St. Paul daily globe., 1895-12-26
VOLAPUK HAS A RIVAL.
Esperanto Is the Name of Il New
Universal Language.

Universal Language.
New York World.
Esperanto is not the name of new
liqueur or of a new appetizer, nor that
of g. popular comic song, but 1t is lile
name of an artificial language which is
fast gaining adherents in France, and
that is already able to boast of many
| followers in Russia, Germany, Eng
land, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain,
| the United States, and even in some
parts of Africa.
Among those most proficient in the
language is a Frenchman, bearing the
aristocratic name of D'EysSautier. He
says that Esperanto is by no means d
new language, nor even recent dis
! covery This international language
has been in existence nearly ten years,
and there are at least ten thousand
adherents in different parts of the
world.
The author, or originator of Esper-
anto Is Russian gentleman, DR..
Zamenhof, of Warsaw. He calls it a
universal language. He says that one
may learn it's grammar in an hour and
| all it's vocabulary of words in a few
days.
Max Muller writes it with the great
est ease, and SO does Tolstoi, who is one
of the leading contributor to the
! official organ of the language, the Es-
perantisto, which, by the way, is utter
ly opposed to the Volapuk organ, for
it has literary tendencies.
| The fact is, Esperanto hopes to de-
throne Volapuk altogether. Verses
may be written in it, and translations
of the Had and Hamlet have been pub
| lished. This new language, which
means the "person who hopes,' is
| perhaps better known in Russia. than
in any other country. Russia is it's
birthplace.
Like all artificial universal Ian
guages the roots of Esperanto are de-
rived from the best known of modern
tongues-English, French and Ger
man-these offering the least difficulty
| to students. AS a root indicating the
action of loving the syllable "am'' has
| been adopted. Now, should one wish
| to make substantive and obtain the
word 'love," in French amour, one
| has but to add the letter co. thus OBJ
| tanning the word "amo." This is an
absolute rule, to obtain a substantive
from a given root at the letter co.
| Nothing is easier.
In similar manner, to obtain an ad-
jective from given root, one has but
to add on "a" instead of an "o,' and
! thus the word "amorous Gin French
"amoureux'D becomes "ama" in Esper-
| anto. And this rule for forming ad-
| jectives has no exceptions. And the let
| ter "a to this root and the adjective is
| formed
Verbs are obtained in quite as easy q
fashion. The present tense demands
but the addition of two letters to the
root, "as.'' The past is formed by
placing the letters 'fs'' after the root,
and the future by the addition of "os. -
present, past, future and other lenses
are always obtainable in the same
easy fashion by the addition of couple
| of letters to the root.
The grammar of the new language
is easy and almost as simple as the
formation of the vocabulary. There
are very few rules in the entire book of
grammar, and what is most important,
there are no exceptions to any of the
| rules.
The Volapuk language is very SINH
| lar to Esperanto. But we do not hear
much of Volapuk nowadays. AS to this
Volapuk authority says:
"It should not be imagined that be-
cause the Volapuk propaganda has
ceased, and that because at the present
time there are no more schools and
lectures, that the Volapuk language is
inferred forever. If it were so, one
would have some cause for saying that
it has become a. dead language before
ever having been a living one. But
such is not the case.
MANY French people at the present
| day, who know no other language but
their own, are corresponding in Vola-
puk with Americans, Japanese, Rus
slams and Turks. It's practical results
are sufficiently conclusive in the i'm
nationally. The partisans Of Esperan-
to may possibly obtain the same re-
Suits But that only goes to prove
that the very principle of a universal
language has nothing chimerical about
| it.
1.-THE language utilized in communi-
cation between semaphores is under
| stood by captains at sea, whatever be
their nationality. Let any foreign ship
arrive outside French port and the
! captain see an inverted cone he will
know at once that a storm is expected.
phores and lighthouses he never aban-
doned his own tongue. With Volapuk
and Esperanto matters are much the
same. A man may study both and be
fluent with both without dropping his
own natural language"
1t seems at present that Volapuk OF
Esperanto may be utilized extensively
in commercial, scientific and other
| communications.