Part 13 (1/2)

But, after all, it had a human side:

”... Three and fourtiethly, as its interjections are more numerous, so are they more emphatical in their respective expression of pa.s.sions, than that part of speech is in any other language whatsoever.

”... Eight and fourtiethly, of all languages this is the most compendious in complement, and consequently fittest for Courtiers and Ladies.”

Sir Thomas seems to have been a bit of a man of the world too.

”... Fiftiethly, no language in matter of Prayer and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns to Almighty G.o.d is able, for conciseness of expression to compare with it; and therefore, of all other, the most fit for the use of Churchmen and spirits inclined to devotion.”

This ”therefore,” with its direct deduction from ”conciseness of expression,” recalls the lady patroness who chose her inc.u.mbents for being fast over prayers. She said she could always pick out a parson who read service daily by his time for the Sunday service.

Sir Thomas is perhaps over-sanguine to a modern taste when he concludes:

”Besides the sixty and six advantages above all other languages, I might have couched thrice as many more of no less consideration than the aforesaid, but that these same will suffice to sharpen the longing of the generous Reader after the intrinsecal and most researched secrets of the new Grammar and Lexicon which I am to evulge.”

IV

HISTORY OF VOLAPuK-A WARNING

Volapuk is the invention of a ”white night.” Those who know their _Alice in Wonderland_ will perhaps involuntarily conjure up the picture of the kindly and fantastic White Knight, riding about on a horse covered with mousetraps and other strange caparisons, which he introduced to all and sundry with the unfailing remark, ”It's my own invention.” Scoffers will not be slow to find in Volapuk and the White Knight's inventions a common characteristic-their fantasticness. Perhaps there really is some a.n.a.logy in the fact that both inventors had to mount their hobby-horses and ride errant through sundry lands, thrusting their creations on an unwilling world. But the particular kind of white night of which Volapuk was born is the _nuit blanche_, literally = ”white night,” but idiomatically = ”night of insomnia.”

On the night of March 31, 1879, the good Roman Catholic Bishop Schleyer, cure of Litzelstetten, near Constance, could not get to sleep. From his over-active brain, charged with a knowledge of more than fifty languages, sprang the world-speech, as Athene sprang fully armed from the brain of Zeus. At any rate, this is the legend of the origin of Volapuk.

As for the name, an Englishman will hardly appreciate the fact that the word ”Volapuk” is derived from the two English words ”world” and ”speech.” This transformation of ”world” into _vol_ and ”speech” into _puk_ is a good ill.u.s.tration of the manner in which Volapuk is based on English, and suggests at once a criticism of that all-important point in an artificial language, the vocabulary. It is too arbitrary.

Published in 1880, Volapuk spread first in South Germany, and then in France, where its chief apostle was M. Kerckhoffs, modern-language master in the princ.i.p.al school of commerce in Paris. He founded a society for its propagation, which soon numbered among its members several well-known men of science and letters. The great Magasins du Printemps-a sort of French Whiteley's, and familiar to all who have shopped in Paris-started a cla.s.s, attended by over a hundred of its employees; and altogether fourteen different cla.s.ses were opened in Paris, and the pupils were of a good stamp.

Progress was extraordinarily rapid in other European countries, and by 1889, only nine years after the publication of Volapuk, there were 283 Volapuk societies, distributed throughout Europe, America, and the British Colonies. Instruction books were published in twenty-five languages, including Volapuk itself; numerous newspapers, in and about Volapuk, sprang up all over the world; the number of Volapukists was estimated at a million. This extraordinarily rapid success is very striking, and seems to afford proof that there is a widely felt want for an international language. Three Volapuk congresses were held, of which the third, held in Paris in 1889, with proceedings entirely in Volapuk, was the most important.

The rapid decline of Volapuk is even more instructive than its sensational rise. The congress of Paris marked its zenith: hopes ran high, and success seemed a.s.sured. Within two years it was practically dead. No more congresses were held, the partisans dwindled away, the local clubs dissolved, the newspapers failed, and the whole movement came to an end. There only remained a new academy founded by Bishop Schleyer, and here and there a group of the faithful.[1]

[1]A Volapuk journal still appears in Graz, Stiria-_Volapukabled lezenodik_. The editor has just (March 1907) retired, and the veteran Bishop Schleyer, now seventy-five years old, is taking up the editors.h.i.+p again.

The chief reason of this failure was internal dissension. First arose the question of principle: Should Volapuk aim at being a literary language, capable of expressing all the finer shades of thought and feeling? or should it confine itself to being a practical means of business communication?

Bishop Schleyer claimed for his invention an equal rank among the literary languages of the world. The practical party, headed by M.

Kerckhoffs, wished to keep it utilitarian and practical. With the object of increasing its utility, they proposed certain changes in the language; and thus there arose, in the second place, differences of opinion as to fundamental points of structure, such as the nature and origin of the roots to be adopted. Vital questions were thus reopened, and the whole language was thrown back into the melting-pot.

The first congress was held at Friedrichshafen in August 1884, and was attended almost exclusively by Germans. The second congress, Munich, August 1887, brought together over 200 Volapukists from different countries. A professor of geology from Halle University was elected president, and an International Academy of Volapuk was founded.

Then the trouble began. M. Kerckhoffs was unanimously elected director of the academy, and Bishop Schleyer was made grand-master (_cifal_) for life. Questions arose as to the duties of the academy and the respective powers of the inventor of the language and the academicians.

M. Kerckhoffs was all along the guiding spirit on the side of the academy. He was in the main supported by the Volapuk world, though there seems to have been some tendency, at any rate at first, on the part of the Germans to back the bishop. It is impossible to go into details of the points at issue. Suffice it to say, that eventually the director of the academy carried a resolution giving the inventor three votes to every one of ordinary members in all academy divisions, but refusing him the right of veto, which he claimed. The bishop replied by a threat to depose M. Kerckhoffs from the directors.h.i.+p, which of course he could not make good. The const.i.tution of the academy was only binding inasmuch as it had been drawn up and adopted by the const.i.tuent members, and it gave no such powers to the inventor.

So here was a very pretty quarrel as to the owners.h.i.+p of Volapuk.

The bishop said it belonged to him, as he had invented it: he was its father. The academy said it belonged to the public, who had a right to amend it in the common interest. This child, which had newly opened its eyes and smiled upon the world, and upon which the world was then smiling back-was it a son domiciled in its father's house and fully _in patria potestate_? or a ward in the guardians.h.i.+p of its chief promoters? or an orphan foundling, to be boarded out on the scattered-home system at the public expense, and to be brought up to be useful to the community at large? A vexed question of paternity; and the worst of it was, there was no international court competent to try the case.

Meantime the congress of 1889 at Paris came on. Volapuk was booming everywhere. Left to itself, it flourished like a green bay-tree. This meeting was to set an official seal upon its success; and governments, convinced by this thing done openly in the _ville lumiere_, would accept the _fait accompli_ and introduce it into their schools.

Thirteen countries sent representatives, including Turkey and China.