i6 2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



mon vulgar speech, owning Latin alone as worthy of putting on parch- 

 ment. As later, Charles V. of German-Austria, told of how he 

 talked in Latin to God, in Spanish to his family, in French to his 

 courtiers, in Italian to the ladies, and — in German — to his horses only. 

 So, not longer ago than in the last century, ambitious writers in the 

 minor tongues, disdainful of the " peasant dialects " smacking of the 

 soil, set their thoughts over into French, spoke in French, thought in 

 French. To-day there is scarcely a tongue in Europe, however ob- 

 scure or forgotten, that is not sedulously cultivating its own idiom in 

 a conscious literary way. 



On the edge of our world are Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, 

 spoken by vigorous, populous national stocks, emerging into or fully 

 participating in our complex international life, coming closer and 

 closer every day by rail, steamer, telegraph and wireless, and to- 

 morrow by the airships. Under the wise control of England, the na- 

 tive polyglot hordes of India are developing, preparing for a future 

 nationality, which will not be English ; in which the English language 

 will remain what it is to-day, a foreign tongue. Over the huge do- 

 mains of Mexico, Central and South America, millions upon millions 

 of swarming people in the days to come will fill these lands with a 

 vast Spanish and Portuguese speaking population. Will these then be 

 among the " minor languages," to which their present position in 

 Europe now relegates them ? 



What, then, of all these strong peoples who refuse to be assimilated, 

 who are engaged in amplifying their own languages, and have no 

 intention of meekly becoming absorbed by ours; who buy and sell, 

 farm, mine and manufacture, produce and exchange increasingly, who 

 share in the world's power of thought and, expression, who are making 

 or will make great discoveries in science, who will meet in conventional 

 dress with our august selves, whether we like it or not, around the 

 council tables of the globe? 



Tell me, is any single national form of idiom adequate for all 

 of these ? Will any such be accepted by all of them ? Will the whole 

 world of human races, with its hundreds of languages and dialects, 

 blunder along forever, chained in the shackles of polyglot speech? 



Is a world language, then, really possible ? As a universal language, 

 in the sense of one that is to replace all others, — manifestly not, or if 

 at all, only in some extremely remote epoch. How, then, shall we 

 achieve the more immediate, rational and practical aim, of acquiring 

 a single auxiliary medium of international speech, that shall replace no 

 single language, however obscure, that shall remain forever neutral, 

 and that shall be equally acceptable to all ? Clearly, not by means of 

 any existing national, " natural " tongue, but through the outright con- 

 struction of an " artificial " language, which shall possess : 



First, a vocabulary having a maximum of internationality in its 



