International Language: Past, Present & Future/Part 1

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In dealing with the problem of the introduction of an international language, we are met on the threshold by two main questions:

1. The question of principle.

2. The question of practice.

By the question of principle is meant, Is it desirable to have a universal language? do we wish for one? in short, is there a demand?

The question of practice includes the inquiries, Is such a language possible? is it easy? would its introduction be fraught with prohibitive difficulties? and the like.

It is clear that, however possible or easy it may be to do a thing, there is no case for doing it unless it is wanted; therefore the question of principle must be taken first. In the case before us the question of principle involves many considerations—aesthetic, political, social, even religious. These will be glanced at in their proper place; but for our present purpose they are all subordinate to the one great paramount consideration—the economic one. In the world of affairs experience shows that, given a demand of any kind whatever, as between an economical method of supplying that demand and a non-economical method, in the long run the economical method will surely prevail.

​If, then, it can be shown that there is a growing need for means of international communication, and that a unilingual solution is more economical than a multilingual one, there is good ground for thinking that the unilingual method of transacting international affairs will surely prevail. It then becomes a question of time and method: When will men feel the pressure of the demand sufficiently strongly to set about supplying it? and what means will they adopt?

The time and the method are by no means indifferent. Though a demand (for what is possible) is sure, in the long run, to get itself supplied, a long period of wasteful and needless groping may be avoided by a clear-sighted and timely realization of the demand, and by consequent organized co-operation in supplying it. Intelligent anticipation sometimes helps events to occur. It is the object of this book to call attention to the present state of affairs, and to emphasize the fact that the time is now ripe for dealing with the question, and the present moment propitious for solving the problem once for all in an orderly way. The merest glance at the list of projects for a universal language^[1] and their dates will strengthen the conviction from an historical point of view that the fulness of time is accomplished, while the history of the rise and fall of Volapük and of the extraordinary rise of Esperanto, in spite of its precursor's failure, are exceedingly significant.

One language has been born, come to maturity, and died of dissension, and the world stood by indifferent. Another is now in the first full flush of youth and strength. After twenty-nine years of daily developing cosmopolitanism—years that have witnessed the rising of a new star in the East and an uninterrupted growth of interchange of ideas between the nations of the earth, whether in politics, literature, or science, without a single check to the ever-rising tide of internationalism—are we again to let the favourable moment pass unused, just for want of making up our minds? At present one language holds the field. It is well ​organized; it has abundant enthusiastic partisans accustomed to communicate and transact their common business in it, and only too anxious to show the way to others. If it be not officially adopted and put under the regulation of a duly constituted international authority, it may wither away or split into factions as Volapük did.^[2] Or it may continue to grow and flourish, but others of its numerous rivals may secure adherents and dispute its claim. This would be even worse. It is far harder to rally a multitude of conflicting rivals in the same camp, than it is to take over a well-organized, homogeneous, and efficient volunteer force, legalize its position, and raise it to the status of a regular army. In any case, if no concerted action be taken, the question will remain in a state of chaos, and the lack of official organization brings a great risk of overlapping, dissension, and creation of rival interests, and generally produces a state of affairs calculated to postpone indefinitely the supply of the demand. Competition that neither tends to keep down the price nor to improve the quality of the thing produced is mere dissipation of energy.

In a word, the one thing needful at present is not a more highly perfected language to adopt, but the adoption of the highly perfected one we possess. By the admission of experts, no less than by the practical experience of great numbers of persons in using it over a number of years, it has been found adequate. Once found adequate, its absolute utility merely depends upon universal adoption.

With utility in direct proportion to numbers of adherents, every recruit augments its value—a thought which may well encourage waverers to make the slight effort necessary to at any rate learn to read it. ​

As stated above, the question of principle will be treated here from a purely economical point of view, since practical value, measured by saving of time, money, and effort, must be the ultimate criterion by which the success or failure of so far-reaching a reform as the introduction of an international, auxiliary language will be decided. The bearing of such a reform upon education, culture, race supremacy, etc., is not without importance; but the discussion of these points must be postponed as subsidiary.

Reduced to its simplest form, the economical argument is this:

(1) The volume of international intercourse is great and increasing.

(2) This intercourse is at present carried on in many different languages of varying degrees of difficulty, but all relatively hard of acquisition for those who do not know them as a mother-tongue. This is uneconomical.

(3) It is economically sounder to carry on international intercourse in one easy language than in a large number of hard ones.

(4) Therefore in principle an easy international language is desirable.

Let us glance at these four points a little more in detail.

No. 1 surely needs no demonstration. Every year there is more communication between men of different race and language. And it is not business, in the narrow sense of the term, that is exclusively or even chiefly affected by diversity of language. Besides the enormous bulk of pleasure travel, international congresses are growing in number and importance; municipal fraternization is the latest fashion, and many a worthy alderman, ​touring at the ratepayers’ expense, must wish that he had some German in Berlin, or a little Italian in Milan. Indeed, it is at these points of international contact that language is a real bar, actually preventing much intercourse that would otherwise have taken place, rather than in business, which is organized in view of the difficulty. Then there is the whole realm of scientific and learned literature—work of which the accessibility to all concerned is of the first importance, but is often hindered because a translation into one language does not pay, or, if made, only reaches a limited public. Such bars to freedom of interchange cannot be reckoned in money; but modern economics recognizes the personal and social factor, and any obstacle to research is certainly a public loss.

But important as are these various spheres of action, an even wider international contact of thought and feeling is springing up in our days. Democracy, science, and universal education are producing everywhere similarity of institutions, of industry, of the whole organization of life. Similarity of life will breed community of interests, and from this arises real converse—more give and take in the things that matter, less purely superficial dealings of the guide-book or conversation-manual type.

(2) "Business," meaning commerce, in so far as it is international, may at present be carried on mainly in half a dozen of the principal languages of Western Europe. Even so, their multiplicity is vexatious. But outside the world of business other languages are entering the field, and striving for equal rights. The tendency is all towards self-assertion on the part of the nationalities that are beginning a new era of national life and importance. The language difficulty in the Austrian Empire reflects the growing self-consciousness of the Magyars. Everywhere where young peoples are pushing their rights to take equal rank among the nations of the world, the language question is put in the forefront. The politicians of Ireland and Wales have realized the importance of language in asserting nationality, but such engineered language-agitation offers but ​a feeble reflex of the vitality of the question in lands where the native language is as much in use for all purposes as is English in England. These lands will fight harder and harder against the claims to supremacy of a handful of Western intruders. A famous foreign philologist,^[3] in a report on the subject presented to the Academy of Vienna, notes the increasing tendency of Russian to take rank among the recognized languages for purposes of polite learning. He is well placed to observe. With Russia knocking at the door and Hungary waiting to storm the breach, what tongue may not our descendants of the next century have to learn, under pain of losing touch with important currents of thought? It is high time something were done to standardize means of transmission. Owing to political conditions, there are linguistically disintegrating forces at work, which are at variance with the integrating forces of natural tendency.

From an economical point of view, a considerable amount of time, effort, and money must be unreproductively invested in overcoming the "language difficulty." In money alone the amount must run into thousands of pounds yearly. Among the unreproductive investments are—the employment of foreign correspondence clerks, the time and money spent upon the installation of educational plant for their production, the time and money spent upon translations and interpreters for the proceedings of international conferences and negotiations, the time devoted by professors and other researchers (often non-linguists in virtue of their calling) to deciphering special treatises and learned periodicals in languages not their own.^[4]

​The tendency of those engaged in advancing material progress, which consists in the subjection of nature to man's ends, is to adapt more and more quickly their methods to changing conditions. Has the world yet faced in a business-like spirit the problem of wiping out wastage on words?

Big industrial concerns scrap machinery while it is yet perfectly capable of running and turning out good work, in order to replace it by newer machinery, capable of turning out more work in the same time. Time is money. Can the busy world afford a language difficulty?

(3) The proposition that it is economically sounder to carry on international intercourse in one easy language than in a large number of hard ones rests upon the principle that it does not pay to do a thing a hard way, if the same results can be produced by an easy way.

The whole industrial revolution brought about by the invention of machinery depended upon this principle. Since an artificial language, like machinery, is a means invented by man of furthering his ends, there seems to be no abuse of analogy in comparing them.

When it was found that machinery would turn out a hundred pieces of cloth while the hand-loom turned out one, the hand-loom was doomed, except in so far as it may serve other ends, antiquarian, aesthetic, or artistic, which are not equally well served by machinery. Similarly, to take another revolution which is going on in our own day through a further application of machinery, when it is found that corn can be reaped and threshed by machinery, that hay can be cut, made, carried, and stacked by machinery, that man can travel the high road by machinery, sooner or later machinery is bound to get the bulk of the job, because it produces the same results at greater speed and less cost. So, in the field of international intercourse, if an easy artificial language can with equal efficiency and at less cost produce the same results as a multiplicity of natural ones, in many lines of human activity, and making all reserves in matters antiquarian, aesthetic, and ​artistic, sooner or later the multiplicity will have to go to the scrap-heap^[5] as cumbrous and out of date. It may be a hundred years; it may be fifty; it may be even twenty. Almost certainly the irresistible trend of economic pressure will work its will and insist that what has to be done shall be done in the most economical way.

So much, then, for the question of principle. In treating it, certain large assumptions have been made; e.g. it is said above, “if an easy artificial language can with equal efficiency . . . produce the same results,” etc. Here it is assumed that the artificial language is (1) easy, and (2) that it is possible for it to produce the same results. Again, however easy and possible, its introduction might cost more than it saved. These are questions of fact, and are treated in the three following chapters under the heading of “The Question of Practice.”

The man who says a thing is impossible without troubling to find out whether it has been done is merely “talking through his hat,” to use an Americanism, and we need not waste much time on him. Any one, who maintains that it is impossible to transact the ordinary business of life and write lucid treatises on scientific and other subjects in an artificial language, is simply in the position of the French engineer, who gave a full scientific demonstration of the fact that an engine could not possibly travel by steam.

The plain fact is that not only one artificial language, but ​several, already exist, which not only can express, but already have expressed all the ideas current in social intercourse, business, and serious exposition. It is only necessary to state the facts briefly.

First—Volapük.

Three congresses were held in all for the promotion of this language. The third (Paris, 1889) was the most important. It was attended by Volapükists from many different nations, who carried on all their business in Volapük, and found no difficulty in understanding one another. Besides this, there were a great many newspapers published in Volapük, which treated of all kinds of subjects.

Secondly—Idiom Neutral, the lineal descendant of Volapük.

It is regulated by an international academy, which sends round circulars and does all its business in Idiom Neutral.

Thirdly—Esperanto.

Since the publication of the language in 1887 it has had a gradually increasing number of adherents, who have used it for all ordinary purposes of communication. A great number of newspapers and reviews of all kinds are now published regularly in Esperanto in a great variety of countries. I take up a chance number of the Internacia Scienca Revuo, which happens to be on my table, and find the following subjects among the contents of the month: "Rôle of living beings in the general physiology of the earth," "The carnivorous animals of Sweden," "The part played by heredity in the etiology of chronic nephritis," "The migration of the lemings," "Notices of books," "Notes and correspondence," etc. In fact, the Review has all the appearance of an ordinary scientific periodical, and the articles are as clearly expressed and as easy to read as those in any similar review in a national language.

Even more convincing perhaps, for the uninitiated, is the evidence afforded by the International Congresses of Esperantists. The first was held at Boulogne in August 1905. It marked an epoch in the lives of many of the participants, whose ​doubts as to the practical nature of an artificial language there, for good and all, yielded to the logic of facts; and it may well be that it will some day be rather an outstanding landmark in the history of civilization. A brief description will, therefore, not be out of place.

In the little seaport town on the north coast of France had come together men and women of more than twenty different races. Some were experts, some were beginners; but all save a very few must have been alike in this, that they had learnt their Esperanto at home, and, as far as oral use went, had only been able to speak it (if at all) with members of their own national groups—that is, with compatriots who had acquired the language under the same conditions as to pronunciation, etc., as themselves. Experts and beginners, those who from practical experience knew the great possibilities of the new tongue as a written medium, no less than the neophytes and tentative experimenters who had come to see whether the thing was worth taking seriously, they were now to make the decisive trial—in the one case to test the faith that was in them, in the other to set all doubt at rest in one sense or the other for good and all.

The town theatre had been generously placed at the disposal of the Congress, and the author of the language, Dr. Zamenhof, had left his eye-patients at Warsaw and come to preside at the coming out of his kara lingvo, now well on in her 'teens, and about to leave the academic seclusion of scholastic use and emerge into the larger sphere of social and practical activity.

On Saturday evening, August 5, at eight o'clock, the Boulogne Theatre was packed with a cosmopolitan audience. The unique assembly was pervaded by an indefinable feeling of expectancy; as in the lull before the thunderstorm, there was the hush of excitement, the tense silence charged with the premonition of some vast force about to be let loose on the world. After a few preliminaries, there was a really dramatic moment when Dr. Zamenhof stood up for the first time to address his world-audience in the world-tongue. Would they understand him? ​Was their hope about to be justified? or was it all a chimera, “such stuff as dreams are made on”?

"Gesinjoroj" (=Ladies and gentlemen)—the great audience craned forward like one man, straining eyes and ears towards the speaker,—"Kun granda plezuro mi akceptis la proponon . . ." The crowd drank in the words with an almost pathetic agony of anxiety. Gradually, as the clear-cut sentences poured forth in a continuous stream of perfect lucidity, and the audience realized that they were all listening to and all understanding a really international speech in a really international tongue—a tongue which secured to them, as here in Boulogne so throughout the world, full comprehension and a sense of comradeship and fellow-citizenship on equal terms with all users of it—the anxiety gave way to a scene of wild enthusiasm. Men shook hands with perfect strangers, and all cheered and cheered again. Zamenhof finished with a solemn declamation of one of his hymns (given as an appendix to this volume, with translation), embodying the lofty ideal which has inspired him all through and sustained him through the many difficulties he has had to face. When he came to the end, the fine passage beginning with the words, "Ni inter popoloj la murojn detruos" ("we shall throw down the walls between the peoples"), and ending "amo kaj vero ekregos sur tero" ("love and truth shall begin their reign on earth"), the whole concourse rose to their feet with prolonged cries of "Vivu Zamenhof!"

No doubt this enthusiasm may sound rather forced and unreal to those who have not attended a congress, and the cheers may ring hollow across intervening time and space. Neither would it be good for this or any movement to rely upon facile enthusiasm, as easily damped as aroused. There is something far more than this in the international language movement.

At the same time, it is impossible for any one who has not tried it to realize the thrill—not a weak, sentimental thrill, but a reasonable thrill, starting from objective fact and running down the marrow of things—given by the first real contact with an ​international language in an international setting. There really is a feeling as of a new power born into the world.

Those who were present at the Geneva Congress, 1906, will not soon forget the singing of the song "La Espero" at the solemn closing of the week's proceedings. The organ rolled out the melody, and when the gathered thousands that thronged the floor of the hall and packed the galleries tier on tier to the ceiling took up the opening phrase—

they meant every word of it. It was a fitting summary of the impressions left by the events of the week, and what the lips uttered must have been in the hearts and minds of all.

As an ounce of personal experience is worth a pound of second-hand recital, a brief statement may here be given of the way in which the present writer came to take up Esperanto, and of the experiences which soon led him to the conviction of its absolute practicability and utility.

In October, 1905, having just returned from an absence of some years in Canada and the Far East, he had his attention turned to Esperanto for the first time by reading an account of the Congress of Boulogne. He had no previous knowledge of, or leanings towards, a universal language; and if he had thought about it at all, it was only to laugh at the idea as a wild and visionary scheme. In short, his attitude was quite normal.

But here was a definite statement, professing to be one of positive accomplished fact. One of two things: either the newspaper account was not true; or else, the facts being as represented, here was a new possibility to be reckoned with. The only course was to send for the books and test the thing on its merits. Being somewhat used to languages, he did not take long to see that this one was good enough in itself. A letter, written in ​Esperanto, after a few days' study of the grammar at odd times, with a halfpenny Esperanto-English key enclosed, was fully understood by the addressee, though he was ignorant up till then of the very existence of Esperanto. This experience has often been since repeated; indeed, the correspondent will often write back after a few days in Esperanto. Such letters have always been found intelligible, though in no case did the correspondent know Esperanto previously. The experiment is instructive and amusing, and can be tried by any one for an expenditure of twopence for keys and a few hours for studying the sixteen rules and their application. To many minds these are far simpler and more easy to grasp for practical use than the rules for scoring at bridge.

After a month or two's playing with the language in spare time, the writer further tested it, by sending out a flight of postcards to various selected Esperantists' addresses in different parts of the Russian Empire. The addressees ranged from St. Petersburg and Helsingfors through Poland to the Caucasus and to far Siberia. In nearly every case answers were received, and in some instances the initial interchange of postcards led to an extremely interesting correspondence, throwing much light on the disturbed state of things in the native town or province of the correspondent. From a Tiflis doctor came a graphic account of the state of affairs in the Caucasus; while a school inspector from the depths of Eastern Siberia painted a vivid picture of the effect of political unrest on the schools—lockouts and "malodorous chemical obstructions" (Anglice—the schools were stunk out), Many writers expressed themselves with great freedom, but feared their letters would not pass the censor. Judging by the proportion of answers received, the censorship was not at that time efficient. In no case was there any difficulty in grasping the writer's meaning. All the answers were in Esperanto.

This was fairly convincing, but still having doubts on the question of pronunciation, the writer resolved to attend the Esperanto Congress to be held at Geneva in August 1906. To ​this end he continued to read Esperanto at odd minutes and took in an Esperanto gazette. About three weeks before the congress he got a member of his family to read aloud to him every day as far as possible a page or two of Esperanto, in order to attune his ear. He never had an opportunity of speaking the language before the congress, except once for a few minutes, when he travelled some distance to attend a meeting of the nearest English group.

Thus equipped, he went through the Congress of Geneva, and found himself able to follow most of the proceedings, and to converse freely, though slowly, with people of the most diverse nationality. At an early sitting of the congress he found himself next to a Russian from Kischineff, who had been through the first great pogrom, and a most interesting conversation ensued. Another day the neighbours were an Indian nawab and an abbé from Madrid. Another time it was a Bulgarian. At the first official banquet he sat next to a Finn, who rejoiced in the name of Attila, and, but for the civilizing influence of a universal language, might have been in the sunny south, like his namesake of the ancient world, on a very different errand from his present peaceful one. Yet here he was, rubbing elbows with Italians, as if there had never been such things as Huns or a sack of Rome by northern barbarians.

During the meal a Frenchman, finding himself near us English and some Germans, proposed a toast to the "entente cordiale taking in Germany," which was honoured with great enthusiasm. This is merely an instance of the small ways in which such gatherings make for peace and good will.

With all these people it was perfectly easy to converse in the common tongue, pronunciation and national idiom being no bar in practice.

And this experience was general throughout the duration of the congress. Day by day sittings were held for the transaction of all kinds of business and the discussion of the most varied subjects. It was impressive to see people from half the countries of the ​world rise from different corners of the hall and contribute their share to the discussion in the most matter-of-fact way. Day by day the congressists met in social functions, debates, lectures, and sectional groups (chemical, medical, legal, etc.) for the regulation of matters touching their special interests. Everything was done in Esperanto, and never was there the slightest hitch or misunderstanding, or failure to give adequate expression to opinions owing to defects of language. The language difficulty was annihilated.

Perhaps one of the most striking demonstrations of this return to pre-Babel conditions was the performance of a three-part comedy by a Frenchman, a Russian, and a Spaniard. Such a thing would inevitably have been grotesque in any national language; but here they met on common neutral ground. No one's accent was "foreign," and none of the spectators possessed that mother-tongue acquaintance with Esperanto that would lead them to feel slight divergences shocking, or even noticeable without extreme attention to the point. Other theatrical performances were given at Geneva, as also at Boulogne, where a play of Molière was performed in Esperanto by actors of eight nationalities with one rehearsal, and with full success.

In the face of these facts it is idle to oppose a universal artificial language on the score of impossibility or inadequacy. The theoretical pronunciation difficulty completely crumbled away before the test of practice.

The "war-at-any-price party," the whole-hoggers à tous crins (the juxtaposition of the two national idioms lends a certain realism, and heightens the effect of each), are therefore driven back on their second line of attack, if the Hibernianism may be excused. "Yes," they say, "your language may be possible, but, after all, why not learn an existing language, if you've got to learn one anyway?"

Now, quite apart from the obvious fact that the nations will never agree to give the preference to the language of one of them to the prejudice of the others, this argument involves the ​suggestion that an artificial language is no easier to learn than a natural one. We thus come to the question of ease as a qualification.

People smile incredulously at the mention of an artificial language, implying that no easy royal road can be found to language-learning of any kind. But the odds are all the other way, and they are heavy odds.

The reason for this is quite simple, and may be briefly put as follows:

The object of language is to express thought and feeling. Every natural language contains all kinds of complications and irregularities, which are of no use whatever in attaining this object, but merely exist because they happen to have grown. Their sole raison d'être is historical. In fact, for a language without a history they are unnecessary.^[8] Therefore a universal language, whose only object is to supply to every one the simplest possible means of expressing his thoughts and feelings in a medium intelligible to every one else, simply leaves them out. Now, it is precisely in these "unnecessary" complications that a large proportion—certainly more than half—of the difficulty of learning a foreign language consists. Therefore an artificial language, by merely leaving them out, becomes certainly more than twice as easy to learn as any natural language. ​THE QUESTION OF PRACTICE 17

A little reflection will make this truth so absurdly obvious, that the only wonder is, not that it is now beginning to be recognized, but that any one could have ever derided it.

That the ‘‘ unnecessary” difficulties of a natural language are more than one-half of the whole is certainly an under-estimate ; for some languages the proportion would be more like 3:4 or 5:6. Compared with these, the artificial language would be three times to five times as easy.

Take an illustration. Compare the work to be done by the learner of (a) Latin, (2) Esperanto, in expressing past, present, and future action.

(a) Latin:

Present tense active is expressed by—

6 endings in the 1st regular conjugation.

6 ” 2nd ”

6 ” 3rd ”

6 ” 4th ”

Total regular endings: 24.

To these must be added a vast number of quite different and varying forms for irregular verbs,

(4) Esperanto :

Present tense active is expressed by—

1 ending for every verb in the language.

Total regular and irregular endings: 1.

It is exactly the same for the past and future.

Total endings for the 3 tenses active:

(a) Latin: 72 regular forms, plus a very large number of irregular and defective verbs.

(2) Esperanto: 3 forms.

Turning to the passive voice, we get—

(a) Latin; A complete set of different endings, some of them puzzling in form and liable to confusion with other parts of the verb.

2 ​(b) Esperanto: No new endings at all. Merely the three-form regular active conjugation of the verb esti = to be, with a passive participle. No confusion possible.

It is just the same with compound tenses, subjunctives, participles, etc. Making all due allowances, it is quite safe to say that the Latin verb is fifty times as hard as the Esperanto verb.

The proportion would be about the same in the case of substantives, Latin having innumerable types.

Comparing modern languages with Esperanto, the proportion in favour of the latter would not be so high as fifty to one in the inflection of verbs and nouns, though even here it would be very great, allowing for subjunctives, auxiliaries, irregularities, etc. But taking the whole languages, it might well rise to ten to one.

For what are the chief difficulties in language-learning?

They are mainly either difficulties of phonetics, or of structure and vocabulary.

Difficulties of phonetics are:

(1) Multiplicity of sounds to be produced, including many sounds and combinations that do not occur in the language of the learner.

(2) Variation of accent, and of sounds expressed by the same letter.

These difficulties are both eliminated in Esperanto.

(1) Relatively few sounds are adopted into the language, and only such as are common to nearly all languages. For instance, there are only five full vowels and three^[9] diphthongs, which can be explained to every speaker in terms of his own language. All the modified vowels, closed “u’s” and “e’s,” half tones, longs and shorts, open and closed vowels, etc., which form the chief bugbear in correct pronunciation, and often render the foreigner unintelligible—all these disappear.

(2) There is no variation of accent or of sound expressed by ​the same letter. The principle "one letter, one sound"^[10] is adhered to absolutely. Thus, having learned one simple rule for accent (always on the last syllable but one), and the uniform sound corresponding to each letter, no mistake is possible. Contrast this with English. Miss Soames gives twenty-one ways of writing the same sound. Here they are:

ate	great	feign
bass	eh!	weigh
pain	gaol	aye
pay	gauge	obeyed
dahlia	champagne	weighed
vein	campaign	trait
they	straight	halfpenny[11]

(Compare eye, lie, high, etc.)

In Esperanto this sound is expressed only and always by "e." In fact, the language is absolutely and entirely phonetic, as all real language was once.

As regards difficulties of vocabulary, the same may be said as in the case of the sounds. Esperanto only adopts the minimum of roots essential, and these are simple, non-ambiguous, and as international as possible. Owing to the device of word-building by means of a few suffixes and prefixes with fixed meaning, the number of roots necessary is very greatly less than in any natural language.^[12]

As for difficulties of structure, some of the chief ones are as follows:

Multiplicity and complexity of inflections. This does not exist in Esperanto.

​Irregularities and exceptions of all kinds. None in Esperanto.

Complications of orthography. None in Esperanto.

Different senses of same word, and different words used in samesense. Esperanto—"one word, one meaning."

Arbitrary and fluctuating idioms. Esperanto—none. Common sense and common grammar the only limitation to combination of words.

Complexities of syntax. (Think of the use of the subjunctive and infinitive in all languages: où and μn in Greek; indirect speech in Latin; negatives, comparisons, etc., etc., in all languages.) Esperanto—none. Common sense the only guide, and no ambiguity in practice. The perfect limpidity of Esperanto, with no syntactical rules, is a most instructive proof of the conventionality and arbitrariness of the niceties of syntax in national languages. After all, the subjunctive was made for man and not man for the subjunctive.

But readers will say: "It is all very well to show by a comparison of forms that Esperanto ought to be much easier than a natural language. But we want facts."

Here are some.

In the last chapter it was mentioned that the present writer first took up Esperanto in October 1905, worked at it at odd times, never spoke it or heard it spoken save once, and was able to follow the proceedings of the Congress of Geneva in August 1906, and talk to all foreigners. From a long experience of smattering in many languages and learning a few thoroughly, he is absolutely convinced that this would have been impossibleto him in any national language.

A lady who began Esperanto three weeks before the congress, and studied it in a grammar by herself one hour each day, was able to talk in it with all peoples on very simple subjects, and to follow a considerable amount of the lectures, etc.

Amongst the British folk who attended the congress were many clerks and commercial people, who had merely learnt Esperanto by attending a class or a local group meeting once a week, often ​for not many months. They had never been out of England before, nor learnt any other foreign language. They would have been utterly at sea if they had attempted to do what they did on a similar acquaintance with any foreign tongue. But during the two days spent en route in Paris, where the British party was fêted and shown round by the French Esperantists, on the journey to Geneva, which English and French made together, on lake steamboats, at picnics and dinners, etc., etc., here they were, rattling away with great ease and mutual entertainment. Many of these came from the North of England, and it was a real eyeopener, over which easy-going South-Englanders would do well to ponder, to see what results could be produced by a little energy and application, building on no previous linguistic training. The Northern accent was evidently a help in pronouncing the full-sounding vowels of Esperanto.

One Englishman, who was talking away gaily with the French samideanoj,^[13] was an Esperantist of one year's standing. He had happened to be at Boulogne in pursuit of a little combined French and seasiding at the time of the first congress held there, 1905. One day he got his tongue badly tied up in a café, and was helped out of his linguistic difficulties with the waiter by certain compatriots, who wore green stars in their buttonholes,^[14] and sat at another table conversing in an unknown lingo with a crowd of foreigners. He made inquiries, and found it was Esperanto they were talking. He was so much struck by their facility, and the practical way in which they had set his business to rights in a minute (the waiter was an Esperantist trained ad hoc!), that he decided to give up French and go in for Esperanto. This man was a real learner of French, who had spent a long time on it, and realised with disgust his impotence to wield it practically. To judge by his conversation next year at Geneva, he had no such difficulty with Esperanto. He was quite jubilant over the change.

​Such examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. No one who attended a congress could fail to be convinced.

Scientific comparison of the respective difficulty of Esperanto and other languages, based on properly collected and tabulated results, does not seem to be yet obtainable. It is difficult to get high-class schools, where language-teaching is a regular and important part of the curriculum, to give an artificial language a fair trial. Properly organised and carried-out tests are greatly to be desired. If and when they are made, it will probably be found that Esperanto is not only very easy of acquisition itself, but that it has a beneficial effect upon other language-learning.^[15]

Meantime, the present writer has carried out one small experiment in a good secondary school for girls, where French and German are regularly spoken and taught for many hours in the week. The head-mistress introduced Esperanto as a regular school subject at the beginning of the Easter term, January 1907. At the end of term a test paper was set, consisting of English sentences to be rendered into French and Esperanto without any dictionary or other aid, and one short passage of English prose to be rendered into both languages with any aid from books that the pupils wished. The object was to determine how far a few hours' teaching of Esperanto would produce results comparable with those obtained in a language learnt for years.

The examinees ranged from fourteen to sixteen years. They had been learning French from two to seven years, and had a daily French lesson, besides speaking French on alternate days in the school. They had learnt Esperanto for ten weeks, from one to one and a half hours per week. Taking the papers all through, the Esperanto results were nearly as good as the French.

One last experiment may be mentioned. It was made under scientific conditions on September 23, 1905. The subject was an adult, who had learnt French and German for years at school, and had since taught French to young boys, but was not a linguist by training or education, having read mathematics at the university. ​He had had no lessons in Esperanto, and had never studied the language, his sole knowledge of it being derived from general conversation with an enthusiast, who had just returned from the Geneva Congress. He was disposed to laugh at Esperanto, but was persuaded to test its possibilities as a language that can be written intelligibly by an educated person merely from dictionary by a few rules.

He was given a page of carefully prepared English to translate into Esperanto. The following written aids were given:

1. Twenty-five crude roots (e.g. lern- = to learn.)

2. One suffix, with explanation of its use.

3. A one-page complete grammar of the Esperanto language.

4. An Esperanto-English and an English-Esperanto dictionary.

He produced a good page of perfectly intelligible Esperanto, quite free from serious grammatical mistake. He admitted that he could not translate the passage so well into French or German.

Such experiments go a good way towards proving the case for an artificial language. More are urgently needed, especially of the last two types. They serve to convince all those who come within range of the experiment that an artificial language is a serious project, and may confer great benefits at small cost. Anyone can make them with a little trouble, if he can secure a victim. A particularly interesting one is to send a letter in Esperanto to some English or foreign correspondent, enclosing a penny key. The letter will certainly be understood, and very likely the answer will be in Esperanto.

Doubters as to the ease and efficacy of a universal language are not asked to believe without trial. They are merely asked not to condemn or be unfavourable until they have a right to an opinion on the subject. And they are asked to form an opinion by personally testing, or at any rate by weighing actual facts. "A fair field and no favour."

The very best way of testing the thing is to study the language for a few hours and attend a congress. The next congress is to be held in Cambridge, England, in August 1907.

​Nothing is more unscientific or unintelligent than to scoff at a thing, while refusing to examine whether there is anything in it.

In Chapters II., III., and IV. it was sought to prove that a universal language is desirable in principle, that it already exists and is efficient, and that it is very easy. If these propositions are true, the only valid argument against introducing it at once would be a demonstration that its introduction is either impracticable or else attended with such disadvantages as to outweigh the beneficial results.

Now, it is quite true that certain schemes tending towards international uniformity of practice and, therefore, ultimately productive of saving of labour are nevertheless such that their realization would cause an almost prohibitive dislocation of present organization. A conspicuous example is the proposed adoption of the decimal system in coinage and weights and measures. So great is the loss of time and trouble (and therefore of money) entailed by using an antiquated and cumbrous system instead of a simple and modern one that does the work as well, that the big firm Kynochs some months ago introduced the decimal system, in spite of the enormous difficulty of having to keep a double method going. But hitherto, at any rate, the great disturbance to business that the change would cause has prevented it from being generally made. Both this matter and the curiously out-of-date^[16] system of spelling modern English present a fairly ​close analogy to the multilingual system of international intercourse, as regards unprofitable expenditure of time and trouble.

But where the analogy breaks down altogether is in the matter of obstacles to reform.

Supposing that all the ministries of education in the world issued orders, that as from January 1, 1909, an auxiliary language should be taught in every government school; supposing that merchants took to doing foreign business wholesale in an auxiliary language, or that men of science took to issuing all their books and treatises in it; whose business would be dislocated? What literature or books would become obsolete? Who, except foreign correspondence clerks and interpreters, would be a penny the worse? Surely a useful reform need not be delayed or refused in the interests of interpreters and correspondence clerks. Even these would only be eliminated gradually as the reform spread. There would be absolutely no general confusion analogous to that following on a sudden change to phonetic spelling or the metric system, because nothing would be displaced.

Look at the precedents—the adoption of an international maritime code, and of an international system of cataloguing which puts bibliography on an equal footing all over the world by means of a common system of classification. Did any confusion or dislocation follow on these reforms? Quite the contrary. It was enough for England and France to agree on the use of the maritime code, and the rest of the nations had to come into line. It would be the same with the official recognition by a group of powerful nations of an auxiliary language. As soon as the world recognises that it is a labour-saving device on a large scale, and a matter of public convenience on the same plane as codes, telegraphy, or shorthand, it will no doubt be introduced. But why wait until there are rival schemes with large followings and vested interests—in short, until the same obstacles arise to the choice of an international, artificial, and neutral language, as now prevent the elevation of any national language into a universal medium? The plea of impracticability on the score of dislocation ​might then be valid. At present it is not. To have an easy language that will carry you anywhere and enable you to read anything, it is sufficient to wish for it. Only, as we Britons are being taught to "think imperially," so must the nations learn in this matter to wish internationally.

The main work of educating the public to "wish internationally," the necessary precedent to official action, has naturally in the past been done by the adherents of the various language-schemes themselves. An outline of the most important of these movements is given in the second part of this book.

But apart from these there is now an international organisation that is working for the adoption of an international auxiliary language, and a brief account of it may be given here.

During the Paris Exhibition of 1900 a number of international congresses and learned societies, which were holding meetings there, appointed delegates for the consideration of the international language question. These delegates met on January 17, 1901, and founded a "Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language." They drew up the following declaration, which has been approved by all subsequently elected delegates:

The undersigned, deputed by various Congresses and Societies to study the question of an international auxiliary language, have agreed on the following points:

​(1) There is a necessity to choose and to spread the use of an international language, designed not to replace national idioms in the individual life of each people, but to serve in the written and oral relations between persons whose mother tongues are different.

(2) In order to fulfil its purpose usefully, an international language must satisfy the following conditions:

1st Condition: It must fulfil the needs of the ordinary intercourse of social life, of commercial communications, and of scientific and philosophic relations;

2nd Condition: It must be easily acquired by every person of average elementary education, and especially by persons of European civilisation:

3rd Condition: It must not be one of the national languages.

(3) It is desirable to organise a general Delegation representing all who realise the necessity, as well as the possibility, of an international auxiliary language, and who are interested in its employment. This Delegation will appoint a Committee of members who can meet during a certain period of time. The purpose of this Committee is defined in the following articles.

(4) The choice of the auxiliary language belongs in the first instance to the International Association of Academies, or, in case of failure, to the Committee mentioned in Art. 3.

(5) Consequently the first duty of the Committee will be to present to the International Association of Academies, in the required forms, the desires expressed by the constituent Societies and Congresses, and to invite it respectfully to realize the project of an auxiliary language.

(6) It will be the duty of the Committee to create a Society for propaganda, to spread the use of the auxiliary language which is chosen.

(7) The undersigned, being delegated by various Congresses and Societies, decide to approach all learned bodies, and all societies of business men and tourists, in order to obtain their adhesion to the present project.

​(8) Representatives of regularly constituted Societies which have agreed to the present Declaration will be admitted as members of the Delegation.

This declaration is the official programme of the Delegation. The most important point of principle to note is Art. 2, 3rd Con. : "It must not be one of the national languages."

As regards the methods of action prescribed, no attempt is to be made to bring direct pressure to bear upon any government. It was rightly felt that the adoption of a universal language is a matter for private initiative. No government can properly take up the question, no Ministry of Education can officially introduce an auxiliary language into the schools under its control, until the principle has met with a certain amount of general recognition. The result of a direct appeal to any government or governments could only have been, in the most favourable case, the appointment by the government appealed to of a commission to investigate and report on the question. Such a commission would examine experts and witnesses from representative bodies, such as academies, institutes, philological and other learned societies. The best course of action, therefore, for the promoters of an international language is to apply direct to such bodies, to bring the question before them and try to gain their support. This is what the Delegation has done.

Now, there already exists an international organization whose object is to represent and focus the opinion of learned societies in all countries. This is the International Association of Academies, formed in 1900 for the express purpose, according to its statutes, of promoting "scientific enterprises of international interest." The delegates feel that the adoption of an international language comes in the fullest sense within the letter and spirit of this statute. It is, therefore, to this Association that the choice of language is, in the first place, left. (Art. 4.)

The Association meets triennially. At its first meeting (Paris 1901) the question of international language was brought before ​it by General Sébert, of the French Institute, but too late to be included among the agenda of that meeting. The occasion was important as eliciting an expression of opinion on the part of the signatories to General Sébert's address. These included twenty-five members of the French Institute, one of the most distinguished scientific bodies in the world.

At the second meeting of the Association (London 1904) the Delegation did not officially present the question for discussion, but the following paragraph appears in the report of the proceedings of the Royal Society, which was the host (London Royal Society, 1904, C. Section of Letters, Thursday, May 26, 1904, p. 33):

"In the course of the sitting, the chairman (Lord Reay, President of the British Academy) submitted to the meeting whether the question of the 'International Auxiliary Language' should be considered, though not included in the agenda. From many quarters applications had been made that the subject might be discussed in some form or other. Prof. Goldziher and M. Perrot spoke against the suggested discussion, the former maintaining that the matter was a general question of international communication, and did not specifically affect scientific interests the latter announced that he had been commissioned by the Académie des Inscriptions to oppose the consideration of this subject. The matter then dropped."

The third meeting of the Association of Academies was held at Vienna at the end of May 1907, under the auspices of the Vienna Academy of Science. The question was officially laid before it by the Delegation. The Association declared, for formal reasons, that the question did not fall within its competence.^[17]

Up till now only two national academies have shown themselves favourable to the scheme, those of Vienna and Copenhagen.

​The Vienna Academy commissioned one of its most eminent members, Prof. Schuchardt, to watch the movement on its behalf, and to keep it informed on the subject. In 1904 he presented a report favourable to an international language. He and Prof. Jespersen are amongst the most famous philologists who support the movement.

It is not therefore anticipated that the Association of Academies will take up the question; and the Delegation, thinking it desirable not to wait indefinitely till it is converted, has proceeded to the election of a committee, as provided in Art. 4 of the Declaration. It consists of twelve members, with powers to add to their number. It will meet in Paris, October 5, 1907. It is anticipated that the language chosen will be Esperanto. None of the members of this international committee are English, all the English savants invited having declined.

What may be the practical effect of the choice made by this Committee remains to be seen. In France there is a permanent Parliamentary Commission for the consideration of questions affecting public education. This Commission has for some time had before it a proposal for the introduction of Esperanto into the State schools of France, signed by twelve members of Parliament and referred by the House to the Commission. This year the proposal has been presented again in a different form. The text of the scheme, which is much more practical than the former one, is as follows:

"The study of the international language Esperanto will be included in the curricula of those government schools in which modern languages are already taught.

"This study will be optional, and candidates who offer for the various examinations English, German, Italian, Spanish, or Arabic, will be allowed to offer Esperanto as an additional subject.

"They will be entitled to the advantages enjoyed by candidates who offer an additional language."

At present it is a very usual thing to offer an additional language, and if this project passes, Esperanto will be on ​exactly the same footing as other languages for this purpose.The project of recognizing Esperanto as a principal languagefor examination was entirely impracticable. It is far too easy, and would merely have become a "soft option" and a refuge for the destitute.

It is said that a majority of the Commission are in favor of introducing an auxiliary language into the schools, when one has been chosen by the Delegation or by the Association of Academies. It is therefore possible that in a year or two Esperanto may be officially recognized in France; and if this is so, other nations will have to examine the matter seriously.

Considering that the French are notoriously bad linguists and, above all other peoples, devoted to the cult of their own language and literature, it is somewhat remarkable that the cause of an artificial language should have made more progress among them than elsewhere. It might have been anticipated that the obstructionist outcry, raised so freely in all countries by those who imagine that an insidious attack is being made on taste, culture, and national language and literature, would have been particularly loud in France. On the contrary, it is precisely in that country that the movement has made most popular progress, and that it numbers the most scientists, scholars, and distinguished men among its adherents. Is it that history will one day have to record another case of France leading Europe in the van of progress?

Encouraged by the number of distinguished signatures obtained in France to their petition in 1901, the Delegation drew up a formula of assent to their Declaration, which they circulate amongst (1) members of academies, (2) members of universities, in all countries. They also keep a list of societies of all kinds who have declared their adherence to the scheme. The latest lists (February and March 1907) show 1,060 signatures of academicians and university members, and 273 societies. In both cases the most influential backing is in France. signatures figure in Paris alone: ​

10	professors of the Collège de France;
8	professors„ of„ the„ Faculty of Medicine;
13	professors„ of„ the„ Faculty of Science;
11	professors„ of„ the„ Faculty of Letters;
12	professors„ of„ the„ École Normale;
37	members of the Academy of Science;

besides a host of other members of various learned bodies. Many of these are members of that august body the Institut de France, and one is a member of the Académie française—M. Lavisse.

It is the same in the other French Universities: Lyons University, 53 professors; Dijon, 34; Caen, 18; Besançon, 15; Grenoble, 26; Marseilles, 56, and so on.

Universities in other lands make a fair showing. America contributes supporters from John Hopkins University, 20 professors; Boston Academy of Arts and Sciences, 13 members; Harvard, 7 professors; Columbia University, 23 professors; Washington Academy of Science, 19 members; Columbus University, Ohio, 21 professors, etc. Dublin and Edinburgh both contribute a few. England is represented by one entry: "Cambridge, 2 professors." Perhaps the Cambridge Congress will change this somewhat. It will be strange if any one can actually witness a congress without having his imagination to some extent stirred by the possibilities.

A noticeable feature of the action of the Delegation throughout has been the scientific spirit in which it has gone to work, and its absolute impartiality as to the language to be adopted. It has everywhere, in its propaganda and circulars, spoken of "an international auxiliary language," and has been careful not to prejudge in any way the question as to which shall be adopted.

It may be news to many that there are several rival languages in the field. Even the enthusiastic partisans of Esperanto are often completely ignorant of the existence of competitors. It was partly with the object of furnishing full information to the ​Delegates who are to make the choice, that MM. Couturat and Leau composed their admirable Histoire de la langue universelle. It contains a brief but scientific account of each language mentioned, the leading principles of its construction, and an excellent critique. The main principles are disengaged by the authors with a masterly clearness and precision of analysis from the mass of material before them. Though they are careful to express no personal preference, and let fall nothing which might unfairly prejudice the delegates in favour of any scheme, it is not difficult to judge, by a comparison of the scientific critiques, which of the competing schemes analysed most fully carries out the principles which experience now shows to be essential to success for any artificial language.

The impression left is, that whether judged by the test of conformity to necessary principles, or by the old maxim "possession is nine points of the law," Esperanto has no serious rival.

There are some who fully admit the desirability of an international language, but say that we have no need to invent one, as we have Latin. This tends to be the argument of literary persons.^[18] They back it up by pointing out that Latin has already done duty in the Middle Ages as a common medium, and therefore, they say, what it has once done with success it can do again.

It is hard to argue with such persons, because they have not grasped the fact that the nature of international communication has undergone a complete change, and that therefore there is no ​presumption that the same medium will suffice for carrying it on. In the Middle Ages the cosmopolitan public was almost entirely a learned one. The only people who wanted to communicate with foreigners (except for a certain amount of commerce) were scholars, and the only things they wanted to communicate about were learned subjects, mostly of a philosophical or literary nature, which Latin was adapted to express. The educated public was extremely small, and foreign travel altogether beyond the reach of all but the very few. The overwhelming mass of the people were illiterate, and fast tied to their native spot by lack of pence, lack of communications, and the general conditions of life.

Now that everybody can read and write and get about, and all the conditions of life have changed, the cosmopolitan public, so far from being confined to a handful of scholars and merchants, extends down to and is largely made up of that terrible modern production, "the man in the street." It is quite ridiculous to pretend that because an Erasmus or a Casaubon could carry on literary controversies, with amazing fluency and hard-hitting, in Ciceronian Latin, therefore "the bald-headed man at the back of the omnibus" can give up the time necessary to obtaining a control of Latin sufficient for the conduct of his affairs, or for hobnobbing with his kind abroad.

It is waste of time to argue with those who do not realize that the absolute essentials of any auxiliary language in these days are ease of acquirement and accessibility to all. There are actually some newspapers published in Latin and dealing with modern topics. As an amusement for the learned they are all very well; but the portentous periphrases to which they are reduced in describing tramway accidents or motor-cars, the rank obscurity of the terms in which advertisements of the most ordinary goods are veiled, ought to be enough to drive their illusions out of the heads of the modern champions of Latin for practical purposes. Let these persons take in the Roman Vox Urbis for a month or two, or get hold of a copy of the London Alaudae, and see how they feel then.

​A dim perception of the requirements of the modern world has inspired the various schemes for a barbarized and simplified Latin. It is almost incredible that the authors of such schemes cannot see that debased Latin suffers from all the defects alleged against an artificial language, plus quite prohibitory ones of its own, without attaining the corresponding advantages. It is just as artificial as an entirely new language, without being nearly so easy (especially to speak) or adaptable to modern life. It sins against the cardinal principle that an auxiliary language shall inflict no damage upon any natural one. In short, it disgusts both parties (scholars and tradesmen), and satisfies the requirements of neither. Those who want an easy language, within the reach of the intelligent person with only an elementary school groundwork of education, don't get it; and the scholarly party, who treat any artificial language as a cheap commercial scheme, have their teeth set on edge by unparalleled barbarisms, which must militate most seriously against the correct use of classical Latin.

Such schemes are dead of their own dogginess.

Latin, pure or mongrel, won't do.

This chapter might be as short and dogmatic as Mark Twain's celebrated chapter upon snakes in Ireland. It would be enough to merely answer "No," but that the indefatigable Mr. Henderson, after running through three artificial languages of his own, has come to the conclusion that Greek is the thing. Certainly, as regards flexibility and power of word-formation, Greek would be better than Latin on its own merits. But it is too hard, and the scheme has nothing practical about it. ​

Jingoes are not wanting who say that it is unpatriotic of any Englishman to be a party to the introduction of a neutral language, because English is manifestly destined to be the language of the world.

Reader, did you ever indulge in the mild witticism of asking a foreigner where the English are mentioned in the Bible? The answer, of course, is, The meek shall inherit the earth. But if the foreigner is bigger than you, don't tell him until you have got to a safe distance.

It is this attitude of self-assertion, coupled with the tacit assumption that the others don't count much, that makes the English so detested on the Continent. It is well reflected in the claim to have their own language adopted as a common means of communication between all other peoples.

This claim is not put forward in any spirit deliberate insolence, or with the intention of ignoring other people's feelings; though the very unconsciousness of any arrogance in such an attitude really renders it more galling, on account of the tacit conclusion involved therein. It is merely the outcome of ignorance and of that want of tact which consists of inability to put oneself at the point of view of others. The interests of English-speaking peoples are enormous, far greater than those of any other group of nations united by a common bond of speech. But it is a form of narrow provincial ignorance to refuse on that account to recognize that, compared to the whole bulk of civilized people, the English speakers are in a small minority, and that the majority includes many high-spirited peoples with a strongly developed sense of nationality, and destined to play a very important part in the history of the world Any sort of movement to have English or any other national language adopted officially as a universal auxiliary language would at once entail a ​boycott of the favored language on the part of a ring of other powerful nations, who could not afford to give a rival the benefit of this augmented prestige. And it is precisely upon universality of adoption that the great use of an international language will depend.

To sum up: the ignorance of contemporary history and fact displayed in the suggestion of giving the preference to any national language is only equaled by its futility, for it is futile to put forward a scheme that has no chance of even being discussed internationally as a matter of practical politics.

A proof is that precisely the same objection to an auxiliary language is raised in France—namely, that it is unpatriotic, because it would displace French from that proud position.

The above remarks will be wholly misunderstood if they are taken to imply any spirit of Little Englandism on the part of the writer. On the contrary, he is ardently convinced of the mighty role that will be played among the nations by the British Empire and has had much good reason in going to and fro in the world to ponder on its unique achievement in the past. When fully organized on some terms of partnership as demanded by the growth of the Colonies, it will go even farther in the future. But all this has nothing to do with an international language. Howsoever mighty, the British Empire will not swallow up the earth at any rate, not in our time. And till it does, it is not practical politics to expect other peoples to recognize English as the international language as between themselves. There are, in fact, two quite separate questions:

(1) Supposing it is possible for any national language to become the international one, which has the best claims?

(2) Is it possible for any national language to be adopted as the international one?

To question (1) the answer undoubtedly is "English." It is already the language of the sea, and to a large extent the medium for transacting business between Europeans and Asiatic races, or ​between the Asiatic races themselves.^[19] Moreover, except for its pronunciation and spelling, it has intrinsically the best claim, as being the furthest advanced along the common line of development of Aryan language.^[20] But the discussion of this question has no more than an academic interest, because the answer to question (2) is, for political reasons, in the negative.

"You base your argument for an international language mainly on the operation of economical laws. Be consistent, then; leave the matter to Nature. By unlimited competition the best language is bound to be evolved and come to the top in the struggle for life. Let the fittest survive, and don't bother about Esperanto."

On a first hearing this sounds fairly plausible, yet it is honeycombed with error.

In the first place, it proves too much. The same argument could be adduced for the abandonment of effort of all kind whatever to improve upon Nature and her processes. "You can walk and run and swim. Don't bother to invent boats and bicycles, trains and aeroplanes, that will bring you more into touch with other peoples. Let Nature evolve the best form of international locomotion."

Again, Nature does not tend towards uniformity. She produces an infinity of variety in the individual, and out of this variety she selects and evolves certain prevailing types. But these types ​differ widely within the limits of the world under varying conditions of environment. What we are seeking to establish is world-wide uniformity, in spite of difference of environment.

Again, the argument confuses a sub-characteristic with an organism. A language is not an organism, but one of the characteristics of man. After the lapse of countless ages there are grey horses and black, bay and chestnut, presumably because greyness and blackness and the rest are incidental characteristics of a horse. No one of them gives him a greater advantage than the others in his struggle for life or helps him particularly to perform the functions of horsiness.

Just in the same way a man may be equally well equipped with all the qualities that make for success, whether he speaks English or French, Russian or Japanese. It cannot be shown that language materially helps one people as against another, or even that the best race evolves the best language.^[21] Take the last mentioned. If there is one people on the face of the globe who rejoice in an impossible language, it is the Japanese. In the early days of foreign intercourse, a good Jesuit father reported that the Japanese were courteous and polite to strangers, but their language was plainly the invention of the devil. To a modern mind the language may have outlived its putative father, but its reputation has not improved, so far as ease is concerned. Yet who will say that it has impaired national efficiency?

The fact is that for purposes of transaction of ordinary affairs by those who speak it as a mother tongue, one language is about as good as another. Whether it survives or spreads depends, not upon its intrinsic qualities as a language, but upon the success of the race that speaks it.^[22] There is, therefore, no ​presumption that the best or the most suitable or the easiest language will spread over the world by its own merits, or even that any easy or regular language will be evolved. Printing and education have altogether arrested the natural process of evolution of language on the lips of men. This is one justification for the application of new artificial reforms to language and spelling, which tend no longer to move naturally with the times as heretofore.

As regards free competition between rival artificial languages, the same considerations hold good. The worse might prevail just as easily as the better, because the determining factor is not the nature of the language, but the influence and general capacity of the rival backers. Of course, a very bad or hard artificial language would not prevail against an easy one. But beyond a certain point of ease a universal language cannot go (ease meaning the ease of all), and that limit has probably been about reached now. Between future schemes there will be such a mere fractional difference in respect of ease, that competition becomes altogether beside the point. The thing is to take an easy one and stick to it.

One of the commonest arguments that advocates of a universal language have to face runs something like this:

"Yes, there really does seem to be something in what you say—your language may save time and money and grease the wheels of business; but, after all, we are not all businessmen, nor are we all out after dollars. Just think what a dull, drab uniformity your scheme would lay over the lands like a pall. By the artificial removal of natural barriers, you are aiding and abetting the vulgarization of the world. You are doing what ​ in you lies to eliminate the racy, the local, the picturesque. The tongues of men are as stately trees, set deep in the black, mouldering soil of the past, and rich with its secular decay. The leaves are the words of the people, old yet ever new, and the flowers are the nation's poems, drawing their life from the thousand tiny roots that twist and twine unseen about the lives and struggles of bygone men. You are calling to us to come forth from the cool seclusion of these trees' shade, to leave their delights and toil in the glare of the world at raising a mushroom growth on a dull, featureless plain that reaches everywhither. Modern Macbeths, sophisticated by your modernity and adding perverted instinct to crime, you are murdering not sleep, but dreams-dreams that haunt about the mouldering lodges of the past, and soften the contact with reality by lending their own coloring atmosphere. You are hammering the last nail into the coffin of the old leisurely past, the past that raised the cathedrals, to which taste and feeling were of supreme moment, and when man put something of himself into his every work."

The man must be indeed dull of soul who cannot join in a dirge for the beauty of the vanishing past. Turn where we may now, we find the same railways, the same trams, music-halls, coats and trousers. The mad rush of modernity with its levelling tendency really is killing off what is quaint, out of the way, and racy of the soil. But why visit the sins of modernity upon an international language? The last sentence of the indictment itself suggests the line of defense. "You are hammering the last nail into the coffin of the old, leisurely past..."

Quite so, you are.

The universal ability to use an auxiliary language on occasion rounds off and completes the levelling process. But the old leisurely past will not be any the less dead, or any the less effectually buried, if one nail is not driven home in the coffin. The slayer is modernity at large, made up of science, steam, democracy, universal education, and many other things-but especially universal education. And the verdict can be, at the most, ​ justifiable, or at any rate inevitable, pesticide. You cannot eat your cake and have it; you cannot kill off all the bad things and keep all the good ones. With sterilization goes purification, pesticide may be accompanied by pasteurization. At any rate, "The old order changed," and you've got to let it change.

The whole history of the "progress" of the world, meaning often material progress, is eloquent of the lesson that it is vain to set artificial limits to advancing invention.) The substitution of cheap mechanical processes of manufacture for handwork involved untold misery to many and incidentally led to the partial disappearance of a type of character which the world could ill afford to lose, and which we would give much to be able to bring back. The old semi-artist, craftsman, with hand and eye really trained up to something like their highest level of capacity, with knowledge not wide, but deep, and all gained from experience, and not from books or technical education—this type of character is a loss. Many, with the gravest reason, are dissatisfied with the type which has already largely replaced it, and which will replace it for good or evil, but ever more swiftly and surely. But no well-judging person proposes on that account to forgo the material advantages conferred upon mankind by the invention of machinery. If the world rejects, on sentimental grounds, the labor-saving invention of international language, it will be flying in the face of economic history, and it will not appreciably retard the disappearance of the picturesque.

There is another type of argument which may also be classed as aesthetic, but which differs somewhat from the one just discussed. It emanates chiefly from literary men and scholars, and may be presented as follows:

"Language is precious, and worthy of study, inasmuch as it enshrines the imperishable monuments of the thought and genius of the race on whose lips, it was born. The study of the words and forms in which a nation clothed its thoughts throws many a ray of light on phases of the evolution of the race itself, which ​would otherwise have remained dark. The history of a language and literature is in some measure an epitome of the history of a people. We miss all these points of interest in your artificial language, and we shall, therefore, refuse to study it, and hereby commit it to the devil."

This is a particularly humiliating type of answer to receive, because it implies that one is an ass. In truth the man who should invent an artificial language and invite the world to study it for itself would be a fool, and a very swell-headed fool at that. It seems in vain to point this out to persons who use the above argument: or to explain to them that they would be aided in their study of languages that do repay study by the introduction of an easy international language, because many commentaries, etc., would become accessible to them, which are not so now, or only at the expense of deciphering some difficult language in which the commentary is written, the commentary itself being in no sense literature, and its form a matter of complete indifference.

Back comes the old answer in one form or another, every variation tainted with the heresy that the language is to be studied as a language for itself.

Perhaps the least tedious way of giving an idea of this kind of opposition, and the way in which it may be met, is to give some extracts from a scholar's letter, and the writer's answer. The letter is fairly typical.

"MY DEAR———,

"Many thanks for your long letter on Esperanto. According to the books, Esperanto can be learnt quickly by anyone. This means that they will forget it quite as rapidly. for what is easily acquired is soon forgotten...In my humble opinion, an Englishman who knows French and German would do much better to devote any extra time at his disposal to the study of his own language, which, I repeat, is one of the most delicate mediums of communication now in existence. It has taken ​centuries to construct, while Esperanto was apparently created in a few hours. One is God's handiwork, and the other a man's toy. Personally, any living language interests me more than Esperanto. I am sorry I am such a heretic, but I fear my love for the English language carries me away. . . .

The points that rankle are artificiality and lack of a history.

"My dear —,

"I really can't put it any more plainly, so I must just repeat it: we are not trying to introduce a language that has any interest for anybody in itself. An international language is a labour-saving device. The question is, Is it an efficient one? If so, it must surely be adopted. The world wants to be saved labour. It never pays permanently to do things a longer way, if the shorter one produces equally good results. No one has yet proved, or, in my opinion, advanced any decent argument tending to show, that the results produced by a universal language will not be just as good for many purposes^[23] as those produced by national languages. That the results are more economically produced surely does not admit of doubt.

"'Personally, any living language interests me more than. Esperanto.' Of course it does. So it does me, and most sensible people. But what the digamma does it matter to Esperanto whether we are interested in it or not? It is not there to interest us. The question is, Does it, or not, save us or others unprofitable labour on a large scale? Neither you nor most sane persons are probably particularly interested in shorthand or Morse codes or any signalling systems. Yet they bear up.

​"Do try to see that we think there is a certain felt want, amongst countless numbers of persons, which is much more efficiently and economically met by a neutral, easy, international language, than by any national one. That is the position you have got to controvert, if you are seriously to weaken the argument in favour of an international language. If you say that it is not a want felt by many people, I can only say, at the risk of being dogmatic, that you are wrong. I happen to know that it is.^[24] The question then is, Is there an easy way of meeting that want? And the equally certain and well-grounded answer is, There is. . . .

"As to your argument that what is easy is more easily forgotten—it is true. But I think you must see that, neither in practice nor in principle, does it or should it make for choosing the harder way of arriving at a given result. Chance the forgetting, if necessary re-learning as required, and use the time and effort saved for some more remunerative purpose.

" 'One is God's handiwork, the other a man's toy.' I should have said the first was man's lip-work, but I see what you mean. It is God working through his creature's natural development. The same is equally true of all man's 'toys.' Man moulded his language in pursuance of his ends under God. Under the same guidance he moulded the steam engine, the typewriter, shorthand, the semaphore, and all kinds of signals. What are the philosophical differentia that make Esperanto a toy, and natural language God's handiwork? Apparently the fact that Esperanto is 'artificial,' i.e. consciously produced by art. If this is the criterion, beware lest you damn man's works wholesale. If this is not the criterion, what is?

​"'An Englishman who knows French and German would do much better to devote any extra time at his disposal to the study of his own language.' Yes—if his object is to qualify as an artist in language. No—if his object is to save time and trouble in communicating with foreigners. You must compare like with like. It is unscientific and a confusion of thought to change the subject- matter of a man's employment of his time on grounds other than those fairly intercomparable. You have dictated as to how a man should employ his time by changing his object in employing his time. This makes the whole discussion irrelevant, in so far as it deals with the comparative advantage of studying one language or the other.

"Time's up! I have missed my after-lunch walk, and I expect only hardened your heart.

And I had!

There is a broad, twofold distinction in the aims with which the study of foreign languages is organized and undertaken.

It serves: first, purely utilitarian ends, and is a means; secondly, the purposes of culture, and is an end in itself

An international auxiliary language aims at supplanting the first type of study completely, and, as it claims, with profit to the students. The second type it (hopes to leave wholly intact, and disclaims any attempt to interfere with it in any way. How far is this possible?

The answer depends mainly upon the efficiency of the alter​native offered by the new-comer in each case as a possible substitute.

Firstly, if it is true that a great portion of the human race, especially in the big polyglot empires and the smaller states of Europe, are groaning under the incubus of the language difficulty, and have to spend years on the study of mere words before they can fit themselves for an active career, then the abolition of this heavy handicap on due preparation for each man’s proper business in life will liberate much time for more profitable studies. It is certain that the majority of mankind are non-linguistic by nature and inclination rather than linguistic—i.e. that the best chance of developing their natural capacities to the utmost and making them useful and agreeable members of society does not lie in making all alike swallow an overdose of foreign languages during the acquisitive years of youth. By doing so, vast waste is caused, taking the world round. As to the attainment of the object of this first type of language study, not only is it as efficiently secured by a single universal language, but far more so. Ex hypothesi the object is utilitarian; the language is a means. Well, a universal language is a better means than a national one—first, because, being universal, it is a means to more ; secondly, because, being easy and one, it is a means that more people can grasp and employ. In fact, it is in this field an efficient substitute; it saves much, without losing anything.

For the second type of language-study, on the other hand, where the end is culture and the language is studied for itself and in no wise as an indifferent means, a universal artificial language offers no substitute at all. This end is not on its programme. Why, then, should any language-study that is organized in view of culture be given up on its account?

It may, of course, be said that the time given to it by those who pursue culture in language will be taken from the time devoted to more worthy linguistic study, and will therefore prejudice the learning of other languages. This is a point of technical pedagogies or psychology. There is very good reason, ​from the standpoint of these sciences, to believe that a study of a simple type-tongue would, on the contrary, pay for itself in increased facility in learning other languages. But this is more fully discussed in the chapter for teachers (see pp. 145-55).

The question, however, is not in reality quite so simple as this. There is no water-tight partition between utilitarian and cultural language-study. They act and react upon each other. (There really is some ground for anxiety, lest the provision of facilities for learning an easy artificial language at your door may prevent people from going out of their way to learn national ones, which would have awakened scholarly instincts in them. The cause of culture would thus sustain some real hurt.

The question is another phase—a wider and lower-grade phase —of the great compulsory Greek question at Oxford and Cambridge. It affects the masses, whereas the Greek controversy affects the few at the top; but otherwise the issue at stake is essentially the same.

In both cases the bedrock of the problem is this, Can we afford to put the many through a grind, which is on the whole unprofitable to them and does not attain its object of conferring culture, in order to uphold the traditional system in the interests of the few? In neither case do the reformers desire to suppress the study of the old culture-giving language ; rather it is hoped that the interests of scholarly and liberal learning will benefit by being freed from the dead weight of grammar grinders, whose mechanical performance and monkey antics are merely a dodge to catch a copper from the examiners. When Greek is no longer bolstered up by the protection of compulsion, some of the present bounty-fed (i.e. compulsion-fed) facilities for its study will no doubt disappear from the schools which are at present forced to provide them. With them will be lost some recruits who would have been led by the facilities to study Greek, and would have studied it to their profit. On the other hand, the university will be open to numbers of students who are at present shut out by the Greek tariff. Another barrier ​against modernity will go down, and democracy make another step out of the proverbial gutter towards the university.

Similarly, the possession of a universally understood medium of communication will in some cases deter people from making the effort to study real language, with all the treasures of original literature to which it is the key.

But—and this is the great point—it will open the cosmopolitan outlook to countless thousands who could never hope to grapple successfully with even one national language. This cannot be a small gain.

It all comes back to this—you cannot eat your cake and have it too. Il faut souffrir pour être belle. The international language has the defects of its qualities. But then its qualities are great, and the world is their sphere of utility.

This is a particularly unfortunate objection, because it displays a radical ignorance of the history of language, and of the conditions under which it develops.

In the first place, the whole tendency of language in the modern world is towards disappearance of local dialects, and their absorption into a uniform literary language. The dialects of England are almost dead before the onset of universal education, and the great work of Dr. Wright was only just in time to rescue them from oblivion. Even one generation hence it will be impossible to collect much of the local speech recorded in his dictionary. It is the same in Germany and everywhere, though, of course, all countries are not equally advanced in this respect. A standard form of words and grammar is fixed by print for the

​literary language, and when every one can read and write, it is all up with national evolution of language, such as has produced all national languages. A gradual change of the phonetic value given to the written symbols there may be. This has been pre-eminently the case in England, though even this will now be arrested by universal education. But a change of forms or of grammar can only be indefinitely slight and gradual. When it takes place, it reflects a common advance of the literary language, and not local or dialectical variation (though the common advance may have originally spread from one locality).

In the second place, dialects are variations that spring up under the stress of local circumstance in the familiar every-day unconscious use of a common mother tongue among people of the same race and inhabiting the same district. Now, these are the very circumstances in which an auxiliary international language never can, and never will, be used. The only exception is the case of people meeting together for the conscious practice of the language or using it in jest.

There are no occasions when an international language would be naturally used when any variation from standard usage would not be a distinct disadvantage as tending to unintelligibility. In short, a neutral language consciously learned as a means of communication with strangers is not on an equal footing with, or exposed to the same influences as, a mother tongue used by people every day under like conditions.

A cardinal point of difference is well illustrated by Esperanto. The whole foundation of the language, vocabulary, grammar, and everything else, is contained in one small book of a few pages, called Fundamento de Esperanto. No change can be made in this except by a competent elected international authority. Of course, no text-books or grammars will be authorized for the use of any nation that are not in accordance with the Fundamento. People will make mistakes, of course, just as they make mistakes in any foreign language, and they can help themselves out with any words from other languages, just as they do now when their ​French or German fails them. But the standard is always there, simple and short, to correct any aberration, and there is no room for any alterations in form or structure to creep in.

OBJECTION THAT THE PRESENT INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE (ESPERANTO) IS TOO DOGMATIC, AND REFUSES TO PROFIT BY CRITICISM

It is true that Esperantists refuse to make any change in their language at present, and this is found irritating by some able critics, who wrongly imagine that this attitude amounts to a claim of perfection for Esperanto. The matter may be easily put right.

The inadmissibility of change (even for the better) is purely a matter of policy and dictated by practical considerations. Esperantists make no claim to infallibility ; they want to see their language universally adopted, and they want to see it as perfect as possible. Actual and bitter experience shows that the international language which admits change is lost. Universal acceptance and present change are incompatible. Esperantists, therefore, bow to the inevitable and deliberately choose to concentrate for the present on acceptance. General acceptance, indeed, while it imposes upon the present body of Esperantists self-restraint in abstaining from change, is in reality the essential condition of profitable future amendment. When an international language has attained the degree of dissemination already enjoyed by Esperanto, the only safe kind of change that can be made is a posteriori, not a priori. When Esperanto has been officially adopted and comes into wide use, actual experience and consensus of usage amongst its leading writers will indicate the modifications that are ripe for official adoption. The competent international official authority will then from time to time duly register such changes, and they will become officially part of the language. ​Till then, any change can only cause confusion and alienate support. No one is going to spend time learning a language which is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. When the time comes for change, the authority will only proceed cautiously one step at a time, and its decrees will only set the seal upon that which actual use has hit off.

This, then, is the explanation of the famous adjective “ netuSebla,” applied by Dr. Zamenhof to his language, and so much resented in certain quarters. Surely not only is this degree of dogmatism amply justified by practical considerations, but it would amount to positive imprudence on the part of Esperantists to act otherwise. If the inventor of the language can show sufficient self-restraint, after long years spent in touching and retouching his language, to hold his hand at a given point (and he has declared that self-restraint is necessary), surely others need not be hurt at their suggestions not being adopted, even though they may in some cases be real improvements.

The following extracts, translated from the Preface to Fundamento de Esperanto (the written basic law of Esperanto), should set the question in the right light. - It will be seen that Dr. Zamenhof expressly contemplates the ¢ gradual perfection” (perfektigado) of his language, and by no means lays claim to finality or infallibility.

“Having the character of fundament, the three works reprinted in this volume must be above all inviolable (netuseblay)... The fundament must remain inviolable even with ifs ervors... Having once lost its strict inviolability, the work would lose its exceptional and necessary character of dogmatic fundamentality; and the user, finding one translation in one edition, and another in another, would have no security that I should not make another change to-morrow, and his confidence and support would be lost.

“To any one who shows me an expression that is not good in the Fundamental book, I shall calmly reply : Yes, it is an error; but it must remain inviolable, for it belongs to the fundamental ​document, in which no one has the right to make any change. . . .I showed, in principle, how the strict inviolability of the Fundamento will always preserve the unity of our language, without however preventing the language not only from becoming richer, but even from constantly becoming more perfect. But in practice we (for causes already many times explained) must naturally be very cautious in the process of 'perfecting' the language: (a) we must not do this light-heartedly, but only in case of absolute necessity; (b) it can only be done (after mature judgment) by some central institution, having indisputable authority for the whole Esperanto world, and not by any private persons. . . .

"Until the time when a central authoritative institution shall decide to augment (never to change) the existing fundament by rendering official new words or rules, everything good, which is not to be found in the Fundamento de Esperanto, is to be regarded not as compulsory, but only as recommended."

An attempt has been made in the preceding chapters to deal with the more important and obvious arguments put forward by those who will hear nothing of an international language. The objections are, however, so numerous, cover such a wide field, and in some cases are so mutually destructive, that it may be instructive to present them in an orderly classification.

Let us hope that they will die of exposure, like the famous appendix pilloried by Byron, and that the ingenuous one will be able to regard them as literary curiosities.

​If the business of an argument is to be unanswerable, the place of honour certainly belongs to the religious argument. Any one who really believes that an international language is an impious attempt to reverse the judgment of Babel will continue firm in his faith, though one speak with the tongues of men and of angels.

Here, then, are the objections, classified according to content.

I. Religious.

(1) It is doomed to confusion, because it reverses the judgment of Babel.

II. Aesthetic and sentimental.

(1) It is a cheap commercial scheme, unworthy of the attention of scholars.

(2) It vulgarizes the world and tends to dull uniformity.

(3) It weakens patriotism by diluting national spirit with cosmopolitanism.

(4) It has no history, no link with the past.

(5) It is artificial, which is a sin in itself.

III. Political.

(1) It is against English [Frenchmen read "French"] interests, as diverting prestige from the national tongue.

(2) It is socialistic and even anarchical in tendency, and will facilitate the operations of the international disturbers of society.

IV. Literary and linguistic.

(1) Lacking history and associations, it is unpoetical and unsuited to render the finer shades of thought and feeling. It will, therefore, degrade and distort the monuments of national literatures which may be translated into it.

(2) It may even discourage authors, ambitious of a wide public, from writing in their own tongue. Original works in the artificial ​language can never have the fine savour of a master's use of his mother tongue.

(3) Its precisely formal and logical vocabulary and construction debauches the literary sense for the niceties of expression. Therefore, even if not used as a substitute for the mother tongue, its concurrent use, which will be thrust on everybody, will weaken the best work in native idioms.

(4) It will split up into dialects.

(5) Pronunciation will vary so as to be unintelligible.

(6) It is too dogmatic, and refuses to profit by criticism.

V. Educational and cultural.

(1) It will prejudice the study of modern languages.

(2) It will provide a "soft option" for examinees.

VI. Personal and particular.

It is prejudicial to the vested interests of modern language teachers, foreign correspondence clerks, interpreters, multilingual waiters and hotel porters.

VII. Technical.

This heading includes the criticisms in detail of various schemes—e.g. it is urged against Esperanto that its accent is monotonous; that its accusative case is unnecessary; that its principle of word-formation from roots is not strictly logical; that its vocabulary is too Romance; that its vocabulary is not Romance enough; and so forth.

VIII. Popular.

(1) It is a wild idea put forth by a set of cranks, who would be better occupied in something else.

(2) It is impossible.

(3) It is too hard: life isn't long enough.

(4) It is not hard enough: lessons will be too quickly done, and will not sink into the mind.

(5) It will oust all other languages, and thus destroy each nation's birthright and heritage.

​(6) It will not come in in our time, so the question is of no interest except to our grandchildren.

(7) It is doomed to failure—look at Volapük!

(8) There are quite enough languages already.

(9) You have to learn three or four languages in order to understand Esperanto.

(10) You cannot know it without learning it.

(11) You have to wear a green star.

Pains have been taken to make this list exhaustive. If any reader can think of another objection, he is requested to communicate with the author.

Most of the serious arguments have been already dealt with, so that not many words need be said here. As regards No. VII. (Technical), this is not the place to deal with actual criticisms of the language (Esperanto) that holds the field. The reader will not be in a position to judge of them till he has learnt it. Suffice it to say that they can all be met, and some of the points criticised as vices are, in reality, virtues in an artificial language.

As for Nos. II. and IV. (Sentimental and Literary), most of these objections are due to the old heresy of the literary man, that an artificial language claims to compete with natural languages as a language. Once realize that it is primarily a labour-saving device, and therefore to be judged like any other modern invention such as telegraphy or shorthand, and most of these objections fall to the ground.

A good many of the objections cannot be taken seriously (though they have all been seriously made), or refute themselves or each other. No. VIII. (10) sounds like a fake, but this was the criticism of a scholar and linguist who had been persuaded to look at Esperanto. He complained that though he, knowing Latin, French, Italian, German, and English, could read it without ever having learnt it, ordinary Englishmen could not. It is usual to judge an invention by efficiency compared to cost, but if an appliance is to be condemned because it needs some trouble to master it, then not many inventions will survive.

​No. VIII. (9) is of course a mistake. It is like saying that you must practice looping the loop or circus-riding in order to keep your balance on a bicycle. The greater, of course, includes the less; but it is better in both cases to begin with the less. It is much more reasonable to reverse the argument and say: If you begin by learning Esperanto, you will possess a valuable aid towards learning three or four national languages.

No. VIII. (5) is absurd. It is the hardest thing in the world to extirpate a national language; and all the forces of organized repression (e.g. in unhappy Poland) are finding the task too much for them. What inducement have the common people, who form the bulk of the population in every land, to substitute in their home intercourse for their own language one that they have to learn, if at all, artificially at school? Only those who have much international intercourse will ever become really at home in international language—i.e. sufficiently at home to make it possible to use it indifferently as a substitute for their mother-tongue; and people who engage in prolonged and continuous international intercourse, though numerous, will always be in a minority.

In the civilized West, where pleasure, business, and science are daily forging new ties of common interests between the nations, those engaged in such pursuits have clearly much to gain from the simplification of their pursuits by a common language. But let us look ahead a little further still. It may well be that the outstanding feature of the twentieth century in history will be the coming into line of the peoples of Asia with their pioneer brethren of the West. Look where you will, everywhere the symptoms are plain for those who can read them. Japan has led the way. China is following, and will not be far behind; eventually, as the Japanese themselves foresee, she will probably outstrip Japan, if ​ not the world. There seems to be no ground, ethnological or otherwise, for thinking that the lagging behind of Asia in modern civilization corresponds to a real inferiority of powers, mental or: physical, in the individual Asiatic. Experience shows that under suitable conditions the Asiatic can efficiently handle all the white man’s tools and weapons; the complete coming up to date is largely a matter of organization, education, and the possession of a few really able men at the head of affairs. Given these, progress may be astonishingly quick. Europeans do not yet seem to have grasped at all adequately the real significance of the last fifty years of Japanese history. Do they really think that the Chinaman is inferior to the Japanese. If so, let them ask any residents in the Far East. Can it be maintained that a generation go the peasant of Eastern Europe was ahead of the country Chinaman? But the last few years have shown how swiftly modern civilization spreads, both in Europe and America, from the comparatively small group of nations which in the main have worked it out to the others, till lately considered backward and semi-barbarous. And this is the case not merely with the material products of civilization, the railway and the telegraph, but also as regards its divers' manifestations in all that concerns the life of the people constitutional government with growth of representative, elected authorities and democracy, universal education with universal power of reading and consequent birth of a cheap press; rise of industry and consequent growth of towns: rise of a moneyed and leisured class and consequent growth of sport, and of all kinds of clubs and societies for promoting various interests, social, sporting, political, religious, educational, philanthropic, and so forth. In fact, the more material side of life is “modernized,” the more closely do the citizens of all lands approximate to one another in their interests and activities, which ultimately rest upon and grow out of their material conditions. Meantime wealth and consequently foreign travel everywhere increase, fresh facilities of communication are constantly pro​ vided, men from different countries are more and more thrown together, and all this makes for the further strengthening of mutual interests and the growth of fresh ones in common. Now if (1) under the stress of "modernization" life is already becoming so similar in the lands of the West, and if (2) the Asiatic is not fundamentally inferior in mental and physical endowments, then it follows as a certainty that the Asiatic world will, under the same stress, enter the comity of nations, and approximate to the world-type of interest and activity. It is only a question of time. In economic history nothing is more certain than that science, organization, cheapness, and efficiency must ultimately prevail over sporadic, unorganized local effort based on tradition and not on scientific exploitation of natural advantages. Thus, the East will adopt the material civilization of the West. and through the same organization of industrial and commercial life and generally similar economic conditions, the same type of moneyed class will grow up, with the same range of interests on the intellectual and social side, diverse indeed, but in their very diversity conforming more and more to the world-type. Concurrently with this new tendency to uniformity proceeds the weakening of the two most powerful disintegrating influences of primitive humanity-religion and tradition. In the earlier stages of society these are the two most powerful agents for binding together into groups men already associated by the ties of locality and common ancestry and fettering them in the cast-iron bonds of custom and ceremonial observance. While the members of each group are thus held together by the ideas which appeal most profoundly to unsophisticated mankind, the various groups are automatically and by the same process held apart by the full force of those ideas. Thus, are produced castes, with their deadening opposition to all progress; and thus, arise crusades, wars of religion and persecutions. Religion and tradition are then at once the mightiest integrant within each single community, and the mightiest disintegrants as between different communities. But this narrow and dissevering spirit of caste dies back before ​ the spread of knowledge. The tendency to regard a man as unclean or a barbarian, simply because he does not believe or behave as one's own people, is merely a product of isolation and ignorance, and disappears with education and the general opening up of a country. The inquisitor can no longer boast of "strained relations"-strained physically on the rack, owing to differences of religious opinion. The state of things which made it possible for sepoys to revolt because rifle bullets were greased with the fat of a sacred animal, or for yellow men to tear up railway tracks because the magic desecrated the tombs of their ancestors, is rapidly passing away, as Orientals realize the profits to be made from scientific methods. Thus, the levelling influence is at work, and the checks upon it are diminishing. The end can be but one. There will be a greater and greater similarity of life and occupation the world over, and more and more actual and potential international intercourse. Now, the further we move in this direction, the greater will be the impatience of vexatious restraints upon the freedom of intercourse; and of these restraints the difference of language is one of the most vexatious, because it is one of the easiest to remove. If we devote millions of pounds to annihilating the barriers of space, can we not devote a few months to the comparatively modest effort necessary to annihilate the barriers of language? A real cosmopolitanism, in the etymological sense of the word, world (and not merely European) citizenship, will shift the onus probandi from the supporters of an international language to its opponents. It will say to them, "It is admitted that you have much intercourse with other peoples; it is admitted that diversity of language is an obstacle in this intercourse; this obstacle is increasing rather than diminishing as fresh subjects raise their claims upon the few years of education, and the old leisurely type of linguistic education fails more and more to train the bulk of the people for life's business, and as the ranks of the civilized are swelled by fresh peoples for whom it is harder and harder to learn ​ even one Indo-Germanic tongue, let alone several; it is proved that this obstacle can be removed at the cost of a few months' study: this study is not only the most directly remunerative study in the world, comparing results with cost, but it is admirable mental discipline and a direct help towards further real linguistic culture-giving studies for those who are fit to undertake them. Show cause, then, why you prefer to suffer under an unnecessary obstacle, rather than avail yourselves of this means of removing it." It is easier for the Indo-Germanic peoples to learn each other's languages-e.g. for an Englishman to learn Swedish or Russian than it is for a speaker of one of any of the other families of languages to learn any Indo Germanic tongue; so that some idea may be formed of the magnitude of the task imposed upon the newer converts to Western civilization by the Indo-Germanic world, in making them learn one or more of its national languages. At the same time, it is but just that the peoples who have paid the piper of progress should call the common lingual tune. Therefore, what more fitting than that they should provide an essence of their allied languages, reduced to its simplest and clearest form? This they would offer to the rest of the world to be taken over as part of the general progress in civilization which it has to adopt; and this it is which is provided in the international language, Esperanto.

                            XVII

IMPORTANCE OF AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE FOR THE BLIND Now that higher education for the blind is being extended in every country, owing to the more humanitarian feeling of the present age that these afflicted members of the community ought to be given a fair chance, the problem of supplying them with books is beginning to be felt. The process of producing books for the blind on the Braille system is, of course, far more costly than ordinary printing, and at the same time the editions must ​ be necessarily more or less limited. Many an educated blind person is therefore cruelly circumscribed in the range of literature open to him by the mere physical obstacle of the lack of books. This difficulty is accentuated by the fact that three kinds of Braille types are in use-French, English, and American. Now, suppose it is desired to make the works of some good author accessible to the blind we will say the works of Milton. A separate edition has to be done into Braille for the English, another separate translation for the French, and so on for the blind of each country. In many cases where translations of a work do not already exist, as in the case of a modern author, the mere cost of translation into some one language may not pay, much less than the preparation of a special Braille edition for the limited blind public of that country. But if one Braille edition is prepared for the blind of the world in the universal auxiliary language, a far greater range of literature is at once brought within their grasp. Already there is abundant evidence of the keen appreciation of Esperanto on the part of the blind, and one striking proof is the fact that the distinguished French scientist and doctor, Dr. Javal, who himself became blind during the latter part of his life, was, until his death in March 1907, one of the foremost partisans and benefactors of Esperanto. By his liberality much has been rendered possible that could not otherwise have been accomplished. There are many other devoted workers in the same field, among them Prof. Cart and Mme. Fauvart-Bastoul in France, and Mr. Rhodes, of Keighley, and Mr. Adams, of Hastings, in England. A special fund is being raised to enable blind Esperantists from various countries to attend the Congress at Cambridge in August 1907, and the cause is one well worthy of assistance by all who are interested in the welfare of the blind. The day when a universal language is practically recognized will be one of the greatest in their annals. A perfectly phonetic language, as is Esperanto, is peculiarly suited to the needs of the blind. Its long, full vowels, slow, ​PHILANTHROPY-BUT FIFTY PER CENT. 63 harmonious intonation, few and simple sounds, and regular construction make it very easy to learn through the ear, and to reproduce on any phonetic system of notation, and as a matter of fact, blind people are found to enjoy it much. For a blind man to come to an international congress and be able to compare notes with his fellow-blind from all over the world must be a lifting of the veil between him and the outer world, coming next to receiving his sight. To witness this spectacle alone might almost convince a waverer as to the utility of the common language.

                            XVIII
                       IDEAL V. PRACTICAL

FROM the early days of the Esperanto movement there has flowed within it a sort of double current. There is the warm and genial Gulf Stream of Idealism, that raises the temperature on every shore to which it sets and calls forth a luxuriant growth of friendly sentiment. This tends to the enriching of life. There is also, the cooler current of practicality, with a steady drive towards material profit. At present the tide is flowing free, and taken at the flood, may lead on to fortune; the two currents pursue their way harmoniously within it, without clashing, and sometimes mingling their waters to their mutual benefit. But as the movement is sometimes dismissed contemptuously as a pacifist fad or an unattainable ideal of universal brotherhood, it is as well to set the matter in its true light. It is true that the inventor of Esperanto, Dr. Zamenhof, of Warsaw, is an idealist in the best sense of the word, and that his language was directly inspired by his ardent wish to remove one cause of misunderstanding in his distracted country. He has persistently refused to make any profit out of it, and declined to accept a sum which some enthusiasts collected as a testimonial to his disinterested work. ​ It is equally true that Esperanto seems to possess a rather strange power of evoking enthusiasm. Meetings of Esperantists are invariably characterized by great cordiality and good-fellowship, and at the international congresses so far these feelings have at times risen to fever heat. It is easy to make fun of this by saying that the conjunction of Sirius, the fever-shedding constellation of the ancients, with the green star in the dog days of August, when the congresses are held, induces hot fits. Those who have drunk enthusiastic toasts in common and have rubbed shoulders and compared notes with various foreigners and gone home having made perhaps lifelong interesting friendships which bring them in touch with other lands, will not undervalue the brotherhood aspect of the common language. On the other hand, the united Esperantists at their first international meeting expressly and formally dissociated their project from any connection with political, sentimental, or peace-making schemes. They did this by drawing up and promulgating a "Deklaracio," adopted by the Esperantist world, wherein it is declared that Esperanto is a language, and a language only. It is not a league or a society or agency for promoting any object whatsoever other than its own dissemination as a means of communication. Like other tongues, Esperanto may be used for any purpose whatsoever, and it is declared that a man is equally an Esperantist whether he uses the language to save life or to kill, to further his own selfish ends or to labor in any altruistic cause.

• Badge of the Esperantists.

† For text of this Declaration, see Part II., chap. vii., p. 115. The non-sectarian nature of Esperanto is shown by the fact that the first two services in the language were held on the same day in Geneva according to the Roman Catholic and Protestant rites. The latter was conducted by an English clergyman, whose striking sermon on unity, in spite of diversity, evidently impressed his international congregation. The Vatican has officially expressed its favor towards Esperanto, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has sanctioned an Esperanto form of the Anglican service, which will be used in London and Cambridge this summer. Cordial goodwill was expressed ​The practical nature of the scheme which Esperantists are labouring to induce the world to adopt is thus sufficiently clearly defined. Dr. Zamenhof himself, speaking at the Geneva Congress with all the vivid poignancy attaching to the words of a man fresh from the butcheries at that moment rife in the Russian Empire,^[25] declared that neither he nor other Esperantists were naifs enough to believe that the adoption of their language would put an end to such scenes. But he had seen men at each other’s throats, beating each other’s brains out with bludgeons—men who had no personal enmity and had never seen each other before, but were let loose on each other by pure race prejudice. He did claim that mutual incomprehensibility amongst men who thus dwell side by side and should be taking part in a common civic life was one powerful influence in keeping up cliques and divisions, and artificially holding asunder those whom common interests should be joining together. It is hard to refuse credence to this power of language, thus moderately stated.

Another vexed question is whether it is advisable to run an international language on a literary or a commercial ticket, On this rock Volapiik split—

and there was no Prospero to conjure away the tempest and

towards the Vatican, on receipt of its message at Geneva, by speakers who avowed themselves agnostics, but welcomed any advance towards abolition of barriers. ​send everybody safe home to port to speak Volapük happily ever afterwards. The moral is, that it is no good to make exaggerated claims for a universal language. To attempt to set it on a fully equal footing with national languages as a literary medium is to court disaster.

The truth seems to be about this. As a potential means of international communication, Esperanto is unsurpassed and a long way ahead of any national language. As a literary language, it is far better than Chinook or Pidgin, far worse than English or Greek.

A language, no more than a man, can serve two masters. By attempting to combine within itself this double function an international language would cease to attain either object. The reason is simple.

Its legitimate and proper sphere demands of it as the first essential that it should be easy and universally accessible. This means that the words are to be few, and must have but one clearly marked sense each. There are to be no idioms or set phrases, no words that depend upon their context or upon allusion for their full sense.

On the other hand, among the essentials of a literary language are the exact opposites of all these characteristics. The vocabulary must be full and plenteous, and there should be a rich variety of synonyms; there should be delicate halftones and "nuances"; the words should be not mere counters or symbols of fixed value, determinable in each case by a rapid use of the dictionary alone, but must have an atmosphere, a something dependent upon history, usage, and allusion, by virtue of which the whole phrase, in the finer styles of writing, amounts to more than the sum of the individual meanings of the words which it contains, becoming a separate entity with an individual flavour of its own. To attempt to create this atmosphere in an artificial language is not only futile, but would introduce just the difficulties, redundancies, and complications which it is its chief object to avoid. Take a single instance, Macbeth’s<--> ​

Here the effect is produced by the contrast between the stately march of the long Latin words of thundrous sound, and the short, sharp English. A labour-saving language has no business with such words as “incarnadine” or “multitudinous.” In translating such a passage it will reproduce the sense faithfully and clearly, if necessary by the combination of simple roots; but the bouquet of the original will vanish in the process. This is inevitable, and it is even so far an advantage that it removes all ground from the argument that a universal language will kill scholarly language-learning. It will be just as necessary as ever to read works of fine literature in the original, in order to enjoy their full savour; and the translation into the common tongue will not prejudice such reading of originals more than, or indeed so much as, translations into various mother-tongues.

Again, take the whole question of the imitative use of language. In national literatures, many a passage, poetry or prose, is heightened in effect by assonance, alliteration, a certain movement or rhythm of phrase. Subtle suggestion slides in sound through the ear and falls with mellowing cadence into the heart. Soothed senses murmur their own music to the mind; the lullaby lilt of the lay swells full the linkéd sweetness of the song.

The How plays fostering round the What. Down the liquid stream of lingual melody the dirge drifts dying—dying it echoes back into a ghostly after-life, as the yet throbbing sense wakes the drowsed mind once more. The Swan-song floats double—song and shadow ; and in the blend—half sensuous, half of thought—man’s nature tastes fruition.

Now, this verbal artistry, whereby the words set themselves in tune to the thoughts, postulates a varied vocabulary, a rich storehouse wherein a man may linger and choose among the gems ​of sound and sense till he find the fitting stone and fashion it to one of those—

But the word-store of an international tongue must not be a golden treasury of art, a repository of "bigotry and virtue." On its orderly rows of shelves must be immediately accessible the right word for the right place: no superfluity, no disorder, no circumambient margin for effect. Homocea-like, it "touches the spot," and having deadened the ache of incomprehensibility, has done its task. "No flowers."

Naturally some peoples will feel themselves more cramped in a new artificial language than others. French, incomparably neat and clear within its limits, but possessing the narrowest "margin for effect," is less alien in its genius from Esperanto than is English, with its twofold harmony, its potentiality (too rarely exploited) of Romance clarity, and its double portion of Germanic vigour and feeling. Yet all languages must probably witness the obliteration of some finer native shades in the international tongue.

But we must not go to the opposite extreme, and deny to the universal language all power of rendering serious thought. Just how far it can go, and where its inherent limitations begin, is a matter of individual taste and judgment. There are Esperanto translations—and good ones—of Hamlet, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, the Aeneid of Virgil, parts of Molière and Homer, besides a goodly variety of other literature. These translations do succeed in giving a very fair idea of the originals, as any one can test for himself with a little trouble, but, as pointed out, they must come something short in beauty and variety of expression.

There is even a certain style in Esperanto itself in the hands of a good writer, of which the dominant notes are simplicity and directness—two qualities not at all to be despised. Further, ​the unlimited power of word-building and of forming terse compounds gives the language an individuality of its own. It contains many expressive self-explanatory words whose meaning can only be conveyed by a periphrasis in most languages,^[27] and this causes it to take on the manner and feel of a living tongue, and makes it something far more than a mere copy or barren extract of storied speech.

Technically, the fulness of its participial system, rivalled by Greek alone, and the absence of all defective verbs, lend to it a very great flexibility ; and containing, as it does, a variety of specially neat devices borrowed from various tongues, it is in a sense neater than any of them.

One great test of its capacity for literary expression remains to be made. This is an adequate translation of the Bible. A religious society, famed for the variety of its translations of the scriptures into every conceivable language, when approached on the subject, replied that Esperanto was not a language. But Esperantists will not “let it go at that.” Besides Dr. Zamenhof’s own Predikanto (Ecclesiastes), an experiment has been made by two Germans, who published a translation of St. Matthew’s Gospel. It is not asuccess, and further experiments have just been made by Prof. Macloskie, of Princeton, U.S.A.,and by E. Metcalfe, M.A. (Oxon), I cannot say with what result, not having seen copies.^[28]

From one point of view, the directness and simplicity of the Bible would seem to lend themselves to an Esperanto dress ; but there are certain great difficulties, such as technical expressions, archaic diction, and phrases hallowed by association. A meeting of those interested in this great work will take place ​at Cambridge during the Congress (August 1907). Experimenters in this field will there be brought together from all countries, the subject will be thoroughly discussed, and substantial progress may be hoped for.

In the field of rendering scientific literature and current workaday prose, whose matter is of more moment than its form, Esperanto has already won its spurs. Its perfect lucidity makes it particularly suitable for this form of writing.

The conclusion then is, that Esperanto is neither wholly commercial nor yet literary in the full sense in which a grown language is literary; but it does do what it professes to do, and it is all the better for not professing the impossible.

The apostle of a universal language is made to feel pretty plainly that he is regarded as a crank. He may console himself with the usual defence that a crank is that which makes revolutions; but for all that, it is chilling to be met with a certain smile.

Let us analyse that smile. It varies in intensity, ranging from the scathing sneer damnatory to the gentle dimple deprecatory. But in any case it belongs to the category of the smile that won't come off. I know that grin—it comes from Cheshire.

What, then, do we mean when we smile at a crank? Firstly and generally that we think his ideal impracticable. But it has been shown that an international language is not impracticable. This alone ought to go far towards removing it from the list of cranks' hobbies.

Secondly, we often mean that the ideal in question is opposed to common sense—e.g. when we smile at a man who lives on protein biscuits or walks about without a hat. We do not impugn the feasibility of his diet or apparel, but we think he ​is going out of his way to be peculiar without reaping adequate advantage by his departure from customary usage.

The test of "crankiness," then, lies in the adequacy of the advantage reaped. A man who learns and uses Esperanto may at present depart as widely from ordinary usage as a patron of Eustace Miles's restaurant or a member of the hatless brigade; but is it true that the advantage thereby accruing is equally disputable or matter of opinion? Is it not, on the contrary, fairly certain that the use of an auxiliary language, if universal, would open up for many regions from which exclusion is now felt as a hindrance?

Take the case of a doctor, scientist, scholar, researcher in any branch of knowledge, who desires to keep abreast of the advance of knowledge in his particular line. He may have to wait for years before a translation of some work he wishes to read is published in a tongue he knows, and in any case all the periodical literature of every nation, except the one or two whose languages. he may learn, will be closed to him. The output of learned work is increasing very fast in all civilized countries, and therefore results are recorded in an increasing number of languages in monographs, reports, transactions, and the specialist press. A move is being made in the right direction by the proposal to print the publications of the Brussels International Bibliographical Institute in Esperanto.

Take a few examples of the hampering effect upon scholarly work of the language difficulty as it already exists. The diffusion of learning will, ironically enough, increase the difficulty.^[29] The late Prof. Todhunter, of Cambridge, was driven to learning Russian for mathematical purposes. He managed to learn enough to enable him to read mathematical treatises; but how many mathematicians or scientists (or classical scholars, for that matter) could do as much? And of how much profit was the learning of Russian, quâ Russian, to Prof. Todhunter? It only took up time which could have been better spent, as there cannot be anything very uplifting or cultivating in the language of mathematical Russian.

​Prof. Max Müller proposed that all serious scientific work should be published in one of the six languages following—English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Latin. But why should other nations have to produce in these languages? and why should serious students have to be prepared to read six languages?

All this was many years ago. The balance of culture has since then been gradually but steadily shifting in favour of other peoples. The present writer had occasion to make a special study of Byron's influence on the Continent. It turned out that one of the biggest and most important works upon the subject was written in Polish. It has therefore remained inaccessible. This is only an illustration of a difficulty that faces many workers.

Thirdly, there is a good large portion of the British public that regards as a crank anything not British or that does not benefit themselves personally. It really is hard for an Englishman, Frenchman, or German, brought up among a homogeneous people of old civilization, to realize the extent of the incubus under which the smaller nations of Europe and the polyglot empires further east are groaning. Imagine yourself an educated Swiss, Dutchman, or a member of any of the thirty or forty nationalities that make up the Austrian or Russian Empires. How would you like to have to learn three or four foreign languages for practical purposes before you could hope to take much of a position in life? Can any one assert that the kind of grind required, with its heavy taxation of the memory, is in most cases really educative or confers culture?

Think it out. What do you really mean when you jeer at an Esperantist?

​

An international language is not an attempt to replace or damage in any way any existing language or literature.

An international language is an attempt to save the greatest amount of labour and open the widest fields of thought and action to the greatest number.