INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE 37 



have, therefore, for the moment been unable to find anything 

 better than the Esperanto usage of -as for the present, -is 

 for the past, and -os for the future. The same series of 

 vowels may also be employed for the infinitive and partici- 

 ples, so that the normal forms are -ar, -anta, and -ata (the 

 final vowel a here being the adjectival termination), whilst 

 -ir, -inta, -ita, and -or, -onta, -ota, respectively may be retained 

 for the less frequent cases where one wishes to indicate 

 expressly another tense in the infinitive or participle. A 

 few a priori inflections will not cause much harm in a 

 grammar which is so easy that it may be mastered in half 

 an hour. 



I have now arrived at the end of my investigation, in 

 which I have endeavoured to show the method whereby the 

 language of the Delegation has been constructed. The 

 result is a language that everyone can easily master, and 

 which possesses the advantage over other languages that it 

 is based on rational scientific principles and, therefore, need 

 not fear that some fine day it will be replaced by another 

 and sensibly different language. Naturally improvements 

 will be effected in details where the fundamental principles 

 have not been sufficiently worked out, but the foundation is 

 sound, and the common auxiliary language of mankind 

 cannot differ very much from our " Internaciona linguo," 

 or, to give it a shorter name, " Interlinguo," or, still shorter, 

 "Ilo " (from the initial letters). 



OTTO JESPERSEN. 



APPENDIX 



CRITICISM OF ESPERANTO 



IN connection with the foregoing some critical remarks 

 on Esperanto may be made, from which one will readily 

 perceive the reasons which made it impossible for the 

 Delegation pour V Adoption d'une Langue Internationale to 



