefore to be judged like any other modern invention such as telegraphy or shorthand, and most of these objections fall to the ground.

A good many of the objections cannot be taken seriously (though they have all been seriously made), or refute themselves or each other. No. VIII. (10) sounds like a fake, but this was the criticism of a scholar and linguist who had been persuaded to look at Esperanto. He complained that though he, knowing Latin, French, Italian, German, and English, could read it without ever having learnt it, ordinary Englishmen could not. It is usual to judge an invention by efficiency compared to cost, but if an appliance is to be condemned because it needs some trouble to master it, then not many inventions will survive.

No. VIII. (9) is of course a mistake. It is like saying that you must practice looping the loop or circus-riding in order to keep your balance on a bicycle. The greater, of course, includes the less; but it is better in both cases to begin with the less. It is much more reasonable to reverse the argument and say: If you begin by learning Esperanto, you will possess a valuable aid towards learning three or four national languages.

No. VIII. (5) is absurd. It is the hardest thing in the world to extirpate a national language; and all the forces of organized repression (e.g. in unhappy Poland) are finding the task too much for them. What inducement have the common people, who form the bulk of the population in every land, to substitute in their home intercourse for their own language one that they have to learn, if at all, artificially at school? Only those who have much international intercourse will ever become really at home in international language—i.e. sufficiently at home to make it possible to use it indifferently as a substitute for their mother-tongue; and people who engage in prolonged and continuous international intercourse, though numerous, will always be in a minority.

XVI

THE WIDER COSMOPOLITANISM—THE COMING OF ASIA

In the civilized West, where pleasure, business, and science are daily forging new ties of common interests between the nations, those engaged in such pursuits have clearly much to gain from the simplification of their pursuits by a common language. But let us look ahead a little further still. It may well be that the outstanding feature of the twentieth century in history will be the coming into line of the peoples of Asia with their pioneer brethren of the West. Look where you will, everywhere the symptoms are plain for those who can read them. Japan has led the way. China is following, and will not be far behind; eventually, as the Japanese themselves foresee, she will probably outstrip Japan, if not the world. There seems to be no ground, ethnological or otherwise, for thinking that the lagging behind of Asia in modern civilization corresponds to a real inferiority of powers, mental or physical, in the individual Asiatic. Experience shows that under suitable conditions the Asiatic can efficiently handle all the white man's tools and weapons; the complete coming up to date is largely a matter of organization, education, and the possession of a few really able men at the head of affairs. Given these, progress may be astonishingly quick. Europeans do not yet seem to have grasped at all adequately the real significance of the last fifty years of Japanese history. Do they really think that the Chinaman is inferior to the Japanese? If so, let them ask any residents in the Far East. Can it be maintained that a generation ago the peasant of Eastern Europe was ahead of the country Chinaman? But the last few years have shown how swiftly modern civilization spreads, both in Europe and America, from the comparatively small group of nations which in the main have worked it out to the others, till lately considered backward and semi-barbarous. And this is the case not merely with the material products of civilization, the railway and the telegraph, but also as regards its divers manifestations in all that concerns the life of the people—constitutional government with growth of representative, elected authorities and democracy; universal education with universal power of reading and consequent birth of a cheap press; rise of industry and consequent growth of towns; universal military service and discipline, now in force in most lands; rise of a moneyed and leisured class and consequent growth of sport, and of all kinds of clubs and societies for promoting various interests, social, sporting, political, religious, educational, philanthropic, and so forth. In fact, the more the material side of life is "modernized," the more closely do the citizens of all lands approximate to one another in their interests and activities, which ultimately rest upon and grow out of their material conditions. Meantime wealth and consequently foreign travel everywhere increase, fresh facilities of communication are constantly provided, men from different countries are more and more thrown together, and all this makes for the further strengthening of mutual interests and the growth of fresh ones in common.

Now if (1) under the stress of "modernization" life is already becoming so similar in the lands of the West, and if (2) the Asiatic is not fundamentally inferior in mental and physical endowments, then it follows as a certainty that the Asiatic world will, under the same stress, enter the comity of nations, and approximate to the world-type of interest and activity. It is only a question of time. In economic history nothing is more certain than that science, organization, cheapness, and efficiency must ultimately prevail over sporadic, unorganized local effort based on tradition and not on scientific exploitation of natural advantages. Thus the East will adopt the material civilization of the West; and through the same organization of industrial and commercial life and generally similar economic conditions, the same type of moneyed class will grow up, with the same range of interests on the intellectual and social side, diverse indeed, but in their very diversity conforming more and more to the world-type.

Concurrently with this new tendency to uniformity proceeds the weakening of the two most powerful disintegrating influences of primitive humanity—religion and tradition. In the earlier stages of society these are the two most powerful agents for binding together into groups men already associated by the ties of locality and common ancestry, and fettering them in the cast-iron bonds of custom and ceremonial observance. While the members of each group are thus held together by the ideas which appeal most profoundly to unsophisticated mankind, the various groups are automatically and by the same process held apart by the full force of those ideas. Thus are produced castes, with their deadening opposition to all progress; and thus arise crusades, wars of religion and persecutions. Religion and tradition are then at once the mightiest integrants within each single community, and the mightiest disintegrants as between different communities.

But this narrow and dissevering spirit of caste dies back before the spread of knowledge. The tendency to regard a man as unclean or a barbarian, simply because he does not believe or behave as one's own people, is merely a product of isolation and ignorance, and disappears with education and the general opening up of a country. The inquisitor can no longer boast of "strained relations"—strained physically on the rack, owing to differences of religious opinion. The state of things which made it possible for sepoys to revolt because rifle bullets were greased with the fat of a sacred animal, or for yellow men to tear up railway tracks because the magic desecrated the tombs of their ancestors, is rapidly passing away, as Orientals realize the profits to be made from scientific methods.

Thus the levelling influence is at work, and the checks upon it are diminishing. The end can be but one. There will be a greater and greater similarity of life and occupation the world over, and more and more actual and potential international intercourse.

Now, the further we move in this direction, the greater will be the impatience of vexatious restraints upon the freedom of intercourse; and of these restraints the difference of language is one of the most vexatious, because it is one of the easiest to remove. If we devote millions of pounds to annihilating the barriers of space, can we not devote a few months to the comparatively modest effort necessary to annihilate the barriers of language?

A real cosmopolitanism, in the etymological sense of the word, world (and not merely European) citizenship, will shift the onus probandi from the supporters of an international language to its opponents. It will say to them, "It is admitted that you have much intercourse with other peoples; it is admitted that diversity of language is an obstacle in this intercourse; this obstacle is increasing rather than diminishing as fresh subjects raise their claims upon the few years of education, and the old leisurely type of linguistic education fails more and more to train the bulk of the people for life's business, and as the ranks of the civilized are swelled by fresh peoples for whom it is harder and harder to learn even one Indo-Germanic tongue, let alone several; it is proved that this obstacle can be removed at the cost of a few months' study: this study is not only the most directly remunerative study in the world, comparing results with cost, but it is an admirable mental discipline and a direct help towards further real linguistic culture-giving studies for those who are fit to undertake them. Show cause, then, why you prefer to suffer under an unnecessary obstacle, rather than avail yourselves of this means of removing it." It is easier for the Indo-Germanic peoples to learn each other's languages—e.g. for an Englishman to learn Swedish or Russian—than it is for a speaker of one of any of the other families of languages to learn any Indo-Germanic tongue; so that some idea may be formed of the magnitude of the task imposed upon the newer converts to Western civilization by the Indo-Germanic world, in making them learn one or more of its national languages. At the same time, it is but just that the peoples who have paid the piper of progress should call the common lingual tune. Therefore, what more fitting than that they should provide an essence of their allied languages, reduced to its simplest and clearest form? This they would offer to the rest of the world to be taken over as part of the general progress in civilization which it has to adopt; and this it is which is provided in the international language, Esperanto.

XVII

IMPORTANCE OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE FOR THE BLIND

Now that higher education for the blind is being extended in every country, owing to the more humanitarian feeling of the present age that these afflicted members of the community ought to be given a fair chance, the problem of supplying them with books is beginning to be felt. The process of producing books for the blind on the Braille system is, of course, far more costly than ordinary printing, and at the same time the editions must be necessarily more or less limited. Many an educated blind person is therefore cruelly circumscribed in the range of literature open to him by the mere physical obstacle of the lack of books. This difficulty is accentuated by the fact that three kinds of Braille type are in use—French, English, and American.

Now, suppose it is desired to make the works of some good author accessible to the blind—we will say the works of Milton. A separate edition has to be done into Braille for the English, another separate translation for the French, and so on for the blind of each country. In many cases where translations of a work do not already exist, as in the case of a modern author, the mere cost of translation into some one language may not pay, much less then the preparation of a special Braille edition for the limited blind public of that country. But if one Braille edition is prepared for the blind of the world in the universal auxiliary language, a far greater range of literature is at once brought within their grasp.

Already there is abundant evidence of the keen appreciation of Esperanto on the part of the blind, and one striking proof is the fact that the distinguished French scientist and doctor, Dr. Javal, who himself became blind during the latter part of his life, was, until his death in March 1907, one of the foremost partisans and benefactors of Esperanto. By his liberality much has been rendered possible that could not otherwise have been accomplished. There are many other devoted workers in the same field, among them Prof. Cart and Mme. Fauvart-Bastoul in France, and Mr. Rhodes, of Keighley, and Mr. Adams, of Hastings, in England. A special fund is being raised to enable blind Esperantists from various countries to attend the Congress at Cambridge in August 1907, and the cause is one well worthy of assistance by all who are interested in the welfare of the blind. The day when a universal language is practically recognised will be one of the greatest in their annals.

A perfectly phonetic language, as is Esperanto, is peculiarly suited to the needs of the blind. Its long, full vowels, slow, harmonious intonation, few and simple sounds, and regular construction make it very easy to learn through the ear, and to reproduce on any phonetic system of notation; and as a matter of fact, blind people are found to enjoy it much. For a blind man to come to an international congress and be able to compare notes with his fellow-blind from all over the world must be a lifting of the veil between him and the outer world, coming next to receiving his sight. To witness this spectacle alone might almost convince a waverer as to the utility of the common language.

XVIII

IDEAL v. PRACTICAL

From the early days of the Esperanto movement there has flowed within it a sort of double current. There is the warm and genial Gulf Stream of Idealism, that raises the temperature on every shore to which it sets, and calls forth a luxuriant growth of friendly sentiment. This tends to the enriching of life. There is also the cooler current of practicality, with a steady drive towards material profit. At present the tide is flowing free, and, taken at the flood, may lead on to fortune; the two currents pursue their way harmoniously within it, without clashing, and sometimes mingling their waters to their mutual benefit.

But as the movement is sometimes dismissed contemptuously as a pacifist fad or an unattainable ideal of universal brotherhood, it is as well to set the matter in its true light. It is true that the inventor of Esperanto, Dr. Zamenhof, of Warsaw, is an idealist in the best sense of the word, and that his language was directly inspired by his ardent wish to remove one cause of misunderstanding in his distracted country. He has persistently refused to make any profit out of it, and declined to accept a sum which some enthusiasts collected as a testimonial to his disinterested work.

It is equally true that Esperanto seems to possess a rather strange power of evoking enthusiasm. Meetings of Esperantists are invariably characterized by great cordiality and good-fellowship, and at the international congresses so far these feelings have at times risen to fever heat. It is easy to make fun of this by saying that the conjunction of Sirius, the fever-shedding constellation of the ancients, with the green star[1] in the dog days of August, when the congresses are held, induces hot fits. Those who have drunk enthusiastic toasts in common, and have rubbed shoulders and compared notes with various foreigners, and gone home having made perhaps lifelong interesting friendships which bring them in touch with other lands, will not undervalue the brotherhood aspect of the common language.

[1]Badge of the Esperantists.

On the other hand, the united Esperantists at their first international meeting expressly and formally dissociated their project from any connection with political, sentimental, or peace-making schemes. They did this by drawing up and promulgating a "Deklaracio," adopted by the Esperantist world, wherein it is declared that Esperanto is a language, and a language only.[1] It is not a league or a society or agency for promoting any object whatsoever other than its own dissemination as a means of communication. Like other tongues, Esperanto may be used for any purpose whatsoever, and it is declared that a man is equally an Esperantist whether he uses the language to save life or to kill, to further his own selfish ends or to labour in any altruistic cause.[2]

[1]For text of this Declaration, see Part II., chap. vii., p. 115.

[2]The non-sectarian nature of Esperanto is shown by the fact that the first two services in the language were held on the same day in Geneva according to the Roman Catholic and Protestant rites. The latter was conducted by an English clergyman, whose striking sermon on unity, in spite of diversity, evidently impressed his international congregation. The Vatican has officially expressed its favour towards Esperanto, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has sanctioned an Esperanto form of the Anglican service, which will be used in London and Cambridge this summer. Cordial goodwill was expressed towards the Vatican, on receipt of its message at Geneva, by speakers who avowed themselves agnostics, but welcomed any advance towards abolition of barriers.

The practical nature of the scheme which Esperantists are labouring to induce the world to adopt is thus sufficiently clearly defined. Dr. Zamenhof himself, speaking at the Geneva Congress with all the vivid poignancy attaching to the words of a man fresh from the butcheries at that moment rife in the Russian Empire,[1] declared that neither he nor other Esperantists were naifs enough to believe that the adoption of their language would put an end to such scenes. But he had seen men at each other's throats, beating each other's brains out with bludgeons—men who had no personal enmity and had never seen each other before, but were let loose on each other by pure race prejudice. He did claim that mutual incomprehensibility amongst men who thus dwell side by side and should be taking part in a common civic life was one powerful influence in keeping up cliques and divisions, and artificially holding asunder those whom common interests should be joining together. It is hard to refuse credence to this power of language, thus moderately stated.

[1]There were bad massacres about that time in Warsaw, where Dr. Zamenhof lives. During the Congress news came of the assassination of one of the chief civic officials of Warsaw.

XIX

LITERARY v. COMMERCIAL

Another vexed question is whether it is advisable to run an international language on a literary or a commercial ticket. On this rock Volapk split—

A brave vessel, That had no doubt some noble creature in her, Dashed all to pieces;[1]

and there was no Prospero to conjure away the tempest and send everybody safe home to port to speak Volapk happily ever afterwards. The moral is, that it is no good to make exaggerated claims for a universal language. To attempt to set it on a fully equal footing with national languages as a literary medium is to court disaster.

[1]Shakespeare, The Tempest.

The truth seems to be about this. As a potential means of international communication, Esperanto is unsurpassed, and a long way ahead of any national language. As a literary language, it is far better than Chinook or Pidgin, far worse than English or Greek.

A language, no more than a man, can serve two masters. By attempting to combine within itself this double function an international language would cease to attain either object. The reason is simple.

Its legitimate and proper sphere demands of it as the first essential that it should be easy and universally accessible. This means that the words are to be few, and must have but one clearly marked sense each. There are to be no idioms or set phrases, no words that depend upon their context or upon allusion for their full sense.

On the other hand, among the essentials of a literary language are the exact opposites of all these characteristics. The vocabulary must be full and plenteous, and there should be a rich variety of synonyms; there should be delicate half-tones and nuances; the words should be not mere counters or symbols of fixed value, determinable in each case by a rapid use of the dictionary alone, but must have an atmosphere, a something dependent upon history, usage, and allusion, by virtue of which the whole phrase, in the finer styles of writing, amounts to more than the sum of the individual meanings of the words which it contains, becoming a separate entity with an individual flavour of its own. To attempt to create this atmosphere in an artificial language is not only futile, but would introduce just the difficulties, redundancies, and complications which it is its chief object to avoid. Take a single instance, Macbeth's—

Nay, this my hand would rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.

Here the effect is produced by the contrast between the stately march of the long Latin words of thundrous sound, and the short, sharp English. A labour-saving language has no business with such words as "incarnadine" or "multitudinous." In translating such a passage it will reproduce the sense faithfully and clearly, if necessary by the combination of simple roots; but the bouquet of the original will vanish in the process. This is inevitable, and it is even so far an advantage that it removes all ground from the argument that a universal language will kill scholarly language-learning. It will be just as necessary as ever to read works of fine literature in the original, in order to enjoy their full savour; and the translation into the common tongue will not prejudice such reading of originals more than, or indeed so much as, translations into various mother-tongues.

Again, take the whole question of the imitative use of language. In national literatures many a passage, poetry or prose, is heightened in effect by assonance, alliteration, a certain movement or rhythm of phrase. Subtle suggestion slides in sound through the ear and falls with mellowing cadence into the heart. Soothed senses murmur their own music to the mind; the lullaby lilt of the lay swells full the linked sweetness of the song.

The How plays fostering round the What. Down the liquid stream of lingual melody the dirge drifts dying—dying it echoes back into a ghostly after-life, as the yet throbbing sense wakes the drowsed mind once more. The Swan-song floats double—song and shadow; and in the blend—half sensuous, half of thought—man's nature tastes fruition.

Now, this verbal artistry, whereby the words set themselves in tune to the thoughts, postulates a varied vocabulary, a rich storehouse wherein a man may linger and choose among the gems of sound and sense till he find the fitting stone and fashion it to one of those—

jewels five-words long, That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever.

But the word-store of an international tongue must not be a golden treasury of art, a repository of "bigotry and virtue." On its orderly rows of shelves must be immediately accessible the right word for the right place: no superfluity, no disorder, no circumambient margin for effect. Homocea-like, it "touches the spot," and having deadened the ache of incomprehensibility, has done its task. "No flowers."

Naturally some peoples will feel themselves more cramped in a new artificial language than others. French, incomparably neat and clear within its limits, but possessing the narrowest "margin for effect," is less alien in its genius from Esperanto than is English, with its twofold harmony, its potentiality (too rarely exploited) of Romance clarity, and its double portion of Germanic vigour and feeling. Yet all languages must probably witness the obliteration of some finer native shades in the international tongue.

But we must not go to the opposite extreme, and deny to the universal language all power of rendering serious thought. Just how far it can go, and where its inherent limitations begin, is a matter of individual taste and judgment. There are Esperanto translations—and good ones—of Hamlet, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, the Aeneid of Virgil, parts of Molire and Homer, besides a goodly variety of other literature. These translations do succeed in giving a very fair idea of the originals, as any one can test for himself with a little trouble, but, as pointed out, they must come something short in beauty and variety of expression.

There is even a certain style in Esperanto itself in the hands of a good writer, of which the dominant notes are simplicity and directness—two qualities not at all to be despised. Further, the unlimited power of word-building and of forming terse compounds gives the language an individuality of its own. It contains many expressive self-explanatory words whose meaning can only be conveyed by a periphrasis in most languages,[1] and this causes it to take on the manner and feel of a living tongue, and makes it something far more than a mere copy or barren extract of storied speech.

[1]e.g. samideano = partisan of the same cause or idea. vivipova lingvo = language capable of independent vigorous existence.

Technically, the fulness of its participial system, rivalled by Greek alone, and the absence of all defective verbs, lend to it a very great flexibility; and containing, as it does, a variety of specially neat devices borrowed from various tongues, it is in a sense neater than any of them.

One great test of its capacity for literary expression remains to be made. This is an adequate translation of the Bible. A religious society, famed for the variety of its translations of the Scriptures into every conceivable language, when approached on the subject, replied that Esperanto was not a language. But Esperantists will not "let it go at that." Besides Dr. Zamenhof's own Predikanto (Ecclesiastes), an experiment has been made by two Germans, who published a translation of St. Matthew's Gospel. It is not a success, and further experiments have just been made by Prof. Macloskie, of Princeton, U.S.A., and by E. Metcalfe, M.A. (Oxon), I cannot say with what result, not having seen copies.[1]

[1]Cf. also now the "Ordo de Diservo" (special Anglican Church service), selected and translated from Prayer Book and Bible for use in England by the Rev. J. C. Rust (obtainable from the British Esperanto Association, 13, Arundel Street, Strand, price 7d.).

From one point of view, the directness and simplicity of the Bible would seem to lend themselves to an Esperanto dress; but there are certain great difficulties, such as technical expressions, archaic diction, and phrases hallowed by association. A meeting of those interested in this great work will take place at Cambridge during the Congress (August 1907). Experimenters in this field will there be brought together from all countries, the subject will be thoroughly discussed, and substantial progress may be hoped for.

In the field of rendering scientific literature and current workaday prose, whose matter is of more moment than its form, Esperanto has already won its spurs. Its perfect lucidity makes it particularly suitable for this form of writing.

The conclusion then is, that Esperanto is neither wholly commercial nor yet literary in the full sense in which a grown language is literary; but it does do what it professes to do, and it is all the better for not professing the impossible.

XX

IS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE A CRANK'S HOBBY?

The apostle of a universal language is made to feel pretty plainly that he is regarded as a crank. He may console himself with the usual defence that a crank is that which makes revolutions; but for all that, it is chilling to be met with a certain smile.

Let us analyse that smile. It varies in intensity, ranging from the scathing sneer damnatory to the gentle dimple deprecatory. But in any case it belongs to the category of the smile that won't come off. I know that grin—it comes from Cheshire.

What, then, do we mean when we smile at a crank? Firstly and generally that we think his ideal impracticable. But it has been shown that an international language is not impracticable. This alone ought to go far towards removing it from the list of cranks' hobbies.

Secondly, we often mean that the ideal in question is opposed to common sense—e.g. when we smile at a man who lives on protein biscuits or walks about without a hat. We do not impugn the feasibility of his diet or apparel, but we think he is going out of his way to be peculiar without reaping adequate advantage by his departure from customary usage.

The test of "crankiness," then, lies in the adequacy of the advantage reaped. A man who learns and uses Esperanto may at present depart as widely from ordinary usage as a patron of Eustace Miles's restaurant or a member of the hatless brigade; but is it true that the advantage thereby accruing is equally disputable or matter of opinion? Is it not, on the contrary, fairly certain that the use of an auxiliary language, if universal, would open up for many regions from which exclusion is now felt as a hindrance?

Take the case of a doctor, scientist, scholar, researcher in any branch of knowledge, who desires to keep abreast of the advance of knowledge in his particular line. He may have to wait for years before a translation of some work he wishes to read is published in a tongue he knows, and in any case all the periodical literature of every nation, except the one or two whose languages he may learn, will be closed to him. The output of learned work is increasing very fast in all civilized countries, and therefore results are recorded in an increasing number of languages in monographs, reports, transactions, and the specialist press. A move is being made in the right direction by the proposal to print the publications of the Brussels International Bibliographical Institute in Esperanto.

Take a few examples of the hampering effect upon scholarly work of the language difficulty as it already exists. The diffusion of learning will, ironically enough, increase the difficulty.[1] The late Prof. Todhunter, of Cambridge, was driven to learning Russian for mathematical purposes. He managed to learn enough to enable him to read mathematical treatises; but how many mathematicians or scientists (or classical scholars, for that matter) could do as much? And of how much profit was the learning of Russian, qu Russian, to Prof. Todhunter? It only took up time which could have been better spent, as there cannot be anything very uplifting or cultivating in the language of mathematical Russian.

[1]By multiplying the languages used.

Prof. Max Mller proposed that all serious scientific work should be published in one of the six languages following—English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Latin. But why should other nations have to produce in these languages? and why should serious students have to be prepared to read six languages?

All this was many years ago. The balance of culture has since then been gradually but steadily shifting in favour of other peoples. The present writer had occasion to make a special study of Byron's influence on the Continent. It turned out that one of the biggest and most important works upon the subject was written in Polish. It has therefore remained inaccessible. This is only an illustration of a difficulty that faces many workers.

Thirdly, there is a good large portion of the British public that regards as a crank anything not British or that does not benefit themselves personally. It really is hard for an Englishman, Frenchman, or German, brought up among a homogeneous people of old civilization, to realize the extent of the incubus under which the smaller nations of Europe and the polyglot empires further east are groaning. Imagine yourself an educated Swiss, Dutchman, or a member of any of the thirty or forty nationalities that make up the Austrian or Russian Empires. How would you like to have to learn three or four foreign languages for practical purposes before you could hope to take much of a position in life? Can any one assert that the kind of grind required, with its heavy taxation of the memory, is in most cases really educative or confers culture?

Think it out. What do you really mean when you jeer at an Esperantist?

XXI

WHAT AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE IS NOT

An international language is not an attempt to replace or damage in any way any existing language or literature.

XXII

WHAT AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE IS

An international language is an attempt to save the greatest amount of labour and open the widest fields of thought and action to the greatest number.



PART II

HISTORICAL

I

SOME EXISTING INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGES ALREADY IN PARTIAL USE

Though the idea of an artificially constructed language to meet the needs of speakers of various tongues seems for some reason to contain something absurd or repellent to the mind of Western Europeans, there have, as a matter of fact, been various attempts made at different times and places to overcome the obvious difficulty in the obvious way; and all have met with a large measure of success.

The usual method of procedure has been quite rough and ready. Words or forms have been taken from a variety of languages, and simply mixed up together, without any scientific attempt at co-ordination or simplification. The resulting international languages have varied in their degree of artificiality, and in the proportions in which they were consciously or semi-consciously compiled, or else adopted their elements ready-made, without conscious adaptation, from existing tongues. But their production, widespread and continuous use, and great practical utility, showed that they arose in response to a felt want. The wonder is that the world should have grown so old without supplying this want in a more systematic way.

Every one has heard of the lingua franca of the Levant. In India the master-language that carries a man through among a hundred different tribes is Hindustanee, or Urdu. At the outset it represented a new need of an imperial race. It had its origin during the latter half of the sixteenth century under Akbar, and was born of the sudden extension of conquest and affairs brought about by the great ruler. Round him gathered a cosmopolitan crowd of courtiers, soldiers, vassal princes, and followers of all kinds, and wider dealings than the ordinary local petty affairs received a great stimulus. Urdu is a good example of a mix-up language, with a pure Aryan framework developed out of a dialect of the old Hindi. In fact, it is to India very much what Esperanto might be to Europe, only it is more empirical, and not so consciously and scientifically worked out.

Somewhat analogous to Urdu, in that it is a literary language used by the educated classes for intercommunication throughout a polygot empire, is the Mandarin Chinese. If China is not "polygot" in the strict technical sense of the term, she is so in fact, since the dialects used in different provinces are mutually incomprehensible for the speakers of them. Mandarin is the official master-language.

Rather of the nature of patois are Pidgin-English, Chinook, and Benguela, the language used throughout the tribes of the Congo. Yet business of great importance and involving large sums of money is, or has been, transacted in them, and they are used over a wide area.

Pidgin consists of a medley of words, largely English, but with a considerable admixture from other tongues, combined in the framework of Chinese construction. It is current in ports all over the East, and is by no means confined to China. The principle is that roots, chiefly monosyllabic, are used in their crude form without inflection or agglutination, the mere juxtaposition (without any change of form) showing whether they are verbs, adjectives, etc. This is the Chinese contribution to the language.

Chinook is the key-language to dealings with the huge number of different tribes of American Indians. It contains a large admixture of French words, and was to a great extent artificially put together by the Hudson Bay Company's officials, for the purposes of their business.

Quite apart from these various more or less consciously constructed mixed languages, there is a much larger artificial element in many national languages than is commonly realized. Take modern Hungarian, Greek, or even Italian. Literary Italian, as we know it, is largely an artificial construction for literary purposes, made by Dante and others, on the basis of a vigorous and naturally supple dialect. With modern Greek this is even more strikingly the case. As a national language it is almost purely the work of a few scholars, who in modern times arbitrarily and artificially revived and modified the ancient Greek.

There seems, then, to be absolutely no foundation in experience for opposing a universal language on the score of artificiality.

II

OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

List of Schemes proposed

The story of Babel in the Old Testament reflects the popular feeling that confusion of tongues is a hindrance and a curse. Similarly in the New Testament the Pentecostal gift of tongues is a direct gift of God. But apparently it was not till about 300 years ago that philosophers began to think seriously about a world-language.

The earliest attempts were based upon the mediaeval idea that man might attain to a perfect knowledge of the universe. The whole sum of things might, it was thought, be brought by division and subdivision within an orderly scheme of classification. To any conceivable idea or thing capable of being represented by human speech might therefore be attached a corresponding word, like a label, on a perfectly regular and logical system. Words would thus be self-explanatory to any person who had grasped the system, and would serve as an index or key to the things they represented. Language thus became a branch of philosophy as the men of the time conceived it, or at all events a useful handmaid. Thus arose the idea of a "philosophical language."

A very simple illustration will serve to show what is meant. Go into a big library and look up any work in the catalogue. You will find a reference number—say, 04582.g. 35,c. If you learnt the system of classification of that library, the reference number would explain to you where to find that particular book out of any number of millions. The fact of the number beginning with a "0" would at once place the book in a certain main division, and so on with the other numbers, till "g" in that series gave you a fairly small subdivision. Within that, "35" gives you the number of the case, and "c" the shelf within the case. The book is soon run to earth.

Just so a word in a philosophical language. Suppose the word is brabo. The final o shows it to be a noun. The monosyllabic root shows it to be concrete. The initial b shows it to be in the animal category. The subsequent letters give subdivisions of the animal kingdom, till the word is narrowed down by its form 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 Franois 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. Abb Bonifacio Sotos Ochando, 1852, Madrid. The abb 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. Societ 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 Volapk.

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

18. Dietrich, 1902—Vlkerverkehrssprache.

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

II. MIXED LANGUAGES

These are chiefly Volapk 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—Volapk. (See below.)

3. Verheggen, 1886—Nal Bino.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11. Marchand, 1898—Dilpok. Simplified Volapk.

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 Volapk 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 no-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 Volapk. 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—Mthode 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-Volapk. 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 fr die Einfhrung 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. Krschner, 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 Krschner 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 Lsung (1906); Universal Ling-Panroman (in Menschheitsziele, 1906); Gramatik de Universal (Leipzig, Puttmann, 1906).

35. Peano—De Latino sine flexione (in Revue de Mathmatique, vol. viii., Turin, 1903); Il Latino quale lingua ausiliare internazionale (in Atti della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 1904); Vocabulario de Latino Internationale comparato cum Anglo, Franco, Germano, Hispano, Italo, Russo, Graeco, et Sanscrito (Turin, 1904). See also the Formulario mathematico, vol. v. (Turin, 1906).

36. Hummler, 1904—Mundelingua (Saulgau).

37. Victor Hely, 1905—Esquisse d'une grammaire de la langue Internationale, 1st part: Les mots et la syntaxe (Langres).

38. Max Wald, 1906—Pankel (Weltsprache), die leichteste und krzeste Sprache fr den internationalen Verkehr. Grammatik und Wrterbuch mit Aufgabe der Wortquelle (Gross-Beeren).

39. Greenwood, 1906—Ekselsiore, the New Universal Language for All Nations: a Simplified, Improved Esperanto (London, Miller & Gill); Ulla, t ulo lingua otrs (The Ulla Society, Bridlington, 1906).

40. Trischen, 1907—Mondlingvo, provisorische Aufstellung einer internationalen Verkehrssprache (Pierson, Dresden).

III

THE EARLIEST BRITISH ATTEMPT

A perusal of the foregoing list shows that in the early days of the search for an international language the British were well to the fore. Of the British pioneers in this field the first two were Scots—a fact which accords well with the traditional enterprise north of the Tweed, and readiness to look abroad, beyond their own noses, or, in this case, beyond their own tongues. It is likewise remarkable that the British have almost dropped out of the running in recent times, as far as origination is concerned. Is this fact also typical, a small symptom of Jeshurun's general fatness? Does it reflect a lesser degree of nimbleness in moving with the spirit of the times?

Anyhow, in this case the Briton's content with what he has got at home is well grounded. He certainly possesses a first-class language. As a curious example of the quaint use of it by a scholar and clever man in the middle of the seventeenth century, the following account of Sir Thomas Urquhart's book may be of some interest.

Sir Thomas is well known as the translator of Rabelais; and evidently something of the curious erudition, polyglotism, and quaintness of conceit of his author stuck to the translator. This book is the rarest of his tracts, all of which are uncommon, and has been hardly more than mentioned by name by the previous writers on the subject.

The title-page runs:

* * * * *

LOGOPANDEKTEISION

OR, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, DIGESTED INTO THESE SIX SEVERAL BOOKS

Neaudethaumata Chryseomystes Chrestasebeia Neleodicastes Cleronomaporia Philoponauxesis

By SIR THOMAS URQUHART, of Cromartie, Knight,

Now lately contrived and published both for his own Utilitie, and that of all Pregnant and Ingenious Spirits.

LONDON

Printed and are to be sold by GILES CALVERT at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Paul's, and by RICHARD TOMLINS at the Sun and Bible near Pye Corner. 1653.

* * * * *

In a note at the end of the book he apologizes for haste, saying that the copy was "given out to two several printers, one alone not being fully able to hold his quill a-going."

The book opens with:

"The Epistle Dedicatory to Nobody."

The first paragraph runs:

"MOST HONOURABLE,

"My non-supponent Lord, and Soveraign Master of contradictions in adjected terms, that unto you I have presumed to tender the dedicacie of this introduction, will not seem strange to those, that know how your concurrence did further me to the accomplishment of that new Language, into the frontispiece whereof it is permitted."

After some preliminary remarks, he says:

"Now to the end the Reader may be more enamoured of the Language, wherein I am to publish a grammar and lexicon, I will here set down some few qualities and advantages peculiar to itself, and which no Language else (although all other concurred with it) is able to reach unto."

There follow sixty-six "qualities and advantages," which contain the only definite information about the language, for the promised grammar and lexicon never appeared. A few may be quoted as typical of the inducements held out to "pregnant and ingenious spirits," to the end they "may be more enamoured of the Language." The good Sir Thomas was plainly an optimist.

"... Sixthly, in the cases of all the declinable parts of speech, it surpasseth all other languages whatsoever: for whilst others have but five or six at most, it hath ten, besides the nominative.

"... Eighthly, every word capable of number is better provided therewith in this language, then [sic] by any other: for instead of two or three numbers which others have, this affordeth you four; to wit, the singular, dual, plural, and redual.

"... Tenthly, in this tongue there are eleven genders; wherein likewise it exceedeth all other languages.

"... Eleventhly, Verbs, Mongrels, Participles, and Hybrids have all of them ten tenses, besides the present: which number no language else is able to attain to.

"... Thirteenthly, in lieu of six moods, which other languages have at most, this one enjoyeth seven in its conjugable words."

Sir Thomas evidently believed in giving his clients plenty for their money. He is lavish of "Verbs, Mongrels, Participles, and Hybrids," truly a tempting menagerie. He promises, however, a time-reduction on learning a quantity:

"... Seven and fiftiethly, the greatest wonder of all is that of all the languages in the world it is easiest to learn; a boy of ten years old being able to attain to the knowledge thereof in three months' space; because there are in it many facilitations for the memory, which no other language hath but itself."

Seventeenth-century boys of tender years must have had a good stomach for "Mongrels and Hybrids," and such-like dainties of the grammatical menu; but even if they could swallow a mongrel, it is hard to believe that they would not have strained at ten cases in three months. It might be called "casual labour," but it would certainly have been "three months' hard."

After these examples of grammatical generosity, it is not surprising to read:

"... Fifteenthly, in this language the Verbs and Participles have four voices, although it was never heard that ever any other language had above three."

Note that the former colleagues of the "Verbs and Participles," the "Mongrels and Hybrids," are here dropped out of the category. Perhaps it is as well, seeing the number of voices attributed to each. A four-voiced mongrel would have gone one better than the triple-headed hell-hound Cerberus, and created quite a special Hades of its own for schoolboys, to say nothing of light sleepers.

Under "five and twentiethly" we learn that "there is no Hexameter, Elegiack, Saphick, Asclepiad, lambick, or any other kind of Latin or Greek verse, but I will afford you another in this language of the same sort"; which leads up to:

"... Six and twentiethly, as it trotteth easily with metrical feet, so at the end of the career of each line, hath it dexterity, after the manner of our English and other vernaculary tongues, to stop with the closure of a rhyme; in the framing whereof, the well-versed in that language shall have so little labour, that for every word therein he shall be able to furnish at least five hundred several monosyllables of the same termination with it."

A remarkable opportunity for every man to become his own poet!

"... Four and thirtiethly, in this language also words expressive of herbs represent unto us with what degree of cold, moisture, heat, or dryness they are qualified, together with some other property distinguishing them from other herbs."

In this crops out the idea that haunted the minds of mediaeval speculators on the subject: that language could play a more important part than it had hitherto done; that a word, while conveying an idea, could at the same time in some way describe or symbolize the attributes of the thing named. Imagine the charge of thought that could be rammed into a phrase in such a language. Imagine too, you who remember the cold shudder of your childhood, when you heard the elders discussing a prospective dose—intensified by all the horrors of imagination when the discussion was veiled in the "decent obscurity" of French—imagine the grim realism of a language containing words expressive of herbs,—and expressive to that extent!

There seems, indeed, to have been something rather cold-blooded about this language:

"... Eight and thirtiethly, in the contexture of nouns, pronouns, and preposital articles united together, it administreth many wonderful varieties of Laconick expressions, as in the Grammar thereof shall more at large be made known unto you."

But, after all, it had a human side:

"... Three and fourtiethly, as its interjections are more numerous, so are they more emphatical in their respective expression of passions, than that part of speech is in any other language whatsoever.

"... Eight and fourtiethly, of all languages this is the most compendious in complement, and consequently fittest for Courtiers and Ladies."

Sir Thomas seems to have been a bit of a man of the world too.

"... Fiftiethly, no language in matter of Prayer and Ejaculations to Almighty God is able, for conciseness of expression to compare with it; and therefore, of all other, the most fit for the use of Churchmen and spirits inclined to devotion."

This "therefore," with its direct deduction from "conciseness of expression," recalls the lady patroness who chose her incumbents for being fast over prayers. She said she could always pick out a parson who read service daily by his time for the Sunday service.

Sir Thomas is perhaps over-sanguine to a modern taste when he concludes:

"Besides the sixty and six advantages above all other languages, I might have couched thrice as many more of no less consideration than the aforesaid, but that these same will suffice to sharpen the longing of the generous Reader after the intrinsecal and most researched secrets of the new Grammar and Lexicon which I am to evulge."

IV

HISTORY OF VOLAPK—A WARNING

Volapk is the invention of a "white night." Those who know their Alice in Wonderland will perhaps involuntarily conjure up the picture of the kindly and fantastic White Knight, riding about on a horse covered with mousetraps and other strange caparisons, which he introduced to all and sundry with the unfailing remark, "It's my own invention." Scoffers will not be slow to find in Volapk and the White Knight's inventions a common characteristic—their fantasticness. Perhaps there really is some analogy in the fact that both inventors had to mount their hobby-horses and ride errant through sundry lands, thrusting their creations on an unwilling world. But the particular kind of white night of which Volapk was born is the nuit blanche, literally = "white night," but idiomatically = "night of insomnia."

On the night of March 31, 1879, the good Roman Catholic Bishop Schleyer, cur of Litzelstetten, near Constance, could not get to sleep. From his over-active brain, charged with a knowledge of more than fifty languages, sprang the world-speech, as Athene sprang fully armed from the brain of Zeus. At any rate, this is the legend of the origin of Volapk.

As for the name, an Englishman will hardly appreciate the fact that the word "Volapk" is derived from the two English words "world" and "speech." This transformation of "world" into vol and "speech" into pk is a good illustration of the manner in which Volapk is based on English, and suggests at once a criticism of that all-important point in an artificial language, the vocabulary. It is too arbitrary.

Published in 1880, Volapk spread first in South Germany, and then in France, where its chief apostle was M. Kerckhoffs, modern-language master in the principal school of commerce in Paris. He founded a society for its propagation, which soon numbered among its members several well-known men of science and letters. The great Magasins du Printemps—a sort of French Whiteley's, and familiar to all who have shopped in Paris—started a class, attended by over a hundred of its employees; and altogether fourteen different classes were opened in Paris, and the pupils were of a good stamp.

Progress was extraordinarily rapid in other European countries, and by 1889, only nine years after the publication of Volapk, there were 283 Volapk societies, distributed throughout Europe, America, and the British Colonies. Instruction books were published in twenty-five languages, including Volapk itself; numerous newspapers, in and about Volapk, sprang up all over the world; the number of Volapkists was estimated at a million. This extraordinarily rapid success is very striking, and seems to afford proof that there is a widely felt want for an international language. Three Volapk congresses were held, of which the third, held in Paris in 1889, with proceedings entirely in Volapk, was the most important.

The rapid decline of Volapk is even more instructive than its sensational rise. The congress of Paris marked its zenith: hopes ran high, and success seemed assured. Within two years it was practically dead. No more congresses were held, the partisans dwindled away, the local clubs dissolved, the newspapers failed, and the whole movement came to an end. There only remained a new academy founded by Bishop Schleyer, and here and there a group of the faithful.[1]