Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1888-03-15
THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

|
The New York Times has been in.
terviewing Francis A. March, professor
OF English and comparative philosophy
at Lafayette College. Easton. Pa, who
probably has not over a single peer
(Prof William ID. Whitney, of Yale, }
us philologist in this country, on the
subject of universal language.
There is "a great demand for a uni
versal language" sad Prof. March,
~ 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
pondents and telegraphic operators
communicate between peoples speaking
hundreds of different languages. You
know, Isuppose." he continued. that
the telegraph operators have u univer-
sal language of telegarphic signs called
pasigraphy. | made some remarks
about il 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
n copy of the document. 1t proved to
be his annual address as President of
the association. and contained the fol-
lowing paragraph:
1--WE must also look after pasigraphy. The
telegraph operators who send messages be-
] tween countries speaking different languages
| N at for oil
words OF the same sense in all languages with
! which they have to do, just as Arabic figures
| 90 over large part of the world aud kind
I OF universal language for the telegram will
soon grow up, TO the astonishment OF the
world and the encouragement of linguists in
times succeeding To attempt a universal VOC
al language"
The Professor continued: "Five wears
later Schleyer invented and published
Volapuk. He is German linguist and
a Roman Catholic priest. 1t is Il 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 geni-
eral languages in use. notably Lingua
Franco, around the Mediterranean. and
Pigeon English Chat Is, Business En-
glsh. 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 n the world. When such n
language grows up. the speakers of
different languages who have to talk
with each other catch up the prominent
SNlables of few prominent words i'm
each others languages and let the
rest 90; SO that the new talk is as SIM
pie and brief as may be. Our mono |
syllable and non grammatic English is |
general language of that sort for |
communication between the Normans |
and SaXons or the Romantic and Ger |
man languages.
will Nolapuk be Diff cult of acquire
ment by English-speaking races?"
I'm its present form extremely so.
Volapuk, to an EugliShman. is exactly
the opposite of the general languages l
have just descibed. 1t is an od-fash-
Toned, lOng-worded, polysynthetic-
looking affair. A page of it looks more
like page of Turkish in Roman print
or doctored Sanskirt. than an inven-
ton of the era of the telegraph 1t is
imposs bic to imagine any Englishman
making such language. 1t starts Off
with three German unlauted vowels
ca ~. the despair of all penmen and
printers and phonetists out of GERMANY.
The word Judge would be written
coo, cats, k-az. and sheep i.i-p.
The noun has four eases. There are
four voices OF the verb-active. passive.
rellexive, requentative-seven modes.
and so on. No common business man,
who knows no language but English,
can learn all this grammatical mach.
merry. 1t will take German to do it.
Or u Russian, or some other of those
polyglots in Eastern Europe. 1t is
said to have spread in Austria mainly,
md 1 should think il likely. There
ire dozens of the most difficult dialects
altogether there, and all of them of
his long-winded type"
What chance has Volapuk of
throughout the worldP"
1T may possibly gain foothold gen. {
orally in Germany and adjacent re- '
,ions, and then German enterprise [
nay push it into other countries rs n
business necessity. In this way they |
nay make II necessary for every great |
telegraph Office. newspaper corpora {
ion and merchant in every great GEN. s
CT of business to have at least one q
yolapuk clerk. That will make places G
or 100. 900 German clerks all over the
world"
Have any steps yet been taken to-
Yard the simpliiicaton of this new lam
uagep" a
"lf Volapuk succeeds pretty we'll it c
ill most likely be changed simplified g
lade more fke English. 1t has al .
eady been proposed to hold interna- '
onal conventions of Volapukists and
II others interested with view to I'M v
rove it. 1t is possible that n univer- Y
ii business language may be developed - :,
this way. II
lis there possibl ty that it may in !. ~
me suporsede English as the most " "
language?" y
ii am suppOsing that English shall -"
e superseded. English has been rap 7,
lily becoming the universal language. %
ne-fourth of the population of the ~
ord is now ruled by English speak =. =.
g nations. Over one-half of ali the =