April 15, 1922] 



NATURE 



493 



was too complicated and intricate for the majority 

 of people. Moreover, those who took an interest in 

 the problem of an auxiliary international language 

 were soon provided with the much simpler and more 

 practical Esperanto. 



The author of this language, Louis Lazarus 

 Zamcnhof, was bom in 1859 at Bielostok, in what 

 was then Russian Poland. Perceiving the racial and 

 hnguistic hostilities of his native country, as a young 

 school student in Warsaw he already dreamed of a 

 universal neutral language and of a universal brother- 

 hood founded thereon. He graduated as a physician 

 at Warsaw, but during the six years of his university 

 course he worked constantly at his secret project. 

 At first he thought of reviving Latin, or of construct- 

 ing an a priori or philosophical language. It was 

 the study of Enghsh, however, that first showed 

 him what could be done by means of a simple grammar, 

 and how stems of different origins could be utilised 

 in the construction of a harmonious and self-contained 

 language. In 1885 his work was complete, but it 

 was only in 1887 that he found a publisher. In 

 that year there appeared in Warsaw a Russian 

 pamphlet describing " La Lingvo Intemacia de la 

 Doktoro Esperanto," The international language of 

 Dr. " Hopeful." In 1900 there appeared the " Uni- 

 versiila Vortaro de la Lingvo Internacia Esperanto," 

 by L. Zamenhof. In this dictionary the equivalents 

 were given in five languages. The pseudonym 

 " Esperanto," adopted originally by Dr. Zamenhof, 

 has been transferred to the name of the language. 

 The progress of Esperanto was at first slow. But in 

 1898, when the French took the lead, expansion 

 became rapid. The Marquis Louis de Beaufron^t 

 became the leader of this movement. In 191 4, when 

 the war broke out, there were over a hundred 

 Esperanto periodicals, some appearing in Esperanto 

 only, others in Esperanto and a national tongue. 

 In 1905 an international Convention or Congress 

 was held at Boulogne. Since then twelve other 

 international Congresses have been held, the thirteenth 

 at Prague in 1921. As an international auxiliary 

 language, Esperanto has had an unparalleled success. 

 It has done more to spread the idea of the need for 

 and the possibility of an auxiliary international 

 language than any other project. 



The fundamental ideas of Zamenhof were very 

 largely those of Schleyer: a phonetic system, a 

 regular method of pronunciation, a vocabulary of 

 root-words drawn from the international treasury, 

 an autonomous system of word -formation, and a 

 perfectly regular grammar. In other words, an a 

 posteriori s^-nthetic language. But in practice the 

 contrast was enormous. Zamenhof did not trans- 

 form and distort his international roots as Schleyer did. 

 He carried out the choice of international stems on a 

 much broader basis. His grammar was enormously 

 more simple and practical. The inflexional richness 

 of the work of the learned and scholarly Schleyer 

 disappeared, and together with it most of his d, 

 ■priori and arbitrary elements. Zamenhof's auto- 

 nomous system of word-derivation by means of 

 affixes of fixed and definite meanings, and by means 

 of root-combinations, was immensely superior. The 

 arbitrary characteristic endings corresponding to a 

 classification of ideas, a relic in Volapiik of the earlier 

 a priori philosophical systems, disappeared in Zamen- 

 hof's language. The idea of using only monosyllabic 

 roots was given up, and so the international appear- 

 ance of these could be much better preserved. 



In spite of many obvious and indeed glaring 

 defects, Esperanto is undoubtedly, so far as numbers 

 are concerned, the greatest and most successful 

 hnguistic experiment that the world has yet seen. 

 Let us not criticise too severely the work of a man 



NO. 2737, VOL. 109] 



who was neither a great scholar nor a great professional 

 philologist, but let us rather admire the splendid 

 effort which he made. His work has been of the 

 greatest service in demonstrating to an indifferent 

 world the practical possibihty of an auxiliary inter- 

 national language. 



So great was the interest taken in this branch of 

 science at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, that under 

 the leadership of M. Leau, a French professor of 

 mathematics, a number of men of science and 

 delegates from learned societies were gathered 

 together, and on January 17, 1901, the " Delegation 

 for the Adoption of an Auxiliary Language " was 

 founded. After a great deal of preliminary work on 

 the subject, the matter was submitted, through the 

 kind offices of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of 

 Vienna, to the International Association of Academies, 

 which on May 29, 1907, declared itself incompetent 

 to deal with the question. The Delegation then 

 proceeded itself to elect a special Committee to study 

 the problem. This Committee embraced a number 

 of distinguished authorities on science and linguistics, 

 and included the two secretaries. Profs. Couturat 

 and Leau. After eighteen sittings held at the 

 College de France, the following decision was arrived 

 at: 



" None of the proposed languages can be adopted 

 in toto and without modification. The Committee 

 have decided to adopt in principle Esperanto, on 

 account of its relative perfection and of the many 

 and varied appUcations which have been made of it ; 

 provided that certain modifications be executed by 

 the Permanent Commission, on the lines indicated 

 by the' conclusion of the Report of the Secretaries 

 and by the project of Ido, if possible in agreement 

 with the Esperantist Linguistic Committee." 



It appeared later that the " project of Ido " was 

 an anonymous pamphlet proposing a number of 

 reforms in Esperanto, the real author of which was the 

 Marquis de Beaufront, until that time the most 

 eminent supporter of Esperanto in the world. Messrs. 

 Couturat and Leau had made a most exhaustive and 

 scholarly study of all known auxiliary languages, 

 their labours being embodied in a very masterly 

 book entitled " Histoire de la Langue Universelle," 

 and also in another one entitled " Les Nouvelles 

 Langues Internationales." Their Repqrt to the 

 Committee indicated very clearly the lines along 

 wliich Esperanto could be improved. 



As the Esperanto Linguistic Committee declined 

 to collaborate, the Committee of the Delegation 

 appointed a Permanent Commission to carry out 

 the reforms which they had in view, and as they 

 were unable to use the name Esperanto, the reformed 

 Esperanto was called " Ido." 



In its basic ideas Ido is a language of the same 

 type as Esperanto. It is a great pity that all parties 

 could not have combined at an early stage in the 

 development of Ido. If I may be allowed a personal 

 opinion, I will say that most, if not all of the Ido 

 improvements appeal to me very strongly. If we 

 are to choose a language of the Esperanto type, 

 and if the choice lies only between Esperanto and 

 Ido, I would choose Ido. I do not say this for any 

 propagandist purposes, and I say it with a full 

 appreciation of the splendid early work of Dr. 

 Zamenhof. But at the same time I have an equally 

 great admiration for the splendid later work of 

 Prof. Couturat and his collaborators. 



Ido, like Esperanto, has had a very great success, 

 and has been very thoroughly developed. Many 

 general and technical dictionaries have been worked 

 out. Before the war there appeared ten or twelve 

 periodicals deaUng with, or written in, this language. 

 The International Ido Academy has done very fine 



