International Language, Past, Present & Future
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Title: International Language, Past, Present & Future
Author: Walter John Clark
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE, PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, William Patterson and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
INTERNATIONAL
LANGUAGE
PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
WITH SPECIMENS OF ESPERANTO
AND GRAMMAR
BY W. J. CLARK
M.A. OXON., PH.D. LEIPZIG
LICENCIÉ-ÈS-LETTRES, BACHELIER-EN-DROIT
PARIS
LONDON
J. M. DENT & COMPANY
1907
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
* * * * *
PREFACE
An artificial language may be more regular, more perfect,
and easier to learn than a natural one.—MAX MÜLLER.
The world is spinning fast down the grooves of change. The old disorder
changeth. Haply it is yielding place to new. The tongue is a little
member. It should no longer be allowed to divide the nations.
Two things stand out in the swift change. Science with all its works is
spreading to all lands. The East, led by Japan, is coming into line with
the West.
Standardization of life may fittingly be accompanied by standardization
of language. The effect may be twofold—Practical and Ideal.
_Practical._ The World has a thousand tongues,
Science but one:
They'll climb up a thousand rungs
When Babel's done.
_Ideal._ Mankind has a thousand tongues,
Friendship but one:
_Banzai!_ then from heart and lungs
For the Rising Sun.
W. J. C.
NOTE.—The following pages have had the advantage of being read in
MS. by Mr. H. Bolingbroke Mudie, and I am indebted to him for many
corrections and suggestions.
* * * * *
AN INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE
NOTE.—To avoid repeating the cumbrous phrase "international auxiliary
language," the word _auxiliary_ is usually omitted. It must be clearly
understood that when "international" or "universal" language is spoken
of, _auxiliary_ is also implied.
PART I
GENERAL
CHAP. PAGE
I. Introductory . . . . . . . . . 1
II. The Question of Principle—Economic Advantage of
an International Language . . . . . . 4
III. The Question of Practice—An International Language
is Possible . . . . . . . . . 8
IV. The Question of Practice (_continued_)—An International
Language is Easy . . . . . . . . 16
V. The Question of Practice (_continued_)—The Introduction
of an International Language would not cause
Dislocation . . . . . . . . . 24
VI. International Action already taken for the Introduction
of an Auxiliary Language . . . . . . 26
VII. Can the International Language be Latin? . . . . 33
VIII. Can the International Language be Greek? . . . . 35
IX. Can the International Language be a Modern
Language? . . . . . . . . . 36
X. Can the Evolution of an International Language be
left to the Process of Natural Selection by Free
Competition? . . . . . . . . . 38
XI. Objections to an International Language on Aesthetic
Grounds . . . . . . . . . . 40
XII. Will an International Language discourage the Study
of Modern Languages, and thus be Detrimental to
Culture?—Parallel with the Question of Compulsory
Greek . . . . . . . . . . 46
XIII. Objection to an International Language on the Ground
that it will soon split up into Dialects . . . 49
XIV. Objection that the Present International Language
(Esperanto) is too Dogmatic, and refuses to
profit by Criticism . . . . . . . 51
XV. Summary of Objections to an International Language . . 53
XVI. The Wider Cosmopolitanism—The Coming of Asia . . . 57
XVII. Importance of an International Language for the Blind . 61
XVIII. Ideal _v._ Practical . . . . . . . . 63
XIX. Literary _v._ Commercial . . . . . . . 65
XX. Is an International Language a Crank's Hobby? . . . 70
XXI. What an International Language is not . . . . 73
XXII. What an International Language is . . . . . 73
PART II
HISTORICAL
CHAP. PAGE
I. Some Existing International Languages already in
Partial Use . . . . . . . . . 74
II. Outline of History of the Idea of a Universal Language—List
of Schemes proposed . . . . . . . . 76
III. The Earliest British Attempt . . . . . . 87
IV. History of Volapük—a Warning . . . . . . 92
V. History of Idiom Neutral . . . . . . . 98
VI. The Newest Languages: a Neo-Latin Group—Gropings
towards a "Pan-European" Amalgamated
Scheme . . . . . . . . . . 103
VII. History of Esperanto . . . . . . . . 105
VIII. Present State of Esperanto: (_a_) General; (_b_) in England 121
IX. Lessons to be drawn from the Foregoing History . . . 131
PART III
THE CLAIMS OF ESPERANTO TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY:
CONSIDERATIONS BASED ON THE STRUCTURE OF
THE LANGUAGE ITSELF
CHAP. PAGE
I. Esperanto is scientifically constructed, and fulfils the
Natural Tendency in Evolution of Language . . . 135
II. Esperanto from an Educational Point of View—It will
aid the learning of other Languages and stimulate
Intelligence . . . . . . . . . 145
III. Comparative Tables illustrating Labour saved in learning
Esperanto as contrasted with other Languages:
(_a_) Word-building; (_b_) Participles and Auxiliaries . 155
IV. How Esperanto can be used as a Code Language to
communicate with Persons who have never learnt it . . 161
PART IV
SPECIMENS OF ESPERANTO, WITH GRAMMAR AND
VOCABULARY
CHAP. PAGE
Note . . . . . . . . . . . 165
I. Pronunciation . . . . . . . . . 166
II. Specimens of Esperanto:
1. Parolado . . . . . . . . . 167
2. La Marbordistoj . . . . . . . . 168
3. Nesaĝa Gento: Alegorio . . . . . . 168
III. Grammar . . . . . . . . . . 189
IV. List of Affixes . . . . . . . . . 191
V. Table of Correlative Words . . . . . . . 193
VI. Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . 194
APPENDIX A
Sample Problems (see Part III., chap, ii.) in Regular Language . 200
APPENDIX B
Esperanto Hymn by Dr. Zamenhof . . . . . . . 202
APPENDIX C
The Letter _c_ in Esperanto . . . . . . . . 204
* * * * *
PART I
GENERAL
I
INTRODUCTORY
In dealing with the problem of the introduction of an international
language, we are met on the threshold by two main questions:
1. The question of principle.
2. The question of practice.
By the question of principle is meant, Is it desirable to have a
universal language? do we wish for one? in short, is there a demand?
The question of practice includes the inquiries, Is such a language
possible? is it easy? would its introduction be fraught with prohibitive
difficulties? and the like.
It is clear that, however possible or easy it may be to do a thing,
there is no case for doing it unless it is wanted; therefore the
question of principle must be taken first. In the case before us
the question of principle involves many considerations—aesthetic,
political, social, even religious. These will be glanced at in their
proper place; but for our present purpose they are all subordinate
to the one great paramount consideration—the economic one. In the
world of affairs experience shows that, given a demand of any kind
whatever, as between an economical method of supplying that demand and a
non-economical method, in the long run the economical method will surely
prevail.
If, then, it can be shown that there is a growing need for means of
international communication, and that a unilingual solution is more
economical than a multilingual one, there is good ground for thinking
that the unilingual method of transacting international affairs will
surely prevail. It then becomes a question of time and method: When will
men feel the pressure of the demand sufficiently strongly to set about
supplying it? and what means will they adopt?
The time and the method are by no means indifferent. Though a demand
(for what is possible) is sure, in the long run, to get itself supplied,
a long period of wasteful and needless groping may be avoided by a
clear-sighted and timely realization of the demand, and by consequent
organized co-operation in supplying it. Intelligent anticipation
sometimes helps events to occur. It is the object of this book to
call attention to the present state of affairs, and to emphasize the
fact that the time is now ripe for dealing with the question, and the
present moment propitious for solving the problem once for all in an
orderly way. The merest glance at the list of projects for a universal
language[1] and their dates will strengthen the conviction from an
historical point of view that the fulness of time is accomplished, while
the history of the rise and fall of _Volapük_ and of the extraordinary
rise of _Esperanto_, in spite of its precursor's failure, are exceedingly
significant.
[1]See pp. 78-87. [Part II, Chapter II]
One language has been born, come to maturity, and died of dissension,
and the world stood by indifferent. Another is now in the first full
flush of youth and strength. After twenty-nine years of daily developing
cosmopolitanism—years that have witnessed the rising of a new star in
the East and an uninterrupted growth of interchange of ideas between
the nations of the earth, whether in politics, literature, or science,
without a single check to the ever-rising tide of internationalism—are
we again to let the favourable moment pass unused, just for want of
making up our minds? At present one language holds the field. It is
well organized; it has abundant enthusiastic partisans accustomed to
communicate and transact their common business in it, and only too
anxious to show the way to others. If it be not officially adopted and
put under the regulation of a duly constituted international authority,
it may wither away or split into factions as Volapük did.[1] Or it may
continue to grow and flourish, but others of its numerous rivals may
secure adherents and dispute its claim. This would be even worse. It is
far harder to rally a multitude of conflicting rivals in the same camp,
than it is to take over a well-organized, homogeneous, and efficient
volunteer force, legalize its position, and raise it to the status of a
regular army. In any case, if no concerted action be taken, the question
will remain in a state of chaos, and the lack of official organization
brings a great risk of overlapping, dissension, and creation of rival
interests, and generally produces a state of affairs calculated to
postpone indefinitely the supply of the demand. Competition that neither
tends to keep down the price nor to improve the quality of the thing
produced is mere dissipation of energy.
[1]Esperanto itself is admirably organized (see p. 119) [Part II,
Chapter VII], and there are no factions or symptoms of dissension.
But Esperantists need official support and recognition.
In a word, the one thing needful at present is not a more highly
perfected language to adopt, but the adoption of the highly perfected
one we possess. By the admission of experts, no less than by the
practical experience of great numbers of persons in using it over a
number of years, it has been found adequate. Once found adequate, its
absolute utility merely depends upon universal adoption.
With utility in direct proportion to numbers of adherents, every recruit
augments its value—a thought which may well encourage waverers to make
the slight effort necessary to at any rate learn to read it.
II
THE QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE—ECONOMIC
ADVANTAGE OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
As stated above, the question of principle will be treated here from
a purely economical point of view, since practical value, measured
by saving of time, money, and effort, must be the ultimate criterion
by which the success or failure of so far-reaching a reform as the
introduction of an international, auxiliary language will be decided.
The bearing of such a reform upon education, culture, race supremacy,
etc., is not without importance; but the discussion of these points must
be postponed as subsidiary.
Reduced to its simplest form, the economical argument is this:
(1) The volume of international intercourse is great and increasing.
(2) This intercourse is at present carried on in many different
languages of varying degrees of difficulty, but all relatively hard of
acquisition for those who do not know them as a mother-tongue. This is
uneconomical.
(3) It is economically sounder to carry on international intercourse in
one easy language than in a large number of hard ones.
(4) Therefore in principle an easy international language is desirable.
Let us glance at these four points a little more in detail.
No. 1 surely needs no demonstration. Every year there is more
communication between men of different race and language. And it is not
business, in the narrow sense of the term, that is exclusively or even
chiefly affected by diversity of language. Besides the enormous bulk
of pleasure travel, international congresses are growing in number and
importance; municipal fraternization is the latest fashion, and many
a worthy alderman, touring at the ratepayers' expense, must wish that
he had some German in Berlin, or a little Italian in Milan. Indeed, it
is at these points of international contact that language is a real
bar, actually preventing much intercourse that would otherwise have
taken place, rather than in business, which is organized in view of the
difficulty. Then there is the whole realm of scientific and learned
literature—work of which the accessibility to all concerned is of the
first importance, but is often hindered because a translation into one
language does not pay, or, if made, only reaches a limited public. Such
bars to freedom of interchange cannot be reckoned in money; but modern
economics recognizes the personal and social factor, and any obstacle to
research is certainly a public loss.
But important as are these various spheres of action, an even wider
international contact of thought and feeling is springing up in our
days. Democracy, science, and universal education are producing
everywhere similarity of institutions, of industry, of the whole
organization of life. Similarity of life will breed community of
interests, and from this arises real converse—more give and take in the
things that matter, less purely superficial dealings of the guide-book
or conversation-manual type.
(2) "Business," meaning commerce, in so far as it is international,
may at present be carried on mainly in half a dozen of the principal
languages of Western Europe. Even so, their multiplicity is vexatious.
But outside the world of business other languages are entering the
field, and striving for equal rights. The tendency is all towards
self-assertion on the part of the nationalities that are beginning a
new era of national life and importance. The language difficulty in the
Austrian Empire reflects the growing self-consciousness of the Magyars.
Everywhere where young peoples are pushing their rights to take equal
rank among the nations of the world, the language question is put in
the forefront. The politicians of Ireland and Wales have realized the
importance of language in asserting nationality, but such engineered
language-agitation offers but a feeble reflex of the vitality of the
question in lands where the native language is as much in use for
all purposes as is English in England. These lands will fight harder
and harder against the claims to supremacy of a handful of Western
intruders. A famous foreign philologist,[1] in a report on the subject
presented to the Academy of Vienna, notes the increasing tendency of
Russian to take rank among the recognized languages for purposes of
polite learning. He is well placed to observe. With Russia knocking at
the door and Hungary waiting to storm the breach, what tongue may not
our descendants of the next century have to learn, under pain of losing
touch with important currents of thought? It is high time something
were done to standardize means of transmission. Owing to political
conditions, there are linguistically disintegrating forces at work,
which are at variance with the integrating forces of natural tendency.
[1]Prof. Shuchardt
From an economical point of view, a considerable amount of time, effort,
and money must be unreproductively invested in overcoming the "language
difficulty." In money alone the amount must run into thousands of
pounds yearly. Among the unreproductive investments are—the employment
of foreign correspondence clerks, the time and money spent upon the
installation of educational plant for their production, the time and
money spent upon translations and interpreters for the proceedings
of international conferences and negotiations, the time devoted by
professors and other researchers (often nonlinguists in virtue of their
calling) to deciphering special treatises and learned periodicals in
languages not their own.[1]
[1]These are some of the actual visible losses owing to the
_presence_ of the language difficulty. No one can estimate the
value of the losses entailed by the _absence_ of free intercourse
due to removable linguistic barriers. Potential (but at present
non-realized) extension of goodwill, swifter progress, and wider
knowledge represent one side of their value; while consequent
non-realized increase in volume of actual business represents their
value in money. The negative statement of absence of results from
intercourse that never took place affords no measure of positive
results obtainable under a better system.
The tendency of those engaged in advancing material progress, which
consists in the subjection of nature to man's ends, is to adapt more and
more quickly their methods to changing conditions. Has the world yet
faced in a business-like spirit the problem of wiping out wastage on
words?
Big industrial concerns scrap machinery while it is yet perfectly
capable of running and turning out good work, in order to replace it by
newer machinery, capable of turning out more work in the same time. Time
is money. Can the busy world afford a language difficulty?
(3) The proposition that it is economically sounder to carry on
international intercourse in one easy language than in a large number of
hard ones rests upon the principle that it does not pay to do a thing a
hard way, if the same results can be produced by an easy way.
The whole industrial revolution brought about by the invention of
machinery depended upon this principle. Since an artificial language,
like machinery, is a means invented by man of furthering his ends, there
seems to be no abuse of analogy in comparing them.
When it was found that machinery would turn out a hundred pieces of
cloth while the hand-loom turned out one, the hand-loom was doomed,
except in so far as it may serve other ends, antiquarian, aesthetic, or
artistic, which are not equally well served by machinery. Similarly,
to take another revolution which is going on in our own day through
a further application of machinery, when it is found that corn can
be reaped and threshed by machinery, that hay can be cut, made,
carried, and stacked by machinery, that man can travel the high road
by machinery, sooner or later machinery is bound to get the bulk of
the job, because it produces the same results at greater speed and
less cost. So, in the field of international intercourse, if an easy
artificial language can with equal efficiency and at less cost produce
the same results as a multiplicity of natural ones, in many lines
of human activity, and making all reserves in matters antiquarian,
aesthetic, and artistic, sooner or later the multiplicity will have to
go to the scrap-heap[1] as cumbrous and out of date. It may be a hundred
years; it may be fifty; it may be even twenty. Almost certainly the
irresistible trend of economic pressure will work its will and insist
that what has to be done shall be done in the most economical way.
[1]But only, of course, in those lines in which an international
auxiliary language can produce equally good results. This excludes
home use, national literature, philology, scholarly study of national
languages, etc.
So much, then, for the question of principle. In treating it, certain
large assumptions have been made; e.g. it is said above, "if an easy
artificial language can with equal efficiency... produce the same
results," etc. Here it is assumed that the artificial language is (1)
easy, and (2) that it is possible for it to produce the same results.
Again, however easy and possible, its introduction might cost more than
it saved. These are questions of fact, and are treated in the three
following chapters under the heading of "The Question of Practice."
III
THE QUESTION OF PRACTICE—AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE IS POSSIBLE
The man who says a thing is impossible without troubling to find out
whether it has been done is merely "talking through his hat," to use
an Americanism, and we need not waste much time on him. Any one, who
maintains that it is impossible to transact the ordinary business of
life and write lucid treatises on scientific and other subjects in an
artificial language, is simply in the position of the French engineer,
who gave a full scientific demonstration of the fact that an engine
could not possibly travel by steam.
The plain fact is that not only one artificial language, but several,
already exist, which not only can express, but already have expressed
all the ideas current in social intercourse, business, and serious
exposition. It is only necessary to state the facts briefly.
First—_Volapük_.
Three congresses were held in all for the promotion of this language.
The third (Paris, 1889) was the most important. It was attended by
Volapükists from many different nations, who carried on all their
business in Volapük, and found no difficulty in understanding one
another. Besides this, there were a great many newspapers published in
Volapük, which treated of all kinds of subjects.
Secondly—_Idiom Neutral_, the lineal descendant of Volapük.
It is regulated by an international academy, which sends round circulars
and does all its business in Idiom Neutral.
Thirdly—_Esperanto_.
Since the publication of the language in 1887 it has had a gradually
increasing number of adherents, who have used it for all ordinary
purposes of communication. A great number of newspapers and reviews of
all kinds are now published regularly in Esperanto in a great variety
of countries. I take up a chance number of the _Internacia Scienca
Revuo_, which happens to be on my table, and find the following subjects
among the contents of the month: "_Rôle_ of living beings in the general
physiology of the earth," "The carnivorous animals of Sweden," "The part
played by heredity in the etiology of chronic nephritis," "The migration
of the lemings," "Notices of books," "Notes and correspondence," etc.
In fact, the Review has all the appearance of an ordinary scientific
periodical, and the articles are as clearly expressed and as easy to
read as those in any similar review in a national language.
Even more convincing perhaps, for the uninitiated, is the evidence
afforded by the International Congresses of Esperantists. The first was
held at Boulogne in August 1905. It marked an epoch in the lives of
many of the participants, whose doubts as to the practical nature of an
artificial language there, for good and all, yielded to the logic of
facts; and it may well be that it will some day be rather an outstanding
landmark in the history of civilization. A brief description will,
therefore, not be out of place.
In the little seaport town on the north coast of France had come
together men and women of more than twenty different races. Some were
experts, some were beginners; but all save a very few must have been
alike in this, that they had learnt their Esperanto at home, and, as
far as oral use went, had only been able to speak it (if at all) with
members of their own national groups—that is, with compatriots who had
acquired the language under the same conditions as to pronunciation,
etc., as themselves. Experts and beginners, those who from practical
experience knew the great possibilities of the new tongue as a written
medium, no less than the neophytes and tentative experimenters who had
come to see whether the thing was worth taking seriously, they were now
to make the decisive trial—in the one case to test the faith that was
in them, in the other to set all doubt at rest in one sense or the other
for good and all.
The town theatre had been generously placed at the disposal of the
Congress, and the author of the language, Dr. Zamenhof, had left his
eye-patients at Warsaw and come to preside at the coming out of his
_kara lingvo_, now well on in her 'teens, and about to leave the
academic seclusion of scholastic use and emerge into the larger sphere
of social and practical activity.
On Saturday evening, August 5, at eight o'clock, the Boulogne Theatre
was packed with a cosmopolitan audience. The unique assembly was
pervaded by an indefinable feeling of expectancy; as in the lull before
the thunderstorm, there was the hush of excitement, the tense silence
charged with the premonition of some vast force about to be let loose
on the world. After a few preliminaries, there was a really dramatic
moment when Dr. Zamenhof stood up for the first time to address his
world-audience in the world-tongue. Would they understand him? Was their
hope about to be justified? or was it all a chimera, "such stuff as
dreams are made on"?
_Gesinjoroj_ (= Ladies and gentlemen)—the great audience
craned forward like one man, straining eyes and ears towards the
speaker,—_Kun granda plezuro mi akceptis la proponon..._ The
crowd drank in the words with an almost pathetic agony of anxiety.
Gradually, as the clear-cut sentences poured forth in a continuous
stream of perfect lucidity, and the audience realized that they were
all listening to and all understanding a really international speech
in a really international tongue—a tongue which secured to them, as
here in Boulogne so throughout the world, full comprehension and a
sense of comradeship and fellow-citizenship on equal terms with all
users of it—the anxiety gave way to a scene of wild enthusiasm. Men
shook hands with perfect strangers, and all cheered and cheered again.
Zamenhof finished with a solemn declamation of one of his hymns (given
as an appendix to this volume, with translation), embodying the lofty
ideal which has inspired him all through and sustained him through the
many difficulties he has had to face. When he came to the end, the fine
passage beginning with the words, _Ni inter popoloj la murojn detruos_
("we shall throw down the walls between the peoples"), and ending _amo
kaj vero ekregos sur tero_ ("love and truth shall begin their reign on
earth"), the whole concourse rose to their feet with prolonged cries of
"Vivu Zamenhof!"
No doubt this enthusiasm may sound rather forced and unreal to those
who have not attended a congress, and the cheers may ring hollow across
intervening time and space. Neither would it be good for this or any
movement to rely upon facile enthusiasm, as easily damped as aroused.
There is something far more than this in the international language
movement.
At the same time, it is impossible for any one who has not tried it to
realize the thrill—not a weak, sentimental thrill, but a reasonable
thrill, starting from objective fact and running down the marrow of
things—given by the first real contact with an international language
in an international setting. There really is a feeling as of a new power
born into the world.
Those who were present at the Geneva Congress, 1906, will not soon
forget the singing of the song "La Espero" at the solemn closing of
the week's proceedings. The organ rolled out the melody, and when the
gathered thousands that thronged the floor of the hall and packed the
galleries tier on tier to the ceiling took up the opening phrase—
En la mondon venis nova sento,
Tra la mondo iras forta voko,[1]
they meant every word of it. It was a fitting summary of the impressions
left by the events of the week, and what the lips uttered must have been
in the hearts and minds of all.
[1]Into the world has come a new feeling,
Through the world goes a mighty call.
As an ounce of personal experience is worth a pound of second-hand
recital, a brief statement may here be given of the way in which the
present writer came to take up Esperanto, and of the experiences which
soon led him to the conviction of its absolute practicability and
utility.
In October, 1905, having just returned from an absence of some years in
Canada and the Far East, he had his attention turned to Esperanto for
the first time by reading an account of the Congress of Boulogne. He had
no previous knowledge of, or leanings towards, a universal language; and
if he had thought about it at all, it was only to laugh at the idea as a
wild and visionary scheme. In short, his attitude was quite normal.
But here was a definite statement, professing to be one of positive
accomplished fact. One of two things: either the newspaper account
was not true; or else, the facts being as represented, here was a
new possibility to be reckoned with. The only course was to send for
the books and test the thing on its merits. Being somewhat used to
languages, he did not take long to see that this one was good enough in
itself. A letter, written in Esperanto, after a few days' study of the
grammar at odd times, with a halfpenny Esperanto-English key enclosed,
was fully understood by the addressee, though he was ignorant up till
then of the very existence of Esperanto. This experience has often been
since repeated; indeed, the correspondent will often write back after a
few days in Esperanto. Such letters have always been found intelligible,
though in no case did the correspondent know Esperanto previously. The
experiment is instructive and amusing, and can be tried by any one for
an expenditure of twopence for keys and a few hours for studying the
sixteen rules and their application. To many minds these are far simpler
and more easy to grasp for practical use than the rules for scoring at
bridge.
After a month or two's playing with the language in spare time,
the writer further tested it, by sending out a flight of postcards
to various selected Esperantists' addresses in different parts of
the Russian Empire. The addressees ranged from St. Petersburg and
Helsingfors through Poland to the Caucasus and to far Siberia. In nearly
every case answers were received, and in some instances the initial
interchange of postcards led to an extremely interesting correspondence,
throwing much light on the disturbed state of things in the native
town or province of the correspondent. From a Tiflis doctor came a
graphic account of the state of affairs in the Caucasus; while a school
inspector from the depths of Eastern Siberia painted a vivid picture of
the effect of political unrest on the schools—lockouts and "malodorous
chemical obstructions" (_Anglice_—the schools were stunk out). Many
writers expressed themselves with great freedom, but feared their
letters would not pass the censor. Judging by the proportion of answers
received, the censorship was not at that time efficient. In no case was
there any difficulty in grasping the writer's meaning. All the answers
were in Esperanto.
This was fairly convincing, but still having doubts on the question of
pronunciation, the writer resolved to attend the Esperanto Congress
to be held at Geneva in August 1906. To this end he continued to read
Esperanto at odd minutes and took in an Esperanto gazette. About three
weeks before the congress he got a member of his family to read aloud to
him every day as far as possible a page or two of Esperanto, in order
to attune his ear. He never had an opportunity of speaking the language
before the congress, except once for a few minutes, when he travelled
some distance to attend a meeting of the nearest English group.
Thus equipped, he went through the Congress of Geneva, and found himself
able to follow most of the proceedings, and to converse freely, though
slowly, with people of the most diverse nationality. At an early sitting
of the congress he found himself next to a Russian from Kischineff,
who had been through the first great _pogrom_, and a most interesting
conversation ensued. Another day the neighbours were an Indian nawab
and an abbé from Madrid. Another time it was a Bulgarian. At the first
official banquet he sat next to a Finn, who rejoiced in the name of
Attila, and, but for the civilizing influence of a universal language,
might have been in the sunny south, like his namesake of the ancient
world, on a very different errand from his present peaceful one. Yet
here he was, rubbing elbows with Italians, as if there had never been
such things as Huns or a sack of Rome by northern barbarians.
During the meal a Frenchman, finding himself near us English and some
Germans, proposed a toast to the "entente cordiale taking in Germany,"
which was honoured with great enthusiasm. This is merely an instance of
the small ways in which such gatherings make for peace and good will.
With all these people it was perfectly easy to converse in the common
tongue, pronunciation and national idiom being no bar in practice.
And this experience was general throughout the duration of the congress.
Day by day sittings were held for the transaction of all kinds of
business and the discussion of the most varied subjects. It was
impressive to see people from half the countries of the world rise
from different corners of the hall and contribute their share to the
discussion in the most matter-of-fact way. Day by day the congressists
met in social functions, debates, lectures, and sectional groups
(chemical, medical, legal, etc.) for the regulation of matters touching
their special interests. Everything was done in Esperanto, and never
was there the slightest hitch or misunderstanding, or failure to give
adequate expression to opinions owing to defects of language. The
language difficulty was annihilated.
Perhaps one of the most striking demonstrations of this return to
pre-Babel conditions was the performance of a three-part comedy by a
Frenchman, a Russian, and a Spaniard. Such a thing would inevitably
have been grotesque in any national language; but here they met on
common neutral ground. No one's accent was "foreign," and none of the
spectators possessed that mother-tongue acquaintance with Esperanto that
would lead them to feel slight divergences shocking, or even noticeable
without extreme attention to the point. Other theatrical performances
were given at Geneva, as also at Boulogne, where a play of Molière
was performed in Esperanto by actors of eight nationalities with one
rehearsal, and with full success.
In the face of these facts it is idle to oppose a universal artificial
language on the score of impossibility or inadequacy. The theoretical
pronunciation difficulty completely crumbled away before the test of
practice.
The "war-at-any-price party," the whole-hoggers _à tous crins_ (the
juxtaposition of the two national idioms lends a certain realism, and
heightens the effect of each), are therefore driven back on their
second line of attack, if the Hibernianism may be excused. "Yes," they
say, "your language may be possible, but, after all, why not learn an
existing language, if you've got to learn one anyway?"
Now, quite apart from the obvious fact that the nations will never agree
to give the preference to the language of one of them to the prejudice
of the others, this argument involves the suggestion that an artificial
language is no easier to learn than a natural one. We thus come to the
question of ease as a qualification.
IV
THE QUESTION OF PRACTICE (_continued_)—AN
INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE IS EASY[1]
[1]Readers who do not care about the reasons for this, but desire
concrete proofs, may skip the next few pages and turn in to p. 20,
par. 6.
People smile incredulously at the mention of an artificial language,
implying that no easy royal road can be found to language-learning of
any kind. But the odds are all the other way, and they are heavy odds.
The reason for this is quite simple, and may be briefly put as follows:
The object of language is to express thought and feeling. Every natural
language contains all kinds of complications and irregularities,
which are of no use whatever in attaining this object, but merely
exist because they happen to have grown. Their sole _raison d'être_
is historical. In fact, for a language without a history they are
_unnecessary_[1]. Therefore a universal language, whose only object is
to supply to every one the simplest possible means of expressing his
thoughts and feelings in a medium intelligible to every one else,
simply leaves them out. Now, it is precisely in these "unnecessary"
complications that a large proportion—certainly more than half—of
the difficulty of learning a foreign language consists. Therefore an
artificial language, by merely leaving them out, becomes certainly more
than twice as easy to learn as any natural language.
[1]i.e. they do not assist in attaining its object as a language. One
universal way of forming the plural, past tense, or comparative
expresses plurality, past time, or comparison just as well as fifteen
ways, and with a deal less trouble.
A little reflection will make this truth so absurdly obvious, that the
only wonder is, not that it is now beginning to be recognized, but that
any one could have ever derided it.
That the "unnecessary" difficulties of a natural language are more than
one-half of the whole is certainly an under-estimate; for some languages
the proportion would be more like 3:4 or 5:6. Compared with these, the
artificial language would be three times to five times as easy.
Take an illustration. Compare the work to be done by the learner of
(_a_) Latin, (_b_) Esperanto, in expressing past, present, and future
action.
(_a_) Latin:
Present tense active is expressed by—
6 endings in the 1st regular conjugation.
6 " 2nd "
6 " 3rd "
6 " 4th "
Total regular endings: 24.
To these must be added a vast number of quite different and varying
forms for irregular verbs.
(_b_) Esperanto:
Present tense active is expressed by—
1 ending for every verb in the language.
Total regular and irregular endings: 1.
It is exactly the same for the past and future.
Total endings for the 3 tenses active:
(_a_) Latin: 72 regular forms, plus a very large number of irregular and
defective verbs.
(_b_) Esperanto: 3 forms.
Turning to the passive voice, we get—
(_a_) Latin: A complete set of different endings, some of them puzzling
in form and liable to confusion with other parts of the verb.
(_b_) Esperanto: No new endings at all. Merely the three-form regular
active conjugation of the verb _esti_ = to be, with a passive participle.
No confusion possible.
It is just the same with compound tenses, subjunctives, participles,
etc. Making all due allowances, it is quite safe to say that the Latin
verb is fifty times as hard as the Esperanto verb.
The proportion would be about the same in the case of substantives,
Latin having innumerable types.
Comparing modern languages with Esperanto, the proportion in favour of
the latter would not be so high as fifty to one in the inflection of
verbs and nouns, though even here it would be very great, allowing for
subjunctives, auxiliaries, irregularities, etc. But taking the whole
languages, it might well rise to ten to one.
For what are the chief difficulties in language-learning?
They are mainly either difficulties of phonetics, or of structure and
vocabulary.
Difficulties of phonetics are:
(1) Multiplicity of sounds to be produced, including many sounds and
combinations that do not occur in the language of the learner.
(2) Variation of accent, and of sounds expressed by the same letter.
These difficulties are both eliminated in Esperanto.
(1) Relatively few sounds are adopted into the language, and only such
as are common to nearly all languages. For instance, there are only five
full vowels and three[1] diphthongs, which can be explained to every
speaker in terms of his own language. All the modified vowels, closed
"u's" and "e's," half tones, longs and shorts, open and closed vowels,
etc., which form the chief bugbear in correct pronunciation, and often
render the foreigner unintelligible—all these disappear.
[1]Omitting the rare _eŭ_. _ej_ and _uj_ are merely simple vowels
plus consonantal _j_ (= English _y_).
(2) There is no variation of accent or of sound expressed by the
same letter. The principle "one letter, one sound"[1] is adhered to
absolutely. Thus, having learned one simple rule for accent (always on
the last syllable but one), and the uniform sound corresponding to each
letter, no mistake is possible.
[1]The converse—"one sound, one letter"—is also true, except that
the same sound is expressed by _c_ and _ts_. (See Appendix C.)
Contrast this with English. Miss Soames gives twenty-one ways of writing
the same sound. Here they are:
[Transcriber's Note:
Letters originally printed in _italics_ are here CAPITALIZED for
clarity.]
AtE grEAt fEIGn
bAss EH! wEIGH
pAIn gAOl AYE
pAY gAUgE obEYEd
dAHlia champAGnE wEIGHEd
vEIn campAIGn trAIT
thEY strAIGHt hALFpenny[1]
[1]Prof. Skeat adds a twenty-second: Lord Reay!
(Compare eye, lie, high, etc.)
In Esperanto this sound is expressed only and always by "e." In fact,
the language is absolutely and entirely phonetic, as all real language
was once.
As regards difficulties of vocabulary, the same may be said as in
the case of the sounds. Esperanto only adopts the minimum of roots
essential, and these are simple, non-ambiguous, and as international
as possible. Owing to the device of word-building by means of a few
suffixes and prefixes with fixed meaning, the number of roots necessary
is very greatly less than in any natural language.[1]
[1]Most of these roots are already known to educated people. For the
young the learning of a certain number of words presents practically
no difficulty; it is in the practical application of words learnt
that they break down, and this failure is almost entirely due to
"unnecessary" difficulties.
As for difficulties of structure, some of the chief ones are as follows:
_Multiplicity and complexity of inflections._ This does not exist in
Esperanto.
_Irregularities and exceptions of all kinds._ None in Esperanto.
_Complications of orthography._ None in Esperanto.
_Different senses of same word, and different words used in same sense._
Esperanto—"one word, one meaning."
_Arbitrary and fluctuating idioms._ Esperanto—none. Common sense and
common grammar the only limitation to combination of words.
_Complexities of syntax._ (Think of the use of the subjunctive and
infinitive in all languages: _ού_ and _μή_ in Greek; indirect speech
in Latin; negatives, comparisons, etc., etc., in all languages.)
Esperanto—none. Common sense the only guide, and no ambiguity in
practice. The perfect limpidity of Esperanto, with no syntactical rules,
is a most instructive proof of the conventionality and arbitrariness of
the niceties of syntax in national languages. After all, the subjunctive
was made for man and not man for the subjunctive.
But readers will say: "It is all very well to show by a comparison of
forms that Esperanto _ought_ to be much easier than a natural language.
But we want facts."
Here are some.
In the last chapter it was mentioned that the present writer first took
up Esperanto in October 1905, worked at it at odd times, never spoke it
or heard it spoken save once, and was able to follow the proceedings
of the Congress of Geneva in August 1906, and talk to all foreigners.
From a long experience of smattering in many languages and learning a
few thoroughly, he is absolutely convinced that this would have been
impossible to him in any national language.
A lady who began Esperanto three weeks before the congress, and studied
it in a grammar by herself one hour each day, was able to talk in it
with all peoples on very simple subjects, and to follow a considerable
amount of the lectures, etc.
Amongst the British folk who attended the congress were many clerks
and commercial people, who had merely learnt Esperanto by attending a
class or a local group meeting once a week, often for not many months.
They had never been out of England before, nor learnt any other foreign
language. They would have been utterly at sea if they had attempted to
do what they did on a similar acquaintance with any foreign tongue.
But during the two days spent _en route_ in Paris, where the British
party was fêted and shown round by the French Esperantists, on the
journey to Geneva, which English and French made together, on lake
steamboats, at picnics and dinners, etc., etc., here they were, rattling
away with great ease and mutual entertainment. Many of these came
from the North of England, and it was a real eye-opener, over which
easy-going South-Englanders would do well to ponder, to see what results
could be produced by a little energy and application, building on no
previous linguistic training. The Northern accent was evidently a help
in pronouncing the full-sounding vowels of Esperanto.
One Englishman, who was talking away gaily with the French
_samideanoj_,[1] was an Esperantist of one year's standing. He had
happened to be at Boulogne in pursuit of a little combined French and
seasiding at the time of the first congress held there, 1905. One day
he got his tongue badly tied up in a cafe, and was helped out of his
linguistic difficulties with the waiter by certain compatriots, who wore
green stars in their buttonholes,[2] and sat at another table conversing
in an unknown lingo with a crowd of foreigners. He made inquiries, and
found it was Esperanto they were talking. He was so much struck by their
facility, and the practical way in which they had set his business to
rights in a minute (the waiter was an Esperantist trained _ad hoc_!),
that he decided to give up French and go in for Esperanto. This man
was a real learner of French, who had spent a long time on it, and
realized with disgust his impotence to wield it practically. To judge
by his conversation next year at Geneva, he had no such difficulty with
Esperanto. He was quite jubilant over the change.
[1]Terse Esperanto word. = partisans of the same idea (i.e.
Esperanto).
[2]The Esperanto badge.
Such examples could be multiplied _ad infinitum_. No one who attended a
congress could fail to be convinced.
Scientific comparison of the respective difficulty of Esperanto and
other languages, based on properly collected and tabulated results,
does not seem to be yet obtainable. It is difficult to get high-class
schools, where language-teaching is a regular and important part of
the curriculum, to give an artificial language a fair trial. Properly
organized and carried-out tests are greatly to be desired. If and when
they are made, it will probably be found that Esperanto is not only very
easy of acquisition itself, but that it has a beneficial effect upon
other language-learning.[1]
[1]See pp. 145-55 [Part III, Chapter I].
Meantime, the present writer has carried out one small experiment in a
good secondary school for girls, where French and German are regularly
spoken and taught for many hours in the week. The head-mistress
introduced Esperanto as a regular school subject at the beginning of
the Easter term, January 1907. At the end of term a test paper was
set, consisting of English sentences to be rendered into French and
Esperanto without any dictionary or other aid, and one short passage
of English prose to be rendered into both languages with any aid from
books that the pupils wished. The object was to determine how far a few
hours' teaching of Esperanto would produce results comparable with those
obtained in a language learnt for years.
The examinees ranged from fourteen to sixteen years. They had been
learning French from two to seven years, and had a daily French lesson,
besides speaking French on alternate days in the school. They had learnt
Esperanto for ten weeks, from one to one and a half hours per week.
_Taking the papers all through, the Esperanto results were nearly as
good as the French._
One last experiment may be mentioned. It was made under scientific
conditions on September 23, 1905. The subject was an adult, who had
learnt French and German for years at school, and had since taught
French to young boys, but was not a linguist by training or education,
having read mathematics at the university.
He had had no lessons in Esperanto, and had never studied the language,
his sole knowledge of it being derived from general conversation with
an enthusiast, who had just returned from the Geneva Congress. He
was disposed to laugh at Esperanto, but was persuaded to test its
possibilities as a language that can be written intelligibly by an
educated person merely from dictionary by a few rules.
He was given a page of carefully prepared English to translate into
Esperanto. The following written aids were given:
1. Twenty-five crude roots (e.g. _lern-_ = to learn.)
2. One suffix, with explanation of its use.
3. A one-page complete grammar of the Esperanto language.
4. An Esperanto-English and an English-Esperanto dictionary.
He produced a good page of perfectly intelligible Esperanto, quite
free from serious grammatical mistake. He admitted that he could not
translate the passage so well into French or German.
Such experiments go a good way towards proving the case for an
artificial language. More are urgently needed, especially of the last
two types. They serve to convince all those who come within range of the
experiment that an artificial language is a serious project, and may
confer great benefits at small cost. Any one can make them with a little
trouble, if he can secure a victim. A particularly interesting one is
to send a letter in Esperanto to some English or foreign correspondent,
enclosing a penny key. The letter will certainly be understood, and very
likely the answer will be in Esperanto.
Doubters as to the ease and efficacy of a universal language are not
asked to believe without trial. They are merely asked not to condemn or
be unfavourable until they have a right to an opinion on the subject.
And they are asked to _form_ an opinion by personally testing, or at any
rate by weighing actual facts. "A fair field and no favour."
The very best way of testing the thing is to study the language for a
few hours and attend a congress. The next congress is to be held in
Cambridge, England, in August 1907.
Nothing is more unscientific or unintelligent than to scoff at a thing,
while refusing to examine whether there is anything in it.
V
THE QUESTION OF PRACTICE (_continued_)—THE INTRODUCTION OF
AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE WOULD NOT CAUSE DISLOCATION
In Chapters II., III., and IV. it was sought to prove that a universal
language is desirable in principle, that it already exists and is
efficient, and that it is very easy. If these propositions are true,
the only valid argument against introducing it at once would be a
demonstration that its introduction is either impracticable or else
attended with such disadvantages as to outweigh the beneficial results.
Now, it is quite true that certain schemes tending towards international
uniformity of practice and, therefore, ultimately productive of saving
of labour are nevertheless such that their realization would cause an
almost prohibitive dislocation of present organization. A conspicuous
example is the proposed adoption of the decimal system in coinage and
weights and measures. So great is the loss of time and trouble (and
therefore of money) entailed by using an antiquated and cumbrous-system
instead of a simple and modern one that does the work as well, that the
big firm Kynochs some months ago introduced the decimal system, in spite
of the enormous difficulty of having to keep a double method going.
But hitherto, at any rate, the great disturbance to business that the
change would cause has prevented it from being generally made. Both
this matter and the curiously out-of-date[1] system of spelling modern
English present a fairly close analogy to the multilingual system of
international intercourse, as regards unprofitable expenditure of time
and trouble.
[1]Out of date, because it has failed to keep pace with the change of
pronunciation. Spelling, i.e. use of writing, was merely a device for
representing to the eye the spoken sounds, so that failure to do this
means getting out of date.
But where the analogy breaks down altogether is in the matter of
obstacles to reform.
Supposing that all the ministries of education in the world issued
orders, that as from January 1, 1909, an auxiliary language should be
taught in every government school; supposing that merchants took to
doing foreign business wholesale in an auxiliary language, or that men
of science took to issuing all their books and treatises in it; whose
business would be dislocated? What literature or books would become
obsolete? Who, except foreign correspondence clerks and interpreters,
would be a penny the worse? Surely a useful reform need not be delayed
or refused in the interests of interpreters and correspondence clerks.
Even these would only be eliminated gradually as the reform spread.
There would be absolutely no general confusion analogous to that
following on a sudden change to phonetic spelling or the metric system,
because nothing would be displaced.
Look at the precedents—the adoption of an international maritime code,
and of an international system of cataloguing which puts bibliography
on an equal footing all over the world by means of a common system
of classification. Did any confusion or dislocation follow on these
reforms? Quite the contrary. It was enough for England and France to
agree on the use of the maritime code, and the rest of the nations had
to come into line. It would be the same with the official recognition
by a group of powerful nations of an auxiliary language. As soon as the
world recognizes that it is a labour-saving device on a large scale, and
a matter of public convenience on the same plane as codes, telegraphy,
or shorthand, it will no doubt be introduced. But why wait until there
are rival schemes with large followings and vested interests—in short,
until the same obstacles arise to the choice of an international,
artificial, and neutral language, as now prevent the elevation of any
national language into a universal medium? The plea of impracticability
on the score of dislocation might then be valid. At present it is not.
To have an easy language that will carry you anywhere and enable you to
read anything, it is sufficient to wish for it. Only, as we Britons are
being taught to "think imperially," so must the nations learn in this
matter to _wish internationally_.
VI
INTERNATIONAL ACTION ALREADY TAKEN
FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF AN AUXILIARY LANGUAGE
The main work of educating the public to "wish internationally," the
necessary precedent to official action, has naturally in the past been
done by the adherents of the various language-schemes themselves. An
outline of the most important of these movements is given in the second
part of this book.
But apart from these there is now an international organization that is
working for the adoption of an international auxiliary language, and a
brief account of it may be given here.
During the Paris Exhibition of 1900 a number of international congresses
and learned societies, which were holding meetings there, appointed
delegates for the consideration of the international language question.
These delegates met on January 17, 1901, and founded a "Delegation for
the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language." They drew up the
following declaration, which has been approved by all subsequently
elected delegates:
* * * * *
DELEGATION FOR THE ADOPTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE
Declaration
The undersigned, deputed by various Congresses and Societies to study
the question of an international auxiliary language, have agreed on the
following points:
(1) There is a necessity to choose and to spread the use of an
international language, designed not to replace national idioms in the
individual life of each people, but to serve in the written and oral
relations between persons whose mother-tongues are different.
(2) In order to fulfil its purpose usefully, an international language
must satisfy the following conditions:
1st Condition: It must fulfil the needs of the ordinary intercourse
of social life, of commercial communications, and of scientific and
philosophic relations;
2nd Condition: It must be easily acquired by every person of
average elementary education, and especially by persons of European
civilization;
3rd Condition: It must not be one of the national languages.
(3) It is desirable to organize a general DELEGATION representing
all who realize the necessity, as well as the possibility, of an
international auxiliary language, and who are interested in its
employment. This Delegation will appoint a Committee of members who can
meet during a certain period of time. The purpose of this Committee is
defined in the following articles.
(4) The choice of the auxiliary language belongs in the first instance
to the _International Association of Academies_, or, in case of failure,
to the Committee mentioned in Art. 3.
(5) Consequently the first duty of the Committee will be to present to
the _International Association of Academies_, in the required forms, the
desires expressed by the constituent Societies and Congresses, and to
invite it respectfully to realize the project of an auxiliary language.
(6) It will be the duty of the Committee to create a Society for
propaganda, to spread the use of the auxiliary language which is chosen.
(7) The undersigned, being delegated by various Congresses and
Societies, decide to approach all learned bodies, and all societies of
business men and tourists, in order to obtain their adhesion to the
present project.
(8) Representatives of regularly constituted Societies which have
agreed to the present _Declaration_ will be admitted as members of the
DELEGATION.
* * * * *
This declaration is the official programme of the Delegation. The most
important point of principle to note is Art. 2, 3rd Con.: "It must not
be one of the national languages."
As regards the methods of action prescribed, no attempt is to be made
to bring direct pressure to bear upon any government. It was rightly
felt that the adoption of a universal language is a matter for private
initiative. No government can properly take up the question, no Ministry
of Education can officially introduce an auxiliary language into the
schools under its control, until the principle has met with a certain
amount of general recognition. The result of a direct appeal to any
government or governments could only have been, in the most favourable
case, the appointment by the government appealed to of a commission to
investigate and report on the question. Such a commission would examine
experts and witnesses from representative bodies, such as academies,
institutes, philological and other learned societies. The best course of
action, therefore, for the promoters of an international language is to
apply direct to such bodies, to bring the question before them and try
to gain their support. This is what the Delegation has done.
Now, there already exists an international organization whose object
is to represent and focus the opinion of learned societies in all
countries. This is the International Association of Academies, formed in
1900 for the express purpose, according to its statutes, of promoting
"scientific enterprises of international interest." The delegates feel
that the adoption of an international language comes in the fullest
sense within the letter and spirit of this statute. It is, therefore,
to this Association that the choice of language is, in the first place,
left. (Art. 4.)
The Association meets triennially. At its first meeting (Paris 1901)
the question of international language was brought before it by General
Sébert, of the French Institute, but too late to be included among the
agenda of that meeting. The occasion was important as eliciting an
expression of opinion on the part of the signatories to General Sébert's
address. These included twenty-five members of the French Institute, one
of the most distinguished scientific bodies in the world.
At the second meeting of the Association (London 1904) the Delegation
did not officially present the question for discussion, but the
following paragraph appears in the report of the proceedings of the
Royal Society, which was the host (_London Royal Society_, 1904, C.
Section of Letters, Thursday, May 26, 1904, p. 33):
"In the course of the sitting, the chairman (Lord Reay, President of
the British Academy) submitted to the meeting whether the question of
the 'International Auxiliary Language' should be considered, though
not included in the agenda. From many quarters applications had been
made that the subject might be discussed in some form or other. Prof.
Goldziher and M. Perrot spoke against the suggested discussion,
the former maintaining that the matter was a general question of
international communication, and did not specifically affect scientific
interests; the latter announced that he had been commissioned by the
_Académie des Inscriptions_ to oppose the consideration of this subject.
The matter then dropped."
The third meeting of the Association of Academies was held at Vienna
at the end of May 1907, under the auspices of the Vienna Academy of
Science. The question was officially laid before it by the Delegation.
The Association declared, for formal reasons, that the question did not
fall within its competence.[1]
[1]In the voting as to the inclusion of the question in the agenda,
eight votes were cast in favour of international language, and twelve
against. This considerable minority shows very encouraging progress
in such a body, considering the newness of the scheme.
Up till now only two national academies have shown themselves favourable
to the scheme, those of Vienna and Copenhagen.
The Vienna Academy commissioned one of its most eminent members,
Prof. Schuchardt, to watch the movement on its behalf, and to keep it
informed on the subject. In 1904 he presented a report favourable to
an international language. He and Prof. Jespersen are amongst the most
famous philologists who support the movement.
It is not therefore anticipated that the Association of Academies will
take up the question; and the Delegation, thinking it desirable not to
wait indefinitely till it is converted, has proceeded to the election
of a committee, as provided in Art. 4 of the Declaration. It consists
of twelve members, with powers to add to their number. It will meet in
Paris, October 5, 1907. It is anticipated that the language chosen will
be Esperanto. None of the members of this international committee are
English, all the English savants invited having declined.
What may be the practical effect of the choice made by this Committee
remains to be seen. In France there is a permanent Parliamentary
Commission for the consideration of questions affecting public
education. This Commission has for some time had before it a proposal
for the introduction of Esperanto into the State schools of France,
signed by twelve members of Parliament and referred by the House to
the Commission. This year the proposal has been presented again in a
different form. The text of the scheme, which is much more practical
than the former one, is as follows:
"The study of the international language Esperanto will be included in
the curricula of those government schools in which modern languages are
already taught.
"This study will be optional, and candidates who offer for the various
examinations English, German, Italian, Spanish, or Arabic, will be
allowed to offer Esperanto as an additional subject.
"They will be entitled to the advantages enjoyed by candidates who offer
an additional language."
At present it is a very usual thing to offer an additional language, and
if this project passes, Esperanto will be on exactly the same footing as
other languages for this purpose. The project of recognizing Esperanto
as a principal language for examination was entirely impracticable. It
is far too easy, and would merely have become a "soft option" and a
refuge for the destitute.
It is said that a majority of the Commission are in favour of
introducing an auxiliary language into the schools, when one has been
chosen by the Delegation or by the Association of Academies. It is
therefore possible that in a year or two Esperanto may be officially
recognized in France; and if this is so, other nations will have to
examine the matter seriously.
Considering that the French are notoriously bad linguists and, above all
other peoples, devoted to the cult of their own language and literature,
it is somewhat remarkable that the cause of an artificial language
should have made more progress among them than elsewhere. It might have
been anticipated that the obstructionist outcry, raised so freely in all
countries by those who imagine that an insidious attack is being made on
taste, culture, and national language and literature, would have been
particularly loud in France. On the contrary, it is precisely in that
country that the movement has made most popular progress, and that it
numbers the most scientists, scholars, and distinguished men among its
adherents. Is it that history will one day have to record another case
of France leading Europe in the van of progress?
Encouraged by the number of distinguished signatures obtained in France
to their petition in 1901, the Delegation drew up a formula of assent
to their Declaration, which they circulate amongst (1) members of
academies, (2) members of universities, in all countries. They also
keep a list of societies of all kinds who have declared their adherence
to the scheme. The latest lists (February and March 1907) show 1,060
signatures of academicians and university members, and 273 societies.
In both cases the most influential backing is in France. Thus among the
signatures figure in Paris alone:
10 professors of the College de France;
8 " " " Faculty of Medicine;
13 " " " Faculty of Science;
11 " " " Faculty of Letters;
12 " " " École Normale;
37 members of the Academy of Science;
besides a host of other members of various learned bodies. Many of these
are members of that august body the Institut de France, and one is a
member of the Académie française—M. Lavisse.
It is the same in the other French Universities: Lyons University, 53
professors; Dijon, 34; Caen, 18; Besançon, 15; Grenoble, 26; Marseilles,
56, and so on.
Universities in other lands make a fair showing. America contributes
supporters from John Hopkins University, 20 professors; Boston Academy
of Arts and Sciences, 13 members; Harvard, 7 professors; Columbia
University, 23 professors; Washington Academy of Science, 19 members;
Columbus University, Ohio, 21 professors, etc. Dublin and Edinburgh both
contribute a few. England is represented by one entry: "Cambridge, 2
professors." Perhaps the Cambridge Congress will change this somewhat.
It will be strange if any one can actually witness a congress without
having his imagination to some extent stirred by the possibilities.
A noticeable feature of the action of the Delegation throughout has been
the scientific spirit in which it has gone to work, and its absolute
impartiality as to the language to be adopted. It has everywhere, in
its propaganda and circulars, spoken of "an international auxiliary
language," and has been careful not to prejudge in any way the question
as to which shall be adopted.
It may be news to many that there are several rival languages in the
field. Even the enthusiastic partisans of Esperanto are often completely
ignorant of the existence of competitors. It was partly with the object
of furnishing full information to the Delegates who are to make the
choice, that MM. Couturat and Leau composed their admirable _Histoire
de la langue universelle_. It contains a brief but scientific account
of each language mentioned, the leading principles of its construction,
and an excellent critique. The main principles are disengaged by the
authors with a masterly clearness and precision of analysis from the
mass of material before them. Though they are careful to express no
personal preference, and let fall nothing which might unfairly prejudice
the delegates in favour of any scheme, it is not difficult to judge, by
a comparison of the scientific critiques, which of the competing schemes
analysed most fully carries out the principles which experience now
shows to be essential to success for any artificial language.
The impression left is, that whether judged by the test of conformity to
necessary principles, or by the old maxim "possession is nine points of
the law," Esperanto has no serious rival.
VII
CAN THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE BE LATIN?
There are some who fully admit the desirability of an international
language, but say that we have no need to invent one, as we have Latin.
This tends to be the argument of literary persons.[1] They back it up by
pointing out that Latin has already done duty in the Middle Ages as
a common medium, and therefore, they say, what it has once done with
success it can do again.
[1]It has even cropped up again in the able articles in _The
Times_ on the reformed pronunciation of Latin (April 1907).
It is hard to argue with such persons, because they have not grasped
the fact that the nature of international communication has undergone
a complete change, and that therefore there is no presumption that
the same medium will suffice for carrying it on. In the Middle Ages
the cosmopolitan public was almost entirely a learned one. The only
people who wanted to communicate with foreigners (except for a certain
amount of commerce) were scholars, and the only things they wanted to
communicate about were learned subjects, mostly of a philosophical
or literary nature, which Latin was adapted to express. The educated
public was extremely small, and foreign travel altogether beyond the
reach of all but the very few. The overwhelming mass of the people were
illiterate, and fast tied to their native spot by lack of pence, lack of
communications, and the general conditions of life.
Now that everybody can read and write and get about, and all the
conditions of life have changed, the cosmopolitan public, so far from
being confined to a handful of scholars and merchants, extends down
to and is largely made up of that terrible modern production, "the
man in the street." It is quite ridiculous to pretend that because
an Erasmus or a Casaubon could carry on literary controversies, with
amazing fluency and hard-hitting, in Ciceronian Latin, therefore "the
bald-headed man at the back of the omnibus" can give up the time
necessary to obtaining a control of Latin sufficient for the conduct of
his affairs, or for hobnobbing with his kind abroad.
It is waste of time to argue with those who do not realize that the
absolute essentials of any auxiliary language in these days are ease
of acquirement and accessibility to all. There are actually some
newspapers published in Latin and dealing with modern topics. As an
amusement for the learned they are all very well; but the portentous
periphrases to which they are reduced in describing tramway accidents
or motor-cars, the rank obscurity of the terms in which advertisements
of the most ordinary goods are veiled, ought to be enough to drive
their illusions out of the heads of the modern champions of Latin for
practical purposes. Let these persons take in the Roman _Vox Urbis_ for
a month or two, or get hold of a copy of the London _Alaudae_, and see
how they feel then.
A dim perception of the requirements of the modern world has inspired
the various schemes for a barbarized and simplified Latin. It is almost
incredible that the authors of such schemes cannot see that debased
Latin suffers from all the defects alleged against an artificial
language, plus quite prohibitory ones of its own, without attaining
the corresponding advantages. It is just as artificial as an entirely
new language, without being nearly so easy (especially to speak) or
adaptable to modern life. It sins against the cardinal principle that
an auxiliary language shall inflict no damage upon any natural one. In
short, it disgusts both parties (scholars and tradesmen), and satisfies
the requirements of neither. Those who want an easy language, within
the reach of the intelligent person with only an elementary school
groundwork of education, don't get it; and the scholarly party, who
treat any artificial language as a cheap commercial scheme, have their
teeth set on edge by unparalleled barbarisms, which must militate most
seriously against the correct use of classical Latin.
Such schemes are dead of their own dogginess.
Latin, pure or mongrel, won't do.
VIII
CAN THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE BE GREEK?
This chapter might be as short and dogmatic as Mark Twain's celebrated
chapter upon snakes in Ireland. It would be enough to merely answer
"No," but that the indefatigable Mr. Henderson, after running through
three artificial languages of his own, has come to the conclusion that
Greek is the thing. Certainly, as regards flexibility and power of
word-formation, Greek would be better than Latin on its own merits. But
it is too hard, and the scheme has nothing practical about it.
IX
CAN THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE BE A MODERN LANGUAGE?
Jingoes are not wanting who say that it is unpatriotic of any Englishman
to be a party to the introduction of a neutral language, because English
is manifestly destined to be the language of the world.
Reader, did you ever indulge in the mild witticism of asking a foreigner
where the English are mentioned in the Bible? The answer, of course, is,
_The meek shall inherit the earth_. But if the foreigner is bigger than
you, don't tell him until you have got to a safe distance.
It is this attitude of self-assertion, coupled with the tacit assumption
that the others don't count much, that makes the English so detested
on the Continent. It is well reflected in the claim to have their own
language adopted as a common means of communication between all other
peoples.
This claim is not put forward in any spirit of deliberate insolence,
or with the intention of ignoring other people's feelings; though the
very unconsciousness of any arrogance in such an attitude really renders
it more galling, on account of the tacit conclusion involved therein.
It is merely the outcome of ignorance and of that want of tact which
consists of inability to put oneself at the point of view of others.
The interests of English-speaking peoples are enormous, far greater
than those of any other group of nations united by a common bond of
speech. But it is a form of narrow provincial ignorance to refuse on
that account to recognize that, compared to the whole bulk of civilized
people, the English speakers are in a small minority, and that the
majority includes many high-spirited peoples with a strongly developed
sense of nationality, and destined to play a very important part in the
history of the world. Any sort of movement to have English or any other
national language adopted officially as a universal auxiliary language
would at once entail a boycott of the favoured language on the part
of a ring of other powerful nations, who could not afford to give a
rival the benefit of this augmented prestige. And it is precisely upon
universality of adoption that the great use of an international language
will depend.
To sum up: the ignorance of contemporary history and fact displayed in
the suggestion of giving the preference to any national language is only
equalled by its futility, for it _is_ futile, to put forward a scheme that
has no chance of even being discussed internationally as a matter of
practical politics.
A proof is that precisely the same objection to an auxiliary language
is raised in France—namely, that it is unpatriotic, because it would
displace French from that proud position.
The above remarks will be wholly misunderstood if they are taken to
imply any spirit of Little Englandism on the part of the writer.
On the contrary, he is ardently convinced of the mighty _rôle_ that
will be played among the nations by the British Empire, and has had
much good reason in going to and fro in the world to ponder on its
unique achievement in the past. When fully organized on some terms
of partnership as demanded by the growth of the Colonies, it will go
even farther in the future. But all this has nothing to do with an
international language. Howsoever mighty, the British Empire will not
swallow up the earth—at any rate, not in our time. And till it does, it
is not practical politics to expect other peoples to recognize English
as the international language as between themselves.
There are, in fact, two quite separate questions:
(1) Supposing it is possible for any national language to become the
international one, which has the best claims?
(2) Is it possible for any national language to be adopted as the
international one?
To question (1) the answer undoubtedly is "English." It is already the
language of the sea, and to a large extent the medium for transacting
business between Europeans and Asiatic races, or between the Asiatic
races themselves.[1] Moreover, except for its pronunciation and
spelling, it has intrinsically the best claim, as being the furthest
advanced along the common line of development of Aryan language.[2] But
the discussion of this question has no more than an academic interest,
because the answer to question (2) is, for political reasons, in the
negative.
[1]Another argument is that based on the comparative numbers
of people who speak the principal European languages as their
mother-tongue. No accurate statistics exist, but an interesting
estimate is quoted by Couturat and Leau (_Hist. de la langue
universelle_), which puts English first with about 120,000,000,
followed at a distance of 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 by Russian.
[2]This is explained in Part III., chap. i., _q.v._
X
CAN THE EVOLUTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE BE LEFT
TO THE PROCESS OF NATURAL SELECTION BY FREE COMPETITION?
"You base your argument for an international language mainly on the
operation of economical laws. Be consistent, then; leave the matter
to Nature. By unlimited competition the best language is bound to be
evolved and come to the top in the struggle for life. Let the fittest
survive, and don't bother about Esperanto."
On a first hearing this sounds fairly plausible, yet it is honeycombed
with error.
In the first place, it proves too much. The same argument could be
adduced for the abandonment of effort of all kind whatever to improve
upon Nature and her processes. "You can walk and run and swim. Don't
bother to invent boats and bicycles, trains and aeroplanes, that will
bring you more into touch with other peoples. Let Nature evolve the best
form of international locomotion."
Again, Nature does not tend towards uniformity. She produces an infinity
of variety in the individual, and out of this variety she selects and
evolves certain prevailing types. But these types differ widely within
the limits of the world under varying conditions of environment. What
we are seeking to establish is world-wide uniformity, in spite of
difference of environment.
Again, the argument confuses a sub-characteristic with an organism. A
language is not an organism, but one of the characteristics of man.
After the lapse of countless ages there are grey horses and black, bay
and chestnut, presumably because greyness and blackness and the rest
are incidental characteristics of a horse. No one of them gives him a
greater advantage than the others in his struggle for life, or helps him
particularly to perform the functions of horsiness.
Just in the same way a man may be equally well equipped with all the
qualities that make for success, whether he speaks English or French,
Russian or Japanese. It cannot be shown that language materially helps
one people as against another, or even that the best race evolves the
best language.[1] Take the last mentioned. If there is one people on the
face of the globe who rejoice in an impossible language, it is the
Japanese. In the early days of foreign intercourse a good Jesuit father
reported that the Japanese were courteous and polite to strangers, but
their language was plainly the invention of the devil. To a modern mind
the language may have outlived its putative father, but its reputation
has not improved, so far as ease is concerned. Yet who will say that it
has impaired national efficiency?
[1]Greece went down before Rome. Which was the better race, meaning
by "better" the more capable of imposing its language and manners on
the world? Yet who doubts that Greek was the better language?
The fact is, that for purposes of transaction of ordinary affairs by
those who speak it as a mother tongue, one language is about as good as
another. Whether it survives or spreads depends, not upon its intrinsic
qualities as a language, but upon the success of the race that speaks
it.[1] There is, therefore, no presumption that the best or the most
suitable or the easiest language will spread over the world by its own
merits, or even that any easy or regular language will be evolved.
Printing and education have altogether arrested the natural process of
evolution of language on the lips of men. This is one justification for
the application of new artificial reforms to language and spelling,
which tend no longer to move naturally with the times as heretofore.
[1]A curious phenomenon of our day suggests a possible partial
exception. In Switzerland French is steadily encroaching and bearing
back German. Is this owing to the intrinsic qualities of French
language and civilization? Materially, the Germans have the greater
expansive power.
As regards free competition between rival artificial languages, the
same considerations hold good. The worse might prevail just as easily
as the better, because the determining factor is not the nature of the
language, but the influence and general capacity of the rival backers.
Of course a very bad or hard artificial language would not prevail
against an easy one. But beyond a certain point of ease a universal
language cannot go (ease meaning the ease of all), and that limit has
probably been about reached now. Between future schemes there will be
such a mere fractional difference in respect of ease, that competition
becomes altogether beside the point. The thing is to take an easy one
and stick to it.
XI
OBJECTIONS TO AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE ON AESTHETIC GROUNDS
One of the commonest arguments that advocates of a universal language
have to face runs something like this:
"Yes, there really does seem to be something in what you say—your
language may save time and money and grease the wheels of business;
but, after all, we are not all business men, nor are we all out after
dollars. Just think what a dull, drab uniformity your scheme would
lay over the lands like a pall. By the artificial removal of natural
barriers you are aiding and abetting the vulgarization of the world.
You are doing what in you lies to eliminate the racy, the local, the
picturesque. The tongues of men are as stately trees, set deep in the
black, mouldering soil of the past, and rich with its secular decay. The
leaves are the words of the people, old yet ever new, and the flowers
are the nation's poems, drawing their life from the thousand tiny roots
that twist and twine unseen about the lives and struggles of bygone
men. You are calling to us to come forth from the cool seclusion of
these trees' shade, to leave their delights and toil in the glare of the
world at raising a mushroom growth on a dull, featureless plain that
reaches everywhither. Modern Macbeths, sophisticated by your modernity
and adding perverted instinct to crime, you are murdering not sleep,
but dreams—dreams that haunt about the mouldering lodges of the past,
and soften the contact with reality by lending their own colouring
atmosphere. You are hammering the last nail into the coffin of the old
leisurely past, the past that raised the cathedrals, to which taste and
feeling were of supreme moment, and when man put something of himself
into his every work."
The man must be indeed dull of soul who cannot join in a dirge for the
beauty of the vanishing past. Turn where we may now, we find the same
railways, the same trams, music-halls, coats and trousers. The mad rush
of modernity with its levelling tendency really is killing off what is
quaint, out of the way, and racy of the soil. But why visit the sins
of modernity upon an international language? The last sentence of the
indictment itself suggests the line of defence. "You are hammering the
last nail into the coffin of the old, leisurely past...."
Quite so, you _are_.
The universal ability to use an auxiliary language on occasion rounds
off and completes the levelling process. But the old leisurely past
will not be any the less dead, or any the less effectually buried, if
one nail is not driven home in the coffin. The slayer is modernity at
large, made up of science, steam, democracy, universal education, and
many other things—but especially universal education. And the verdict
can be, at the most, justifiable, or at any rate inevitable, pasticide.
You cannot eat your cake and have it; you cannot kill off all the bad
things and keep all the good ones. With sterilization goes purification,
pasticide may be accompanied by pasteurization. At any rate, "the old
order changeth," and you've got to let it change.
The whole history of the "progress" of the world, meaning often material
progress, is eloquent of the lesson that it is vain to set artificial
limits to advancing invention. The substitution of cheap mechanical
processes of manufacture for hand-work involved untold misery to many,
and incidentally led to the partial disappearance of a type of character
which the world could ill afford to lose, and which we would give much
to be able to bring back. The old semi-artist-craftsman, with hand and
eye really trained up to something like their highest level of capacity,
with knowledge not wide, but deep, and all gained from experience, and
not from books or technical education—this type of character is a loss.
Many, with the gravest reason, are dissatisfied with the type which has
already largely replaced it, and which will replace it for good or evil,
but ever more swiftly and surely. But no well-judging person proposes
on that account to forgo the material advantages conferred upon mankind
by the invention of machinery. If the world rejects, on sentimental
grounds, the labour-saving invention of international language, it will
be flying in the face of economic history, and it will not appreciably
retard the disappearance of the picturesque.
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 être 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 "netuŝebla,"
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 (_netuŝeblaj_).... 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 Volapük!
(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 Volapük 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 Volapük 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 Molière 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, _quâ_ 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 Müller 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 François Sudre, 1817—_Langue musicale universelle_. Sudre was a
schoolmaster, born in 1787. His language is founded on the seven notes
of the scale, and he calls it Solresol.
8. Grosselin, 1836—_Systeme de langue universelle_. A language
composed of 1500 words, called "roots," with 100 suffixes, or modifying
terminations.
9. Vidal, 1844—_Langue universelle et analytique_. A curious
combination of letters and numbers.
10. Letellier, 1852-1855—_Cours complet de langue universelle_, and
many subsequent publications. Letellier was a former schoolmaster and
school inspector. His system is founded on the "theory of language,"
which is that the word ought to represent by its component letters an
analysis of the idea it conveys.
11. Abbé Bonifacio Sotos Ochando, 1852, Madrid. The abbé had been
a deputy to the Spanish Cortes, Spanish master to Louis Philippe's
children, a university professor, and director of a polytechnic
college in Madrid, etc. His language is a logical one, intended for
international scientific use, and chiefly for writing. He does not think
a spoken language for all purposes possible.
12. _Societé Internationale de linguistique_. First report dated 1856.
The object of the society was to carry out a radical reform of French
orthography, and to prepare the way for a universal language—"the need
of which is beginning to be generally felt." In the report the idea of
adopting one of the most widely spoken national languages is considered
and rejected. The previous projects are reviewed, and that of Sotos
Ochando is recommended as the best. The _a posteriori_ principle is
rejected and the _a priori_ deliberately adopted. This is excusable,
owing to the fact that most projects hitherto had been _a priori_. The
philosopher Charles Renouvier gave proof of remarkable prescience by
condemning the _a priori_ theory in an article in _La Revue_, 1855, in
which he forecasts the _a posteriori_ plan.
13. Dyer, 1875—_Lingwalumina; or, the Language of Light_.
14. Reinaux, 1877.
15. Maldent, 1877—_La langue naturelle_. The author was a civil
engineer.
16. Nicolas, 1900—_Spokil_. The author is a ship's doctor and former
partisan of Volapük.
17. Hilbe, 1901—_Die Zablensprache_, Based on numbers which are
translated by vowels.
18. Dietrich, 1902—_Völkerverkehrssprache_.
19. Mannus Talundberg, 1904—_Perio, eine auf Logik und Gedachtnisskunst
aufgebaute Weltsprache_.
II. MIXED LANGUAGES
These are chiefly Volapük and its derivates.
1. August Theodor von Grimm, state councillor of the Russian Empire,
worked out a "programme for the formation of a universal language,"
which contains some _a priori_ elements, as well as nearly all the
principles which subsequent authors of _a posteriori_ languages have
realized. This Grimm is not to be confused with the famous philologist
Jacob von Grimm, though he wrote about the same time.
2. Schleyer, 1879—_Volapük_. (See below.)
3. Verheggen, 1886—_Nal Bino_.
4. Menet, 1886—_Langue universelle_. An imitation of Volapük.
5. Bauer, 1886—_Spelin_. A development of Volapük with more words taken
from neutral languages.
6. St. de Max, 1887—_Bopal_. An imitation of Volapük.
7. Dormoy, 1887—_Balta_. A simplification of Volapük.
8. Fieweger, 1893—_Dil_. An exaggeration of Volapük for good and ill.
9. Guardiola, 1893—_Orba_. A fantastic language.
10. W. von Arnim, 1896—_Veltparl_. A derivative of Volapük.
11. Marchand, 1898—_Dilpok_. Simplified Volapük.
12. Bollack, 1899—_La langue bleue_. Aims merely at commercial and
common use. Ingenious, but too difficult for the memory.
III. A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES
1. Faiguet, 1765—_Langue nouvelle_. Faiguet was treasurer of France. He
published his project, which is a scheme for simplifying grammar, in the
famous eighteenth-century encyclopaedia of Diderot and d'Alembert.
2. Schipfer, 1839—_Communicationssprache_. This scheme has an
historical interest for two reasons. First, the fact that it is founded
on French reflects the feeling of the time that French was, as he
says, "already to a certain extent a universal language." The point of
interest is to compare the date when the projects began to be founded on
English. In 1879 Volapük took English for the base. Secondly, Schipfer's
scheme reflects the new consciousness of wider possibilities that were
coming into the world with the development of means of communication by
rail and steamboat. The author recommends the utility of his project by
referring to "the new way of travelling."
3. De Rudelle, 1858—_Pantos-Dimon-Glossa._ De Rudelle was a
modern-language master in France and afterwards at the London
Polytechnic. His language is based on ten natural languages, especially
Greek, Latin, and the modern derivatives of Latin, with grammatical
hints from English, German, and Russian. It is remarkable for having
been the first to embody several principles of the first importance,
which have since been more fully carried out in other schemes, and are
now seen to be indispensable. Among these are: (1) distinction of the
parts of speech by a fixed form for each; (2) suppression of separate
verbal forms for each person; (3) formation of derivatives by means of
suffixes with fixed meanings.
4. Pirro, 1868—_Universalsprache_. Based upon five languages—French,
German, English, Italian, and Spanish—and containing a large proportion
of words from the Latin.
5. Ferrari, 1877—_Monoglottica_ (?).
6. Volk and Fuchs, 1883—_Weltsprache_. Founded on Latin.
7. Cesare Meriggi, 1884—_Blaia Zimondal_.
8. Courtonne, 1885—_Langue Internationale néo-Latine_. Based on the
modern Romance languages, and therefore not sufficiently international.
A peculiarity is that all roots are monosyllabic. The history of this
attempt illustrates the weight of inertia against which any such project
has to struggle. It was presented to the Scientific Society of Nice,
which drew up a report and sent it to all the learned societies of
Romance-speaking countries. Answers were received from three towns—Pau,
Sens, and Nimes. It was then proposed to convene an international
neo-Latin congress; but it is not surprising to hear that nothing came
of it.
9. Steiner, 1885—_Pasilingua_. A counterblast to Volapük. The author
aims at copying the methods of naturally formed international languages
like the "lingua franca" or Pidgin-English. Based on English, French,
and German; but the English vocabulary forms the groundwork.
10. Eichhorn, 1887—_Weltsprache_. Based on Latin. A leading principle
is that each part of speech ought to be recognizable by its form. Thus
nouns have two syllables; adjectives, three; pronouns, one; verbal
roots, one syllable beginning and ending with a consonant; and so on.
11. Zamenhof, 1887—_Esperanto_. (See below.)
12. Bernhard, 1888—_Lingua franca nuova_. A kind of bastard Italian.
13. Lauda, 1888—_Kosmos_. Draws all its vocabulary from Latin.
14. Henderson, 1888—_Lingua_. Latin vocabulary with modern grammar.
15. Henderson, 1902—_Latinesce_. A simpler and more practical
adaptation of Latin by the same author—_e.g._ the present infinitive form
does duty for several finite tenses, and words are used in their modern
senses.
16. Hoinix (pseudonym for the same indefatigable Mr. Henderson),
1889—_Anglo-franca_. A mixture of French and English. Both this and the
barbarized Latin schemes are fairly easy and certainly simpler than the
real languages, but they are shocking to the ear, and produce the effect
of mutilation of language.
17. Stempel, 1889—_Myrana_. Based on Latin with admixture of other
languages.
18. Stempel, 1894—_Communia_. A simplification of No. 17, with a new
name.
19. Rosa, 1890—_Nov Latin_. A set of rules for using the Latin
dictionary in a certain way as a key to produce something that can be
similarly deciphered.
20. Julius Lott, 1890—_Mundolingue_. Founded on Latin. Lott started an
international society for a universal language, proposing to build up
his language by collaboration of savants thus brought together.
21. Marini, 1891—_Méthode rapide, facile et certaine pour construire un
idiome universel_.
22. Liptay, 1892—_Langue catholique_. Based on the theory than an
international language already exists (in the words common to many
languages), and has only to be discovered.
23. Mill, 1893—_Anti-Volapük_. A simple universal grammar to be applied
to the vocabulary of each national language.
24. Braakman, 1894—_Der Wereldtaal "El Mundolinco," Gramatico del
Mundolinco pro li de Hollando Factore_ (Noordwijk).
25. Albert Hoessrich (date?)—_Talnovos, Monatsschrift für die
Einführung und Verbreitung der allgemeinen Verkehrssprache_ "_Tal_"
(Sonneberg, Thuringen).
26. Heintzeler, 1895—_Universala_. Heintzeler compares the twelve chief
artificial languages already proposed, and shows that they have much in
common. He suggests a commission to work out a system on an eclectic
basis.
27. Beermann, 1895—_Novilatin_. Latin brought up to date by comparison
with six chief modern languages.
28. _Le Linguist_, 1896-7. A monthly review conducted by a band of
philologists. It contains many discussions of the principles which
should underly an international language, and suggestions, but no
complete scheme.
29. Puchner, 1897—_Nuove Roman_. Based largely on Spanish, which the
author considers the best of the Romance tongues.
30. Nilson—_La vest-europish central-dialekt_ (1890); _Lasonebr, un
transitional lingvo_ (1897); _Il dialekt Centralia, un compromiss
entr il lingu universal de Akademi international e la vest-europish
central-dialekt_ (1899).
31. Kürschner, 1900—_Lingua Komun_. The author was an Esperantist,
but found Esperanto not scientific enough. It is almost incredible
that a man who knew Esperanto should invent a language with several
conjugations of the verb, but this is what Kürschner has done.
32. International Academy of Universal Language, 1902—_Idiom Neutral_.
(See below.)
33. Elias Molee, 1902—_Tutonish; or, Anglo-German Union Tongue_.
_Tutonish; a Teutonic International Language_ (1904).
34. Molenaar—_Panroman, skiz de un ling internazional_ (in _Die
Religion der Menschheit_, March 1903); _Esperanto oder Panroman? Das
Weltsprache-problem und seine einfachste Lösung_ (1906); _Universal
Ling-Panroman_ (in _Menschheitsziele_, 1906); _Gramatik de Universal_
(Leipzig, Puttmann, 1906).
35. Peano—_De Latino sine flexione_ (in _Revue de Mathématique_, 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 kürzeste
Sprache für den internationalen Verkehr. Grammatik und Wörterbuch 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 ä 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 VOLAPÜK—A WARNING
Volapük 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 Volapük 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
Volapük 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,
curé 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
Volapük.
As for the name, an Englishman will hardly appreciate the fact that
the word "Volapük" is derived from the two English words "world" and
"speech." This transformation of "world" into _vol_ and "speech" into
_pük_ is a good illustration of the manner in which Volapük 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, Volapük 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 Volapük, there were
283 Volapük societies, distributed throughout Europe, America, and
the British Colonies. Instruction books were published in twenty-five
languages, including Volapük itself; numerous newspapers, in and about
Volapük, sprang up all over the world; the number of Volapükists 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 Volapük congresses were held, of which
the third, held in Paris in 1889, with proceedings entirely in Volapük,
was the most important.
The rapid decline of Volapük 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]
[1]A Volapük journal still appears in Graz, Stiria—_Volapükabled
lezenodik_. The editor has just (March 1907) retired, and the veteran
Bishop Schleyer, now seventy-five years old, is taking up the
editorship again.
The chief reason of this failure was internal dissension. First arose
the question of principle: Should Volapük aim at being a literary
language, capable of expressing all the finer shades of thought and
feeling? or should it confine itself to being a practical means of
business communication?
Bishop Schleyer claimed for his invention an equal rank among the
literary languages of the world. The practical party, headed by M.
Kerckhoffs, wished to keep it utilitarian and practical. With the
object of increasing its utility, they proposed certain changes in the
language; and thus there arose, in the second place, differences of
opinion as to fundamental points of structure, such as the nature and
origin of the roots to be adopted. Vital questions were thus reopened,
and the whole language was thrown back into the melting-pot.
The first congress was held at Friedrichshafen in August 1884, and was
attended almost exclusively by Germans. The second congress, Munich,
August 1887, brought together over 200 Volapükists from different
countries. A professor of geology from Halle University was elected
president, and an International Academy of Volapük was founded.
Then the trouble began. M. Kerckhoffs was unanimously elected director
of the academy, and Bishop Schleyer was made grand-master (_cifal_)
for life. Questions arose as to the duties of the academy and the
respective powers of the inventor of the language and the academicians.
M. Kerckhoffs was all along the guiding spirit on the side of the
academy. He was in the main supported by the Volapük world, though there
seems to have been some tendency, at any rate at first, on the part of
the Germans to back the bishop. It is impossible to go into details of
the points at issue. Suffice it to say, that eventually the director
of the academy carried a resolution giving the inventor three votes to
every one of ordinary members in all academy divisions, but refusing him
the right of veto, which he claimed. The bishop replied by a threat to
depose M. Kerckhoffs from the directorship, which of course he could not
make good. The constitution of the academy was only binding inasmuch as
it had been drawn up and adopted by the constituent members, and it gave
no such powers to the inventor.
So here was a very pretty quarrel as to the ownership of Volapük.
The bishop said it belonged to him, as he had invented it: he was
its father. The academy said it belonged to the public, who had a
right to amend it in the common interest. This child, which had newly
opened its eyes and smiled upon the world, and upon which the world
was then smiling back—was it a son domiciled in its father's house
and fully _in patria potestate_? or a ward in the guardianship of its
chief promoters? or an orphan foundling, to be boarded out on the
scattered-home system at the public expense, and to be brought up to be
useful to the community at large? A vexed question of paternity; and the
worst of it was, there was no international court competent to try the
case.
Meantime the congress of 1889 at Paris came on. Volapük was booming
everywhere. Left to itself, it flourished like a green bay-tree. This
meeting was to set an official seal upon its success; and governments,
convinced by this thing done openly in the _ville lumière_, would accept
the _fait accompli_ and introduce it into their schools.
Thirteen countries sent representatives, including Turkey and China.
The great Kerckhoffs was elected president. The proceedings were in
Volapük. The foundling's future was canvassed in terms of himself by
a cosmopolitan board of guardians, who did not yet know what he was.
Rather a Gilbertian situation. Trying a higher flight, we may say, in
Platonic phrase, that Volapük seemed to be about midway between being
and not-being. It is a far cry from Gilbert _viâ_ Plato to Mr. Kipling,
but perhaps Volapük, at this juncture, may be most aptly described as
a "sort of a giddy harumphrodite," if not "a devil an' a ostrich an' a
orphan-child in one."
Business done: The congress discusses.
The congress passed a resolution that there should be drawn up "a simple
normal grammar, from which all useless rules should be excluded," and
proceeded to adopt a final constitution for the Volapük Academy.
Article 15 says: "The decisions of the academy must be at once submitted
to the inventor. If the inventor has not within thirty days protested
against the decisions, they are valid. Decisions not approved by the
inventor are referred back to the academy, and are valid if carried by a
two-thirds majority."
The bishop held out for his right of absolute veto, as his episcopal
fellows and their colleagues are doing "in another place" in England.
The conflict presents some analogy with other graver constitutional
matters, involving discussion of the respective merits of absolute and
suspensive veto, and may therefore have some interest at present, apart
from its great importance in any scheme for an international language.
The upshot was that dissensions broke out within the academy. The
director, unable to carry a complete scheme of reformed grammar,
resigned (1891), and the academy, whose business it was to arrange the
next congress and keep the movement going, never convened a fourth
congress. Several academicians set to work on new artificial languages
of their own; and what was left of the Academy of Volapük, under a new
director, M. Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg railway engineer, elected
1893, subsequently turned its attention to working out a new language,
to which was given the name Idiom Neutral (see next chapter).
* * * * *
It is interesting to note that, when Volapük was nearing its high-water
mark, the American Philosophical Society appointed a committee (October
1887) to inquire into its scientific value.
This committee reported in November 1887. The report states that the
creation of an international language is in conformity with the general
tendency of modern civilization, and is not merely desirable, but
_will certainly be realized._ It goes on to reject Volapük as the
solution of the problem, as being on the whole retrogade in tendency.
It is too arbitrary in construction, and not international enough in
vocabulary; nor does it correspond to the general trend of development
of language, which is away from a synthetic grammar (inflection by means
of terminations, as in Latin and Greek) and towards an analytic one
(inflection by termination replaced by prepositions and auxiliaries).
But the committee was so fully convinced of the importance of an
international language, that it proposed to the Philosophical Society
that it should invite all the learned societies of the world to
co-operate in the production of a universal language. A resolution
embodying this recommendation was adopted by the society, and the
invitations were sent out. About twenty societies accepted—among them
the University of Edinburgh. The Scots again!
The London Philological Society commissioned Mr. Ellis to investigate
the subject, and upon his report declined to co-operate. Mr. Ellis was
a believer in Volapük, and furthermore did not agree with the American
Philosophical Society's conclusion that an international language ought
to be founded on an Indo-Germanic (Aryan) basis. In this Mr. Ellis was
almost certainly wrong, as subsequent experience is tending to show. The
Japanese, among others, are taking up Esperanto with enthusiasm, find
it easy, and make no difficulty about its Aryan basis. But, apart from
linguistic considerations, Mr. Ellis's practical reasoning was certainly
sound. It was to this effect: The main thing is to adopt a language
that is already in wide use and shown to be adequate. Alterations bring
dissension; by sticking to what we have already got, imperfections and
all, strife is avoided, and the thing is at once reduced to practice.
This was a wise counsel, and applies to-day with double force to the
present holder of the field, Esperanto, which is besides, in the opinion
of experts, a better language than Volapük, and far easier to acquire.
However, on the question of technical merits, the American Philosophical
Society was probably right, as against the London Philological Society
represented by Mr. Ellis. And the proof is that Volapük died—primarily,
indeed, of dissensions among its partisans, but of dissensions
superinduced on inherent defects of principle. That this is true may
be seen from the subsequent history of the Volapük movement. This is
briefly narrated in the next chapter, under the name of Idiom Neutral.
V
HISTORY OF IDIOM NEUTRAL
We saw above that M. Kerckhoffs was succeeded in the directorship of the
Volapük Academy, 1893, by M. Rosenberger, of St. Petersburg. During his
term of office the academy continued its work of amending and improving
the language. The method of procedure was as follows: The director
elaborated proposals, which he embodied in circulars and sent round from
time to time to his fellow-academicians. They voted "Yes" or "No," so
that the language, when finished, was approved by them all, and was the
joint product of the academy; but it was, in its new form, to a great
extent, the work of the director. At the end of his term of office it
was practically complete. It had undergone a complete transformation,
and was now called Idiom Neutral.
In 1898 M. Rosenberger was succeeded by Rev. A.F. Holmes, of Macedon,
New York State. The members of the academy vary from time to time, and
include (or have included since 1898) natives of America, Belgium,
Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Russia.
Dictionaries of Idiom Neutral have been published in English (in
America), German, and Dutch; but the language hardly seems to be in
use except among the members of the academy. These do not meet, but
carry on their business by means of circulars, drawn up, of course, in
Neutral. There are at present only four groups of Neutralists—those of
St. Petersburg, Nuremberg, Brussels, and San Antonio, Texas. The famous
linguistic club of Nuremberg is remarkable for having gone through the
evolution from Volapük to Idiom Neutral _viâ_ Esperanto! Besides these
four groups, there are isolated Neutralists in certain towns in Great
Britain. The academy seems still to have some points to settle, and the
work of propaganda has hardly yet begun.
A paper published in Brussels, under the name of _Idei International_,
seems to represent the ideas of scattered Neutralists, and of some
partisans of other schemes based on Romance vocabulary. These languages
resemble each other greatly, and some sanguine spirits dream that they
may be fused together into the ultimate international language. A
few even hope for an amalgamation with Esperanto, through the medium
of a reformed type of Esperanto, which approximates more nearly
to these newer schemes, its vocabulary being, like theirs, almost
entirely Romance. A series of modifications was published tentatively
by Dr. Zamenhof himself in 1894, but was suppressed from practical
considerations, having regard to the fate that overtook Volapük, when
once it fell into the hands of reformers. The so-called reforms never
represented the real ideas of Zamenhof, and were rather in the nature
of reluctant concessions to the weaker brethren. They were never
introduced.
The reader may be interested to compare for himself specimens of
Volapük, Idiom Neutral (its lineal descendant), and Esperanto. This
Esperanto is the only one in use, most Esperantists having never even
heard of the reform project, which was at once dropped, before the
language had entered upon its present cosmopolitan extension. The
following versions of the Lord's Prayer are taken from MM. Couturat and
Leau's _History_, as are the facts in the above narratives, with the
exception of the latest details:
VOLAPÜK
O Fat obas, kel binol in süls, paisaludomöz nem ola! Kömomöd monargän
ola! Jenomöz vil oli
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