Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1888-03-09
THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.
what nance Nolapuk Has-The Tell
egrnphic tode-pigeon English
Ia Growth of English Proper.

The New York Times has been in
teryiewing Francis A. March, professor
Of English and comparative philosophy
~ Lafayette College. Easton. Pa. who
probably has not over Il single peer
Orof. William ID. Whitney, of Yale,)
as "A philologist in this country. on the
subject of Il universal language.
There Is n great demand for n uni
versal language sa Il Prof. March,
"a Thousand times rs great as ever be-
fore. Commerce is universal. Every
part of the world wants the news from
every other part. Newspaper cores
pondents and Geographic operators
communicate between peoples speaking
hundreds OF different languages. You
know, suppose" he continued. that
the telegraph operators have a univer-
sal language of telcgarphic signs called
pasigraphy. | made some remarks
about it in my address to the American
Philologloa cal Association in 1874 which
were prophetic"
Being asked TO repeat the prophecr,
Prof. March supplied the reporter with
a copy of the document. 1t proved to
be his annual address as President of
the association. and contained the fol-
lowing paragraph:
W. must also look after pasigraphv. The
telegraph operators who send messages be-
tween countries speaking different languages
arc agreeing on signs, each to stand for all
words OF the same sense ~ all languages with
which they have TO do. Just as Arabic figures
do over a large part 81 the world, and a kind
OF universal l|anguage FOR the telegraph will
soon grow up, TO the sStOnishment or the
world and the encouragement OF liuguists in
times succeeding TO attempt a universal VOC
al language"
The Professor continued: Give years
later Schleyer invented and publ she'd
Nolapuk. He is a German linguist and
a Roman Catholic priest 1t is 4 very
German kind of universal language.
and not at all like the universal Lam
guage which the philologists have ex-
pccted. There are some other gent
eral languages IN use. notably Lingua
Franco, around the Mediterranean. and
Pigeon English Chat Is, Business En-
gllsh, from the Oh ncse pronunciation
OF the word business all along the
coasts of China and Eastern Asia.
Probably o persons of more dialects
speak Pigeon English than any other
speech n the world. When such a
language grows mp. the speakers of
different languages who have to talk
with each other catch up the prominent
Syiablcs of a few prominent words in
each others languages and let the
rest 20; 50 that the new talk is as SIM
pie and brief As may be. Our mono
syllable and non-grammatic English is
Il general language of that sort for
communication between the Normans
and SaXons or the Romano and Ger
man languages.
''WIll Nolapuk be Diff cult of acquire
mcnt by English-speaking races?'
In its present form extremely so.
Nolapuk, to an Engli>hman. is exactly
the Oppos te of the general languages |
have just de-cibed. 1t is an old-fash-
toned. long-worded, polysynthetic-
looking affair. A page Of it looks more
like a page Of Turkish in Roman print,
or doctored Sanskirt, than al inven-
ton of the era of the telegraph. IL is
imposs BILE to imagine any E~nglishman
making such a language. 1t starts off
with three German unlauted vowcls
Ga 0 ~, the despair Of all penmen and
printers and phonetists out of Germany.
The word Judge would be written
coo, eats k-az. and sheep ti-p.
The noun has four cases. There are
four voices of the verb-active. passive,
reilexive. frequentatiye-seven modes,
and so on. No common business man,
.l- 1..v.. a.. 1.n..a lts Eyrli-h
can learn all this grammat cal mach
inery. 1t will take a German to do it,
or a Russian, or some other Of those
p%olyglOts IN Eastern Europe. 1t Is
said to have spread in Austria mainly.
and | should think t likely. There
are dozens Of the most difficult dialects
altogether there, and all OF them of
this long-winded type"
What chance has Volapuk of
spreading throughout the world?'
1T may possibly "a n foothold gen.
orally IN Germany and adjacent re-
gions, aud then German enterprise
may push it into other countries ~ a
business necessity. In this way they
may make II necessary for every great
telegraph office. newspaper. corpora
ton and merchant in every great CEN
ter of business to have at least one
Volapuk clerk. That will make places
for 100. 600 German clerks all over the
world"
Have any steps yet been taken to-
ward the simpliiication of this new lam
guage?'
= IF Volapuk succeeds pretty well it
will most likely be changed, simplilied,
made more IKE English. 1t has al
ready beer proposed to hold interna-
tional conventions of Nolapukists and
all others interested with a view to M
prove it. 1t is possible that a univer-
sal business language may be developed
i'm this way."
us there a possibil ~ that it may in
time supersede English as the most
widcly-spoken language?"
II am suppOsng that English shall
be- superseded. English has been rap
idly becoming the universal language.
One-fourth of the population of the
world is now ruled 10y English speak
Inc nations. Over one-half Of all the