"A Lingua es-num a Conventión, non a Inventión." is a coming together, not an Invention. (tacit agreement) A Language A NEW ART: THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. A NEW ART: THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE has long been the desideratum of most commercial men, the desire of scientists, and the dream of philosophers. Men have long blamed Babel, and it is somewhat surprising that little has hitherto been done to escape from the difficulties resulting from the confusion of tongues. From the days of Alexander the Great to the present hour, when German, Russian, and Chinese have been announced as "official" languages, imperial sway has always enforced the use of the conqueror's tongue. On the other hand, in modern times the metaphysician and the philologist have, each in his own way, mapped out schemes for the establishment of a common philosophical language. Others, again, have advocated the adoption of some already well-known tongueEnglish, French, German, Spanish, or Italian-as the only satisfactory way of establishing an international medium of communication. It is estimated that English is already understood by 200,000,000 of the world's inhabitants; German is spoken by 56,000,000; and French and Spanish by nearly 43,000,000 each. Not one of these methods, however, has hitherto been completely successful. The first was only effective whilst the Empire remained; the second has never got beyond the theoretic stage; and the third, owing to the 8 The Possibility of an International Language. great economic and other advantages it would give to the nation whose language might be adopted, has never been willingly and thoroughly carried out. Some eight or nine years ago, when I first came across this idea of a Universal Language, it appeared to me, although a splendid thing to hope for, a quite impossible thing to expect. It seemed to me at the time, however much I was charmed with the great prospective advantages, and even the probability of constructing such a language, to be but a new phase of that same juvenile speculative ingenuity which otherwise seeks to discover perpetual motion, or to plan out contrivances by means of which water can be made to run up hill. The arrangement of some easy medium for international communication seemed to be indeed " a consummation devoutly to be wished," and, as far as the making of the language was concerned, quite a possibility; but as for the hope of such a language, when constructed, ever being adopted and turned to practical use, this was the "rub," the obstacle which seemed to turn it, as a result, into nothing of more practical value than a collection of crests, monograms, or autographs, or the enumeration of the number of letters in the different books of the Bible. Each nation believed its own language to be by far the best means for expressing thought-Europe had refused to adopt French as a lingua franca-and I therefore concluded that nations would, in like manner, be opposed to the adoption of any sort of common language, from fear of injuring the spread of their respective native tongues. The Success of Volapük. 9 VOLAPÜK: AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE ON THE ARTIFICIAL BASIS. Herr Schleyer, of Constance, however, has shown in a very striking way how groundless this despairing view was. His new Universal Language, Volapük (World-Speech), after but a few years of existence, numbers its students by hundreds of thousands; and, strange to say, France, the nation which has hitherto shown itself least inclined to learn any foreign tongue, has adopted it most freely. Spain comes next, then Portugal, Italy, and Austria-that great languagelearning people, the Germans, strange to say, being among the latest to take it up. Professor Kerckhoffs some months ago estimated the number of persons who have studied Volapük at 210,000. In Vienna alone the classes during the winter of 1886-7 were attended by 2,500 students; while the total number of societies organized for its cultivation in different places amounts to 138. The bibliography of the subject comprises 96 books, in 13 languages, exclusive of articles in periodicals. An Academy of Volapük has also been established, of which Professor Kerckhoffs is director, while his colleagues-seventeen in number-consist of representatives from Germany, AustroHungary, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Holland, England, the United States, and Russia. Eleven periodicals are now published devoted primarily to Volapük, at Constance, Breslau, Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Munich, Milan, PortoRico, Denmark, and Antwerp-the youngest being four months old, and the oldest six years-and a similar paper has just been started in England. On the Continent, already many firms print on the heads of their memorandum and correspondence paper, in addition |