International Language, Past, Present & Future / With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar

Directly opposed to these is the other group of artificial languages, called a posteriori. These are wholly based on the principle of borrowing from existing language: their artificiality consists in choice of words and in regularization and simplification of vocabulary and grammar. They avoid, as far as possible, any elements of arbitrary invention, and confine themselves to adapting and making easier what usage has already sanctioned.

Between the two main types come the mixed languages, partaking of the nature of each.

The following list is taken from the Histoire de la langue universelle, by MM. Couturat and Leau:

I. A Priori Languages

1. The philosopher Descartes, in a letter of 1629, forecasts a system (realized in our days by Zamenhof) of a regular universal grammar: words to be formed with fixed roots and affixes, and to be in every case immediately decipherable from the dictionary alone. He rejects this scheme as fit "for vulgar minds," and proceeds to sketch the outline of all subsequent "philosophic" languages. Thus the great thinker anticipates both types of universal language.

2. Sir Thomas Urquhart, 1653—Logopandekteision (see next chapter).

3. Dalgarno, 1661—Ars Signorum.
Dalgarno was a Scotchman born at Aberdeen in 1626. His language is founded on the classification of ideas. Of these there are seventeen main classes, represented by seventeen letters. Each letter is the initial of all the words in its class.

4. Wilkins, 1668—An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language.
Wilkins was Bishop of Chester, and first secretary and one of the founders of the Royal Society. Present members please note. His system is a development of Dalgarno's.

5. Leibnitz, 1646–1716.
Leibnitz thought over this matter all his life, and there are various passages on it scattered through his works, though no one treatise is devoted to it. He held that the systems of his predecessors were not philosophical enough. He dreamed of a logic of thought applicable to all ideas. All complex ideas are compounds of simple ideas, as non-primary numbers are of primary numbers. Numbers can be compounded ad infinitum. So if numbers are translated into pronouncible words, these words can be combined so as to represent every possible idea.

6. Delormel, 1795 (An III)—Projet d'une langue universelle.
Delormel was inspired by the humanitarian ideas of the French Revolution. He wished to bring mankind together in fraternity. His system rests on a logical classification of ideas on a decimal basis.

7. Jean François Sudre, 1817—Langue musicale universelle.
Sudre was a schoolmaster, born in 1787. His language is founded on the seven notes of the scale, and he calls it Solresol.

8. Grosselin, 1836—Systeme de langue universelle.
A language composed of 1500 words, called "roots," with 100 suffixes, or modifying terminations.

9. Vidal, 1844—Langue universelle et analytique.
A curious combination of letters and numbers.

10. Letellier, 1852–1855—Cours complet de langue universelle, and many subsequent publications.
Letellier was a former schoolmaster and school inspector. His system is founded on the "theory of language," which is that the word ought to represent by its component letters an analysis of the idea it conveys.

11. Abbé Bonifacio Sotos Ochando, 1852, Madrid.
The abbé had been a deputy to the Spanish Cortes, Spanish master to Louis Philippe's children, a university professor, and director of a polytechnic college in Madrid, etc. His language is a logical one, intended for international scientific use, and chiefly for writing. He does not think a spoken language for all purposes possible.

12. Societé Internationale de linguistique. First report dated 1856.
The object of the society was to carry out a radical reform of French orthography, and to prepare the way for a universal language—"the need of which is beginning to be generally felt." In the report the idea of adopting one of the most widely spoken national languages is considered and rejected. The previous projects are reviewed, and that of Sotos Ochando is recommended as the best. The a posteriori principle is rejected and the a priori deliberately adopted. This is excusable, owing to the fact that most projects hitherto had been a priori. The philosopher Charles Renouvier gave proof of remarkable prescience by condemning the a priori theory in an article in La Revue, 1855, in which he forecasts the a posteriori plan.

13. Dyer, 1875—Lingwalumina; or, the Language of Light.

14. Reinaux, 1877.

15. Maldent, 1877—La langue naturelle.
The author was a civil engineer.

16. Nicolas, 1900—Spokil.
The author is a ship's doctor and former partisan of Volapük.

17. Hilbe, 1901—Die Zablensprache,
Based on numbers which are translated by vowels.

18. Dietrich, 1902—Völkerverkehrssprache.

19. Mannus Talundberg, 1904—Perio, eine auf Logik und Gedachtnisskunst aufgebaute Weltsprache.

II. Mixed Languages

These are chiefly Volapük and its derivates.

1. August Theodor von Grimm, state councillor of the Russian Empire, worked out a "programme for the formation of a universal language," which contains some a priori elements, as well as nearly all the principles which subsequent authors of a posteriori languages have realized.

This Grimm is not to be confused with the famous philologist Jacob von Grimm, though he wrote about the same time.

2. Schleyer, 1879—Volapük. (See below.)

3. Verheggen, 1886—Nal Bino.

4. Menet, 1886—Langue universelle.
An imitation of Volapük.

5. Bauer, 1886—Spelin.
A development of Volapük with more words taken from neutral languages.

6. St. de Max, 1887—Bopal.
An imitation of Volapük.

7. Dormoy, 1887—Balta.
A simplification of Volapük.

8. Fieweger, 1893—Dil.
An exaggeration of Volapük for good and ill.

9. Guardiola, 1893—Orba.
A fantastic language.

10. W. von Arnim, 1896—Veltparl.
A derivative of Volapük.

11. Marchand, 1898—Dilpok.
Simplified Volapük.

12. Bollack, 1899—La langue bleue.
Aims merely at commercial and common use. Ingenious, but too difficult for the memory.

III. A Posteriori Languages

1. Faiguet, 1765—Langue nouvelle.
Faiguet was treasurer of France. He published his project, which is a scheme for simplifying grammar, in the famous eighteenth-century encyclopaedia of Diderot and d'Alembert.

2. Schipfer, 1839—Communicationssprache.
This scheme has an historical interest for two reasons. First, the fact that it is founded on French reflects the feeling of the time that French was, as he says, "already to a certain extent a universal language." The point of interest is to compare the date when the projects began to be founded on English. In 1879 Volapük took English for the base. Secondly, Schipfer's scheme reflects the new consciousness of wider possibilities that were coming into the world with the development of means of communication by rail and steamboat. The author recommends the utility of his project by referring to "the new way of travelling."

3. De Rudelle, 1858—Pantos-Dimon-Glossa.
De Rudelle was a modern-language master in France and afterwards at the London Polytechnic. His language is based on ten natural languages, especially Greek, Latin, and the modern derivatives of Latin, with grammatical hints from English, German, and Russian. It is remarkable for having been the first to embody several principles of the first importance, which have since been more fully carried out in other schemes, and are now seen to be indispensable. Among these are: (1) distinction of the parts of speech by a fixed form for each; (2) suppression of separate verbal forms for each person; (3) formation of derivatives by means of suffixes with fixed meanings.

4. Pirro, 1868—Universalsprache.
Based upon five languages—French, German, English, Italian, and Spanish—and containing a large proportion of words from the Latin.

5. Ferrari, 1877—Monoglottica (?).

6. Volk and Fuchs, 1883—Weltsprache.
Founded on Latin.

7. Cesare Meriggi, 1884—Blaia Zimondal.

8. Courtonne, 1885—Langue Internationale néo-Latine.
Based on the modern Romance languages, and therefore not sufficiently international. A peculiarity is that all roots are monosyllabic. The history of this attempt illustrates the weight of inertia against which any such project has to struggle. It was presented to the Scientific Society of Nice, which drew up a report and sent it to all the learned societies of Romance-speaking countries. Answers were received from three towns—Pau, Sens, and Nimes. It was then proposed to convene an international neo-Latin congress; but it is not surprising to hear that nothing came of it.

9. Steiner, 1885—Pasilingua.
A counterblast to Volapük. The author aims at copying the methods of naturally formed international languages like the lingua franca or Pidgin-English. Based on English, French, and German; but the English vocabulary forms the groundwork.

10. Eichhorn, 1887—Weltsprache.
Based on Latin. A leading principle is that each part of speech ought to be recognizable by its form. Thus nouns have two syllables; adjectives, three; pronouns, one; verbal roots, one syllable beginning and ending with a consonant; and so on.

11. Zamenhof, 1887—Esperanto. (See below.)

12. Bernhard, 1888—Lingua franca nuova.
A kind of bastard Italian.

13. Lauda, 1888—Kosmos.
Draws all its vocabulary from Latin.

14. Henderson, 1888—Lingua.
Latin vocabulary with modern grammar.

15. Henderson, 1902—Latinesce.
A simpler and more practical adaptation of Latin by the same author—e.g. the present infinitive form does duty for several finite tenses, and words are used in their modern senses.

16. Hoinix (pseudonym for the same indefatigable Mr. Henderson), 1889—Anglo-franca.
A mixture of French and English. Both this and the barbarized Latin schemes are fairly easy and certainly simpler than the real languages, but they are shocking to the ear, and produce the effect of mutilation of language.

17. Stempel, 1889—Myrana.
Based on Latin with admixture of other languages.

18. Stempel, 1894—Communia.
A simplification of No. 17, with a new name.

19. Rosa, 1890—Nov Latin.
A set of rules for using the Latin dictionary in a certain way as a key to produce something that can be similarly deciphered.

20. Julius Lott, 1890—Mundolingue.
Founded on Latin. Lott started an international society for a universal language, proposing to build up his language by collaboration of savants thus brought together.

21. Marini, 1891—Méthode rapide, facile et certaine pour construire un idiome universel.

22. Liptay, 1892—Langue catholique.
Based on the theory than an international language already exists (in the words common to many languages), and has only to be discovered.

23. Mill, 1893—Anti-Volapük.
A simple universal grammar to be applied to the vocabulary of each national language.

24. Braakman, 1894—Der Wereldtaal "El Mundolinco," Gramatico del Mundolinco pro li de Hollando Factore (Noordwijk).

25. Albert Hoessrich (date?)—Talnovos, Monatsschrift für die Einführung und Verbreitung der allgemeinen Verkehrssprache "Tal" (Sonneberg, Thuringen).

26. Heintzeler, 1895—Universala.
Heintzeler compares the twelve chief artificial languages already proposed, and shows that they have much in common. He suggests a commission to work out a system on an eclectic basis.

27. Beermann, 1895—Novilatin.
Latin brought up to date by comparison with six chief modern languages.

28. Le Linguist, 1896–7.
A monthly review conducted by a band of philologists. It contains many discussions of the principles which should underly an international language, and suggestions, but no complete scheme.

29. Puchner, 1897—Nuove Roman.
Based largely on Spanish, which the author considers the best of the Romance tongues.

30. Nilson—La vest-europish central-dialekt (1890); Lasonebr, un transitional lingvo (1897); Il dialekt Centralia, un compromiss entr il lingu universal de Akademi international e la vest-europish central-dialekt (1899).

31. Kürschner, 1900—Lingua Komun.
The author was an Esperantist, but found Esperanto not scientific enough. It is almost incredible that a man who knew Esperanto should invent a language with several conjugations of the verb, but this is what Kürschner has done.

32. International Academy of Universal Language, 1902—Idiom Neutral. (See below.)

33. Elias Molee, 1902—Tutonish; or, Anglo-German Union Tongue. Tutonish; a Teutonic International Language (1904).

34. Molenaar—Panroman, skiz de un ling internazional (in Die Religion der Menschheit, March 1903); Esperanto oder Panroman? Das Weltsprache-problem und seine einfachste Lösung (1906); Universal Ling-Panroman (in Menschheitsziele, 1906); Gramatik de Universal (Leipzig, Puttmann, 1906).

35. Peano—De Latino sine flexione (in Revue de Mathématique, vol. viii., Turin, 1903); Il Latino quale lingua ausiliare internazionale (in Atti della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 1904); Vocabulario de Latino Internationale comparato cum Anglo, Franco, Germano, Hispano, Italo, Russo, Graeco, et Sanscrito (Turin, 1904). See also the Formulario mathematico, vol. v. (Turin, 1906).

36. Hummler, 1904—Mundelingua (Saulgau).

37. Victor Hely, 1905—Esquisse d'une grammaire de la langue Internationale, 1st part: Les mots et la syntaxe (Langres).

38. Max Wald, 1906—Pankel (Weltsprache), die leichteste und kürzeste Sprache für den internationalen Verkehr. Grammatik und Wörterbuch mit Aufgabe der Wortquelle (Gross-Beeren).

39. Greenwood, 1906—Ekselsiore, the New Universal Language for All Nations: a Simplified, Improved Esperanto (London, Miller & Gill); Ulla, t ulo lingua ä otrs (The Ulla Society, Bridlington, 1906).

40. Trischen, 1907—Mondlingvo, provisorische Aufstellung einer internationalen Verkehrssprache (Pierson, Dresden).

A perusal of the foregoing list shows that in the early days of the search for an international language the British were well to the fore. Of the British pioneers in this field the first two were Scots—a fact which accords well with the traditional enterprise north of the Tweed, and readiness to look abroad, beyond their own noses, or, in this case, beyond their own tongues. It is likewise remarkable that the British have almost dropped out of the running in recent times, as far as origination is concerned. Is this fact also typical, a small symptom of Jeshurun's general fatness? Does it reflect a lesser degree of nimbleness in moving with the spirit of the times?

Anyhow, in this case the Briton's content with what he has got at home is well grounded. He certainly possesses a first-class language. As a curious example of the quaint use of it by a scholar and clever man in the middle of the seventeenth century, the following account of Sir Thomas Urquhart's book may be of some interest.

Sir Thomas is well known as the translator of Rabelais; and evidently something of the curious erudition, polyglotism, and quaintness of conceit of his author stuck to the translator. This book is the rarest of his tracts, all of which are uncommon, and has been hardly more than mentioned by name by the previous writers on the subject.

The title-page runs:

In a note at the end of the book he apologizes for haste, saying that the copy was "given out to two several printers, one alone not being fully able to hold his quill a-going."

The book opens with:

"The Epistle Dedicatory to Nobody."

The first paragraph runs:

After some preliminary remarks, he says:

There follow sixty-six "qualities and advantages," which contain the only definite information about the language, for the promised grammar and lexicon never appeared. A few may be quoted as typical of the inducements held out to "pregnant and ingenious spirits," to the end they "may be more enamoured of the Language." The good Sir Thomas was plainly an optimist.

Sir Thomas evidently believed in giving his clients plenty for their money. He is lavish of "Verbs, Mongrels, Participles, and Hybrids," truly a tempting menagerie. He promises, however, a time-reduction on learning a quantity:

Seventeenth-century boys of tender years must have had a good stomach for "Mongrels and Hybrids," and such-like dainties of the grammatical menu; but even if they could swallow a mongrel, it is hard to believe that they would not have strained at ten cases in three months. It might be called "casual labour," but it would certainly have been "three months' hard."

After these examples of grammatical generosity, it is not surprising to read:

Note that the former colleagues of the "Verbs and Participles," the "Mongrels and Hybrids," are here dropped out of the category. Perhaps it is as well, seeing the number of voices attributed to each. A four-voiced mongrel would have gone one better than the triple-headed hell-hound Cerberus, and created quite a special Hades of its own for schoolboys, to say nothing of light sleepers.

Under "five and twentiethly" we learn that "there is no Hexameter, Elegiack, Saphick, Asclepiad, lambick, or any other kind of Latin or Greek verse, but I will afford you another in this language of the same sort"; which leads up to:

A remarkable opportunity for every man to become his own poet!

In this crops out the idea that haunted the minds of mediaeval speculators on the subject: that language could play a more important part than it had hitherto done; that a word, while conveying an idea, could at the same time in some way describe or symbolize the attributes of the thing named. Imagine the charge of thought that could be rammed into a phrase in such a language. Imagine too, you who remember the cold shudder of your childhood, when you heard the elders discussing a prospective dose—intensified by all the horrors of imagination when the discussion was veiled in the "decent obscurity" of French—imagine the grim realism of a language containing "words expressive of herbs",—and expressive to that extent!

There seems, indeed, to have been something rather cold-blooded about this language:

But, after all, it had a human side:

Sir Thomas seems to have been a bit of a man of the world too.

This "therefore," with its direct deduction from "conciseness of expression," recalls the lady patroness who chose her incumbents for being fast over prayers. She said she could always pick out a parson who read service daily by his time for the Sunday service.

Sir Thomas is perhaps over-sanguine to a modern taste when he concludes:

Volapük is the invention of a "white night." Those who know their Alice in Wonderland will perhaps involuntarily conjure up the picture of the kindly and fantastic White Knight, riding about on a horse covered with mousetraps and other strange caparisons, which he introduced to all and sundry with the unfailing remark, "It's my own invention." Scoffers will not be slow to find in Volapük and the White Knight's inventions a common characteristic—their fantasticness. Perhaps there really is some analogy in the fact that both inventors had to mount their hobby-horses and ride errant through sundry lands, thrusting their creations on an unwilling world. But the particular kind of white night of which Volapük was born is the nuit blanche, literally = "white night," but idiomatically = "night of insomnia."

On the night of March 31, 1879, the good Roman Catholic Bishop Schleyer, curé of Litzelstetten, near Constance, could not get to sleep. From his over-active brain, charged with a knowledge of more than fifty languages, sprang the world-speech, as Athene sprang fully armed from the brain of Zeus. At any rate, this is the legend of the origin of Volapük.

As for the name, an Englishman will hardly appreciate the fact that the word "Volapük" is derived from the two English words "world" and "speech." This transformation of "world" into vol and "speech" into pük is a good illustration of the manner in which Volapük is based on English, and suggests at once a criticism of that all-important point in an artificial language, the vocabulary. It is too arbitrary.

Published in 1880, Volapük spread first in South Germany, and then in France, where its chief apostle was M. Kerckhoffs, modern-language master in the principal school of commerce in Paris. He founded a society for its propagation, which soon numbered among its members several well-known men of science and letters. The great Magasins du Printemps—a sort of French Whiteley's, and familiar to all who have shopped in Paris—started a class, attended by over a hundred of its employees; and altogether fourteen different classes were opened in Paris, and the pupils were of a good stamp.

Progress was extraordinarily rapid in other European countries, and by 1889, only nine years after the publication of Volapük, there were 283 Volapük societies, distributed throughout Europe, America, and the British Colonies. Instruction books were published in twenty-five languages, including Volapük itself; numerous newspapers, in and about Volapük, sprang up all over the world; the number of Volapükists was estimated at a million. This extraordinarily rapid success is very striking, and seems to afford proof that there is a widely felt want for an international language. Three Volapük congresses were held, of which the third, held in Paris in 1889, with proceedings entirely in Volapük, was the most important.

The rapid decline of Volapük is even more instructive than its sensational rise. The congress of Paris marked its zenith: hopes ran high, and success seemed assured. Within two years it was practically dead. No more congresses were held, the partisans dwindled away, the local clubs dissolved, the newspapers failed, and the whole movement came to an end. There only remained a new academy founded by Bishop Schleyer, and here and there a group of the faithful.¹

¹A Volapük journal still appears in Graz, Stiria—Volapükabled lezenodik. The editor has just (March 1907) retired, and the veteran Bishop Schleyer, now seventy-five years old, is taking up the editorship again.

The chief reason of this failure was internal dissension. First arose the question of principle: Should Volapük aim at being a literary language, capable of expressing all the finer shades of thought and feeling? or should it confine itself to being a practical means of business communication?

Bishop Schleyer claimed for his invention an equal rank among the literary languages of the world. The practical party, headed by M. Kerckhoffs, wished to keep it utilitarian and practical. With the object of increasing its utility, they proposed certain changes in the language; and thus there arose, in the second place, differences of opinion as to fundamental points of structure, such as the nature and origin of the roots to be adopted. Vital questions were thus reopened, and the whole language was thrown back into the melting-pot.

The first congress was held at Friedrichshafen in August 1884, and was attended almost exclusively by Germans. The second congress, Munich, August 1887, brought together over 200 Volapükists from different countries. A professor of geology from Halle University was elected president, and an International Academy of Volapük was founded.

Then the trouble began. M. Kerckhoffs was unanimously elected director of the academy, and Bishop Schleyer was made grand-master (cifal) for life. Questions arose as to the duties of the academy and the respective powers of the inventor of the language and the academicians. M. Kerckhoffs was all along the guiding spirit on the side of the academy. He was in the main supported by the Volapük world, though there seems to have been some tendency, at any rate at first, on the part of the Germans to back the bishop. It is impossible to go into details of the points at issue. Suffice it to say, that eventually the director of the academy carried a resolution giving the inventor three votes to every one of ordinary members in all academy divisions, but refusing him the right of veto, which he claimed. The bishop replied by a threat to depose M. Kerckhoffs from the directorship, which of course he could not make good. The constitution of the academy was only binding inasmuch as it had been drawn up and adopted by the constituent members, and it gave no such powers to the inventor.

So here was a very pretty quarrel as to the ownership of Volapük. The bishop said it belonged to him, as he had invented it: he was its father. The academy said it belonged to the public, who had a right to amend it in the common interest. This child, which had newly opened its eyes and smiled upon the world, and upon which the world was then smiling back—was it a son domiciled in its father's house and fully in patria potestate? or a ward in the guardianship of its chief promoters? or an orphan foundling, to be boarded out on the scattered-home system at the public expense, and to be brought up to be useful to the community at large? A vexed question of paternity; and the worst of it was, there was no international court competent to try the case.

Meantime the congress of 1889 at Paris came on. Volapük was booming everywhere. Left to itself, it flourished like a green bay-tree. This meeting was to set an official seal upon its success; and governments, convinced by this thing done openly in the ville lumière, would accept the fait accompli and introduce it into their schools.

Thirteen countries sent representatives, including Turkey and China. The great Kerckhoffs was elected president. The proceedings were in Volapük. The foundling's future was canvassed in terms of himself by a cosmopolitan board of guardians, who did not yet know what he was. Rather a Gilbertian situation. Trying a higher flight, we may say, in Platonic phrase, that Volapük seemed to be about midway between being and not-being. It is a far cry from Gilbert viâ Plato to Mr. Kipling, but perhaps Volapük, at this juncture, may be most aptly described as a "sort of a giddy harumphrodite," if not "a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one."

Business done: The congress discusses.

The congress passed a resolution that there should be drawn up "a simple normal grammar, from which all useless rules should be excluded," and proceeded to adopt a final constitution for the Volapük Academy.

Article 15 says: "The decisions of the academy must be at once submitted to the inventor. If the inventor has not within thirty days protested against the decisions, they are valid. Decisions not approved by the inventor are referred back to the academy, and are valid if carried by a two-thirds majority."

The bishop held out for his right of absolute veto, as his episcopal fellows and their colleagues are doing "in another place" in England. The conflict presents some analogy with other graver constitutional matters, involving discussion of the respective merits of absolute and suspensive veto, and may therefore have some interest at present, apart from its great importance in any scheme for an international language.

The upshot was that dissensions broke out within the academy. The director, unable to carry a complete scheme of reformed grammar, resigned (1891), and the academy, whose business it was to arrange the next congress and keep the movement going, never convened a fourth congress. Several academicians set to work on new artificial languages of their own; and what was left of the Academy of Volapük, under a new director, M. Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg railway engineer, elected 1893, subsequently turned its attention to working out a new language, to which was given the name Idiom Neutral (see next chapter).

It is interesting to note that, when Volapük was nearing its high-water mark, the American Philosophical Society appointed a committee (October 1887) to inquire into its scientific value.

This committee reported in November 1887. The report states that the creation of an international language is in conformity with the general tendency of modern civilization, and is not merely desirable, but "will certainly be realized." It goes on to reject Volapük as the solution of the problem, as being on the whole retrogade in tendency. It is too arbitrary in construction, and not international enough in vocabulary; nor does it correspond to the general trend of development of language, which is away from a synthetic grammar (inflection by means of terminations, as in Latin and Greek) and towards an analytic one (inflection by termination replaced by prepositions and auxiliaries).

But the committee was so fully convinced of the importance of an international language, that it proposed to the Philosophical Society that it should invite all the learned societies of the world to co-operate in the production of a universal language. A resolution embodying this recommendation was adopted by the society, and the invitations were sent out. About twenty societies accepted—among them the University of Edinburgh. The Scots again!

The London Philological Society commissioned Mr. Ellis to investigate the subject, and upon his report declined to co-operate. Mr. Ellis was a believer in Volapük, and furthermore did not agree with the American Philosophical Society's conclusion that an international language ought to be founded on an Indo-Germanic (Aryan) basis. In this Mr. Ellis was almost certainly wrong, as subsequent experience is tending to show. The Japanese, among others, are taking up Esperanto with enthusiasm, find it easy, and make no difficulty about its Aryan basis. But, apart from linguistic considerations, Mr. Ellis's practical reasoning was certainly sound. It was to this effect: The main thing is to adopt a language that is already in wide use and shown to be adequate. Alterations bring dissension; by sticking to what we have already got, imperfections and all, strife is avoided, and the thing is at once reduced to practice.

This was a wise counsel, and applies to-day with double force to the present holder of the field, Esperanto, which is besides, in the opinion of experts, a better language than Volapük, and far easier to acquire.

However, on the question of technical merits, the American Philosophical Society was probably right, as against the London Philological Society represented by Mr. Ellis. And the proof is that Volapük died—primarily, indeed, of dissensions among its partisans, but of dissensions superinduced on inherent defects of principle. That this is true may be seen from the subsequent history of the Volapük movement. This is briefly narrated in the next chapter, under the name of Idiom Neutral.