THE " D^L^GATION." 23 



Progreso (pronounced Progresso), " oficiala organo di la 

 Delegitaro por adopto di linguo helpanta internaciona." It 

 is edited by Professor L. Couturat in Paris, and owes its 

 name, programme, and policy to the advice and initiative of 

 Ostwald. 



The superiority of Ido over Esperanto is so striking and 

 is so incontestably borne out by practical experience that 

 one can now really speak, after the Volapiik and Esperanto 

 periods, of a third world-language movement which has 

 started off with a reaction-velocity hitherto unknown in this 

 department of knowledge. It is characteristic of the new 

 language that it has been taken up by the English and 

 Americans, whilst an introduction of primitive Esperanto 

 amongst the Anglo - Saxons encountered insuperable 

 obstacles, for, as was pointed out with good reason, the 

 English language, especially in regard to its grammar, was 

 superior to Esperanto on account of a number of clumsy 

 constructions and errors which the latter contained. But, 

 apart from the regularity of pronunciation, Ido excels the 

 English language both in regard to grammar and, what is 

 of great importance, brevity, a printed Ido text being even 

 briefer than the corresponding English one. 



For the benefit of those who are unacquainted with the 

 nature of international language and who still regard an 

 artificial language as an impossible monstrosity, we may 

 remark that the new vocabulary contains in round numbers 

 5,400 stems, and that, in spite of the Romance character 

 which the international language necessarily possesses, 40 

 per cent, of these are common to the following six 

 languages : German, English, French, Italian, Russian, 

 Spanish (and to many others). Moreover, there are 

 naturally innumerable other stems which occur simul- 

 taneously in five or four of the great languages. In the 

 face of this overwhelming evidence, no one can contest the 

 possibility of an international language, for the above 



