August 9; 1888] 



NATURE 



353 



This reduces our nine parts of speech to six, which are proved 

 to be enough, by the facts quoted. 



The noun in German undergoes changes for gender, number, 

 and case. Of these the gender in all Aryan tongues, except 

 English and modern Persian, is an absurdity, without applica- 

 tion to the object, and a most serious impediment to learners. 

 Grammatical gender, therefore, should be absolutely dismissed, 

 and material gender expressed by the feminine adjective of sex, 

 as in English and most American languages (bear, she-bear, rat, 

 she-rat, &c). 



The Greek has a singular, a dual, and a plural number. The 

 dual has dropped out of modern tongues, and in many instances 

 the plural is grammatical only and not material. Indeed, as in 

 most American languages, so often in English and German, the 

 plural form is not used even when the plural number is meant. 

 Thus, we say, ten head of steers, six dozen herring, sechszehn 

 Stiick Cigarren, sechs Uhr Abends, &c. It is probable, there- 

 fore, that both- gender and number could be usually dispensed 

 with in nouns. 



With regard to the case of nouns, it will be observed that the 

 tendency of all the Teutonic and Romance languages has been 

 to get rid of them : French and Spanish have succeeded com- 

 pletely ; the English retains the genitive, the German the 

 nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative, in some instances. 

 The cases have been supplied by the use of pronouns and pre- 

 positions, and we shall be wise to respect this tendency as 

 indicative of linguistic progress. It is historically clear that to 

 attempt to restore the case-endings of nouns would be to steer 

 directly against the current of linguistic evolution. There has 

 even been an effort both in English and German to dispense 

 with the genitive by substituting a possessive pronoun for the 

 case-ending, as "John his book," " Ludwig sein Pferd"; 

 while the Berlin dialect of the lower classes has often but one 

 termination for both genitive and dative, where pure German 

 has two. 



The use of the possessive pronoun to indicate the genitive is 

 simple and logical ; it prevails in most American languages and 

 most jargons ; and is quite adapted to the end. In fact, some 

 dialects, such as the French Creole of Trinidad, Martinique, and 

 St. Thomas, contain no pronominal adjectives, and make out very 

 well by placing the personal pronoun, like any other attributive 

 case, after the noun, as liv li, "his book," literally, "book 

 he." It might be queried whether the universal language would 

 not gain in ease and simplicity by adopting this method of 

 placement. 



The dative, or regime indirecle, could be supplied in a similar 

 manner by a pronoun in an oblique form. There is no necessity 

 for more than two oblique cases of the pronoun, and they can 

 be added to all nouns as a substitute for prepositions, when 

 needed for clearness. 



The pronouns of the modern tongues, and especially of their 

 colloquial dialects, demonstrate that the relative, interrogative, 

 and demonstrative forms can be blended without loss of 

 lucidity. The German der, the English that, are both relative 

 and demonstrative ; the French qui and ca are both relative 

 and interrogative in Creole. 



The reflexive pronoun is used very unnecessarily in most 

 modern Aryan tongues. There is no logical propriety in the 

 French Je me casse le bras. The use of such a form should be 

 greatly restricted. 



The verb has tense and mood, number and person. It is con- 

 jugated in all Aryan languages, sometimes regularly, sometimes 

 irregularly, and it has many forms. In studying its history, 

 however, no one can overlook its steady tendency towards sim- 

 plification of the form of the theme and the adoption of the 

 periphrastic method of conjugation, or that by auxiliaries. By 

 this process the verb loses all inflections and is reduced to a 

 single form ; person and number are expressed in the subject, 

 tense, and mode by auxiliaries. This should be the process 

 adopted by the universal language, with perhaps the exception 

 that the simple past and future might be expressed by termina- 

 tions, every verb being absolutely regular. The future termina- 

 tion is now lost in English and German, and even the past 

 termination is often dispensed with in both tongues, as " I give, " 

 ''I did give," " ich that geben " ; but as both are vigorous in 

 the cultivated Romance tongues, these formal elements mi<dit be 

 conceded. 



A very delicate question relates to the substantive verb "to 

 be." Shall we omit it or express it? The Latin rarely intro- 

 duces it, and there are numerous tongues in which it has no 



equivalent. On the other hand, modern Aryan speech has de- 

 veloped it markedly ; the Spanish has its ser and estar, the 

 German its sein and werden, expressive of shades of meaning 

 included in our verb " to be." This prominence of the expres- 

 sions for existence seems to be connected with marked psycho- 

 logical advances, and a ripening self-consciousness, as has been 

 lately set forth by a profound French critic of language, M. 

 Raoul de la Grasserie. We should be inclined, therefore, to 

 respect this expression, and allow it in a universal language the 

 prominence it enjoys in most Aryan tongues of modern type. 



The prepositions offer great difficulties in modern languages. 

 The most of them can be omitted by making all verbs which 

 have an active meaning govern their object <lirectly, and have 

 the direct object follow the verb and the indirect object placed 

 later in the sentence. The phrase, " Give to the child a spoon," 

 would be just as intelligible in the form " Give spoon child," if 

 we remember that the direct precedes the indirect object. 



The simplification of grammatical forms here proposed involves 

 an equal simplification in syntax, and this is an enormous gain. 

 But it involves also the loss of freedom of position, so con- 

 spicuous a feature in Latin, and by some so highly esteemed. 

 But philosophically considered, this freedom of position is 

 solely a rhetorical and artistic gain, not a logical superiority. 

 Grammarians even of the classical tongues are perfectly aware 

 that there is a fixed logical arrangement of words in a sentence, 

 and this, and this alone, is the only arrangement which a uni- 

 versal language should adopt. This arrangement may be briefly 

 given as follows : subject before predicate, noun before its 

 adjective, verb or adjective before qualifying adverbs, immediate 

 object before remote object. This is the logical course of 

 thought, and should be the universal form of expression. It 

 was a dubious advantage to the Greeks and Latins that their 

 numerous inflections permitted them to disregard it. 



Those languages which rely largely on position obtain rhetorical 

 grace by a recognized value assigned to alterations of position ; 

 and this would apply equally to the scheme proposed. 



Other questions will arise in the projecting of a universal 

 language. Shall we adopt postpositions as well as preposi- 

 tions? Shall we indicate inflections by internal vowel changes? 

 Shall we have free recourse to affixes, suffixes, and infixes? 

 Shall we postfix conjunctions, like the Latin? Shall we 

 manufacture entirely new roots from which to form new words 

 and derivatives? 



To all these questions your committee replies with an 

 emphatic negative. All such processes are contrary to the 

 spirit which has pervaded the evolution of the Aryan languages 

 for the last two thousand years, and their adoption would 

 violate the indicated rules for the formation of a universal 

 Aryan speech. 



III. In applying the principles which have been above set 

 forth to the creation of the Rev. Johann Martin Schleyer, we 

 find something to praise and much to condemn in his attempt. 



Mr. Schleyer first published a sketch of his proposed uni- 

 versal language in 1878, and the first edition of his grammar in 

 1880. It has been welcomed with applause in Germany, and 

 efforts have been made with some success to introduce it into 

 P" ranee, England, and America. 



His scheme is evidently the result of conscientious labour and 

 thought, and he manifests a just appreciation of the needs of the 

 time ; but unfortunately the theory of construction he has 

 adopted is in conflict with the development of both the Teutonic 

 and Romance languages, and full of difficulties to the learner. 



Beginning with its phonetics, we find that he has retained the 

 impure German modified vowels a, 0, it, the French j {dsch), 

 as well as the aspirated h or rough breathing. He has eight 

 vowels and nineteen consonants where five vowels and sixteen 

 consonants should suffice ; elsewhere he extends his alphabet to 

 thirty-seven letters. He also introduces various diacritical marks 

 indicating accent, tones, vocal inflection, and quantity, all of 

 which we consider needless and obstructive. Double consonants 

 are numerous, and the Volapuk is both written and printed 

 with underscoring and italic letters, necessary to facilitate its 

 comprehension. 1 



The lexicography is based largely on the English, about 40 

 per cent, of the words being taken from that tongue, with pho- 

 netic modifications. These modifications do not regard the 

 other Aryan languages, and various sounds of the Volapuk 

 alphabet could not be pronounced by a member of any Aryan 



1 These remarks are based upon the seventh edition of Schleyer's " Mittlere 

 Grammat.k der Universalsprache Vulapiik" Konstanz, 1887). 



