December 29, 1905.1 



SCIENCE. 



869 



the different societies, etc., which have joined 

 the movement. 



Of the three conditions, the first two are 

 self -explaining ; only the ■ third needs some 

 discussion. The reason that any national 

 _ language is considered as to be excluded is 

 twofold. First, because the nationality whose 

 language is chosen would obtain thereby an 

 undue and unjust advantage over all other 

 nations; it can not, therefore, be hoped that 

 any such language will ever become truly in- 

 ternational. The other reason is, that every 

 natural or national language is sadly imper- 

 fect as compared with the possible ideal of a 

 normal or regular language. The purpose of 

 every language is to give a twofold coordina- 

 tion : one between ideas and sounds, and an- 

 other between sounds and letters; by this 

 means we can tell and write our ideas and can 

 hear and read the ideas of our fellow men. 

 To make such a coordination effective and 

 consistent, it should be univocal; this means, 

 that every idea should be coordinated only to 

 one word, and vice versa, and that every sound 

 should be coordinated only to one letter and 

 vice versa again. Besides this, the coordina- 

 tion should be as simple as possible. 



Of the natural languages none fulfils any 

 of these conditions. Even if we abstract 

 from the coordination between ideas and 

 sounds (or written words) and consider only 

 the coordination between letters and sounds, 

 we never find it univocal. Italian and Ger- 

 man are rather near to the ideal, because here 

 the scripture is phonetic, but not yet fully so, 

 while English is known as the worst possible 

 language from this point of view. On the 

 other side, Italian and German are very im- 

 perfect as to simplicity; they keep still the 

 entirely useless differences of gender and 

 express the same idea several times in the 

 same sentence, for example, in coordinating 

 to the plural in the subject superfluous plural 

 forms in the adjective, the verb, the article 

 and so on. English has made itself free from 

 most of these superfluities, using only one 

 article and almost no coordinations between 

 the different members of a sentence. But 

 there are still superfluous forms enough; the 



most frequent English phrase : ' how do you 

 do ? ' giving a striking example. 



If there is no natural language, which ful- 

 fils the claim of simplicity and regularity, the 

 question arises, if an artificial language may 

 be constructed according to these conditions. 

 Generally this question will be answered in 

 the negative, but only on so-called theoretical 

 reasons. .To do away at once with probabili- 

 ties, we will consider only facts. There exists 

 an artificial language, called ' Esperanto ' 

 which is spoken and written by almost half a 

 million people, which has about fifty period- 

 icals and a stately collection of other books. 

 A few months ago the Esperantists held their 

 first international meeting at Boulogne, 

 Erance, where 1,200 persons of twenty differ- 

 ent nationalities were assembled, to try if it 

 was possible to understand one another only 

 on the basis of a language learned from books 

 without oral teaching. This first experiment 

 was in every way a grand success. There was 

 not the slightest difficulty in understanding 

 one another; even the English Esperantists 

 pronounced the vowels quite clearly, in spite 

 of their use or misuse in their own language. 

 A play was performed, in which each player 

 was from a different nationality and had 

 learned his part at home, so that they met for 

 the first time on the stage; the play went on 

 without any difficulty for the players or the 

 audience. Indeed, every possible application 

 of a language was tried on this occasion, and 

 all succeeded perfectly. 



Space will not permit me to give a closer 

 description of this language; every one, who 

 desires to learn somewhat more about it, is 

 kindly invited to apply to The Esperanto Club 

 of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 

 By the same way information may be ob- 

 tained as to the Delegation for the Adoption 

 of an Auxiliary International Language, and 

 its work. 



Only one question can be answered at this 

 place: will Esperanto be adopted by the dele- 

 gation? It is impossible at present to say. 

 Personally, I am inclined to believe that, in- 

 deed, Esperanto, either unchanged or after 

 some slight modification, will be the auxiliary 

 language of the future, but this is only a 



