CORRESPONDENCE 



To the Editor of " Science Progress " 



LATIN OR IDO? 



From Gilbert H. Richardson 



Dear Sir, — The function and purpose of language is to com- 

 municate thought from man to man. We may liken it to a 

 telephone. Telephones may be more or may be less efficient. 

 Languages likewise may be compared as regards their efficiency. 

 We may separate this into two factors : 



i. Ease of acquirement and use. 

 ii. Expressiveness. 



The most efficient language would be the one capable of 

 being acquired and used with the least expenditure of labour, 

 and at the same time capable of the greatest power of expres- 

 sion. 



i. Ease. — Command of Latin for scientific purposes would, 

 I presume, usually be attained only at University grade ; 

 study extending over some six or seven years would be re- 

 quired. 



This labour would be required partly to acquire the vocabu- 

 lary, and partly to master the grammar and syntax. 



The writers in Science Progress for January suggest 

 that Latin might be to some degree simplified. And to the 

 impartial observer it must be obvious that a good deal of the 

 complexity of Latin grammar is theoretically quite needless. 

 Why genders ? Why more than one declension ? Why more 

 than one conjugation ? 



But the simplifying of Latin has already been done for 

 us on the great stage of history. The Goths, Vandals, Bur- 

 gundians and Franks have simplified Latin into the Romance 

 languages. They have abolished the declensions, but they 

 have broken up the linguistic unity of Western Europe. 



The international language Ido is the highest common 

 factor of the modern languages of Europe, and it turns out to 

 be, to a high percentage, Romance. 



435 



