A. MACFARLANE—EXACT ANALYSIS AS THE BASIS OF LANGUAGE. 9 
mame , father of son. 
niafe , father of daughter. 
fame , mother of son. 
JaJe, mother of daughter. 
menie , son of son. 
7nefe , son of daughter. 
feme , daughter of son. 
fefc , daughter of daughter. 
Thirty-two species may be formed by introducing the distinction of 
sex after the last vowel, but four of these species reduce necessarily to 
the relationships of self; for example, ?7ia.mem. 
The double relationship involved in full brother may be denoted by 
memfa , that of full sister by jcmfa , and that of full brother or sister 
by e7nfa. If, on the other hand, we wish to express that the brother- 
ship is only half, we may replace d by t; thus 7/ieta , half brother, feta, 
half sister, and eta , half brother or sister. 
These principles suffice to supply a word for every possible relation¬ 
ship of consanquinity or affinity. The nomenclature is based on a 
notation which serves as the basis for a calculus,* and it seems to me 
that this is a developed specimen of the kind of language which Leib¬ 
nitz had in his thoughts. 
If we test Volapuk by the vocabulary which it provides for these 
relationships, we find that the words supplied are not founded on a 
scientific analysis, and, indeed, are far inferior to the terms supplied 
by the English language. The stem words are cil child, son son, fat 
father, 77iot mother, 7na7i husband, blod brother, nok uncle, nef nephew, 
kosel male cousin. All these stems, excepting the first, involve the 
masculine gender, and the corresponding feminines are formed by pre- 
fixingyV. Thus daughter is expressed by ji-son , wife by ji-/nan , sis¬ 
ter by ji-blod, aunt by ji-7iok , while the systematic word for mother 
is ji-fat. Thus there are no words to express the general relation¬ 
ships which are independent of sex. There is no stem to express the 
elementary relationship of parent. The principle which expresses a 
daughter as a she-son, and a sister as a she-brother appears to contain 
all the features of a bull. The English language in providing bear , 
he-bear , and she-bear is more logical. 
In Volapuk blod means full brother; half brother is expressed by 
lafa-blod. The confusion of the inventor on the subject of relation¬ 
ships is so great that he sees no difference between step-brother and 
half-brother, for he expresses either by lafa-blod. Accordingly we 
have such absurdities as la fa-fat and lafa-not (that is, half-father and 
half-mother) to express stepfather and stepmother. The prefix lu 
means false ; lu and la fa are both given as the equivalent of the Eng¬ 
lish step. 
There is no general term for grandparent, or even grandfather. A 
word for paternal grandfather is obtained by adding the affix el (which 
* Problem in Relationship, Proc, Roy. Soc. Edinb., 1888, and Reprint of 
Educ. Times, Vol. 49, p. 114. 
