Delphos; the Future of International Language  

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Delphos; the Future of International Language (1935) is a book by E. Sylvia Pankhurst.

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DELPHOS

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

For the Contents of this Series see the end of the Book.

DELPHOS

THE FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

BY E. SYLVIA PANKHURST

London

KEGAN PAUL. TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., Ltd.

New York: E. P. Button & Co.

Made and Printed in Great Britain by The Bowering Press, Plymouth.

THE LOGICAL NECESSITY OF INTERLANGUAGE

ILJAVING failed to achieve a general means ,-*■•*• of communication, mankind, in the realm of language, has permitted itself to rest internationally upon the level of the dumb animalsT)

The horses whinney by the road-side, the dogs exchange the courtesies of nose and tail. Human mothers of different nationalities know only the dumb language of tear-filled eyes and clasping hands, when they meet by the bedside of an ailing child ; (^nd, with a smile and shrug of inept apology, powerful industriahsts, famous statesmen, and learned savants confess their inabiUty to exchange with each other the simplest of ideasTl

^et in other provinces mankind is knitting the globe to a remarkable unity^ The inter- change of materials between distant coun- tries has led to an interdependence of peoples undreamt of in earUer times. World activities and needs are, and will be, ever more and more co-ordinated. (Sanitation, food, fuel, communications, transport, and education must be regarded from world standpoints)^

6 DELPHOS

The aeroplane, the telegraph, the telephone ; of late wireless telegraphy and photographic telegraphy ; and now television, allow us to maintain a rich and constant communication with every part of the globe. It is not too much to prophesy that sensations other than those of hearing and sight will soon be trans- mitted by similar methods : we shall not only see, but smell, the flowers in the old home- garden ; the ozone of the seaside and the latest electric and sunbath-treatment will reach us as readily as the broadcasted concert. By some allied means we may even feel the touch of distant hands.

To-day everyone shares in such develop- ments. The youth of the poorest homes are able to install the wireless. IRadio-broadcast- ing thus becomes a great force, making towards the adoption of an international auxihary language.^ The British Broadcasting Com- pany is attempting to standardize the pro- nunciation of English ; but the wireless set carries the people far beyond the confines of their native tongue. The spoken word to-day encircles the globe and can be stored up for future generations. Our children's children will hear the singing of Nellie Melba, and, if they should think worth while, the speeches of this year's statesmen. \Yet language- barriers deprive the far-sent 'word of the universal comprehension given to musicl

NECESSITY OF INTERLANGUAGE 7

(jOf the influences urging towards Inter- language, stronger than all is the desire for world-friendship long latent amongst the kindher and wiser people of all nations, and now quickened to an ardent flame by the agonies of the World-war r\ With all its faults, the so-caUed League of Nations is the response of governments to this deep and ever-growing sentiment.

Apart from its intrinsic difficulties of pohtical and economic rivahy, the mechanical business of the League is rendered tedious and costly by lack of a common medium. Corres- pondence in aU languages is received by the secretariat in Geneva. The adoption of two official languages causes the duplication of all official documents. Headway, the organ of the League of Nations Union, announced that during 1926 the League's Geneva staff would include 29 translators and interpreters at salaries amounting to £19,800, and, in addition to secretary shorthand typists, sixty-one other typists at salaries amounting to £18,300.

International Congresses of all sorts are similarly impeded. Impromptu translations, by which the business is delayed, provide, at best, only a summarized paraphrase of the speeches, which are often garbled beyond the recognition of their authors, as we can personally testify from experience.

8 DELPHOS

Though prejudice and inertia have deferred the estabUshment of a world-language, means of international communication have been devised, of necessity, to meet many claimant needs. Such include the Morse Code, in- vented in 1832 (but foreshadowed in method by Bacon's cipher so early as the sixteenth century) ; the maritime signal code adopted by England and France in 1862 and soon after by all nations ; the Gregorian calendar ; maps, and figures, the face of the clock ; the measuration of time, and the notation of music. Chemistry, botany, and other sciences have their universal signs and nomenclature. The "Formulario de Mathematica" of Peano, 1895-1908, has completed the elimination of language from mathematics. Dewey's decimal classification of books, invented in 1873, meets no Hnguistic barriers. The civiUzed world west of Germany has adopted the Roman alphabet, which is always becoming more widely used in printing German. The Angora government has resolved to use it instead of Arabic characters for the Turkish language, and missionaries substitute it for those of the Far Eastern tongues.

In default of a general international auxiUary, composite languages have grown up along frontiers and where, from conquest, commerce, immigration, peoples of different race have been long associated. These com-

NECESSITY OF INTERLANGUAGE g

promise-languages include the Benguela of Portuguese East Africa and the Congo, the Lingua Geral of South America, the Pidgin Enghsh, French and Russian of the Far East, Hindustani, the interlanguage of India, the Lingua Franca of the Levant, and Chinook, used by Europeans trading with the North American Indians. A similar compromise- jargon was employed by the Indians speaking different languages before the advent of the Europeans,f or interlanguage is, in the long run, a human necessity and no mere modern fad. The War and its settlements stimulated the movement for nationhood amongst small populations. Writers who hitherto would have clothed their ideas in the language of one of the great Empires, now employ the speech of their own small people. Countries that long slumbered in the stagnation of old tradition are now being fired by the spirit of scientific investigation ; from India comes Jagadis Chunder Bose with his wonderful researches into plant response and physiology. The speed of scientific progress rushes far ahead of the pace it displayed a generation ago. Those who would keep abreast of the times in any hne of investigation cannot wait for translations and find a knowledge, even of three or four languages, inadequate. A ready means of placing theories and discoveries before investigators is required.

10 DELPHOS

Within the frontiers, learning spreads from class to class, ever more widely diffused amongst the people. This is a genuine index of progress, and indicates the possibility of establishing an interlanguage which will spread with the growth of education, and assist in promoting that growth.

II

THE BEGINNING OF INTERLANGUAGE

TO .the educated world the present international incomprehension is of comparatively recent origin. From the time of the Romans until the seventeenth century Latin was the language of learning ; and through it Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, Grotius, Harvey the discoverer of the circula- tion of the blood, gave their discoveries to the world. Its decline was not due to any failure in the language itself. Though confined to the use of scholars, it was being modified by usage, as all living languages must be, and in harmony with the general trend of language, it was becoming analytical. Remember that classical Latin includes only 202 authors and a number of inscriptions, — whilst medieval Latin comprises many thousands of books.

whe fall of Latin came with the reaction against scholasticism and the awaking of the spirit of inquiry, which strives to ascertain fact by experiment and rejects reliance upon tradition.^ Bacon, a foremost leader in this movement, wrote his greatest scientific works in EngUsh, but translated them into Latin, because of its wide currency. Even then he

12 DELPHOS

indicated the need for a new international medium.

Another feature of the time which con- tributed to the disuse of Latin was the then new enthusiasm for nationaUty, which burst forth during the ardent days of EHzabeth in a wealth of creative exploits. The breaking away from Roman Catholicism, which claimed superiority to the national Kings and Governments and made Latin its vehicle, had, but a little earlier, shaken the fabric of European society to its foundations. Indeed, it was in the Church that the first blow at Latin was delivered. The result was a glorious enrichment of the national languages, which were transcended by their use as vehicles for the most splendid thoughts of the day. Ceasing to be a medium for constructive ideas, Latin became crystallized, like Irish or any other language, left, as it were, in cold storage.

In 1629 Descartes, ** the Father of Modern Philosophy ", wrote to his friend Mersenne, propounding the theory of a universal language, so easy that :

" It will not be a marvel that uneducated people should learn in less than six hours to compose with the aid of a dictionary. ..."

• • I believe that this language is possible,

and that one could discover the science on which it depends, by means of which the

BEGINNING OF INTERLANGUAGE 13

peasants could better judge the truth of things than do the philosophers at the present time."

The creation of such a medium was the subject of earnest speculation by many of those powerful minds whose efforts laid the foundations of modern science. Vieta, Thomas Harriot, Oughtred, and Descartes had collected and extended the mathematical symbols. William Oughtred's Key to Mathe- matics first popularized the use of decimals in this country.

" When I first fell from that verbose way

of tradition of the mathematics used by the

ancients and of late by almost all . . . into

the symbohc way ... I was presently

greatly taken by it. . . . And I was put

upon an earnest desire that the same course

might be taken in other things."

Thus wrote Seth Ward,^ Bishop of SaUs-

bury, on reading Oughtred's work. Ward

was an enthusiast for symbohsm in language

and for the project of his learned colleague

John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, Warden of

Wadham College, Oxford, Master of Trinity

College, Cambridge, and one of the founders

of the Royal Society. Wilkins defended the

Copemican Theory and declared that people

must not go to theological works for scientific

• Bishop Ward, Vindicics Academiarum, 4to,

Oxford, 1654.

14 DELPHOS

argument. He discussed the possibility of visiting the moon in a flying machine. His Mercury, or the Swift and Secret Messenger is a cryptographic writing and his language scheme, called an Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) was published by the Royal Society.

In 166 1 George Dalgarno published his Ars signorum, which was submitted by Charles II to four eminent persons, on whose advice the author received a letter of royal commendation. He also invented a method of teaching the deaf-and-dumb, and an alphabet of manual signs. These, with his language, were reprinted by the Maitland Society in 1834. Amongst other early schemes were those of Herman Hugo, 1617, Francis Lodowych, 1646, who used symbolic signs between five lines, as in music, and G. J. Vossius, one of the most learned men of his time.

Already in 1650 Sir Thomas Urquhart, the English translator of Rabelais, had written a humorous parody of universal language-^a sure sign that the subject was what is called

• ' in the air ". Since that time there have

probably been thousands of attempts. Up- wards of 300 examples are still in existence.

Pascal (1623-1662) advocated the universal language, and Leibniz (1646-1716) occupied himself with the idea from the age of eighteen

BEGINNING OF INTERLANGUAGE 15

to the end of his Hfe. He desired the creation of a language which should be an instrument of reason. The words must embody the definition of ideas and reveal to the eyes the verities relative to those ideas, so that they might be deduced by algebraic transforma- tion. He argued that all complex ideas are the product of simple ideas, as is the case with figures. If the letters of the alphabet were made synonymous, on the one hand with figures, on the other hand with ideas, the composition of an idea and its decomposition into its simple elements could be accom- pHshed. The numbers i to 9 might be made to indicate the nine first consonants ; the vowels should be represented by the numbers ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, and a hundred thousand respectively. In order to create his vocabulary of words which would hold a mirror up to knowledge, he proposed to analyse all human ideas and reduce them to simple elements. To devise a logical grammar, he decided to work out his theories on the fabric of an existing language — Latin^^ The analysis of ideas was never reahzed. [His keen analysis of grammar was the great Hnguistic contribution of Leibniz. Determined to abohsh all non- essentials, he declared that all verbs required but one declension, and that it is useless for them to indicate either person or number, as

i6 DELPHOS

this is done by the subject. Artificial gender he discarded. Nouns need not indicate number, as this can be done by a preceding article or adjective. Adjectives require no concordance, prepositions should show case, conjunctions mood. There is no difference between adverbs and adjectives, the adverb being merely the adjective of the verb ; and not much between the adjective and the noun, the noun being merely an adjective joined to the idea of a thing, or a state of being. The verb, moreover, is often a noun or adjective accompanying the verb to he, which he held to be the only essential verb. In these ideas Leibniz anticipated the most drastic an- alytical grammarians of to-day?\

As Latin fell in the revolt against the international control of the Papacy, so will the international language ride forward to world-usage on the flood-tide of inter- na tionaUsm, now rising against the wars the national governments have made. That a common auxiliary language must accompany the world-fraternity of peoples was recognized during the French Revolution. Citizen Delormel presented a Pro jet d'une Langue Universelle to the National Convention of 1795, urging that men and peoples should be met by the gentle guidance of fraternity. Voltaire, de Brosses, President of the Bur- gundy Parliament, and Condorcet, author of

BEGINNING OF INTERLANGUAGE 17

the Progres de VEsprit Humain, were ad- vocates of universal language. Volney (1757- 1820), himself the author of works on the philosophical study of language and the application of the European alphabet to the Asiatic tongues, estabUshed, through the Institute of France, a prize to encourage research into international grammar.

The same idea swayed EngHsh idealists of the period. Francis Homer, sometime Member of Parliament for St Ives, wrote in 1799:

" Lord Webb Seymour has come to me with a plan which his brother the Duke has for some time been attending to, of forming a philological society with a view to the invention of a real character^. . . Marsden, Leyton, Boucher, and other philologists have been spoken to. The project is a grand one. . . ."

The learned Scott, Lord Monboddo (James Burnett, 1714-1799), who was likened to Dr Johnson and whose pre-Darwin contention that man is a civiUzed species of monkey was ridiculed in his day, was also a prophet of Interlanguage.2 Nietzsche (1844-1900) in his Menschliches

• Real character was accepted at the time as

denoting the universal language of symbols.

• Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of

Language, Edinburgh, 1774.

i8 DELPHOS

Allzumenschliches, made a double prophecy : " In some far off future there will be a new language, used at first as a language of commerce ; then for all, as surely as some time or other there will be aviation. Why else should philologists have studied the laws of language for a whole century, and have estimated the necessary, the valuable, and the successful portion of each separate language ? " Max Miiller, that great student of com- parative philology, ardently endorsed the international language idea. Lecturing before the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1863, he made the following very important pronouncement :

• • To people acquainted with a real

language, the invention of an artificial language is by no means an impossibility ; nay, such a language might be more perfect, more regular, more easy to learn than any of the spoken tongues of man ". Dr Henry Sweet, pre-eminent in the study of English phonetics and comparative phil- ology, contributed essays on international language to the Encyclopcedia Britannica. He urged that the inconvenience of linguistic diversities had been felt since the dawn of civihzation, and that the need for an inter- national medium had now become urgent. He rejected all the national languages as too

BEGINNING OF INTERLANGUAGE 19

difficult, pointing out that they are only in part rational and contain multitudes of irregularities. He charged the makers of artificial languages with having copied the worst faults of the national tongues.

Ill

THE A PRIORI LANGUAGES

THE artificial language-projects may be divided into two categories : The a priori, or purely invented, and the a posteriori, which claims to be based on exist- ing language. This classification cannot be exact. Since all human expression is the result of received impressions, those wljo have desired to invent an altogether new language have not entirely succeeded in ridding them- selves of precedent. On the other hand, the early attempts at a posteriori language were largely a priori, their authors lacking the knowledge and industry essential to the building of a true a posteriori language.

Amongst the a priori languages may be classed the systems of Pasigraphy, or universal writing. In Pasigraphy each word is given an equivalent sign, generally a number, in each language. Thus if 2 is the number internationally given to bread, it will be inteUigible to all. The system is already appUed in chemistry, the maritime signal code, and for other practical purposes. In deaUng with languages there is the essential difficulty that they are not all

THE A PRIORI LANGUAGES 21

constructed in the same manner ; it would be difficult to apply the same numeration to idiomatic French and to idiomatic English. Early attempts at Pasigraphy were those of Hugo in 1617 and Kircher in 1655.

The earUer a priori languages were mainly philosophical, aiming, as we have seen, at creating an alphabet of human thought, and expressing more by symbolism than could be conveyed in the same compass by words.

Dalgarno, who wrote in Latin with sim- pUfied spelling, gave a common form to the name of individuals of the same genus, varying only the last letter to denote the different species, thus :

NrjksL = elephant. Nijkn = horse. Niyke = donkey. N-r^ko = mule.

Bishop Wilkins placed ideas in forty classes, each denoted by a sign within horizontal lines : -a-. The classes he divided into

• • differences ", denoted by signs on the left ;

and the differences into species, denoted by signs on the right. The various pronouns were indicated, each by groups of dots, the past, the present, and the future by i, 2, and 3 ; can by 6 ; may by b.

Delormel classified ideas upon a decimal basis, having ten vowels in his alphabet. The Abbot Bonifacio Sotos Ochando, who was professor of Madrid University and held several other posts of learning, in 1845

22 DELPHOS

denoted inorganic objects by ab ; simple objects or elements by aba, matter or bodies in general by abe, dimensions by abi. From aba were derived ababa = oxygen ; ababe — hydrogen ; ababi — nitrogen. In the language of Letellier (1850) a = animal; ab = mammal; abo = carnivorous ; aboj = feline ; aboje = cat ; abode = dog ; abiv = horse.

The primary difficulty facing all attempts to devise a language of classification is that in the world of ideas which language may be called on to express we are not dealing with a few simple elements, but with a fabric of infinite complexity. Moreover, ideas, and views as to their classification, are constantly changing. As Dr Donnan, in an address to the Royal Institution, pointed out, the Aristotelian classification of the elements into earth, air, fire, and water has long been dis- carded, and the chemical elements accepted at the beginning of the present century have given place to theories of electrons, protons, and neutrons, which may presently be superceded in their turn. In a language of classification a sHght vocaUc modification might produce, not a mere mispronouncia- tion, but the transference of a word to another class. The relentless progress of science might render great literature unintelUgible.

Despite such objections, there can be no doubt that all natural languages grew up, in

THE A PRIORI LANGUAGES 23

part at least, as languages of classification. Before gender was developed primitive peoples classified their names for things according to totemistic ideas. In one of the African languages the substantives are still divided into nine classes. In most languages such classes have been gradually worn down till they have come to indicate only the three genders. The attribution of the masculine or feminine gender to words denoting in- animate objects, which occurs in many languages, is a survival of totemistic classifi- cation.

J. A. Decourdemanche, in his Grammatre de Tchingane} argues that all language was originally formed from the joining into words of monosyllables, and even of simple letters, each of which had a distinct value in the meaning of the word. He presents an able case for the beUef that, whatever its origin, Gipsy speech in its present state is a practical example of a language formed according to the principles attempted in vain by the more sophisticated seekers after the universal philosophical language.

SymboHsm has estabUshed itself in the representation of chemistry and mathematics, and may triumph also in new directions. Whilst it has many attractive features, it must lack, until it has grown old in use, the

• Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1908.

24 DELPHOS

historic and social influences which belong to a posteriori language. It would seem more possible to adapt a system of symbols to writing than to speech ; and for conveying practical and scientific ideas than for Htera- ture and the expression of emotion.

In spite of its difficulties, the philosophical language of classification and symbolism has proved a constant subject of attraction. New schemes for it still appear, and even so late a writer as Dr Henry Sweet admitted a preference for such a medium.

In 1885 a committee appointed by the French Society Internationale de Linguistique reported that the universal language must be philosophical and must have nothing in common with any natural tongue.

The language of classification which re- ceived the widest measure of popularity was Sohesol, invented in 18 17 by Fran9ois Sudre, a French music-master. Its vocabulary was formed from the notes of the scale : do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. By transferring the accent from one syllable to another, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns, personal and im- personal, were formed from a single stem. A Solresol message could be given in music, coloured fights, or flags. It could be used for communicating with ships at sea or for the finger language of the blind. It was favour- ably reported on by the French Institute on

THE A PRIORI LANGUAGES 25

four occasions, received a prize of ten thou- sand francs at the Paris Exhibition of 1855 and a medal at the London Exhibition of 1862, and was endorsed by Victor Hugo. Its author was invited to expound his method before the Emperor Napoleon IIL

The Langue Blue of the Parisian, Leon Bollack, emerged in 1899. His method was to draw up a list of all the pronounceable monosyllables he could discover containing not more than five letters. It happened that amongst the number were Pnabs, Kvaf, Krelv, Mrolm, and Sparf. Langue Blue became remarkably popular. How far it was from likeness to any existing language may be gathered from its rendering of the opening words of the Lord's Prayer : Nea per, ev ra seri in silu.

IV

THE A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES

' I ^HE a posteriori languages began later -■- than the a priori, though some date from an early period. The first was probably CarpophorophiU, based on Latin and pub- lished by an unknown author in Leipzig in 1734. A remarkable early sketch was the Langue Nouvelle of Faiguet, Treasurer of the Bureau des Finances, Chalons-sur-Marnes, who proposed it for international use by the academies of learning. It appeared in the famous Encyclopedie of the eighteenth century by Diderot and d'Alembert. It had no article, no gender, no concordance of adjec- tives ; its substantives formed their plural in S., and were otherwise invariable, case being shown by prepositions. The verbs had but one conjugation, which was exceedingly simple. Person and number were not in- dicated by the verb. The vocabulary was not worked out ; indeed, the philological research requisite to the construction of a true a posteriori vocabulary had not yet been accomplished ; but the scheme was far in advance of many later attempts.

Conununicationssprache, by J. Schipfer

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 27

(Wiesbaden), 1839, was an attempt to sim- plify French. Pantos-dimou-glossa, by Lucien de Rudelle (France, 1858) had a vocabulary based on Greek, Latin and the neo-Latin languages. Universal-sprache by Von Pirro (Paris, 1868), an important effort, was based on Latin, with widely known words from Enghsh, ItaUan, and Spanish. Its grammar was simple, and it was fairly inteUigible to many nationahties at first sight : " Men senior, I sende evos un gramatik, e un verb- bibel de un nuov glot nomed universalglot."

VOLAPtJK

In 1879 Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman CathoUc priest, conceived the idea of a universal language of peace and brotherhood. In 1880 he completed his project, and dedicated it to God. His effort was, indeed, appropriate to the times. The German Empire, having fought its way to existence under the aggressive poHcy of the Prussian Kings, inaugurated its rule by imposing rapacious peace-terms upon France in 1871 ; and then set itself to the methodical and ruthless creation of an imperial army and navy. The war of Turkey and Britain against Russia, then raging, was an awful reminder that the Great Powers might be d^a^vn into conflict at any moment.

Schleyer called his new language Volapiik,

28 DELPHOS

meaning vocabulary world-speech. It was a cumbrous monstrosity, but its success was extraordinary. It far outstripped in popu- larity all other projects. In 1886 Dr Auguste Kerchhoffs, Professor of Languages at the Paris School of Commercial Studies, founded an Association for the promotion of Volapiik, with a committee distinguished in literature, science, industry, and commerce, which held fourteen public Volapiik classes simultaneously in Paris. Other bodies fol- lowed suit, even the Grands Magazins du Printemps ! In Italy the Minister of Public Instruction authorized free classes at Turin and Reggio EmiHa. By 1889, 283 Volapiik Societies had been formed, including many in the United States, in Sydney, Melbourne, and Capetown ; ^,600 people had qualified for the Volapiik diploma ; there were a million Volapiikists, 316 text-books in twenty- five languages, and twenty-five Volapiik journals, seven printed whoUy in that language. In 1889 the third Congress of Volapiikists met in Paris, and the speeches were delivered in Volapii2^

Two years earUer the American Philo- sophical Society, founded by FrankHn in 1743, had proposed an international con- ference in London or Paris, to consider a world auxiUary language. Remarkable to relate, the London Philological Society had

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 29

rejected the invitation of the American body, on the grounds firstly, that there existed no vocabulary common to the Aryan languages ; secondly, and more remarkable still, that Volapiik was already established in all coun- tries and that it was now too late to improve it!

In spite of such dicta many enthusiasts were finding the project of Schley er too cumbrous and difiicult. It has been said that Volapiik was destroyed by ill-judged attempts to improve it. Actually, it was incapable of improvement. A candid analysis revealed little, either in grammar or vocabulary, worthy of preservation. Its death-blow was struck at its second Congress in 1887, by the formation of an Academy to give scholarly advice upon its development. As con- scientious people, the Academicians could not fail to suggest alterations, but Schley er refused amendment. The third and last Congress supported the Academy in its reform proposals. Eventually, in 1890, Schleyer formed another Academy ; but his language was already dead.

Schleyer and his language had served their turn in creating a widespread interlanguage movement. The original Volapiik Academy passed on to unfettered study of the inter- language problem from the standpoint of etymology.

30 DELPHOS

Esperanto Before considering the outcome of those labours, we must turn aside to notice a claimant star which appeared in the inter- language firmament in 1887. This was Esperanto, the creation of an ardent en- thusiast and most capable organizer, Dr Louis Lazarus Zamenhof, who, in 1887, published his scheme under the pseudonym : " Doktoro Esperanto " ; in other words

• ' Dr Hopeful ". The name, understood in

aU European tongues, became attached to the language and helped to make it popular. Esperanto began to advance at the death of Volapiik. Its first small periodical, La Esperantisto, was founded at Niiremberg in 1887 ; but it was not until 1902 that Joseph Rhodes gathered the first EngHsh group at Keighly. About 1896 the language began to make progress in France. Nine years later the French Government awarded the membership of the Legion of Honour to Zamenhof, to celebrate the first of the great ^mtemational Esperanto conferences, which, except in the War-period, have followed annually and have attracted up to 4,000 delegates. By 1926 the Universal Esperanto Association laid claim to the support of 10,000 subscribers, to 12,000 delegates in 60 countries, to national associations in 32 countri^, and to many societies of railway

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 31

and postal workers, policemen, blind people, youths. Socialists, Quakers, Roman CathoUcs, and so on. Esperanto talks were being broadcasted weekly from 30 stations in 13 countries, and the language was used for broadcasting news from the Geneva radio- station. The Universal Telegraphic Union accorded it official recognition as a ** plain language " for transmission in 1925. The Union of Russian Soviet Repubhcs had issued stamps and postcards with inscriptions printed in it. The Chambers of Commerce of Paris, New York, Washington, and Los Angelos taught it in their commercial schools. The London Chamber of Commerce granted diplomas for it. The Spanish Government made Zamenhof a Commander of the Order of Isabella in 1909, and issued official invita- tions to attend the Universal Esperanto Congress in Barcelona. The Bulgarian Government and the French Parliament have voted subsidies. Esperanto is used for advertising purposes by most of the trade- fairs of Europe, and by the Governments of some small nations. Some countries en- courage its use by policemen and railway and tram employees. The International Labour Office of the League of Nations publishes a monthly circular in it. In 1922 some primary and secondary schools in 320 towns in 17 countries held classes in Esperanto, and

32 DELPHOS

evening classes were held in 1,200 towns in 39 countries. The British Board of Education permitted its teaching in certain schools. In April, 1922, it was taught in eleven English primary schools to 881 pupils, in two secon- dary schools to 43 children, in one private school to 40 pupils, in ten evening schools to 269 pupils ; in Scotland to 90 pupils in two primary schools, and to 89 pupils in two secondary schools. Though the teaching by public authorities reached but a tiny pro- portion of the populace, even this had been obtained only by persistent lobbying.

The world congress of International As- sociations in September, 1920, passed a resolution recommending adherence to the important Esperanto movement, " deferring all improvements until the language ha4been officially adopted by the governments j

Much of the support accorded to Esperanto is undoubtedly prompted by desire for a medium of international understanding, with- out regard to its particular form. Esperanto is simply " the international language " to most of its enthusiasts ; yet to the devotees of Volapiik, it seemed that the language of Schleyer had been builded upon a rock.

At the first Assembly of the League of Nations Senator Lafontaine of Belgium moved a resolution welcoming the teaching of Esperanto in the schools of some League

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 33

members, and instructing the Secretariat to prepare a Report on the results obtained. The resolution expressly asked for inf onnation regarding Esperanto teaching, not for inquiry into the merits of the various artificial languages.

The Esperanto organization displayed, in providing material for the Report, that great efficiency which is habitual to it, and which it had also employed in securing the passage of the League resolution itself. An Esperanto conference of Educationists was called in Geneva, at the headquarters of the League of Nations. The delegates included representa- tives of sixteen governments, and were welcomed by Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary General of the League of Nations. The Report of the League Secretariat was highly favourable ; but the third Assembly referred the question to its Commission for Intellectual Co-operation. The Commission called for a further Report, which was presented by G. de Reynold^ on July 31st, 1923. This report was hostile to Esperanto, declaring that from the educational standpoint its barbarity and lack of precision would tend to destroy in pupils the sense of the meaning and beauty of words, and that its employment would be "at once an effect and a cause of

^ Published in the Revue de Geneve, May and June, 1925.

34 DELPHOS

intellectual decadence " ; and would be so regarded in future times. In September, 1922, M. de Rio Branco, Brazilian Minister at Berne, and a member of the League of Nations Assembly also published a criticism hostile to Esperanto.

Ido The Paris Exhibition of 1900 was a meeting-ground for people of advanced ideas and international sympathies from all coun- tries. A French professor of mathematics, named Lean, rose to the practical possibihties of the hour, by gathering a group of scientists to form a " Delegation for the Adoption of an AuxiUary Language ", which was to secure the choice of an interlanguage by the newly created International Association of Academies. Three hundred and thirty-one delegates of learned societies and 1,200 individual academicians were enhsted ; but in 1907 the Association of Academies declared itself incompetent to deal with the matter. The Delegation, therefore, resolved to make itself the adjudicating body, and offered to recommend Esperanto provided it could be modified in certain directions. Messrs Cou- turat and Lean, Treasurer and Secretary of the Delegation, Professors Jespersen of Copenhagen, Ostwald of Leipzig, Baudoin de Courtenay of St Petersburg, the Marquis

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 35

de Beaufront, and others were appointed to act with the Esperantist Linguistic Com- mittee ; but the Esperantist Committee refused even to discuss the matter. The Delegation then adopted a modification of Esperanto, called Ido,^ the Esperanto word for descendent. By this title it frankly con- fessed itself a modified Esperanto. The two versions are closely aUied. Each has its body of supporters, but the Esperantists are by far the larger group. Ido claims centres in 21 countries.

In 1894 Dr Zamenhof had himself proposed modifications of Esperanto. These he sub- mitted to the readers of the small magazine Esperanto ; but, only a few votes being recorded on either side, he decided to main- tain the language as first pubhshed. Since that time the Esperantists have resisted alterations.

Variants of Esperanto include Ant ido, Lingvo Kosmopolita, Esperantido, and Nov- Esperanto by Dr Rene de Saussure of Switzerland, for many years a member of the Esperantist Academy, who works in harmony with that body. Dr Max Talmey, in the United States, has produced a variant of Ido, called Ilo, which stands for the initial letters of International Language, plus 0, the

^ Originally based on a project submitted by the Marquis de Beaufront.

36 DELPHOS

inevitable Ido-Esperanto termination of the substantive. Ilo, it appears, was the name given to I do during the first two years of its existence.

Idiom Neutral and Others Whilst Esperanto was on the threshold of its career, the perfect language was still being sought by earnest students, who more and more came to look for it amongst the elements of the natural European languages. In this country Mr George J. Henderson pubhshed through Triibner in 1889, an attempt to simpUfy Latin called Lingua, and followed this with Langue Facile, Latinesce, and Anglo-Franca, a rather grotesque amalgam of Frerich and English. Amongst those who preceded him were the Germans, E. Lauda and J. Stempfl, whose attempts were based on Latin, and Boltz, who tried to simplify Greek. In 1890 Dr Rosa, of Turin, published two projects for simplified Latin.

JuHus Lott, the constructor of the Vienna railways, an old propagandist of Volapiik, and Dr Albert Liptay, medical officer to the naval commission of Chili stationed in France, both endeavoured to inaugurate a more scientific research into the international elements of language. Lott published Mun- dohngue in 1889, and wrote in it words which are comprehensible to us all, and

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 37

reveal a great progress in intemationality : " Le possibility de un universal lingua pro le civilisat nations ne esse dubitabil, nam noi ha tot elements pro un tal lingue in nostre Ungues, sciences, etc ". Liptay (Lengua Catolica, 1891) insisted that the international language was not to be invented, but discovered amid existing language. He declared the creation of a language beyond the power of an individual ; and proposed general principles, to be sub- mitted to the world of savants, in the form of a plebiscite, open to all interested. The efforts of Lott and Liptay mark a distinct advance in the Interlanguage movement.

In 1893 Voldemar Rosenberger, a Russian engineer, was elected director of the old Volapiik Academy. He laid before it pro- posals for a new language, including three thousand international words. Thereafter a language called Idiom Neutral, mainly the creation of Rosenberger, was built up by the Academy, and officially adopted by it in 1898. The vocabulary was selected on the principle of greatest intemationality. Many of the chosen words were international up to seven languages. Only in 1902, after nearly ten years' work, during which at least some thirty new projects had appeared from other sources, did the Academy authorize the pubhcation of its language. It was more

38 DELPHOS

scientifically international than anything that had gone before, and its grammar contained several logical simpUfications. Yet it had many faults, which resulted in the distortion of carefully selected international words.

Interlingua

" Interlingua is the standard of the insur- rection against the routine of red tape and the tyranny of the ancient grammarian '*, thus wrote Kerchoffs, the first director of the Volapiik Academy, in 1886. Giuseppe Peano, the distinguished mathematician of Turin, was presently to translate those words into a language scheme, and to adopt Inter- lingua as its title. Professor Peano is one of the greatest authorities on the logical basis of mathematics and on symbolic logic. His ideographic system has reduced logic to algebraic formulae, which dispense with language. By similar methods he has created a language which is intelligible without study to all who know Latin, and almost without study to those who know one European language, although ignorant of Latin. He writes :

• ' Qui stude Interlingua stude etymologia

et valor e exacto de vocabulos in suo lingua." The EngHsh of that is :

Who studies Interlingua studies the

V

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 39

etymology and exact meaning of the words

in his own language."

Peano's mathematical researches have necessitated a wide international corres- pondence. Already in the eight een-nineties he was corresponding with his fellow mathe- maticians of other nationahties in InterUngua, then called " Latino sine flexione ". For the . study of Chinese mathematics he induced his friend and one-time pupil, Giovanni Vacca, Professor of Mathematics in Genoa, to leam Chinese.

Going later to Germany, to study un- published manuscripts of Leibniz on the infinitesimal calculus, Professor Vacca ob- served certain pages devoted to interlanguage. He saw that his friend was following on the same Unes. This news encouraged Peano to continue his system. Professor Vacca intro- duced the manuscripts to Professor Louis Couturat,^ of the Ido delegation, who investigated them, with the aid of the French Government, and arranged for their pub- lication. On January 3rd, 1904, Professor Peano read a paper^ before the Academia delle Scienze di Torino, which began in

1 La Logique de Leibniz, Opuscules et fragments inedits de Leibniz, Paris, Alcan ; with L. Leau, Histoire de la Langue Universelle, Hachette, Paris.

• Published in the minutes of the Turin Academy

of Sciences.

40 DELPHOS

classical Latin and ended in Interlingua. He there showed, according to the reasoning of Leibniz supported by arguments of his own, that declension, formal gender, and con- jugation can be dispensed with. As he discussed each simplification, he embodied it in his text, which thus gradually passed into InterHngua.

Originating in the desire of scientists to overcome lingual barriers for practical scientific purposes, InterHngua, from its inception, became a vehicle of original thought amongst people too much occupied with constructive work to engage in pro- paganda. The fifth edition of Peano's important Formulario Mathematico, 1908, was published in Interlingua. The inter- national review of mathematics edited by him has appeared in it since 1903. Fanti, a member of the Academia, in 1925 used it for a work on the principles of radio-telegraphy and telephony. Such scientific publications as the Acta Astronomica of the Cracow Observatory, the Bollettino de Mathematica of Florence, and the Russian Ruch Filozo- ficzny already make constant or occasional use of InterHngua ; Graphicus, the principal organ of the Itahan printing trade, has a regular technical article in Interlingua.

Interlingua marked a new stage in the interlanguage movement, because it was the

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 41

first artificial language to be constructed, not according to individual choice but upon definite scientific principles.

In 1908 the old Volapiik Academy dis- carded its later adoption, Rosenberger's Idiom Neutral, and took InterUngua as its official medium, at the same time appointing Professor Peano its director. The Academy is now the " Academia pro InterUngua ". It continues studying the interlanguage pro- blem, in the spirit of impartial inquiry. All who are interested in the interlanguage problem may join it and contribute to the organ of the Academy in whatever artificial language they may prefer.

Other Activities Several more recent languages have arisen, which share many of the neo-Latin char- acteristics of InterUngua ; but stand midway between it and Esperanto. These include Romanal, Occidental, and Medial Europan, Pan Roman, later called Universal, which appeared in 1903, may be placed in a similar class.

In 1911 a society for the creation of an International Language Bureau was formed at Berne. In 1920 a committee of Esperan- tists, Idists, and others laid before the League of Nations a petition, officially transmitted

42 DELPHOS

by the Swedish Government, urging that a language, to be taught in all schools through- out the world, should be adopted at an international convention.

In 1 918 the British Government appointed a Parliamentary Committee on modem language, in view of post- War trading and diplomatic conditions. This Committee devoted a chapter to artificial language, and recommended that a Commission should be set up to study the question.

In 1919 the International Research Council created a Committee to investigate the problem. The Chairmanship was given to Dr F. G. CottreU, of the American Research Council, and its headquarters were established in Washington, D.C. Co-operating com- mittees were formed in several countries, one of them being set up by the British Associa- tion in 1919, with Mr W. B. Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society, and Dr E. A. Tripp, as Chairman and Secretary. This committee reported that neither Latin nor any existing national language could supply the need for an international auxiliary, which could be met, it considered, either by Esperanto or by Ido. Without examining the more modern interlanguage projects, the committee finally agreed to recommend Esperanto. The decision was made before the appearance of de Reynold's hostile report to the League of

A POSTERIORI LANGUAGES 43

Nations Commission for Intellectual Co- operation.

In the United States an International Auxiliary Language Association is at work. Its Treasurer is Mr Dave H. Morris and its Secretary Dr Shenton, of Columbia Univer- sity. This organization aims at promoting impartial study and experiment. It works for the adoption of an auxiliary language by the Governments of the world, and desires the setting up of an International committee of linguistic experts to advise them.

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE :

SOME CONDITIONS IT MUST

SATISFY

LIKE the Committee of the British Association, Hke Max Miiller, we are of opinion that no national language, whether living or dead, can serve as the world auxiliary.

EngUsh is the most modern of the great languages, the most widely spoken, and the most international ; for it contains more foreign words than any other. Yet, because of its frequent lack of agreement between speUing and pronunciation, its great variety of vowel sounds, the idiomatic character it shares with all natural tongues, and, above all, its lack of political neutrality, English would not be acceptable to all nations. On the other hand, its logical and analytical structure, its swiftness and transparent accuracy of expression, and especially the fact that it has shed most of the old gram- matical forms which time has rendered useless and scarcely intelhgible, have made EngUsh a model, pointing the way which must be followed in building the Interlanguage ; the

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE 45

first language to be constructed deliberately from its foundations by the trained intellects of scholars, working on definite principles of philological science. Such principles have been gradually worked out by patient study, since philology was placed upon firm founda- tions by the inauguration of the study of Sanskrit, which began with the founding of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1784.^

As to French. It has had, and lost, a far greater intemationaUty than it now possesses. Though easier on first acquaintance than many others, it is perhaps of all languages the one of which the intonation and idiomatic charm of phrase are least to be captured by the foreigner. Even in Chaucer's time, though a sort of French was widely spoken in this country, it was by no means the French of France, as he indicates in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales :

" And French she spake ful fayre and fetisely After the scole of Stratford atte bowe. For Frenche of Parys was to hire unknowe."

That French has been chosen as the ofiicial

1 In 1786 Sir William Jones discovered that there was a relationship between Sanskrit, German, and Latin. In 1833 Francis Bopp, of Berlin, wrote the first Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend, ^reek, Latin, Gothic, German, and Icelandic.

46 DELPHOS

language of the International Association of Academies, and some other international bodies, is evidence rather of the need for an interlanguage than proof that French is the most suitable medium. Such bodies, more- over, consist of persons of more than average education. "WTiilst the League of Nations has made English and French its official languages, the Spanish-speaking Govern- ments clamour for equal treatment, and the Italians threaten to make the same claim.

It is obviously Utopian to hope that, under present conditions, the majority of mankind will acquire two national foreign languages. Such acquisition entails not merely the memorizing of a certain number of words and rules but the formation of new thought- and speech-habits. The difficulty of learning a national language, as compared with one of the artificial schemes, in this case Esperanto, is illustrated by the statement of a Chinese delegate to the Educationists' Conference in Geneva :

" In China we learn the English language during at least six years ; French seven years ; German eight years ; Russian ten years ; but for Esperanto only two years are required."

Latin, by reason of its political neutrality as a dead language and its great cultural gifts, has more to recommend it as the

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE 47

common auxiliary than any other natural language. Yet Classical Latin also has difficulties of idiom and of irregularity, and its inflected character is ahen to the ten- dencies of modern thought.

The Inter] anguage must be expressly created for international usage. Without denying the possibiHty of a new language of symbols in a more distant future, we may postulate that it must satisfy the following conditions :

It must he a posteriori. The traditional forms have been gradually moulded by ages of use. Deep echoes of meaning are folded within them. They have become shaped to facility of enunciation by long employment. The incompleteness of all knowledge, and even of research into philological origins, may render it impracticable to realize the philo- sopher's dream of a vocabulary that would provide an enalysis of aU learning. Never- theless, we can possess a world-auxiUary which will largely serve as a master-key to the most universally employed of the great speech-famiUes, and wiU assist in a readier and deeper understanding of the national tongues. In order that the interlanguage may thus serve us, its vocabulary must be constructed on sound etymological principles.

Philologists must not stand aloof, reviewing the existing interlanguage projects as cast-

48 DELPHOS

iron creations for which they have no sort of responsibihty. They must regard the making of the world-auxiUary as an essential part of their work ; and must bring to this task the same impartial inquiry, patient research, and critical analysis that they have brought to the study of philology itself.

The Inter language must provide the greatest possible intelligibility : therefore it must reach the widest possible internationality .

It will employ the Roman alphabet, the only alphabet of printed characters which can claim internationality ; for Chinese is a pictured language, and the characters of Arabic and Hindustani are essentially those of handwriting ; both occupy too much space on the printed or the written page.

The Vocabulary of the interlanguage ivill consist mainly of words common to the Indo- European speech-family, which comprise an extensive dictionary. Words denoting what is peculiar to their country of origin, like Geysha, and newly-coined words of wide acceptance, like " Robot ", will be retained in their original form.

The vocabulary of modern Europe will be chosen as the basis of the interlanguage ; because that vocabulary has been created in the development of modern science and modern thought.

East will gain more than West by this

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE 49

inevitable decision. An immensely larger number of Eastern people learn the languages of Europe than vice versa. An auxiliary language will be of far greater use to the Chinese if it introduce them to the vehicle of Western science, than if allied to their own tongue. Ultimately the value of the Inter- language must be measured by its gifts, not by the ease with which it can be acquired.

The world-auxiUary, used by everyone as a second language, will obviate the general need for any other language save the native one. If it were in use to-day, it would be employed by the League of Nations and by the mandated territories. It would enable small nations to meet the Great Powers on equal linguistic terms.

Inter-European words will he used in their Latin form, with the classical spelling and pronunciation. Obviously so ; for the inter- language which is already a giant growth in our midst is the new Graeco-Latin, the vocabulary of which is constantly accumu- lating in the use of the young sciences — the strongest unifying influence in the civiHzed world.

Latin has largely contributed to the making of all the other European languages. EngHsh has been impregnated by Latin of the Roman period ; of the Saxon period, which was mainly ecclesiastical ; and of a third period,

50 DELPHOS

reaching from the time of the Battle of Hastings to the present day. Webster's English Dictionary gives 55,000 words of Graeco-Latin origin and 22,000 from Teutonic and other sources. Even in Russian, Mr Kofman has found, under the letter A alone, 228 Graeco-Latin words. Actually only about 10 per cent of inter-European words are of non-Latin origin. Any artificial language which aims at internationality must contain a majority of words derived from it.

To give to everybody's children, all over the world, a language so much Uke Latin that whoever knows it can read Latin with little study would tremendously accelerate the spread of learning and the breaking down of social barriers. Latin, by international agreement, is the universal medium for the technical terms in medicine, anatomy, botany, and zoology. It is essential to the lawyer, and largely so to the historian.

The Interlanguage is unlikely to incorporate Latin words which have passed out of current usage. It will select those which, either as root-words or derivatives, have survived in modern speech or have been coined in modem times.

The Interlanguage cannot successfully form its vocabulary from different speech-families, nor can it attempt an amalgam of the forms existing in various branches of the European

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE 51

speech-family. Either of these methods leaves the student, whether a polyglot or a monoglot, without a clue to the source from which the word has been drawn. In a language combining both Teutonic and Latin word-forms, one is at a loss to know whether the word alt signifies high, as in Latin and in the English alt-itude ; or old, as in German. In the formation of the sentence, subtly interwoven as -it is with the processes of thought, with euphony and phonetic evolu- tion and decay, a wider intemationaUty exists^ ; but, in the word itself, to strain after a complete intemationaUty is to achieve none.

The orthography of the Interlanguage must be etymological. It cannot follow the false trail of simplified spelling, which Bacon said

• • belongs to the class of unprofitable sub-

tilities ", and which leads to deformation of the word and the consequent obscuring of meaning and origin. SpeUing Reform, in reducing a minor obstacle, enhances the difficulty of understanding the meaning of the word, which is of more essential import- ance. It must be remembered that Classical Latin is pronounced as it is spelt, according to the modem view that C should be pro-

^ Yoruba, one of the African languages, conju- gates its verbs as in English, though its vocabulary is entirely different.

52 DELPHOS

nounced like the English K and i like the English e. Th, ph, and y, which duplicate the sounds of t, f, and i, were imported from the Greek, and retained to denote their origin. Such words have found their way into modern languages and their spelling helps to indicate their meaning.

By adopting the Latin orthography, the interlanguage will avoid the need for employ- ing accents, diacritical marks, sibilants, aspirates, or other localized or difi&cult sounds.

In accord with modern tendencies, the Interlanguage will he logical and analytical, and will contain no more grammar than is required to elucidate the meaning. Every word will be found in the dictionary. Thirty years hence the Interlanguage will be familiar as the mother-tongue. Therefore simplification will be motived, rather to secure logic, swiftness, and emphasis than to ease the memory of burdens.

Like other aspects of its civilization, the language of a people passes through many stages. Chinese, with its origins in the far reaches of antiquity, is the most analytical of languages. It has travelled still further than EngUsh in minimizing grammar and discarding inflections.

Sanskrit, the most primitive descendant of the Ancient European has eight cases.

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE 53

Russian and Lithuanian seven, Latin six, Greek five, German four. Old-English had six cases — now only the traces of three remain to us. Modern Persian has no article, no gender, no concordance, and replaces inflexion by 25 auxiliary verbs. Its nouns indicate the plural only where it is not other- wise shown. In modem Arabic are similar developments. Simplification is intensified in the compromise frontier languages. In the Lingua Franca of the Levant the verbs have only one form, originally the infinitive. Chinook, the North American trade-language, has a small vocabulary ; but, according to Dr Sapir,^ it is built on strictly analytical lines.

In King Alfred's time Enghsh adjectives had eleven forms ; now we have but one. Our verbs also have had a drastic pruning. Compare our few simple forms with the 1,400 of the ancient Greek verb, the 395 of the Latin, and the 62 of the modern Spanish. In English we produce 40 verb-forms by auxi- liaries, only three by inflections. Indeed, the whole tendency of modern language is to discard mere grammatical forms, and to replace inflections, where necessary, by quahfying words. The language gains thereby in clarity and strength.

^ Chief of the Anthropological Division of the Canadian National Museum.

54 DELPHOS

Inflections (the conjugation of verbs, the declension and concordance of nouns, pro- nouns, and adjectives) are the result of the melting together, or agglutination, of small qualifying words the meaning of which is becoming obscure, and which are but partially if at all, required to convey the sense. They are retained largely as a matter of tradition, and their meaning tends to be duplicated by the additional use of separate qualifying words. Inflections produce endless irregu- larities. When an arbitrary Ust of affixes is attached to a large number of stems, some, either of the stems or the affixes, become modified : for example the French vivre, [Je\ vi(v)s.

The Interlanguage will go even further than EngUsh in discarding inflections. In the verb comprehensibility can undoubtedly be reached by one unvarying form, qualified by other parts of speech. The modes and tenses are often formed in this way and can thus be more vividly and exactly indicated than by inflections : I shall see you shortly and / shall see you when I can have the same verbal voice. Yesterday I sing could, with usage, come to indicate the past as clearly to us as yesterday I sang. The question to be considered is whether the former sen- tence would be equally satisfying to the mind, and whether we should gain more in simpUcity

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE 55

by abolishing the indication of the past tense in the verb than we should lose in emphasis.

Obviously the analytical EngUsh infinitive is more expressive than the inflectional form of most European languages ; for other languages frequently use a preposition before the infinitive as well as the inflection. Thus the French say : " De nen avoir qu'un k apprendre". The prepositions de and a are pleonastic.

The concordance of the verb with its subject, in number and in case, has almost disappeared in English : only the remnants remain, and, being remnants, they have lost their logic. We love is sufiicient to indicate that the action love is predicated of we. The French nous aimons is redundant. In Italian the pronoun is often dropped.

In EngUsh we have not the passive form of the verb, as it existed in Latin. Though the verb taught, for example, has a passive meaning, it is merely the past tense of the active verb to teach. Some of the artificial languages have been unnecessarily cumbered by the obsolete passive form.

The agreement of adjectives with the nouns they quaUfy and the declension of nouns, which have departed from EngUsh, will find no place in the Interlanguage.

For the sign of plurality we cannot look to the Latin example ; for, being an inflected

56 DELPHOS

language, Latin (like Greek) has no uniform sign. The final s has by far the greatest internationality, and has the advantage of being pronounceable after all vowels and most consonants.

Articles will probably be discarded by the Interlanguage. Their use is sometimes purely euphonic ; sometimes they indicate number, gender, and case. As these are generally also shown by the noun, their indication by the article is redundant. How conventional is their use is well displayed by the fact that it differs even in the closely alHed Romance lan- guages ; the Italians saying : la Casa mia ; the Spaniards mi casa. In Roumanian the article follows the noun and is decHned. Arabic has but one article, Chinese and Persian none. In EngHsh we are more and more discarding the article, and the Americans have gone further than we in this direction.

The Interlanguage will not attach gender to inanimate objects^ — only to those possessing it in the actual world of nature, and only where the sense requires it. When the number of substantives indicating sex has been reduced to the proportions dictated by

1 In Old-English every noun belonged to one of three gender classes. The old equivalents of day, end, and ehh were classed as mascuhne and referred to as he ; those of pipe, glove, and sorrow were feminine, and she was applied to them.

THE FUTURE INTERLANGUAGE 57

reason, the learning of the appropriate terms for male and female will impose no great burden on the memory. Moreover, it is always possible to use a special adjective for the purpose, as we frequently do in EngHsh : he-goat and she-goat. Such words as actor and actress, executor and executrix are common, in but sUghtly modified form, to many languages. They are more easily discernible by the ear than the atonic vowel-endings adopted by many of the artificial languages to denote gender.

In syntax, the Interlanguage will follow the order broadly common to the European speech-family ; subject, verb, object, with the qualifying words placed as near as possible to the word they quaUfy.

This estimate of the probable structure of the future-world Interlanguage has been governed by observation of the evolution apparent in natural language. It may be summed up in the words uttered by a clever Senegalese :

" What we want is a Latin vocabulary

and Chinese grammar."

" Chinese Grammar " may be taken to signify the simplest grammar known, or the virtual absence of formal grammar.

VI

ANALYSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL INTER- LANGUAGE ATTEMPTS

VOLAPUK

HOW far do the principal modern attempts at interlanguage conform to the evolu- tionary trend of natural language, and to the features here predicted for the coming world auxiUary ?

Schleyer's Volapiik, was largely a priori. Its author desired to make it more capable of expressing every nuance of thought than any other language. To this end, he copied many complexities of the natural languages, and added many more devised by his own fancy. He created no fewer than fourteen personal pronouns. These he post-fixed to the stem of the verb, even where its subject was already indicated : e.g. Mary lofoF = Mary (she) loves.

Vowels were prefixed to the stem to express all tenses other than the present : e.g. a for the imperfect, dlofob = I loved. Mode was expressed by sufiixes following the pronoun : la for the subjunctive, dlofobLA = I might have loved, on for the infinitive, and so on. There were three forms of imperative mode

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 59

each with its distinctive ending. Each mode had as many tenses as the indicative. The letter i, pronounced as a separate syllable and placed immediately before the stem, signified the habitual performance of an action, e.g. ailofohod = / have to love constantly. The initial p indicated the passive voice. A single curious word could express many things, e.g. peglidolod = you must be greeted. A Volapiik verb could take 505,440 different forms. Its author himself sometimes lost his way in its mazes and felt the need for itaUcizing the stem. Compound words, formed by juxta- position, grew to enormous length, and became the subject of ridicule.

The feminine was indicated by ji or of, prefixed to the noun, the neuter by os. Nouns were decHned. Adjectives ended in ik, and adverbs in 0. R was usually excluded from the alphabet, on the charge that it was difficult to pronounce ; yet the EngHsh h was admitted, also the Spanish, written thus ' ; and the modified vowels a, 6, u. Root-words were made as monosyllabic as possible, as well they might be, considering the number of affixes ! Conjugable words might never end in c, i, s, x, or z.

Schleyer declared that he had based his vocabulary mainly upon EngHsh, but he made the stems unrecognizable. Rose, stripped of its r and its s, was given an I at

6o DELPHOS

both ends, and became lol. Brother was changed to blod ; sister to ji-hlod.

Root-words were capriciously chosen, with so Uttle regard to the essential part of the word that sincerity became rit, from which was derived ritik = true. Origin became rig, and original was rigud. Confusion was invited by using the mere modification of a single letter to denote large numbers of different words. Thus to-day — adelo, yester- day — adelo.

The popularity of Volapiik may be ascribed to three causes. Its author was a capable propagandist ; it caught the fervour of the humanitarian and Socialist revival that followed the Franco-German war. Its very oddity was attractive to many seekers after the universal language. To find it scholarly, harmonious, and incorporating famiHar words might have disappointed the quest for some- thing unknown. It appealed to the taste that revelled in Gtdliver's Travels without per- ceiving its satire, and received with avidity the spurious stories of Baron Munchausen.

Example :

Fat obas kel binol in siils paisaludomoz

nem ola ! Komomod monargdn ola ! — from

the Lord's Prayer in Volapiik.

Esperanto Esperanto has the letters of the Roman

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 6i

alphabet, with the exception of q, x, and v. It has in addition one vowel with the breve

mark u, and five accented consonants, c, g,

h, J, s, not found in any natural language. As these have to be specially cast, the language cannot be set up from the ordinary fount of printer's type.

The introduction of new letters and new spelUngs transform the international words adopted by Esperanto ; yet the pronuncia- tion is not easy. There are many difficult sounds, including kv, kn, sts.

Like that of Volapiik, the essential prin- ciple of the Esperanto vocabulary is the building of words by a priori affixes, attached to a Hmited number of usually monosyllabic stems. Volapiik had three hundred such affixes. Esperanto has sixty-six. Aliformigilo = transformator (in electricity), and tagnok- tegaleco — equinox are grotesque examples of Esperanto's so-called " autonomous word building ".

Father Schleyer chose English as the main source for his stems. Dr Zamenhof aimed at a wider internationality ; but he did not submit the words to the test of tracing them through the various European languages to discover which were in widest usage ; nor does he appear to have followed any other consistent method of selection.

62 DELPHOS

All Esperanto nouns end in o, adjectives in a, adverbs in e, the personal pronouns and the infinitive of the verb in i, impersonal pronouns in u, prepositions in au. The words are, in fact, classified, not, as in the old philosophical languages, according to their meaning but according to their tem- porary grammatical role. Such grammatical classification did not originate with Esperanto. It occurred in many older systems. The arbitrary endings perform the secondary purpose of assisting the student to detect the grammatical function of the word ; but they obscure its etymology. He knows that the word is a noun in that particular sentence ; but its meaning he fails to recognize, for its appearance has been changed. Boa, for example, has become boao, and ros^ rozo. People who lack a swift perception of grammar will stumble and hesitate in speak- ing, because, though aware of the meaning of the word, its grammatical role in the particular sentence is not clear to them.

Far less can be gained by emphasizing the category in which a word is placed by grammatical convention than is lost by the resultant monotony of the word-endings.

The Esperanto plural is formed, not with s, which has the widest internationaUty, but with j pronounced as y in boy or in pay. Critics are warned " to stop short of bias-

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 63

phemy *' in recalling that some Greek plurals occur in y. Greek being an inflected language, had, however, many plurals. The sounds of oy and eye did not recur with any approach to the Esperanto frequency. Moreover, they were in harmony with the vocalic structure of ancient Greek and have disappeared from the modem Greek pronunciation. Esperanto stems, chosen now from one language, now from another, have been subjected to no harmonizing influence. Atonic vowel-endings, recalling the Latin languages, are grafted on to Teutonic and Slavonic roots, themselves rendered wholly strange to the eye by Esperanto spelling, and produce such curious words as : Birdoy = birds, pronounced bear- doy : rajdi = to ride ; havi = to have ; rajfo = right ; limo = limit.

The Esperanto practice of placing the tonic accent invariably on the penultimate syllable also tends to disguise international words,

such as angelo = angel, and to increase the monotony produced by its grammatical endings. Esperantists protest that if Es- peranto is monotonous, so also is French, because its accent always falls on the last syllable. In French, however, variety is obtained by the admixture of vowel and consonantal endings, and the mute e. In Esperanto monotony is added to monotony. When attempting verse, its votaries are

64 DELPHOS

obliged to lop off the endings. Thus they re-distribute the tonic accents, and re- establish variety.

The Esperanto feminine is formed by interpolating in before the final o of the substantive. Thus the old word mother, traceable in every branch of the Indo- European language family, becomes that cold stranger, patrino.

Esperanto wisely avoids artificial gender. It retains one case ending, the accusative. This is claimed as a special virtue, because, by its means, a sentence can be turned topsy- turvy. An ardent Esperantist has done his best to convince us that it is highly con- venient to be able to say " Abebw killed Caino ", without thereby controverting the Bible story. The retention of the accusative is, however, an illogical survival.

Another such feature is the agreement of the adjectives with the nouns in number and case. To compensate for this, there is a drastic reduction of the adjectives, by the unhappy expedient of prefixing the particle mal to a quality, to form its opposite. The result is unpleasant and inexact. Bona in Esperanto is good ; malbona = bad. Not good is by no means the equivalent of bad, nor is not young the appropriate term for old. Such clumsy and contradictory modes of expression are alien to the spirit of Uterature.

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 65

Suppose Herrick had written : " Not-young Time is still a flying " ; or Blake : " Not big lamb, who made thee ? " ! The particle mal, in its wide international usage, denotes the positive quaUty ill, not a mere negation. Malfermi, which in Esperanto is to open, conveys to every European the idea : imperfectly closed.

The Esperanto verb admits of no irregu- larities, and it has aboHshed the indication of number ; but it indicates tense and mode by inflections, instead of by the modem analytical method. There is but one auxiliary — the verb to he. This is a lack ; for the two principal auxiUaries of being and attribution certainly contribute different shades of meaning, and the trend of modern language is to make a greater use of auxilia- ries. In seeking simpHfication, we should be careful not to reduce the capacity of the language for exact expression.

Dr Zamenhof invented for Esperanto a table of forty-five much debated correlative words, many of which are difficult to pro- nounce ; i.e. Nen-i-es, ki-es, and Ti-u.

Esperanto is much more speedily learnt than any natural language ; indeed there is much less in it to learn. It is a great advance upon Volapiik ; yet, in spite of its many translations from the classics, it cannot become an efficient medium for literature, or

66 DELPHOS

a genuine link in the European speech-family, unless it is subjected to drastic and funda- mental changes.

• Example :

Mi naskigis en Bjelostoko. Tiu ci loko de

mia naskigo kaj de miaj infanaj jaroj donis

la direkton al ciuj miaj estontaj celadoj —

from a letter of Dr Zamenhof.

Ido Ido has adopted the main structure of Esperanto. It has abohshed the special accented letters ; but its own spelling, together with the grammatical finals o, a, e, i, which it has taken over from its parent, frequently disguise international words. Words which begin with ther, tur and ter, are all spelt with ter. Thus the Ido word termo, which might be taken for term, turns out to mean thermal spring. Root-words are taken from heterogeneous sources. A striking example of Ido reasoning is given m relation to the word home. Idists reject the Latin words, domicilium, domus, and casa as giving no true equivalent ; also the English home, because, as it is a noun, the system would require that a final o should be added to it, and homo has akeady been appropriated as the word for man. The German Heim is excluded, because of its diphthongized pro-

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 67

nunciation. Therefore Ido takes the Dutch hem and makes it hemo, which, so far from being the 6^a.v famihar term, from which Enghsh Idists could not part, is unrecog- nizable by any people. Another such word is summer, which Ido makes somero. But if home and summer can stand the test of indispensability with cafe and maccaroni, let them be adopted simply as home and summer. Their origin will then be plain. Having no guide to their source, one could not guess the meaning of the following Ido words without reference to the dictionary : skalo, from the Latin scalae ; tualetar from the French toilette ; tayo = waist from the French taille ; shirmar = to shelter, from the German schir- men ; torto (given the Ido noun-ending) one would expect to signify tort, which in the sense of wrong or injury has a wide inter- nationality, and has produced in EngUsh the well-known words tortuous and torture. In Ido, however, torto stands for tart, because German has torte for tart, though German has also tort for wrong. Tro-uzar, which is Ido for to use to excess, approximates closely to nursery jargon. The international word maritime becomes marala, in conformity with the prescribed affixes.

Ido prides itself on its system of derivation, which embodies what Dr Couturat described as *' the principle of reversibility ".

68 DELPHOS

This must be explained. Esperanto nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are formed direct 1}^ from the stem, by adding the allotted vowel-termination. Given the stem, it is quite easy in Esperanto to say what the verb or other part of speech shlU be. Ido, on the contrary, has a dual method, which differs according to whether the stem indicates : (i) a state of being or an action ; (2) the name of a person or thing. No verb can be directly derived from an adjective, or from a noun, unless the noun expresses an act or condition ; no substantive from a verb, unless the substantive expresses the state or action denoted by the verb. In other cases an intermediate affix is required, and this affix must be chosen to fit the particular case. Such compact English expressions as : To crown and to ship Idists regard as " in- admissible " in a " logically constructed language to be used by diverse linguistic groups ".^ Thus in Ido krono = crown, but to crown is kronizar ; Paco = peace ; pacar = to he at (or in) peace ; pacigar = to pacify or appease ; paceskar = to make peace ; pacifar = to make for peace ; pacala = relating to peace ; pacema = pacific ; who likes peace ; pacoza = peaceful or which is at peace ; pacifanta, paciganta = pacifying ; pacigo — pacification, or peace-making, appeasement.

^ Dyer's Ido Dictionary, 1924.

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 69

All this is wandering towards the synthetic mazes of Volapiik.

In its conjugation Ido is more synthetic than Esperanto. We do not think the modern mind, particularly that which employs EngUsh speech, and the same may be said with even greater reason of the Chinese, will enchain its expression in such grammatical exercises as on next page.^

In the third person plural of the pronouns Ido has four forms — general, masculine, feminine, and neuter ; redundances which modern language finds unnecessary.

Ido has expunged some Esperanto crudi- ties. It has also created some new ones. A critical examination of its dictionary must result in expelling a large proportion of its words, if internationality is to be the test.

Example :

Nun la mondlingual movado avancas per

ke la unesna grupani, la reala idealisti,

esforcas ohjektale informar la lasta grupani.

— K. KozAVi in Ido.

• Dyer's Ido Dictionary, 1924.

70 DELPHOS

bo tuo

b 0) > > <i^ <i;

'^ ^ ^ rjO rTi

•"^ ""j I— I i-H rij "^

Vi Ui

o^

rQ

C« 

•Vh

W

u

o

r« 

l/i

o5

<D

1

^

<1^ S

a

^^

^

o-c

^

"•^ ►i

-M f^

>

3 "u

oJ

-Sf

^

s

rt CO c5 b 9

rt^ o ^

•J^ o ^ o

r^ CO O) Cf)

to <D <U <U

1

J-l CO

^ CO

•n: CO

-7^ ?

^ 9

^.-a

.r^

o ^

o *h

CO ^

CO CO

0) W

<U (V

^ ^ s 1 ^

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 71

Interlingua

In its vocabulary Interlingua is the most a posteriori of the a posteriori languages. It goes furthest in eliminating grammar. It is composed of International words, the Latin form of such words being employed wherever it exists. Otherwise either the most inter- national form, or that of the language in which the word originated is chosen. Only those Latin words are used which have a wide international] ty in the Uving languages of to-day. All Anglo-Latin words and all Greek stems which have produced inter- national words are included. For these last Interlingua does not simply employ the Latin orthography, but writes the words according to accepted philological methods of transcribing Greek words in the Roman alphabet. The classical Latin pronunciation is recommended.

In the main, Interlingua can be read at first sight by people of fair education who do not know Latin. The meaning of most of its words can be discovered from a good English dictionary. Some of the small correlative words, all of which are taken direct from the Latin, will have to be learnt. Most of them, however, are familiar to us as affixes, retain- ing their original meaning even if not used as separate words. These include ai = to^ which we know in adhere ; ante = hefore^

72 DELPHOS

which we have in antecedent ; contra — against, occurring in contradict. Many others are common also in Latin phrases which appear frequently in English books, such as : ut infra = as below ; ut supra = as above ; idem = the same. Students who learn these correlative words will not waste their time even should they never make use of Inter- lingua, because they need them for EngHsh itself.

Peano's Vocabulario Commune (1915) con- tains 14,000 Anglo-Latin words, 999 out of every 1,000 of which are common also to ItaUan and French, whilst the majority are found also in Spanish and German, and many in Russian. This work is valuable to all students of comparative philology. Each word is given in the Latin form chosen for Interhngua, and in the forms it assumes in the other languages. Thus the word is clearly displayed for immediate comparison. The chosen form is accompanied by the endings given to it in the Latin dictionaries' used in schools, that of the nominative of the noun and the first person singular of the verb. Post-classical Latin words are accompanied by figures indicating the century to which they belong. The meaning, derivation, and derivatives of each word are also given. For example, it is shown that the Interlingua word machina, which, as in all cases, is the

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 73

Latin stem according to Peano's method of selection, is macchina in Italian, machine in French and EngUsh, Maschine in German, mdquina in Spanish, and machina in Portu- guese. It is also shown that this word comes from the ancient European magh, from which are derived the EngUsh way. and the German mogen and Macht. Derivatives are similarly treated. The Interlingua Latin verb admira = to admire is shown to produce admirahile, which is the same in Italian, is admirable in English and in French, and is admirahel in German. It also produces in Latin and in Interlingua admiratione = admiration, and 'admiratore = admirer.

A glance through the words thus displayed convinces us that anyone possessing a good knowledge either of English, French, or German has the elements of Inter-European communication. Even where a common substantive or verb may be lacking, the common stem will be found by turning to one of the other parts of speech. Thus, though in English we say wall, for what in Latin and Italian is muro, in French mur, in German Maur, we English use the same stem in the adjective mural and in the verb to immure.

Uninflected Latin words are regarded as stems and retained intact. In the case of inflected words, Peano takes as the stem,

74 DELPHOS

that is to say the essential part of the word, the imperative of the verb, or the infinitive without the suffix re, and the ablative case of the noun. In this choice he differs from the authors of most other artificial languages, who divest the stem of all vocalic ending. Thus, whilst Peano regards rosa, pede, sensu, and libro as the stem of the words in question, many others take ros, ped, sens, and libr, which have a mutilated appearance, and are often difficult to pronounce. Having thus clipped the words, Volapiik, Esperanto, Ido, Neutral, Romanal, and others add artificial terminations to indicate the grammatical parts of speech. Interlingua, on the contrary, adds nothing to the stem (with the sole exception of s to form the plural of nouns) except such endings as actually occur in the Latin form of the existing international word. In other words Interlingua deletes existing grammatical terminations which are held to be unnecessary : it does not coin new ones : nor does it take existing affixes and attach them to any words to which they have not hitherto been attached in Latin.

Peano' s Dictionary gives a list of suffixes, but these are actual Latin suffixes, already attached to international words. It is not intended to change them about in an arbitrary manner, but to retain them as they have developed in usage.

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 75

Those who have become accustomed to the methods of the other artificial languages often find this distinction difficult to grasp. Thus, in his Short History of the International Language Movement, Professor A. L. Gu6rard criticizes Professor Peano's selection of the stem, and urges that the supine is richer in derivatives than the stem as defined in Interhngua. He says :

" We have scribe, to describe, etc. ; but we have script, scripture ; we have legible, legend ; but we have lecture, lectern ; we have agent, agenda ; but also act, action, active ; in French, we find corriger by the side of correct, correction, correcteur. It is pretty safe to say that of the two forms the supine is richer in modem derivatives." Turning to Peano's Dictionary of Inter- lingua, we find therein all the forms of the supine indicated by Professor Guerard. The Dictionary shows that Interhngua does not merely use scribe = write, and describe = describe, as Professor Guerard says ; but also scripto = script and scriptura = scripture, as well as all the other forms he has mentioned as international. How is this ? The explana- tion is that Interhngua regards each word from the standpoint of its meaning and its internationahty. The Latin past participle ending in to (as in amato, scripto, and the other forms mentioned) is used — but only

76 DELPHOS

where it occurs in international words.

The Academia in 1890 (during its Idiom Neutral period) decided to regularize the Latin passive participle, which is not uniform in all verbs and sometimes modifies the stem. In securing uniformity, the Academia created a number of artificial words. This method, the old method of Volapiik, was discarded with the coming of Interlingua. In accord with Peano's dictum that the minimum of grammar is no grammar, inflections, as such, are ruthlessly abolished. Person and number are not indicated by the verb, as these are shown by the noun or pronoun.

Tense is not indicated by the verb, but by qualifying words : Hodie nos ES in Paris = To-day we be in Paris ; Heri me ES in Roma = yesterday we be in Rome ; Cras vos ES in Torino — To-morrow we be in Turin. In each case the verbal form es remains un- changed. As in EngUsh tense can be indicated by auxiUaries ; the past by e preceding the Verb : Qui e bibe — who has drunk. Peano shows that e in this sense is derived from the ancient European, being so used in Greek and in Latin. The future can be denoted by i : Qui 1 bibe = who will drink, or, more literally, who will go to drink, for i is the stem of the verb to go. It occurs in Latin : IS, ivi, itum, ire. Italian : andare, ire gire iva, ito ; French = oiler, irais, iras, ira,

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 77

irai ; Spanish, ir, iha, ido ; Portuguese, ir, la, ido. The same stem is found in the EngUsh words transitory and itinerant. Desire and obUgation are indicated by the auxiUaries vol, which we EngUsh find in voluntary, and dehe, which has given us debit.

The modes of the verb are not indicated by any change in its form, but by pre- positions, as in EngUsh. The Latin phrase : In dubio abstine = in doubt abstain is un- changed in InterUngua, because, in this case, the Latin phrase has no inflections to discard.

For the infinitive the stem alone is generaUy used, adding, where necessary, the Latin preposition ad, which has the same meaning as the EngUsh to. I Study, I desire to study is rendered Me stude, me vol stude. Me habe libros AD stude = I have books to study. When the infinitive is employed as an abstract noun, the Greek article to = the, which comes from the ancient European, can be used, thus : To err is human — to erra es humano. This expedient perhaps sUghtly opens the door to the patchwork process of combining diverse Unguistic elements accord- ing to individual fancy, which has produced a plethora of hybrid artificial languages. Peano himself usually prefers to invert the statement, and make it simply : hom^ erra = man errs.

Adjectives are invariable. Nouns lose

78 DELPHOS

their case-endings. The genitive is expressed by de as in French. The plural of nouns is formed in s ; but only used where not other- wise indicated. For instance : leones = lions, but duo hone = two lions. Sex is indicated only where the sense requires it, the existing form of mascuHne and feminine being used, or the noun followed by mas or femina, to indicate the sex, as in the Latin canis mas, cams femina. The article is completely abolished.

The pronouns are the direct or indirect case of the Latin pronouns, chosen again on the principle of internationality and used without indication of case. Me = me, I ; te = thou ; illo = he, him ; nos = we, us ; vos = you ; illos = they, them.

Interlingua is generally accepted as easier to read at first sight than the other artificial languages. Some critics object that its retention of the Latin terminations makes it less easy to write and speak correctly than if it were to adopt a regular series of artificial suffixes. Interlinguists reply that there is no greater difficulty in remembering the end of a word than any other part of it ; that Interlingua words are already familiarized by international usage ; and that to attach to famiHar stems a set of arbitrary suffixes would be to make them difficult and strange.

New Latin words are constantly made to

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 79

fulfil new functions : largely for naming inventions and discoveries. The coinage proceeds upon established and well-known principles. The general use of an inter- language based on Latin would inevitably increase it ; but the words would appear only in response to need. Example :

Tunc surge muUitudine de studios novo, unde resuUa que linguas de Europa habe numeroso vocahulo commune ; que vocahu- lario internationale es in quasi totaUtate latino, et que illo suffice pro construe lingua toto naturale intelligible ad primo visu aut quasi ab omni homo culto, et plus simpffc^ et regular e que Volapiik.

ROMANAL

Romanal is an attempt to combine the intemationality and Latinity of Interlingua with a grammatical structure similar to that of Esperanto. Its author, Dr A. Michaux, of Boulogne-sur-Mer, is a member of the Academia pro InterUngua, which he has followed in his wise choice of Latin surviving in the living languages, as the basis of his vocabulary. Like the Academia, he adopts the Latin orthography and pronunciation ; but, following Esperanto, he allots a special letter to terminate each of the grammatical parts of speech. Proper names (as in

8o DELPHOS

Esperanto) are made to conform to this system, A merica becoming A merice. Volapiik, Esperanto, and Ido are followed in word- building by a series of affixes attachable to any stem. In this manner regularity is attained, but the familiar aspect of Latin international words is sacrificed. Monte, for instance, becomes Montasse.

Ignoring the modern trend towards the analytical, Dr Michaux has invented a new synthetic conjugation of the verb. He forms the active voice, in all modes and tenses, without an auxihary. He employs the auxiliary to be for the passive voice ; but, instead of the Latin esse, uses the Spanish estar. His conjugation includes such forms as me amaveran = I shall have loved ; me amavun = I should have loved ; amavant = having loved ; amerav = to have the duty to love ; amerant = having the duty to love ; amerat = having the duty to he loved. These complicated forms are much nearer to Volapiik than anything in Ido or in Esperanto.

The method of derivation is midway between Esperanto and Ido. If the stem is that of an object, the verb suffix can be added, as in Esperanto, without an inter- mediate affix. Thus coron-e = crown, coronar = to crown^ ; but, if the stem indicates a

1 Compare with Ido : Kron-o = crown ; Kron-

iz-ir = to crown.

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 8i

person, an intermediate affix is required. If the stem is that of a verb, an intermediate affix is required to form a substantive.

Romanal is an effort to combine two mutually confficting policies.

Example :

Li Meliori lingue auxiUari est ille quel possan facilim comprendar li americanos del norde et illos del sude.

Universal

Universal (1903), later called Panroman (1906), by Dr H. Molenaar, is another neo- Latin language. Its vocabulary is formed from words found in at least two of the Romance languages. Dr Molenaar has made the common mistake of attempting to simplify international words in a haphazard manner. Moreover, his choice of stems is not reduced to rule. Etymology is obscured in such words as Kan = dog ; Kar = dear ; laser, from the French laisser.

Example :

Kommunikazioni internazional deven sem- per plus grand. Un facil komprension mutual es nezes in komerz, art, szienz, in viagi kongresi e mil okasioni. Universal has been put to practical use in the Positivist quarterly Humanitat.

82 DELPHOS

Medial Europan Joseph and Betti Weisbart have displayed a charming ingenuity in the illustrated text- book of their Lingue Medial Europan. Europan attempts to provide a mean between the Latin and the German and Slav languages. To the difficulties produced by that attempt, it adds its own method of spelling. Esperanto is followed in the grammatical terminations, though the endings are different. The verb is synthetic. Example :

Tuti es silent. Ni home es exier le domes ultra le duktento del kaval-vagon, qui veha po le voye via le ponte al vilaje. — Ilustrat ABECEDARIE del Lingue Medial Europan.

Occidental Occidental, by E. von Wahl (Reval), has its circle of adherents and its monthly magazine Kosmoglott. It is a partially a priori amalgam, based on the principal European languages. Curious features are n' to indicate ny, and /' to indicate ly (as in the EngHsh folio) ; also the use of double consonants, for example : stopp = stop. The juxtaposition of words from various lan- guages sometimes modified according to the fancy of the author, makes a discordant impression ; for instance : along = along ; alor — then ; alqual — somewhat ; chascun^^

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 83

everyone ; nequi = no one ; necos = nothing ; mem = even ; nyti = ninety.

The choice of auxihary verbs is whimsical. Fe = did, which assists in forming the preterite, is purely a priori, as is veil, the auxiliary used to form the conditional. Fe, by the way, is not the past tense of far = to make or to do ; it is used only as auxiliary to the formation of the preterite. Veil also has only the one use. The same is true of va, the auxihary used for the future tense, though it is evidently drawn from the Latin vado = to go. Pies in an adaptation of the Enghsh please.

In a new language aiming at grammatical simphcity, it is strange to introduce a syn- thetic perfect, and also two auxiliaries to indicate the past ; fe — did, and hav = to have. Fe is in part used Hke the English did ; but in English, of course, did is used correctly only in the negative and interrogative. To employ it in the affirmative is colloquial, if not vulgar. Modem analytical language is not content to divide tense into the old grammatical categories. It calls for hmitless shades of meaning. These must be conveyed by appropriate words, not by a mere variety of forms, which express no actual difference in meaning. / sang and I did sing convey nothing different, nor do their Occidental equivalent me cantat, and me fe cantat.

84 DELPHOS

Example :

Mi constata ancor un vez, que Occidental es un lingue occidental, e pro to usar anc un occidental historic heredat transcription, e li usationes del Arab Japanes etc, por nos ne es obligativ. — E. von Wahl in Kosmoglott.

A Summarized View

The various auxiliary-language attempts are tending towards a common goal : the elimination of formal grammar and a vocabu- lary of inter-European words with an over- whelming preponderance of Latin. In spite of the obdurates, philological discussions are constantly proceeding between the various schools ; and it becomes increasingly clear that the creation of an acceptable medium is a long task, in which the labour of many minds must be combined.

The greater share of the first spade-work for Interlanguage was done by the Sociahsts and lovers of popular fraternity ; then came the Pacifists and the humanitarians. To-day science, commerce, diplomacy, sociology, and the general world of public opinion begin to recognize Interlanguage as a necessity. ^OT the ideal of a world medium of under- standing and utility, of pacification and fraternity, the work of the Esperantists has been unrivalled. It is a great monument of devotion and ability. The palm for linguistic

INTERLANGUAGE ATTEMPTS 85

excellence, amongst the existing inter- languages, must, on the other hand, be given to Peano's Interlingua, because it is the first systematic attempt to build up an inter-European vocabulary on a consistent scientific basis ; because it goes furthest in the elimination of grammar, under the guidance of observed tendencies in natural language ; above all, because it is a logical etymological attempt to create the poor man's simpHfied Latin, which will open to him the nomenclature of the sciences, and will enable him to understand the prescription of his doctor and the legal phrases contained in the lawyer's presentment of his case

ainea

VII

THE GOVERNMENTS AND THE INTERLANGUAGE

THE Interlanguage cannot be the crea- tion of Governments. No Government attempts to dictate in regard to the grammar and syntax of the national tongue. Even in France such matters are left to the Academic. Government schools everywhere teach accord- ing to the generally accepted canons estab- lished by those who make a special study of the given subject. So with the Interlanguage ; it will develop with the general consensus of world-opinion, led by the speciaUsts. Its discovery and perfection must be mainly the work of philologists, working, not as propa- gandists and politicians, but as scientists and students. After the philologists will come the stylists ; the poets, and thinkers.

Even should all, or most. Governments, perhaps through the medium of the League of Nations, be induced to give official recognition to one of the existing artificial languages, the decision would be merely formal. The real decision would rest, first with savants, whose researches are con- tinuous ; secondly with the mills of usage in

GOVERNMENTS & INTERLANGUAGE 87

which the interlanguage will become practical, and in which, though in some aspects it may- be vulgarized, in the large result it will be beautified and enriched.

Unless the decision of Cabinets be in harmony with social needs and fundamental Unguistic tendencies, it will not stand. If they reject the Interianguage it will never- theless make progress, governments desirous of furthering the estabUshment of a world-auxiliary should first endow interlanguage research. Chairs of synthetic philology should be estabUshed in all universities^ An Interlanguage In- stitute should be created for comparative inter-European philological research ; for the study of compromise-languages, for the classification and analysis of grammar and phonetics, and for research into their evolution in all parts of the world, viewed from the interlanguage standpoint. This Institute should be established in each country and at an international centre. The greatest philologists should be enhsted for its work. Reports should be issued by it to the Press, the Learned Societies, and educa- tional institutions. Its function would be advisory, but if it were an efficient body, it would achieve a commanding influence.

Thus the Interlanguage would be estab- lished by the development of a general

88 DELPHOS

consensus of world philological opinion. For a period, the resultant language would remain fluid. Various schools of thought would adopt various modifications of the general speech. Already, though they have grown up haphazard, the existing competing artificial languages have come to possess so much in common that they have been described as dialects of a common language.

The practical test of the Interlanguage will be intelligibiUty. Men and women will not cling to forms which do not convey their meaning to others. Moreover, average people readily accept the dicta of specialists in matters of learning. Scientists are the most harmonious section of humanity, and may be trusted to assist the world in finding an acceptable medium.

Interlanguage teaching in elementary and secondary schools should at present be frankly tentative. The wise teacher of chemistry informs the pupils that the science is in a state of flux, that the theories of twenty years ago have been overturned, and those of to-day may also in time be discarded. So with Interlanguage : pupils should be informed of the true position. Simple courses in comparative philology should be given. Children should be taught to trace inter-European words in the forms they have acquired in the various European languages,

GOVERNMENTS & INTERLANGUAGE 89

and to decompose and analyse words in their native language which have come from Latin or other foreign sources. Such instruction is particularly valuable to children speaking our h3^brid EngHsh. The course should include a review of the grammatical changes which have occurred in the native language and of grammatical tendencies in other languages. An account of the interlanguage movement should also be given.

As speciaUzed philological opinion upon the Interlanguage reaches a fairly general consensus, it wiU be embodied in text-books for use in the regular curricula of schools.

The Interlanguage will introduce new social strata both to international communi- cations and to culture. It wiU grow with employment, as all other languages have grown. Yet its basis will lie in the historical accumulations of long ages. Like every living language, it will provide for new inventions and new ideas, new words built in harmony with accepted standards, and with affixes already in habitual use. In the Interlanguage, no more than in other languages, will there be many writers desirous of achieving the creation of five new words a year, as recommended by a certain American writer.

The Interlanguage will provide a means by which the thoughts and emotions of mankind,

90 DELPHOS

as expressed in language, may achieve a world-comprehension, which is to-day possible only in music.

There is work here for our teachers and students, our pacifists, and our sociologists. Let them rally to the standard of Inter- language — to perfect it, and to advance it.

VIII IN THE FUTURE

WE are looking towards a future in which the procuring of mere food and raiment and a modicum of shelter will not monopoUze so large a share of the individual life and energy as is now the case. The present widespread material scarcity will be replaced by abundance ; education and culture will be widely diffused.

With economic problems and rivalries largely swept away by the advent of plenty for all ; and, consequently, with a healthier, more contented, and more united world- population, great cultural changes will take place. These will enhance the utility of the Interlanguage.

The newspapers will no longer fill their columns with accounts of larceny and intemperance, wars, industrial disputes, and the speeches of party politicians. Science, art, and Uterature will take first place. Only the pages devoted wholly to Uterature will be printed in the national language. The news will appear in the Interlanguage. Where thousands of people are to-day interested in reading of what others have

92 DELPHOS

done in art and science, millions will then delight in their actual pursuit. These millions will be eager for news of the dis- coveries of people engaged in similar activities all over the globe. The frontiers will form no barrier and insularity will be no more.

The mechanism of the Press will be revolutionized. The news will be transmitted by wireless telegraphy, and its impression recorded on metal from which it may be printed. No typesetting machine will be required. The synchronized tape-machine is the precursor of this development.

By using the Interlanguage it will be possible to send all news to one world receiving-station, for retransmission every- where ; or to three, four, or five such stations, if preferred. Events of universal importance will be conveyed in concise words that will require no re-writing. Much of to-day's tedious sub-editing will disappear. Though world-society will have become more homo- geneous, certain news items will be of greater interest to certain parts of the world than to others. These may be supplemented by special articles which may appear in the Interlanguage. If they contain expert information or important local opinion, they will be copied by papers in other parts of the world.

All scientific and technical books and

IN THE FUTURE 93

journals will be written in the Interlanguage. During an interim period, before everyone has a famiUar knowledge of it, some works may be written in the native tongue of their authors and pubUshed simultaneously with an Interlanguage translation. Scientists have such vital need of co-operation that they will gladly clothe their thoughts in the language that will be common to their international fraternity, just as they did of old in Latin. Based on Latin, the main vehicle of their existing nomenclature, the Interlanguage will prove no difficult barrier to them.

Interlanguage will accelerate scientific research and increase the speed of inter- national communications. It will be used for foreign correspondence, and conferences, and for broadcasting ; always for trans- frontier, and frequently for home telephonic and telegraphic communications. It will be displayed in street signs and public vehicles. It will be as familiar to the eye as the national language. No traveller will fail to under- stand it.

Probably fifty (perhaps even thirty) years hence no one will be troubled by learning the Interlanguage. It will be acquired at the toddling age, side by side with the mother- tongue.

The schools will be wholly bi-Hngual. The

94 DELPHOS

Interlanguage and the native language will be used in teaching children, who will enter school with a famiUar-speaking knowledge of both. For arithmetic, geometry, mathe- matics, astronomy, chemistry, the geography and history of foreign countries, the Inter- language will be the vehicle of instruction, the national language being employed for the literature, history, and geography of the native land. Elocution will be practised in both tongues.

The children will correspond with school- fellows and club-mates in distant countries. Such international associations of the world's youth as the boy and girl scouts, and the present small scale organization of school- journeys are mere tentative beginnings of what is destined to be a great movement of the young people of all countries — stretching forth with the buoyant enthusiasm of youth to learn the universe. To-day many a lad joins the Army with the sole purpose of going abroad. To-morrow, aided by radiophony, television, the Interlanguage, and countless enlarging means of education and travel, all children will revel in finding the world open to their adventure.

The Interlanguage wiU play its part in the making of the future, in which the peoples of the world shall be one people : a people cultured and kind, and civilized beyond

IN THE FUTURE 95

to-day's conception, speaking a common language, bound by common interests, when the wars of class and of nations shall be no more.

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TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

FROM THE REVIEWS

Times Literary Supplement : " An entertaining series."

Spectator : " Scintillating monographs."

Observer : " There seems no reason why the brilliant To-day and To-morrow Series should come to an end for a century of to-morrows. At first it seemed impossible for the publishers to keep up the sport through a dozen volumes, but the series already runs to more than two score. A remarkable series . . ."

Nation : " We are able to peer into the future by means of that brilliant series [which] will constitute a precious document upon the present time." — ^T. S. Eliot.

Manchester Dispatch : " The more one reads of these pamphlets, the more avid becomes the appetite . We hope the lis t is endless . ' '

Irish Statesman : " Full of lively controversy."

Daily Herald : " This series has given us many monographs of brilliance and discernment. . . . The stylistic excellences of this provocative series."

Field : ' ' We have long desired to express the deep admiration felt by every thinking scholar and worker at the present day for this series. We must pay tribute to the high standard of thought and expression they maintain. As small gift-books, austerely yet prettily produced, they remain unequalled of their kind. We can give but the briefest suggestions of their value to the student, the politician, and the voter. ..."

Japan Chronicle : " While cheap prophecy is a futile thing, wisdom consists largely in look- ing forward to consequences. It is this that makes these books of considerable interest."

New York World : ' ' Holds the palm in the speculative and interpretative thought of the age."

[2]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

VOLUMES READY

Daedalus, or Science and the Future. By J. B. S. Haldane, Reader in Biochemistry, University of Cambridge. Seventh impression.

" A fascinating and daring little book." — Westminster Gazette. ' ' The essay is brilliant, sparkling with wit and bristling with challenges." — British Medical Journal.

" Predicts the most startling changes." — Morning Post.

Gallinicus, a Defence of Chemical War- • fare. By J. B. S. Haldane. Second

impression. "Mr. Haldane 's brilliant study." — Times

Leadins; Article. " A book to be read by every

intelligent adult." — Spectator. " This brilliant

little monograph." — Daily News.

Icarus, or the Future of Science. By Bertrand Russell, f.r.s. Fourth impression.

" Utter pessimism." — Observer. " Mr. Russell refuses to beUeve that the progress of Science must be a boon to mankind." — Morning Post. ** A stimulating book, that leaves one not at all discouraged." — Daily Herald.

What I Believe. By Bertrand Russell, F.R.S. Third impression.

" One of the most brilliant and thought- stimulating little books 1 have read — a better book even than Icarus." — Nation. " Simply and brilliantly written." — Nature. " In tabbing sentences he punctures the bubble of cruelty, en\^, narrowness, and ill-will which those in authority call their morals." — New Leader.

[3]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Tantalus, or the Future of Man. By F. C. S. Schiller, D.Sc, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Second impression.

" They are all {Daedalus, Icarus, and Tantalus) brilliantly clever, and they supple- ment or correct one another." — Dean Inge, in Morning Post. " Immensely valuable and infinitely readable." — Daily News. " The book of the week." — Spectator.

Cassandra, or the Future of the British Empire. By F. C. S. Schiller, D.Sc.

" We commend it to the complacent of all parties." — Saturday Review. " The book is small, but very, very weighty ; brilliantly written, it ought to be read by all shades of politicians and students of politics." — York- shire Post. " Yet another addition to that bright constellation of pamphlets." — Spectator.

Quo Vadimus ? Glimpses of the Future. By E. E. FouRNiER d'Albe,D.Sc., author of " Selenium, the Moon Element," etc. " A wonderful vision of the future. A book that will be talked about." — Daily Graphic. " A remarkable contribution to a remarkable series." — Manchester Dispatch. " Interesting and singularly plausible." — Daily Telegraph.

Thrasymachus, the Future of Morals. By C. E. M. JoAD, author of The Babbitt Warren, "etc. Second impression. " His provocative book." — Graphic. "Written in a style of deliberate brilliance." — Times Literary Supplement. " As outspoken and unequivocal a contribution as could well be imagined. Even those readers who dissent will be forced to recognize the admirable clarity with which he states his case. A book that will startle." — Daily Chronicle.

U]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Lysistrata, or Woman's Future and Future Woman. By Anthony M. LuDOVici, author of "A Defence of Aristocracy,'* etc. Second Impression.

" A stimulating book. Volumes would be needed to deal, in the fullness his work pro- vokes, with all the problems raised." — Sunday Times. " Pro-feminine, but anti-feministic." Scotsman. " Full of brilliant common-sense." — Observer.

Hypatia, or Woman and Knowledge. By Mrs Bertrand Russell. With a frontispiece. Third impression.

An answer to Lysistrata. " A passionate vindication of the rights of women." — Manchester Guardian. " Says a number of things that sensible women have been wanting publicly said for a long time." — Daily Herald.

Hephaestus, the Soul of the Machine. By E. E. Fournier d'Albe, D.Sc.

" A worthy contribution to this interesting series. A delightful and thought-provoking essay." — Birmingham Post. " There is a special pleasure in meeting with a book like Hephaestus. The author has the merit of really understanding what he is talking about." — Engineering. " An exceedingly clever defence of machinery." — Architects' Journal.

The Passing of the Phantoms : a Study of Evolutionary Psychology and Morals. By C. J. Patten, Professor of Anatomy, Sheffield University. With 4 Plates.

" Readers of Daedalus, Icarus and Tantalus, will be grateful for an excellent presentation of yet another point of view." — Yorkshire Post. " This bright and bracing litcle book," Literary Guide. " Interesting and original." — Medical Times.

[5]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

The Mongol in our Midst : a Study of Man and his Three Faces. By F. G. CROOKSHANK, M.D., F.R.C.P. With 28 Plates. Second Edition, revised.

" A brilliant piece of speculative induction." — Saturday Review. " An extremely interest- ing and suggestive book, which will reward careful reading." — Sunday Times. " The pictures carry fearful conviction." — Daily Herald.

The Conquest of Cancer. By H. W. S.

Wright, m.s., f.r.c.s. Introduction by F. G. Crookshank, m.d.

" Eminently suitable for general reading. The problem is fairly and lucidly presented. One merit of Mr Wright's plan is that he tells people what, in his judgment, they can best do, here and now." — From the Introduction.

Pygmalion, or the Doctor of the Future. By R. McNair Wilson, m.b.

" Dr Wilson has added a brilliant essay to this series." — Times Literary Supplement. " This is a very little book, but there is much wisdom in it." — Evening Standard. " No doctor worth his salt would venture to say that Dr Wilson was wrong." — Daily Herald. Prometheus, or Biology and the Ad- vancement of Man. By H. S. Jennings, Professor of Zoology, Johns Hopkins University.

" This volume is one of the most remarkable that has yet appeared in this series. Certainly the information it contains will be new to most educated laymen. It is essentially a discussion of . . . heredity and environment, and it clearly estabUshes the fact that the current use of these terms has no scientific justification." — Times Literary Supplement. "An exceedingly brilliant book." — New Leader.

£6]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Narcissus : an Anatomy of Clothes. By Gerald Heard. With 19 illustrations.

" A most suggestive book." — Nation

• • Irresistible. Reading it is like a switchback

journey. Starting from prehistoric times we rocket down the ages." — Daily Newi. " Interesting, provocative, and entertaining." — Queen.

Thamyris, or Is There a Future for Poetry ? By R. C. Trevelyan.

" Learned, sensible, and very well- written." — Affable Hawk, in New Statesman. " Very suggestive." — /. C. Squire, in Observer. " A very charming piece of work, I agree with all, or at any rate, almost all its con- clusions." — J. St. Loe Strachey, in Spectator.

Proteus, or the Future of Intelligence. By Vernon Lee, author of ** Satan the Waster," etc.

" We should like to follow the author's suggestions as to the effect of intelligence on the future of Ethics, Aesthetics, and Manners. Her book is profoundly stimulating and should be read by everyone." — Outlook. " A concise, suggestive piece of work." — Saturday Review.

Timotheus, the Future of the Theatre. By BoNAMY Dobr^e, author of *' Restor- ation Drama," etc.

" A witty, mischievous little book, to be read with deUght." — Times Literary Supple- ment. " This is a delightfully witty book." — Scotsman. " In a subtly satirical vein he visuahzes various kinds of theatres in 200 years time. His gay little book makes delightful reading. ' ' — Nation .

[7]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Paris, or the Future of War. By Captain B. H. LiDDELL Hart.

"A companion volume to Callinicus, A gem of close thinking and deduction." — Observer. " A noteworthy contribution to a problem of concern to every citizen in this country." — Daily Chronicle. " There is some lively thinking about the future of war in Paris, just added to this set of live- wire pamphlets on big subjects." — Manchester Guardian.

Wireless Possibilities. By Professor A. M. Low. With 4 diagrams.

" As might be expected from an inventor who is always so fresh, he has many inter- esting things to say." — Evening Standard. " The mantle of Blake has fallen upon the physicists. To them we look for visions, and we find them in this book." — New Statesman.

Perseus : of Dragons. By H. F. Scott Stokes. With 2 illustrations.

•' A diverting little book, chock-full of ideas. Mr Stokes' dragon-lore is both quaint and various." — Morning Post. " Very amusingly written, and a mine of curious knowledge for which the discerning reader will i&nd many uses." — Glasgow Herald.

Lycurgus, or the Future of Law. By E. S. P. Haynes, author of " Concerning Solicitors," etc.

"An interesting and concisely written book." — Yorkshire Post. " He roundly declares that English criminal law is a blend of barbaric violence, medieval prejudices, and modern fallacies. ... A humane and conscientious investigation." — T.P.'s Weekly. " A thought- ful book — deserves careful reading." — Law Times.

[8]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Euterpe, or the Future of Art. By Lionel R. McColvin, author of " The Theory of Book-Selection/'

" Discusses briefly, but very suggestively, the problem of the future of ait in relation to the public." — Saturday Review. " Another indictment of machinery as a soul-destroyer . . . Mr Colvin has the courage to suggest solutions." — Westminister Gazette. " This is altogether a much-needed book." — New Leader.

Pegasus, or Problems of Transport. By Colonel J. F. C. Fuller, author of " The Reformation of War," etc. With 8 Plates.

" The foremost military prophet of the day propounds a solution for industrial and unemployment problems. It is a bold essay . . . and calls for the attention of all con- cerned with imperial problems." — Daily Telegraph. " Practical, timely, very inter- esting and very important." — J. St. Loe Strachey, in Spectator.

Atlantis, or America and the Future. By Colonel J. F. C. Fuller.

" Candid and caustic." — Observer. " Many hard things have been said about America, but few quite so bitter and caustic as these." — Daily Sketch. " He can conjure up possi- bilities of a new Atlantis." — Clarion. Midas, or the United States and the Future. By C. H. Bretherton, author of " The Real Ireland ", etc.

A companion volume to Atlantis. " Full of astute observations and acute reflections . . . this wise and witty pamphlet, a provocation to the thought that is creative." — Morning Post. " A punch in every paragraph. One could hardly ask for rnore ' meat.' " — Spectator.

[9]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Nuntius, or Advertising and its Future. By Gilbert Russell.

" Expresses the philosophy of advertising concisely and well." — Observer. " It is doubt- ful if a more straightforward exposition of the part advertising plays in our public and private life has been written." — Manchester Guardian.

Birth Control and the State : a Plea and a Forecast. By. C. P. Blacker,

M,C., M.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.

" A very careful summary." — Times Literary Supplement. " A temperate and scholarly survey of the arguments for and against the encouragement of the practice of birth control." — Lancet. " He writes lucidly, moderately, and from wide knowledge ; his book un- doubtedly gives a better understanding of the subject than any other brief account we know. It also suggests a pohcy." — Saturday Review.

Ouroboros, or the Mechanical Extension of Mankind. By Caret Garrett.

" This brilHant and provoking little book." — Observer. " A significant and thoughtful essay, calculated in parts to make our flesh creep." — Spectator. " A brilliant writer, Mr. Garrett is a remarkable man. He explains something of the enormous change the machine has made in life," — Daily Express.

Artifex, or the Future of Craftsmanship. By John Gloag, author of ** Time, Taste, and Furniture."

" An able and interesting summary of the history of craftsmanship in the past, a direct criticism of the present, and at the end his hopes for the future. Mr Gloag's real con- tribution to the future of craftsmanship is his discussion of the uses of machinery." — Times Literary Supplement. [lO]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Plato's American Republic. By J.

Douglas Woodruff. Third impression.

" Uses the form of the Socratic dialogue with devastating success. A gently malicious wit sparkles in every page." — Sunday Times. " Having deliberately set himself an almost impossible task, has succeeded beyond belief," — Saturday Review. " Quite the liveliest even of this spirited series." — Observer.

Orpheus, or the Music of the Future. By W. J. Turner, author of " Music and Life."

" A book on music that we can read not merely once, but twice or thrice. Mr Turner has given us some of the finest thinking upon Beethoven that I have ever met with." — Ernest Newman in Sunday Times. " A briUiant essay in contemporary philosophy." — Outlook. " The fruit of real knowledge and understanding. ' — New Statesman.

Terpander, or Music and the Future. By E. J. Dent, author of "Mozart's Operas."

" In Orpheus Mr Turner made a brilliant voyage in search of first principles. Mr Dent's book is a skilful review of the development of music. It is the most succinct and stimulating essay on music I have found. . . ." — Musical News. "Remarkably able and stimulating." — Times Literary Supplement. "There is hardly another critic alive who could sum up contem- porary tendencies so neatly." — Spectator.

Sibylla, or the Revival of Prophecy. By C. A. Mace, University of St. Andrew's. "An entertaining and instructive pamphlet." — Morning Post. " Places a nightmare before us very ably and wittily." — Spectator. " Passages in it are excellent satire, but on the whole Mr Mace's speculations may be taken as a trustworthy guide ... to modem scientific thought." — Birmingham Post.

[II]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Lucullus, or the Food of the Future. By Olga Hartley and Mrs C. F. Level, authors of ' The Gentle Art of Cookery.' " This is a clever and witty little volume in an entertaining series, and it makes enchant- ing reading." — Times Literary Supplement. " Opens with a brilliant picture of modern man, living in a vacuum-cleaned, steam- heated, credit-furnished suburban mansion

• with a wolf in the basement ' — the wolf of

hunger. This banquet of epigrams." — Spectator.

Procrustes, or the Future of EngUsh Education. By M. Alderton Pink.

" Undoubtedly he makes out a very good case." — Daily Herald. " This interesting addition to the series." — Times Educational Supplement. " Intends to be challenging and succeeds in being so. All fit readers will find it stimulating." — Northern Echo.

The Future of Futurism. By John

RODKER.

" Mr. Rodker is up-to-the-minute, and he has accomplished a considerable feat in writing, on such a vague subject, 92 extremely inter- esting pages." — T. S. Eliot, in Nation. " There are a good many things in this book which are of interest." — Times Literary Supplement. Pomona, or the Future of EngUsh. By Basil de Si^lincourt, author of ' The English Secret ', etc.

" The future of English is discussed fully and with fascinating interest." — Morning Post. ' ' Has a refreshing air of the unexpected . Full of wise thoughts and happy words." — Times Literary Supplement. "Here is suggestive thought, quite different from most speculations on the destiny of our language." — Journal of Education. [12]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Balbus, or the Future of Architecture. By Christian Barman, editor of ' The Architect's Journal '.

" A really brilliant addition to this already- distinguished series. The reading of Balbus will give much data for intelligent prophecy, and incidentally, an hour or so of excellent entertainment." — Spectator. " Most readable and reasonable. We can recommend it warmly." — New Statesman. " This intriguing little book." — Co7tnoisseur.

JUST PUBLISHED Apella, or the Future of the Jews. By A Quarterly Reviewer.

" Cogent, because of brevity and a magni- ficent prose style, this book wins our quiet praise. It is a fine pamphlet, adding to the value of the series, and should not be missed." — Spectator. " A notable addition to this excellent series. His arguments are a provoca- tion to fruitful thinking." — Morning Post.

The Dance of Qiva, or Life's Unity and Rh5^hm. By Collum.

• • It has substance and thought in it. The

author is very much alive and responsive to the movements of to-day which seek to unite the best thought of East and West, and dis- cusses Mussolini and Jagadis Bose with perspi en city . ' ' — Spectator .

Lars Porsena, or the Future of Swearing and Improper Language. By Robert Graves.

" An amusing little book." — Daily Mirror. "It is to this subject [of swearing] that Mr. Graves brings much erudition and not a little irony." — Jofin O'London's Weekly. ** Not for squeamish readers." — Spectator. " Too out- spoken. The writer sails very near the wind, but all the same has some sound constructive things to say." — Manchester Dispatch.

[13]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Socrates, or the Emancipation of Man- kind. By H. F. Carlill.

Sets out the new view of the nature of man, to which the trend of modern psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary theory has led, shows the important consequences to human behaviour and efficiency which are bound to follow, and maintains that man is at last conscious of his power to control his biological inheritance.

Delphos, or the Future of International Language. By E. Sylvia Pankhurst.

An inquiry into the possibility of a medium of inter-communication, auxiliary to the mother tongues. A survey of past attempts from the sixteenth century to the present day. A prophecy of the coming inter- language, its form, its social and cultural utility, and its influence on world peace.

Gallio, or the Tyranny of Science. By J. W. N. Sullivan, author of "A History of Mathematics."

Is the scientific universe the real universe ? What is the character of the universe revealed by modem science ? Are values inherent in reality ? What is the function of the arts ? In addition to answering these questions, the author attacks the notion that science is materialistic.

Apollonius, or the Future of Psychical Research. By E. N. Bennett, author of " Problems of Village Life," etc.

An attempt to summarize the results secured by the scientific treatment of psychical pheno- mena, to forecast the future developments of such research, and to answer the familiar question " What is the good of it all ? "

[14]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

NEARLY READY

Janus, or the Conquest of War. By William McDougall, M.B., F.R.S., Professor of Psychology, Harvard Uni- versity, author of " The Group Mind," etc.

A volume of fundamental importance to all those who would avoid future wars. Sections are devoted to lessons of the Great War, the Causes of War, Preventives of War, League to Enforce Peace, and International Air Force as a Prevention of War.

Rusticus, or the Future of the Country- side. By Martin S. Briggs, F.R.I.B.A., author of "A Short History of the Building Crafts," etc.

Attributes much of the blame for the desecration of our countryside to the petrol engine, though he recognizes other contributory causes. He attempts to analyse the charm of our counties before the Industrial Revolution and shows how that movement influenced their aspect. Finally he surveys the future, making practical suggestions to avoid further ' uglification.'

Aeolus, or the Future of the Flying Machine. By Oliver Stewart, author of "Strategy and Tactics of Air Fighting."

A picture of the air-vehicle and air-battle- ship of the future, painted with colours from the aeronautical research work of to-day. The author foresees that the flying machine will resist mass production. Aircraft will be exalted as individual creations of the Artist-Scientist rather than debased as tools of the Commercialist.

[15]

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

Stentor, or the Future of the Press. By David Ockham.

Shows how since the War the control of the Press has passed into the hands of only five men . The law is powerless, even if willing, to check this justification. Now that independent organs of opinion are almost eliminated, the author discusses the danger to the community unless the Public is made aware of the personal- ities and policies behind the Trusts.

IN PREPARATION

The Future of India. By T. Earle

Welby.

An analysis of the spiritual and political future of 320 million persons in the light of present tendencies.

Mercurius, or the World on Wings. By C. Thompson Walker.

A picture of the air- vehicle and the air-port of to-morrow, and the influence aircraft will have on our lives.

The Future of Films. By Ernest Betts.

Vulcan, or Labour To-Day and To- Morrow. By Cecil Chisholm.

[16]

o

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