December 10, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



843 



seventy new roots were thus approved last 

 year. Others will be added as needed. 



In Washington city, during the past week, 

 we have had the opportunity of hearing Es- 

 peranto spoken by Professor Arnold Christen, 

 an adept in the language. I have yet to find 

 any one who has heard him speak in Es- 

 peranto who does not say with enthusiasm 

 that it is the most beautiful spoken language 

 he has ever heard. Next summer the in- 

 ternational scientific association will meet in 

 Washington, and all its deliberations will be 

 conducted in Esperanto. Any one who doubts 

 the sufficiency of the language would do well 

 to attend the meetings of this association. 

 W. J. Spillman 



THE ADVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE 



I HAVE read with interest Professor Jesper- 

 sen's article on " International Language " in 

 Science for November 13. Professor Jes- 

 persen's name and his rank as exchange pro- 

 fessor at Columbia University, together with 

 his report on the decision of the International 

 Scientific Committee, may, among many who 

 have not investigated the subject, win cred- 

 ence to the possibility of the advance of the 

 cause of international speech resulting from 

 adopting Ido in place of the more familiar 

 Esperanto. 



Inasmuch as I am one of those who helped 

 to elect the International Scientific Com- 

 mittee, which, as Professor Jespersen men- 

 tions, announced that Esperanto " might 

 serve as a basis for the international language 

 provided it were thoroughly modified and im- 

 proved on certain specifically indicated 

 points," I feel that I must decline any re- 

 sponsibility for the actions of that body. I 

 especially deprecate the committee's arro- 

 gating to itself the authority to construct and 

 advance a new language system. Aside, how- 

 ever, from the question of the origin of Ido, 

 as scientists should generally be sufficiently 

 broad-minded to accept a thoroughly good 

 thing, no matter what its origin, I wish to call 

 attention to some facts of which we should 

 take note in considering the question of an 

 international language. 



Esperanto is not a hypothetical system for 



international communication, but is a lan- 

 guage in actual use, possessing not merely 

 grammars, readers and dictionaries, but a 

 wealth of literature both general and tech- 

 nical in character. It has propaganda jour- 

 nals published in almost every civilized coun- 

 try on the globe, and also a large number of 

 magazines devoted to special subjects, such as 

 medicine, literature, photography, etc. — over 

 ninety periodicals in all. At the present time 

 the most important journal to the scientist is 

 the Internacia Scienca Revuo published at 

 Geneva, Switzerland, under the patronage of 

 Dr. Zamenhof, the French Astronomical So- 

 ciety, the French Physical Society and the In- 

 ternational Society of Electricity, and the 

 fifth volume, completed in 1908, bears the 

 names of such men as Adelskold, Appell, 

 D'Arsonval, Baudoin De Courtenay, Bec- 

 querel, Berthelot, Prince Roland Bonaparte, 

 Bouchard, Deslandres, Flournot, Forster, 

 Haller, William James, Mourlon, Henri Poin- 

 care, General Sebert and J. J. Thompson. It 

 is worthy of note also that technical Es- 

 peranto vocabularies for each science are 

 being compiled by specialists from many na- 

 tions. 



In Europe there are Esperanto hotels and 

 Esperanto consulates, and in both Europe and 

 America and even in far-away Japan there 

 are Esperantists in every city of large size 

 and in innumerable small towns. Many 

 business firms in London and Paris as well as 

 in this country are known to the writer as 

 using Esperanto for correspondence and ad- 

 vertising, and it is to be presumed that these 

 represent a very small proportion of the com- 

 mercial firms having found it advantageous 

 to use this language. It might be added that 

 linotype machines can be equipped with the 

 additional characters for writing Esperanto at 

 a cost of $1.50, and a typewriter can be 

 equipped with the extra characters for less 

 than $1.00; in fact, some of the standard 

 typewriters are made with Esperanto char- 

 acters without extra charge. Surely it 

 should be as easy also to telegraph in Es- 

 peranto with its six supersigned letters as it 

 is to telegraph in French with its acute and 



