April 15, 1922] 



NA TURE 



491 



Auxiliary International Languages.^ 



By Prof. F. G. Donnan, F.R.S. 



AT the present day the rights of all nations to 

 unity, to the preservation and independent 

 ^development of national life and customs, are fully 

 (recognised and admitted. Partly as a result of the 

 fwar, long dormant hopes and moribund languages 

 have awakened to a new period of life and activity. 

 We live amidst a remarkable efflorescence of national 

 diversity and national pride. 



At the same time, the material means of inter- 

 communication by land, sea, and air are rapidly 

 increasing in speed, efficiency, and cheapness. You 

 can lunch quietly and leisurely in Amsterdam and 

 the same afternoon have tea with a friend in I^ondon. 

 ; Science and industry are advancing with giant strides, 

 [and in rapidly increasing measure all nations are 

 ("taking part in this work. The modern world is thus 

 t'a vast arena of conflict between separating and inter- 

 mixing forces. In the loom of life a myriad coloured 

 threads are intertwined in the strange fabric of 

 modern civihsation. But where are the integrating 

 influences that will give us that unity in diversity 

 which all wise men seek ? 



It is not a monotonous unison of thought that I 

 mean, but a harmony of independent notes — an 

 integration, and not a unification, of separate ideas. 

 What is it that, while conserving the independent 

 life of nations, will produce a common liberality 

 of thought and action ? There is only one answer — 

 the intercommimication, the intemationalisation of 

 thought. Men have dreamed of a common political 

 organisation of the world, of a human family one in 

 government, speech, and reUgion. Such things may 

 perhaps come to be, but they lie in the shadowy realm 

 of a very distant future. The practical problem of 

 to-day is the problem of mutual intercomprehe'nsion, 

 of unity of understanding, amidst variety of thought, 

 speech, and action. The solution of this problem lies 

 in the existence of an auxihary language common to 

 all the nations of the world ; what we may therefore 

 call an auxiliary international language. 



As late as the eighteenth century, Latin served the 

 purpose of an auxiliary international language for the 

 learned world, whilst French has long held sway as 

 the common language of diplomacy (though recent 

 events have tended to give English an equal rank). 

 It may come to pass in the distant future that one of 

 the great modern languages will be gradually accepted 

 by all nations as a common auxiUary tongue known 

 to and used by all. Many Englishmen fondly believe 

 that this high destiny is reserved for their mother 

 language. The very unphonetic character of English 

 spelling presents a great difficulty in this connection. 

 Those who have given the greatest amount of study 

 to this subject have com.e to the conclusion that the 

 world will not accept any living national language as 

 a common medium of intercommunication. Feelings 

 of national jealousy, prestige, and advantage are too 

 strong. The international auxiliary language must 

 be neutral. It must also be simple and regular, and 

 simplicity and regularity are not qualities possessed 

 by any living national language. From various points 

 of view Latin would satisfy the condition of neutrality, 

 and there, are some who urge the claims of this lan- 

 guage. But apart from other obstacles, the intrinsic 

 difficulty of Latin is too great. 



The object of an auxiliary international language is 

 not to displace or replace existing languages, but to 

 protect and supplement them. These quaUties of 

 neutraUty, simplicity, regularity, and compatibility 



discourse delivered at the Royal Institution on Friday, 



• From 



Marrh 24. 



can be obtained only by means of an artificial auxiliary 

 language. Now this word artificial shocks and 

 frightens people. We are so accustomed to the 

 historical and analytical treatment of languages that 

 we have never dreamt of the possibilities of synthesis. 

 The chemists and physicists have analysed nearly all 

 the things they have found in this world. But if 

 they had rested content only with analysis, the 

 practical world would have much less to thank them 

 for. We may not like synthetic butter and synthetic 

 milk, but we have no objection to synthetic soap or 

 synthetic glass. Why not then a synthetic language ? 

 So far as the languages of North and South America 

 and of Western Europe are concerned, the problem is 

 mainly one of the synthesis of existing elements, since 

 amongst these languages there exists already a very 

 large international vocabulary. As Dr. Cottrell has 

 aptly expressed it, our problem is nothing less and 

 nothing more than the science of synthetic linguistics. 

 Looking at the matter from this point of view, we see 

 that the word " artificial " is a misnomer. It is true 

 that the first attempts to solve the problem of an 

 auxiUary international language might be fitly termed 

 artificial. They take us back to the seventeenth 

 century. Impressed by the logical manner in which 

 mathematical symbolism represents complex trains of 

 thought in a form at once intelligible to mathe- 

 maticians of all countries, some of the greatest philo- 

 sophers and mathematicians of that century conceived 

 the idea of an international language which would be 

 a logical algebra of general thought. Descartes in 

 1629 discussed this idea in a letter to his friend 

 Mersenne. Leibniz devoted many years to the 

 problem, though he considered that for immediate 

 practical purposes a simplified and regularised 

 grammar applied to the word elements of Latin would 

 provide the best solution. 



Language systems of this sort are called " philoso- 

 phical " or 4 priori. In their construction we might 

 endeavour to make a list of all the primary ideas, and 

 assign arbitrary written symbols, which may be 

 also pronounceable sounds, to these. With the various 

 permutations and combinations of these symbols 

 we might then form all derived ideas. It is clear 

 that from a very few symbols we can easily, by means 

 of their permutations and combinations, form thou- 

 sands of derivatives. When the number of primary 

 ideas or elements is relatively small, such systems 

 are of great use and are largely used. The various 

 special codes used in international commerce are 

 examples of this method. Another example of such 

 an international code language may be seen in the 

 nomenclature and symbolism of chemistry. 



Thus " H2SO4 " and " para-nitro-aniUn " are intelli- 

 gible to chemists of every nationality. But for general 

 purposes such systems would become exceedingly 

 complex. Moreover it would be very difficult to 

 draw up a simple and fixed table of primary and 

 fundamental ideas, for although the fundamental 

 data of sense may remain invariable, the. ntellectual 

 activity of the human mind is constantly penetrating 

 the screen of sense-perception. Thus new concepts 

 and ideas in accord with our progressive discovery 

 of the real structure 'and activity of the world are 

 constantly being formed. 



The inventors of a priori philosophical languages 

 have, however, usually proceeded in a somewhat 

 different fashion, their object being to construct 

 a vocabulary that would be based on a rational 

 system of classification corresponding to our know- 

 ledge of things. Thus in the seventeenth century a 



NO. 2737, VOL. 109] 



