1922] on Auxiliary International Languages 547 



sound to Italian. For the stem of the verb he deducts -re from the 

 infinitive, obtaining thus the imperative form. 



It will be seen, therefore, that his nouns and adjectives contain 

 relics of the vanished Latin declensions. But for those who are 

 ignorant of Latin, and who do not possess in their own language a 

 vocabulary of Latin origin, Peano gives rules whereby such unfortu- 

 nates may utilise a Latin dictionary in their own language for the 

 purpose of finding out his stems, i.e. the ablative form. For many 

 scientific purposes Peano's fiexionless Latin is ready for use. He 

 has himself employed it for many years in his own journal, " The 

 Mathematical Review." Here is an example taken at random from 

 that journal : — 



(G. Peano. Revista de Mathematical 



De Infinito in Mathe?natica. 



Per Philip E. B. Jourdain. 



" Dum mathematico conceptiones et operationes es applicabile ad 

 omni finito classe, et ad aliquo infinito classes, que pote es vocato 

 ' transfinito,' tamen existe innumero classes ad que ce conceptus non est 

 applicabile. Prinio exemplo que occurre es minimo clase tale que omni 

 finito aut transfinito classe pote es ordinato in simile modo ut segmento 

 de illo." 



Here is another sample of the language : — 

 Historia de Interlingua. 



"Plure Philosopho stude lingue rationale. Descartes (1596-1650) 

 describe uno systema. Leibniz (1646-1716) in numeroso scripto, expose 

 ideas profundo et de vivo interesse super isto problema. In illo tempore 

 Latino es de usu internationale. Philosophos non tracta de lingua 

 regulare respondente ad philosophia. Es scientia simile ad Logica- 

 mathematica, que hodie habe numeroso culture." 



This sort of thing may shock the refined Classicist, but many 

 scientific people prefer it to Russian, Basque, Magyar, Finnish, 

 Turkish and Chinese. Peano's "Latino" may not be ready yet for 

 the exigencies of daily life. We cannot perhaps as yet deal with 

 the muffin-man by means of this subtle instrument of thought. 

 Moreover, Peano's symbolic lugic may have eliminated grammar more 

 drastically than is possible in an imperfect and non-mathematical 

 world. But it is certain that no student and investigator of syn- 

 thetic linguistics can afford to neglect his work. His method is such 

 that every Anglo-Latin stem is accepted in his vocabulary. I must 

 confess that the very homogeneous result thus obtained is at first 

 sight much more attractive than the pot-pourri of Esperanto and 

 Ido. But one must not forget that this sort of " naturalness " is 

 gained at the expense of regularity and autonomy. Latino is 

 certainly easier and more pleasant to read, but it might be more 

 difficult to write and speak. Time and experiment alone can settle 



