354 



NATURE 



\_Avgust 9, 1888 



nation without special oral teaching. This we regard as a fatal 

 •defect. 



Moreover, many words are manufactured from entirely new 

 radicals, capriciously, or even fantastically formed, and this we 

 condemn. 



f^'The article is omitted, which is well ; but the nouns are in- 

 flected through a genitive, dative, and accusative case, and a 

 plural number. The signs of these cases are respectively a, e, i, 

 and of the plural s. 



Diminutives, comparatives, and superlatives are formed by 

 prefixes and suffixes, and on the same plan adverbs are formed 

 from adjectives, and adjectives from nouns. Thus, silef, silver ; 

 silefik, silvery ; sikfikiim, more silvery ; silefikiin, most silvery ; 

 silefiko, silverly. It will be observed that, while this process is 

 not dissimilar to that once frequent in the Aryan stock, it is not 

 analogous to that which the evolution of that stock indicates as 

 its perfected form. 



In the conjugation the subject follows the verb, bin — ob, I 

 am ; where bin = am, ob = I. This we object to as contrary to 

 the logical arrangement of the proposition. We are surprised 

 to see the German third person plural (Sie) retained by the 

 author as a " courteous " form. It should be the first duty of a 

 universal language to reject such national solecisms. 



The tense is indicated by prefixes a, e, i for the imperfect, 

 perfect, and pluperfect active, o and u for the two futures. 



The passive voice has the prefix p, the subjunctive by the 

 suffix la, the optative and imperative by the suffix b's, the infini- 

 tive by the suffix on. Abstracts are formed by adding iil, as 

 mon, money ; mortal, love of money, avarice. These suffixes 

 are to be placed in fixed relations to the root, and hence often 

 become infixes. 



The excessive multiplication of forms lends to Volapiik an 

 appearance totally un-Aryan. The verbal theme is modified by 

 sixteen suffixes and fourteen prefixes. There are a " durative " 

 tense, and a "jus.dve" mood, conjunctive, optative, gerund, and 

 supine forms, all indicated by added syllables, reminding one 

 ■of the overloaded themes of Turanian tongues. This mechanism 

 is not only superfluous, but if any lesson may be learned from the 

 history of articulate speech, it is precisely the opposite to what 

 the universal language should and must be. 



The meaning is largely derived from placement, as will be 

 ■seen in the following example, in which gudikos is the neuter 

 adverbial noun "goodness," das Gute ; plidos, from English 

 "please," the third singular indicative. 



Gndikbs plidos Code. 



Goodness pleases God. 



Plidos Gode qudik. 



It pleases God the good (the good God). 



Plidbs gudik Gode. 



It pleases well God. 



And so on. It is acknowledged by the author that obscurities 

 may easily arise from these transpositions, and there is much 

 dependence on accents and tones. 



From this brief comparative examination of the evolutionary 

 'tendencies of the Aryan tongues and the scheme of a universal 

 language as offered in the works of Mr. Schleyer, it is plainly 

 evident that the two are in absolute opposition. 



Volapiik is synthetic and complex ; all modern dialects be- 

 -come more and more analytic and grammatically simple ; the 

 formal elements of Volapiik are those long since discarded as 

 •outgrown by Aryan speech ; its phonetics are strange in parts 

 to every Aryan ; portions of its vocabulary are made up 

 for the occasion ; and its expressions involve unavoidable 

 obscurities. With an ardent wish for the formation and adop- 

 tion of such a universal tongue, and convinced as we are that 

 now is the time ripe for its reception, we cannot recommend 

 Volapiik as that which is suited to the needs of modern thought. 

 •On the contrary, it seems to us a distinct retrogression in 

 linguistic progress. Nor in this day of combined activities does 

 it appear to us likely that any one individual can so appreciate 

 the needs of civilized nations as to frame a tongue to suit them 

 all. Such a task should be confided to an International 

 Committee from the six or seven leading Aryan nationalities. 



In conclusion, your Committee would respectfully suggest that 

 it would eminently befit the high position and long-established 

 reputation for learning of the American Philosophical Society, 

 to take action in this matter, without delay, and to send an 

 official proposition to the learned Societies of the world to unite 

 in an International Committee to devise a universal language for 

 business, epistolary, conversational, and scientific purposes. As 

 thetime once was when the ancestors of all Aryans spoke the 



same tongue, so we believe that the period is now near when 

 once again a unity of speech can be established, and this speech 

 become that of man everywhere in the civilized world for the 

 purposes herein set forth. 



Your Committee therefore offers the following resolution — 

 Resolved, — That the President of the American Philosophical 

 Society be requested to inclose a copy of this Report to all 

 learned bodies with which the Society is in official relations, and 

 to such other Societies and individuals as he may deem proper, 

 with a letter asking their co-operation in perfecting an inter- 

 national scientific terminology, and also a language for learned, 

 commercial, and ordinary intercourse, based on the Aryan 

 vocabulary and grammar in their simplest forms ; and to that 

 end proposing an International Congress, the first meeting of 

 which shall be held in London or Paris. 



D. G. Brinton, Chairman, ) 



Henry Phillips, Jun., :• Committee. 



Munroe B. Snyder, ) 



The following Supplementary Report was also read on the 

 same occasion : — 



The former Report having been recommitted, your Commit- 

 tee avails itself of the opportunity to explain more clearly the 

 aim of the previous paper, to meet some of the objections 

 offered against particular statements, and, at the request of seve- 

 ral members, to enlarge the scope of the Report, so as to 

 embrace a brief consideration of the two other universal lan- 

 guages recently urged upon the public, the " Pasilengua " of 

 Steiner, and the "international language " of Samenhof. 



The aim of the Committee was strongly to urge the desira- 

 bility of taking immediate steps to establish a universal language, 

 both for learned and general purposes. These steps, it assever- 

 ated, should be taken by the learned world as a body ; the form 

 of language adopted should be indorsed by the scientific Socie- 

 ties of all nations ; by their recommendation it should be intro- 

 duced into schools and Universities, and competent private 

 teachers would soon make it familiar to all wh > would have 

 occasion to use it. The Report distinctly states that it is in 

 nowise expected that this international language will supplant 

 any existing native tongue. It is to be learned in addition to 

 the native tongue, and not in place of it. 



The aim of the grammatical portion of the Report was simply 

 to maintain three theses : first, that the pronunciation of the 

 proposed tongue should be so simple that it could be learned by 

 anyone speaking an Aryan language, without the necessity of 

 oral instruction ; secondly, that its grammar should be simplified 

 to the utmost ; and thirdly, that its lexicon should be based on 

 the large common property of words in the Aryan tongues. 



Your Committee repeats and insists that these are the indis- 

 pensable requisites to any such proposed international tongue. 

 It does not insist that the individual suggestions and recom- 

 mendations contained in the Report should be urged at all 

 hazards. They were advanced rather as hints and illustrations, 

 than as necessary conditions. Nevertheless, they were not 

 offered hastily, and your Committee desires to refer to some of 

 the main arguments advanced against them. This it is prepared 

 for the better, through the complaisance of Profs. Seidenstickej 

 and Easton, who have forwarded to the Committee, at its 

 request, abstracts of their remarks. 



Both these very competent critics attack the principle of 

 deducing the grammar of the proposed language from the latest 

 evolution of Aryan speech, to wit, the jargons. Prof. Seiden- 

 sticker accuses such a grammar of " poverty," and adds: "A 

 higher organism is of necessity more complex than a lower one. 

 Prof. Easton denies that the later is the better form ; or, to 

 use his own words, "that the change from an inflected to an 

 analytic tongue marks an advance in psychologic apprehension. 



These criticisms attack a fundamental thesis of your Com- 

 mittee, and as they doubtless express the views of very many, 

 they must be met. 



In our opinion, they rest upon a radical misconception of the 

 whole process of linguistic evolution. The crucial test of tl 

 development of language is tbat the sentence shall express the 

 thought intended to be conveyed, and nothing more. When 

 this can be attained simply by the order of words in the sentence, 

 without changes in those words, such changes are not merely 

 useless, they are burdensome, and impede the mind. All para- 

 digmatic inflections, whether, of nouns, adjectives, or verbs, are 

 relics of lower linguistic organization, of a barbaric condition of 

 speech, and are thrown aside as useless lumber by the active 



