International Language by Walter J. Clark (the lemonade war series txt) 📕

Progress was extraordinarily rapid in other European countries, and by 1889, only nine years after the publication of Volapük, there were 283 Volapük societies, distributed throughout Europe, America, and the British Colonies. Instruction books were published in twenty-five languages, including Volapük itself; numerous newspapers, in and about Volapük, sprang up all over the world; the number of Volapükists 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 Volapük congresses were held, of which the third, held in Paris in 1889, with proceedings entirely in Volapük, was the most important.

The rapid decline of Volapük is even more instructive than its sensational rise. The congress of Paris marked its zenith: hopes ran high, and success seemed assured. 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

1A Volapük journal still appears in Graz, Stiria—Volapükabled lezenodik. The editor has just (March 1907) retired, and the veteran Bishop Schleyer, now seventy-five years old, is taking up the editorship again.

The chief reason of this failure was internal dissension. First arose the question of principle: Should Volapük 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 Volapükists from different countries. A professor of geology from Halle University was elected president, and an International Academy of Volapük 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 Volapük 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 directorship, which of course he could not make good. The constitution of the academy was only binding inasmuch as it had been drawn up and adopted by the constituent members, and it gave no such powers to the inventor.

So here was a very pretty quarrel as to the ownership of Volapük. 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 guardianship 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. Volapük 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 lumière, would accept the fait accompli and introduce it into their schools.

Thirteen countries sent representatives, including Turkey and China. The great Kerckhoffs was elected president. The proceedings were in Volapük. The foundling's future was canvassed in terms of himself by a cosmopolitan board of guardians, who did not yet know what he was. Rather a Gilbertian situation. Trying a higher flight, we may say, in Platonic phrase, that Volapük seemed to be about midway between being and not-being. It is a far cry from Gilbert viâ Plato to Mr. Kipling, but perhaps Volapük, at this juncture, may be most aptly described as a "sort of a giddy harumphrodite," if not "a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one."

Business done: The congress discusses.

The congress passed a resolution that there should be drawn up "a simple normal grammar, from which all useless rules should be excluded," and proceeded to adopt a final constitution for the Volapük Academy.

Article 15 says: "The decisions of the academy must be at once submitted to the inventor. If the inventor has not within thirty days protested against the decisions, they are valid. Decisions not approved by the inventor are referred back to the academy, and are valid if carried by a two-thirds majority."

The bishop held out for his right of absolute veto, as his episcopal fellows and their colleagues are doing "in another place" in England. The conflict presents some analogy with other graver constitutional matters, involving discussion of the respective merits of absolute and suspensive veto, and may therefore have some interest at present, apart from its great importance in any scheme for an international language.

The upshot was that dissensions broke out within the academy. The director, unable to carry a complete scheme of reformed grammar, resigned (1891), and the academy, whose business it was to arrange the next congress and keep the movement going, never convened a fourth congress. Several academicians set to work on new artificial languages of their own; and what was left of the Academy of Volapük, under a new director, M. Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg railway engineer, elected 1893, subsequently turned its attention to working out a new language, to which was given the name Idiom Neutral (see next chapter).

It is interesting to note that, when Volapük was nearing its high-water mark, the American Philosophical Society appointed a committee (October 1887) to inquire into its scientific value.

This committee reported in November 1887. The report states that the creation of an international language is in conformity with the general tendency of modern civilization, and is not merely desirable, but "will certainly be realized." It goes on to reject Volapük as the solution of the problem, as being on the whole retrogade in tendency. It is too arbitrary in construction, and not international enough in vocabulary; nor does it correspond to the general trend of development of language, which is away from a synthetic grammar (inflection by means of terminations, as in Latin and Greek) and towards an analytic one (inflection by termination replaced by prepositions and auxiliaries).

But the committee was so fully convinced of the importance of an international language, that it proposed to the Philosophical Society that it should invite all the learned societies of the world to co-operate in the production of a universal language. A resolution embodying this recommendation was adopted by the society, and the invitations were sent out. About twenty societies accepted—among them the University of Edinburgh. The Scots again!

The London Philological Society commissioned Mr. Ellis to investigate the subject, and upon his report declined to co-operate. Mr. Ellis was a believer in Volapük, and furthermore did not agree with the American Philosophical Society's conclusion that an international language ought to be founded on an Indo-Germanic (Aryan) basis. In this Mr. Ellis was almost certainly wrong, as subsequent experience is tending to show. The Japanese, among others, are taking up Esperanto with enthusiasm, find it easy, and make no difficulty about its Aryan basis. But, apart from linguistic considerations, Mr. Ellis's practical reasoning was certainly sound. It was to this effect: The main thing is to adopt a language that is already in wide use and shown to be adequate. Alterations bring dissension; by sticking to what we have already got, imperfections and all, strife is avoided, and the thing is at once reduced to practice.

This was a wise counsel, and applies to-day with double force to the present holder of the field, Esperanto, which is besides, in the opinion of experts, a better language than Volapük, and far easier to acquire.

However, on the question of technical merits, the American Philosophical Society was probably right, as against the London Philological Society represented by Mr. Ellis. And the proof is that Volapük died—primarily, indeed, of dissensions among its partisans, but of dissensions superinduced on inherent defects of principle. That this is true may be seen from the subsequent history of the Volapük movement. This is briefly narrated in the next chapter, under the name of Idiom Neutral.