Idaho news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1887-1891, 1888-02-25
THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

terviewing Francis A. March professor
of English and comparative philosophy
at Lafayette College. Easton. Pa. who
probably has not over single peer
Prof. William d. Whitney. OF Yale,)
AS philologist in this country, on the
subject Of a universal language.
There is a great demand for n uni
versal language" sa d Prof March.
"a thousand times as great as ever be-
fore. Commerce Is universal. Every
part of the world wants the news from
every other part. Newspaper cores
pondeDts and telegraphic operators
communicate between peoples speak M
hundreds Of different languages. You
know, Isuppose." he continued. "that
the telegraph operators have univer-
sal language of telcgarphic signs called
pasigraphy. l made some remarks
about it in my address to the American
Pathological Association in 1874 which
were prophetic
Being asked to repeat the prophecy,
Prof March supplied the reporter with
copy of the document. 1t proved to
be his annual address as President of
the association. and contained the fol-
lowing paragraph:
ave must also look after pasigraphy The
telegraph operators who send messages be-
tween countries speaking different languages
are agreeing on signs, each TO stand for all
words of the same sense In all languages with
which they have IN dn inst n Arabic Hprflrao
do over large part OF the world, and kind
OF universal language for the telegraph will
soon grow up, to the establishment OF the
world and the encouragement Of linguists in
times succeeding to attempt universal VOC
al language"
The Professor continued: "Five years
later Schleyer invented and publ shed
Volapuk. He is German linguist and
Roman Catholic priest 1t is very
German kind of universal language.
and not at all like the universal Ian
guage which the philologsts have ex-
pected. There are some other gent
eral languages in use notably Lingua
Franco, around the Mediterranean, and
Pigeon English Chat Is, Business En-
glish. from the Oh nese pronunciation
of the word business, all along the
coasts of China and Eastern Asia.
Probably more persons of more dialects
speak Pigeon English than any other
speech IN the world. When such a
language grows up. the speakers of
different languages who have to talk
with each other catch up the prominent
sylables of few prominent words in
each others languages and let the
pa en- ahaH glta nv tall i 81
Pile and brief as may be. Our mono
syllable and non grammatic English is
a general language of that sort for
communication between the Normans
and SaXons or the Romantic and Ger
man languages.
''Will Volapuk be diff cult of acquire
ment by English-speakiDg races?"
I'm its present form extremely so.
Volapuk. to an Englishman. is exactly
the opposite of the general languages 1
have Just descibed. 1t is an old-fasli-
Toned. long-worded, polysynihetic-
looking affair. A page of it looks more
like page of Turkish in Roman print
or doctored Sanskirt, than au inven-
ton of the era of the telegraph. 1t is
imposs BILE to imagine any Englishman
making such a language. 1t starts off
with three German unlauted vowels
"a u). the despair of all penmen and
printers and phonetists out of Germany.
The word Judge would be written
coo, cats, k-az. and sheep Zip.
The noun has four cases. There are
four voices of the verb-active. passive,
refexive. requentative-seven modes.
and so on. No common business man.
who knows no language but English,
can learn all this grammatical mach
inery. 1t will take German TO do it,
or Russian, or some other of those
polyglots in Eastern Europe. 1t is
said to have spread in Austria mainly.
and 1 should think It 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 worldp'
1T may possibly ga foolhold gen.
orally in Germany and adjacent re-
| gions, and then German enterprise
I NAV push il into other countries rs a
business necessity. In this way thoy
may make Il 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 simplitication of this new Lam
| guagee"
"lf Volapuk succeeds pretty we'll it
will most likely be changed, simplified
made more like English. 1t has al
ready been proposed to hold interna-
tional conventions of Volapukists and
all others interested with view to M
prove it, 1t is possible that a univer-
sal business language may be developed
i'm thus way.
lis there possibil ty that it may in
I time supersede English as the most
widely-spoken languagep"
a 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 Ivy English speak
my nations. Over one-half of all the
letters carr ed by post are written. mail
ed, and read by speaking pop
ulatious. These populations have
more books and papers printed than
All tho poSt pf tha world CON, hipad