The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-08-09
A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.
Effort to Bring About a National I'm
derstandfnR Among Nations.


From the San Francisco Post.
There was recently held in Paris a
great reunion of learned men, whose
purpose was to form an international
congress of academies. The idea is
that there should be a body composed
of representatives OF every great acad-
envy, institute, university and scisn-
tific society of the whole civilized
world, all working together in the gen
eral interests of every branch of
knowledge The congress of aeade-
mics will be general registry Office
of learning and discovery, or. one
might put 1t, an international clearing
house of science.
Its most important function will he
to keep tab on the progress made in
every highway and byway. of research
and thought all over the world. 1t will
sum up the actual position of knowi-
edge in every subject, organize research
on new lines and enable isolated WORK.
ers to avoid wasting time and labor on
lines already fully explored. The scien-
tiflc worker in London or Berlin will be
able to profit at once by the authorita-
lively recognized net results of a
worker in the United States, or vice
versa 1t is not too much to say that
the whole movement of science and
learning during the coming century
should be UNNECESSARILY accelerated by
this new institution.
The idea realized in Paris Is not
new one. Benjamin Franklin advocat-
ed 1t in Paris to Voltaire. And long
before him the great German philoso-
pher and scientist Leibnit9 had sug-
gested some such International alli-
ance of learned men. 1t has taken 200
years to realize what seems to be so
simple and obviously useful sugSes-
ton. Leibnitz might well have been
satisfied to Sc how warmly his country
men of this year of grace have espous-
ed his idea and how brilliantly Ger
many was represented in the congress.
But what Franklin would have said to
his countrymen is more dubious. For,
whatever the reason may be, only one
American was delegated to this assem-
bly-Prof. Goodale-and, by singular
piece of bad luck, he fell i'll in Switzer-
land just before the reunion, and WIS
unable to attend.
Into the proceedings of the congress
there is no need to enter at length. AS
a matter of fact, all that was not high
ly technical was purely preliminary.
But there was one interesting question
opened. The congress of academies
| determined to tackle the difficult mat
| ter of a universal language. The need
of such a language is being felt more
| and more every day. AS trade becomes
mere and more extended, taking in ey-
cry country In the world, the language
question becomes formidable diff
Guilty. A large American firm will, in
the course of year, have to write and
receive letters in every dialect spoken
| wherever American goods are used.
Instead of having to employ many
translators, waste quantity of price
less time, and in the end do business
unsatisfactory. it would be infinitely
better to have one recognized business
language, adopted in every country
and learned as a matter of course by
every one who proposed, either as a
| clerk or principal, to enter commerce.
Several experiments have, of course,
| been made in this direction. Perhaps
the most prominent was Volapuk. But
| Volapuk is now as dead as the tradi-
tional door nail. The reason is easily
stated. 1t lacked authoritative sane
ton; and it was RECONSTRUCTED in this
respect, that, being purely fantastic,
having no relation to any existing
tongue, it laid heavy burden on the
memory. Relatively few people cared
to learn difficult language when they
were not sure that the day after they
had acquired it new and better sys-
tenn might not appear and be more
| generally adopted.
| A biological committee of the con-
| gress of academies will study the ques-
| ton in all its bearings and expects In
| the course of a few years to work out
or adopt from outside some artificial
language which will meet the condi-
lions of universal success. Such lam
guage will have to be absolutely sim
pie in construction, with no elaborate
rules, easy of pronunciation on phonet-
ic laws by every race likely to use it,
easily learned by being COMPOSED as
far as possible of root words common
to the greatest possible number of lam
guages.
These conditions are not so hard to
meet as it might seem. Pronunciation
ana grammatical rules are simply
matter of universal agreement. AS for
aiding the memory by the use of roots
common to many languages. they can
be found in the Latin words which
abound in nearly every tongue. Eng
lish is full of them French, Spanish
and Italian are almost exclusively
made up of them, German has a good
many.
Already a language has been formed
on this principle. 1t Is called Esperanto
and is the creation of Russian sehol-
ar, and Count Tolstoi declares that af-
ter only tnfee hours study he learned
to read it as fiuently as his own tongue.
Any one with a smattering of Latin
would certainly master it in a week,
1t may be that Esperanto will be
adopted by the united academies. 1t
it be, the Congress will use all its in
teFnational influence to get il officially
accepted by every country; perhaps
even to have it made compulsory sub
ject in public schools all over the
I2k n
man in the next generation would be
able to communicate with all the edu-
Gated people he had to do with in any
land.
p OF course. the universal tongue would
not kill existing language; that is as
impossible as it would be regrettable;
II would simply be a more or less per-
feet vehicle for the conveying of the
ordinary affairs of life and of trade be-
tween representatives of different