536 Professor F. G. Don nan [March 24, 



A lecture in chemistry on these lines would be an interesting 

 experience, but one not likely to be repeated. 



The modern era, the era of synthetic or a posteriori as contrasted 

 with purely a priori languages, began with Yolapuk. This was the 

 discovery of Monsignor Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic 

 priest, of Baden in Germany, and was given to the world towards 

 the end of the year 1880. His vocabulary consisted of root-words, 

 derived words, and compounds. Schleyer endeavoured to borrow his 

 root-words from the international stock, so that the greatest number 

 of persons might have the fewest unfamiliar words to memorise. He 

 stated himself that the Yolapuk Lexicon was mainly based upon the 

 English language, because it was spoken by 100 million people. 

 Unfortunately for the 100 million, these roots were so changed by 

 Schleyer that a very large number of them became unrecognisable 

 in the written language. There were several reasons for this. His 

 system was a phonetic one, but the sounds corresponding to several 

 of his letters were so chosen as to destroy the international appear- 

 ance of the roots. No stem or root which was declinable could end 

 in the sibilant consonants c, j, s, x and z, since the plural was formed 

 by the letter s. Monsignor Schleyer held that the letter r oifered 

 such difficulty of pronunciation to children, Englishmen and Chinese 

 — a majority of mankind — that it had to be very largely eliminated. 

 For r he very often substituted the letter I. Finally, he made his roots 

 as monosyllabic as possible. The net result of these transformations 

 was that many roots chosen from English, or other languages, on 

 account of their internationality became unrecognisable. The 

 following examples will demonstrate this : — 



Volapuk Boot Transformations. 

 Father = Fat Rose = Lol 



Knowledge = Nol Abundance = Bundan 



Speech (speak) = Piik James Johnson = Cems Consn 



World = Vol Roof = Nuf 



Chamber = Cera Chief = Cif 



Friend = Flen 



In spite of these defects Schleyer had hit on the fundamental idea 

 of a synthetic language compounded from internationally known roots. 



In forming derivatives he had a large number of affixes possessing 

 more or less definite meanings, and a series of characteristic suffixes. 

 He had thus hit on the second fundamental idea of autonomous word 

 formation from the roots. Here are some examples : — 

 Volapiih Word Derivation. 

 Suffix " am " = action 

 fom = form 

 fomam = formation 

 Suffix " it " = names of birds 

 Gal = evening 

 Galit = nightingale 



