page_title: Volapük
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Volapük / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gedenktafel für Johann Martin Schleyer, Erfinder der Plansprache Volapük, am Pfarrhaus von Litzelstetten bei Konstanz. Inschrift in Volapük: Menade bal — püki balEine Menschheit — eine SpracheApg 2Zur Erinnerung an M[onsi]g[no]re Johann Martin SchleyerPfarrer in Litzelstetten v. 1875–1885Erfinder der Weltsprache VOLAPÜK. English: Commemorative inscription for Johann Martin Schleyer, inventor of Volapük, at the rectory of Litzelstetten, near Konstanz, Germany. Inscription in Volapük and German: Menade bal — püki balOne mankind — one languageActs 2In honour of Monsignore Johann Martin SchleyerParish priest of Litzelstetten from 1875–1885Creator of the universal language VOLAPÜK Esperanto: Tabulo memoriga pri Johann Martin Schleyer, inventinto de la planlingvo Volapuko, sur la paroĥa domo en Litzelstetten (parto de Konstanco (DE). La volapuka slogano „menade bal – püki bal“ signifas „al unu homaro – unu lingvon“. „Apg 2“ signifas la duan ĉapitron de la Ago de la apostoloj, en kiu okazas la pentekosta miraklo.
context_page_description: Volapük is a constructed language created in 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. Schleyer felt that God had told him in a dream to create an international language. Volapük conventions took place in 1884, 1887 and 1889. The first two conventions used German, and the last conference used only Volapük. In 1889, there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals in or about Volapük, and 316 textbooks in 25 languages; at that time the language claimed nearly a million adherents. Volapük was largely displaced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Esperanto.
context_section_description: Schleyer first published a sketch of Volapük in May 1879 in Sionsharfe, a Catholic poetry magazine of which he was editor.  This was followed in 1880 by a full-length book in German. Schleyer himself did not write books on Volapük in other languages, but other authors soon did.
  André Cherpillod writes of the third Volapük convention,
  In August 1889 the third convention was held in Paris.  About two hundred people from many countries attended.  And, unlike in the first two conventions, people spoke only Volapük.  For the first time in the history of mankind, sixteen years before the Boulogne convention, an international convention spoke an international language.
  The Dutch cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs was for a number of years Director of the Academy of Volapük, and introduced the movement to several countries.
  The French Association for the Propagation of Volapük was authorized on 8 April 1886, with A. Lourdelet as President and a central committee that included the deputy Edgar Raoul-Duval.
  However, tensions arose between Kerckhoffs and others in the Academy, who wanted reforms made to the language, and Schleyer, who insisted strongly on retaining his proprietary rights. This led to schism, with much of the Academy abandoning Schleyer's Volapük Eiscritzscarben in favor of Idiom Neutral and other new constructed language projects. Another reason for the decline of Volapük may have been the rise of Esperanto. In 1887 the first Esperanto book (Unua Libro) was published. Many Volapük clubs became Esperanto clubs.
  By 1890 the movement was in disarray, with violent arguments among the members. Schleyer resigned from the Volapük Academy and created a rival academy. Derived languages such as Nal Bino, Balta, Bopal, Spelin, Dil and Orba were invented and quickly forgotten.
  By 1900 there were only 159 members of Volapük clubs recognized by Schleyer.
  The umlauts, which may have been one of the reasons for the language's eventual decline into obscurity, were the subject of ridicule.  For example, the Milwaukee Sentinel published the limerick:
  A charming young student of Grük
  
  Once tried to acquire Volapük
  
  But it sounded so bad
  
  That her friends called her mad,
  
  And she quit it in less than a wük.
  In the 1920s, Arie de Jong, with the consent of the leaders of the small remnant of Volapük speakers, made a revision of Volapük which was published in 1931 (now called Volapük Nulik "New Volapük" as opposed to the Volapük Rigik 'Original Volapük' of Schleyer). This revision was accepted by the few speakers of the language. De Jong simplified the grammar, eliminating some rarely used verb forms, and eliminated some gendered pronouns and gendered verb endings. He also rehabilitated the phoneme /r/ and used it to make some morphemes more recognizable. For instance, lömib "rain" became rein.
  Volapük enjoyed a brief renewal of popularity in the Netherlands and Germany under de Jong's leadership, but was suppressed (along with other constructed languages) in countries under Nazi rule and never recovered.
  Regarding the success of this artificial language, the Spanish scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal wrote in the first edition of his Tonics of Willingness, in 1898:
  Nowadays, many scientific papers are published in more than six languages. To the likely attempt of restoring Latin or using Esperanto as the universal language of science, wise men have responded by multiplying the number of languages in which scientific works are published. We have to acknowledge that Volapük or Esperanto are practically one more language to be learnt. This result was predictable because neither the essentially popularized and democratic tendencies of modern knowledge, nor the economic views of authors and editors consent in a different way.
  However, some years later (1920), in the third edition of the same book, he added the following footnote to the former assertion: "As it was presumable, nowadays -1920-, the brand new Volapük has been forgotten definitively. We forecast the same for Esperanto."
  Large Volapük collections are held by the International Esperant
caption: Commemorative inscription for J. M. Schleyer on the wall of the parsonage in Litzelstetten, Konstanz, written in Volapük and German: 
   Menade bal – püki bal
   Eine Menschheit – eine Sprache
   (One mankind – one language)
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