492 



NA TURE 



[April 15, 1922 



Scotchman, George Dalgarno, and also the celebrated 

 Bishop Wilkins — one of the founders of the Royal 

 Society — produced two such philosophical systems. 

 That of Bishop Wilkins was entitled " The Essay 

 towards a Real Character and a Philosophical 

 Language " (London, 1668). In the eighteenth 

 century the disciples of Condillac, the Ideologists, 

 took up the problem of an artificial language con- 

 sidered as a classification and notation of ideas ; 

 whilst in the middle of the nineteenth century the 

 learned Spanish professor, Bonifacio Sotos Ochando, 

 published a very perfect system of this type, in 

 which both the grammar and the vocabulary were 

 very fully worked out. 



In his " Lectures on the Science of Language " 

 delivered before the Royal Institution fifty-nine 

 years ago. Max Mtiller discussed the possibility of 

 an artificial language, and gave an account of the 

 system of Bishop Wilkins. Speaking in this con- 

 nection he said : " It is the fashion to laugh at the 

 idea of an artificial, still more of a universal language. 

 But if this problem were really so absurd, a man 

 Hke Leibniz would hardly have taken so deep an 

 interest in its solution. That such a language should 

 ever come into practical use, or that the whole earth 

 should in that manner ever be of one language and 

 one speech again, is hard to conceive. But that the 

 problem itself admits of a solution, and of a very 

 perfect solution, cannot be doubted." 



In order to understand the method employed by 

 Bishop Wilkins, I give here the basis of his system 

 of classification : — 



System of Bishop Wilkins. 



A . Transcendental ) Divided into 6 



Five Categories 

 of Logic 



Notions 

 [B. Substances 



C. Quantities 

 \d. Qualities. 



E. Actions 

 I jF. Relations 



/ Genera. 



I Divided into 34 

 Genera. 



These 40 fundamental genera were subdivided into 

 numerous species, and to all these genera and species 

 letters of the alphabet yi^ere assigned in a regular 

 ordinal manner. Thus the genus " element," one of 

 the types of " substance," was denoted by De. Now 

 Bishop Wilkins followed the peripatetic philosophy 

 and divided the genus element into the species 

 earth, air, fire, and water. 



Substance 



Element = De 



1 \ r 



Fire = Deb 



I \ r 



Flame = Deba 



De = Element ; Due = elementary. 

 Do = Stone ; Duo = stony. 



Fire thus became Deb, and flame, a variety of fire, 

 became Deba. Grammatical function was indicated 

 by appropriate letters, e.g. De = element, Due = 

 elementary. Do = stone, Duo = stony. 



We can perceive here two of the fundamental 

 objections to all such philosophical systems. In 

 the first pla.ce all such classifications are fleeting and 

 transient. At best they can but reflect the know- 

 ledge and science of their day. But as this is con- 

 stantly changing there is no finality. We no longer 

 accept the earth, air, fire, and water of the Aris- 

 totelian-scholastic philosophy as a satisfying classi- 

 fication of elementary substances. Even the chemical 

 elements of twenty-five years ago are dissolving before 



NO. 2737, VOL. 109] 



our eyes into the electrons, protons, and neutrons 

 of a newer philosophy. But even were there a 

 finality of knowledge, such classificatory symbolisms 

 would be very difficult to memorise. We should have 

 to remember not only the symbols and their mean- 

 ings, but also the whole ordinal system of assignment. 

 In practice we should have to learn the system 

 empirically as we do natural living languages. Thus 

 all the hoped-for advantages would disappear. To 

 a child Deba might soon come to mean flame, but 

 if we came across this mysterious word in later life 

 we should have painfully to de-code it. 



The modern era, the era of synthetic or d. posteriori, 

 as contrasted with purely a priori languages, began 

 with Volapiik. 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 com- 

 pounds. 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 Volapiik Lexicon was based mainly 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 appearance 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 offered such difficulty 

 of pronunciation to children. Englishmen and Chinese 

 — a majority of mankind — that it had to be very 

 largely eliminated. For r he substituted very often 

 the letter /. Finally he made his roots as mono- 

 syllabic as possible. 



The net result of these transformations was that 

 many roots chosen from English, or other languages, 

 on account of their internationality, became un- 

 recognisable. 



Volapiik belongs to the class of "mixed " languages 

 in which borrowed and arbitrary elements are more 

 or less logically combined. Nevertheless, in spite 

 of its many difficulties and its a priori elements, it 

 represented an enormous advance on the purely arti- 

 ficial or a priori systems of Wilkins, Sotos Ochando, 

 and many others. It presents us with the first great 

 attempt to build up from a small stock of existing 

 root-words a synthetic auxiliary international lan- 

 guage based on an autonomous system of word- 

 formation and on a perfectly regular inflexional 

 grammar. In its day, it had a great success. At 

 first it spread slowly, but about 1885 it was actively 

 taken up in France, its chief partisan and exponent 

 being Dr. Auguste Kerckhoffs, professor of modern 

 languages at the School of Higher Commercial Studies 

 in Paris. From France it spread to all parts of the 

 world. Three international Congresses were held, 

 the third taking place at Paris in 1889. At that 

 time there were 283 Volapiik Clubs spread all over 

 the world, 316 text-books had appeared, and there 

 were some 30 periodicals appearing in Volapiik or 

 dealing with it. 



The disappearance of Volapiik was due largely to 

 the internal dissensions of its partisans, some of 

 whom, led by Dr. Kerckhoffs, wished to make it 

 simpler and more adapted to the needs of commercial 

 Hfe. 



These attempts at reform were, however, resisted 

 by the learned originator. No doubt his system 



