How to Build a Language

                           Donald J.Harlow
                             2001.01.07


                                  They all <reformists>, after deter-
                                  mining that the public did not  fa-
                                  vor Esperanto, nor  adopt  it  with
                                  the same enthusiasm that they  did,
                                  blamed this lack of success on  the
                                  failures or imperfections they  fo-
                                  und in the language. And since each
                                  of them had his own special opinion
                                  about the points in need of reform,
                                  each one of them presented his  own
                                  proposals, declaring those  of  the
                                  others to be absurd... Only  a  few
                                  of these reformists  had  the  con-
                                  stancy, or the necessary means,  to
                                  finish up  their  schemes,  publish
                                  them, and  recruit  adherents;  the
                                  others, unable to realize their id-
                                  eal, either abandoned the  movement
                                  entirely or went over to one of the
                                  fresh-baked projects.

                                Gaston Waringhien. Lingvo kaj Vivo. �
                           Meksiko, La-Laguno: Stafeto, 1959, p. 358.

          Warning: Emotions and tempers are sometimes  aroused  among
     those who have dedicated much of their  lives  to  the  devising
     and/or promotion of one planned language or another, when  some-
     one (for whatever purpose and with whatever justification)  dis-
     cusses somebody's favorite planned language.  Consequently,  the
     following material has, at times, been accused of being (a)  in-
     accurate and (b) biased. No doubt, inaccuracies have  crept  in;
     and, as a proponent of Esperanto, I have never claimed to be un-
     biased. If you are looking for a  totally  objective,  scholarly
     presentation of the history of the planned-language movement,  I
     suggest that you look elsewhere. Another warning: you will  pro-
     bably not find it (everybody writing on the subject seems to ha-
     ve his own set of prejudices) and if you do, it will probably be
     extremely boring. This presentation is, I believe, at least  not
     boring.
          I can sum up the conclusions that can be  drawn  from  this
     historical introduction in a relatively few words. Some one tho-
     usand (perhaps more) planned languages  have  been  sketched  or
     created during the past two centuries; the approximately a dozen
     treated here are those that have actually been devised to a  fa-
     re-thee-well and have actually acquired a community of speakers,
     of whatever size. At the end  of  this  period,  the  number  of
     speakers of Esperanto now living exceeds, apparently by  several
     orders of magnitude, the total number of speakers of  all  other
     planned languages in this list who have ever  lived.  I  suspect
     that this demonstrates something; but I will leave it to you  to
     decide what.
          Enjoy!


                            Introduction

     Languages have been constructed by many people, for many differ-
ent purposes, with varying degrees of success. You  may  be  familiar
with such literary creations as Austin Tappan Wright's Islandian lan-
guage, which he developed for his massive social novel "Islandia", or
with John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's languages  of  Middle  Earth,  which
served as inspiration for "The Lord of the Rings" (When this was  or-
iginally written, Robert Jordan's massive fantasy novel "The Wheel of
Time" had not yet begun to appear. Aaron Bergman's compendium and an-
alysis of Jordan's Old Tongue, used heavily in the novel, can be  ac-
cessed here [1]. Other interesting well-developed artificial  langua-
ges used in science-fiction and fantasy include Suzette Haden Elgin's
Laadan [2], "Alien Nation"'s Tenctonese [3], and,  of  course,  "Star
Trek"'s Klingon [4]). Others have, at one time or another, dabbled at
creating their own languages, just to see whether it could  be  done.
The idea of creating an artificial language for  actual  use  between
people of different linguistic backgrounds,  while  not  particularly
recent, is less widely known.
     The earliest such creation on record, although almost  certainly
not the first of its kind, was the Lingua Ignota, invented by  Hilde-
gard of Bingen, the 12th-century Abbess of Rupertsberg, a  woman  re-
membered only by artificial language buffs until she was recently re-
surrected by the feminist and gnostic movements as an  early  example
of the Renaissance Woman. The Abbess Hildegard probably had no inten-
tion of producing an international language, since in her  world  one
already existed � Latin. More likely, it was intended as a  means  of
secret communication, perhaps an early forerunner  of  Frank  Patrick
Herbert's battle languages as described in his Dune novels. Certainly
its name (which means "Unknown Language") suggests that  it  was  not
intended for the common people.
     Traditionally, constructed languages are classified either as "a
priori" � created out of whole cloth � or "a  posteriori"  �  derived
from already existing linguistic material, usually the Western  Euro-
pean languages. Several early Western European philosophers, e.g. Ge-
orge Dalgarno and Bishop John Wilkins, devoted much time  to  develo-
ping "philosophical languages" of the a priori type.  Such  languages
were completely artificial, built to more accurately reflect the sec-
ret workings of the human mind. Since those  secret  workings  remain
largely a secret even today, such languages were  effectively  still-
born. I myself have never been terribly interested in them, and so  I
can't give you the full details.  The  most  comprehensive  treatment
that I have seen is by Ernst Drezen [5]. There is a more readable one
in a recent work by Pierre Janton [6]. For  English  speakers,  Mario
Pei touches on the subject in his popular work on constructed langua-
ges [7], and Andrew Large [8] devotes a chapter or so to it.  Here  I
shall dispose of such languages in a few words: if you understand the
Dewey Decimal System, you already understand  the  principles  behind
their construction. While such languages generally went out of fashi-
on two centuries ago, they have not disappeared completely,  as  Bar-
nett's Suma and, more recently, James Cooke Brown's Loglan prove.
     The idea of the international language began to  come  into  its
own in the 18th century, when such men as Rene  Descartes  in  France
and Jan Amos Komensky in Czechia began to consider  the  problem  and
developed various criteria to be satisfied by an  international  lan-
guage. Among these criteria were several that would play an important
role in the development of later constructed languages, criteria such
as phonetic regularity and grammatical rationality.
     One late a priori language that deserves special comment is Sol-
resol. Developed by the French scientist Jean Francois Sudre,  Solre-
sol � a language with only seven sounds, based on the standard  West-
ern Europe tonic scale (the white keys on the piano) � attracted con-
siderable interest in Western Europe during the 19th century. Its el-
ements (words) were completely artificial and highly categorized, but
reflected concepts out of daily life rather than high-flown  philoso-
phical ideals. Furthermore, Solresol because of its unique  construc-
tion could be sung, played, or whistled, as well as  spoken.  Perhaps
because music hath charms that soothe the savage breast,  or  perhaps
because trumpets can be heard further than voices, the French milita-
ry authorities at one time considered adopting Solresol for their own
purposes � a peculiar role for a  purported  international  language,
although military authorities, among them those of  Imperial  Germany
and the United States, would later use Esperanto for  similar  purpo-
ses. Solresol retained some of its popularity even after the develop-
ment of Volapuek and, later, Esperanto, finally disappearing from the
scheme of things only around the time of the World War  I,  after  an
almost hundred-year-long run.


                              Volapuek
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)

     In contrast to the a priori, largely philosophical, languages we
have the a posteriori languages, developed on the basis  of  material
already existing in the various ethnic tongues and intended for gene-
ral spoken use. Although a few such languages already  existed  early
in the nineteenth century, the first to attain any degree of popular-
ity was Volapuek.
     The father of Volapuek, Johann Martin Schleyer, was  a  Catholic
priest in Baden. According to Schleyer's own report (in a letter  re-
produced in translation by Reinhard Haupenthal in [9, p. 6]), the id-
ea of an international language arose out of a  conversation  he  had
with one of his parishioners, a semiliterate German peasant whose son
had emigrated to America and could no longer be reached by  mail  be-
cause the United States Post Office couldn't read the father's  hand-
writing � an unfortunate situation, given that the father needed  mo-
ney from the son. Schleyer conceived a novel solution to  this  prob-
lem, a universal alphabet suitable for all nations and  climes.  From
there the idea, once rooted, grew,  until  one  night  God  spoke  to
Schleyer in a dream and suggested that he brew up a complete interna-
tional language. Schleyer, always amenable to divine advice, proceed-
ed to do so, and in 1880 he published his project, which  immediately
received international acclaim.
     Volapuek societies sprang  up  all  over  Europe,  then  quickly
spread to North and South America and even some parts  of  Asia.  The
international language, it seemed in that more innocent age,  was  an
idea whose time had come. Within a very few years,  Volapuek  boasted
well over a hundred thousand adherents � a figure that it would later
take Esperanto decades to attain. The question of how many  of  Vola-
puek's adherents actually spoke the language remains unanswered.
     The first world congress of Volapuek  was  held  in  Germany  in
1884, the second in 1887, the third in 1889. At the  first  two  con-
gresses, business was carried on in German, the language of  most  of
the participants. This may have been a good thing; at the third  con-
gress, business was carried on in Volapuek, and it was then that  the
Volapuek movement received its death blow.
     The forces that shattered the Volapuek movement were  both  lin-
guistic and social in nature; language, after all, does not  function
in a vacuum. A quick look at them may be instructive and help us  un-
derstand the development and fate of later constructed languages, not
least of Esperanto.
     Volapuek was a language with a heavily rationalized grammar  and
word-formation system; in many ways it was a structural precursor  of
Esperanto. Volapuek morphology was agglutinative, much like  that  of
Esperanto. New words were formed either by the addition  of  affixes,
or by the agglutination of smaller words � again, much like  Esperan-
to. But similar as the two systems were in concept, in function  they
were quite different. Where Zamengof's view of the international lan-
guage was streamlined, Schleyer's was, to say the least, baroque.
     As a single simple example: there was only one  noun  declension
in Volapuek, but four cases indicated by different terminal morphemes
� only one fewer than Latin. English and Esperanto each have only two
such cases, the English genitive or possessive and the Esperanto  ac-
cusative. E.g.:

           vol   �  world          vols   �  worlds
           vola  �  world's        volas  �  worlds'
           vole  �  to the world   voles  �  to the worlds
           voli  �  world (acc.)   volis  �  worlds (acc.)

     You might want to note, however, that these case and number end-
ings are obviously agglutinative rather  than  inflected.  What  this
means is that each part of the ending's meaning is changed  by  chan-
ging only the corresponding part of the  ending,  not  by  having  to
change the entire ending as in Latin � or, e.g., in  modern  Spanish,
German, or French. Esperanto was to use a similar system � but consi-
derably simplified.
     Verbs in Volapuek are even more complex. There is only one  con-
jugation, but that one is a real bear, containing agglutinatable end-
ings for person, tense, mood, and  voice;  one  authority  calculated
that Volapuek had several hundred thousand  different  verb  forms  �
more verb forms than speakers! English has only a  few  regular  verb
forms � though these must be augmented by some three  hundred  strong
and irregular verbs � and Esperanto has only six verb endings and  no
irregularities.
     Yet the most common criticism of Volapuek � and, I must  add  in
all fairness, from a global perspective the least important  �  arose
from Schleyer's insistence upon deforming standard European roots  to
make them fit his rather unlikely phonology. It may be hard  for  the
English-speaking reader to recognize that the  very  name  "Volapuek"
comes from English, but in fact this is the case � "vol"  comes  from
"world" and "puek" from "speech". This criticism is valid only if the
constructed language in question is meant to serve as an auxiliary to
one or a group of already extant languages, not as an autonomous lan-
guage in its own right � something not true of either Volapuek or Es-
peranto. Nonetheless, with many  people  this  criticism  bears  much
weight.
     Within the Volapuek movement there developed a  desire  for  re-
forms to simplify the language's relatively complex (though  not  ne-
cessarily complicated) grammar and bring its lexicon more  into  line
with Western European practice � a desire that we shall see expressed
elsewhere, later on. The leader of the reform faction  was  a  French
professor, Auguste Kerckhoffs, who at the  second  Volapuek  congress
was elected to head the Volapuek Academy. Friction immediately  deve-
loped between Kerckhoffs and Schleyer,  since  the  latter  perceived
himself as the fount from which all wisdom about Volapuek must  flow.
By the time of the third congress, affairs had reached the status  of
open warfare. Kerckhoffs, formerly Director of the  Volapuek  Academy
(equivalent of chief of government), was elected its President  (head
of state), a slap in the face to Schleyer.  The  autocratic  Schleyer
refused to recognize the Academy's authority and within a  few  short
acrimonious years the whole movement collapsed, with most of its mem-
bers converting either to Esperanto or to other  constructed  langua-
ges. The best account of the third Volapuek congress and the collapse
of Volapuek that I have seen is to be found in [10, p. 95].
     By the turn of the century, Volapuek had  all  but  disappeared.
Large [8, p. 95] quotes the survival of one   Volapuekist  periodical
until 1960; but Bernard Golden (in one of the last issues of "Eco-Lo-
gos", 1979) in trying to hunt up speakers of Volapuek for the langua-
ge's centennial in 1980, found only ten � all of them  also  speakers
of Esperanto who had apparently learned Volapuek only out of linguis-
tic curiosity. Still, according to personal communication from  Prof.
Gyoergyi Selyem rumors persist that a small Volapuek movement endures
in Europe to this day, its members awaiting a sign from  on  high  to
become active once again in the interlinguistic field.
     If modern constructed-language aficionados  reject  Volapuek  as
being complex and unhandy, it should not be considered that they  si-
milarly reject what Schleyer did for the international language move-
ment. In a sense, he created legitimacy where none had previously ex-
isted. In his essay "Esenco kaj  Estonteco"  and  in  several  public
speeches, Zamengof explicitly emphasized the debt  the  international
language movement as a whole owed to Schleyer, and at  one  point  he
even encouraged an Esperanto Congress to send a telegram of congratu-
lations to the creator of Volapuek on the occasion of his birthday.


                              Esperanto

     Unlike Father Schleyer, who created Volapuek  because  God  told
him to do so, Lazar Markovich Zamengof had far more personal  reasons
for creating an international language: he believed, not that an  in-
ternational language would be sufficient to turn the world into a ut-
opia, but that it would be necessary to make it a tolerable place  in
which to live.
     Even Zamengof's name shows the difficulty of the conditions  un-
der which he had to live. I have called him "Lazar Markovich"  above,
and this is in accord with the name his parents intended for him; but
the laws of his native country, Imperial Russia, required him to have
a Christian name as well, even though his family was  Jewish.  Conse-
quently, the name "Ljudovik" was added to his birth certificate,  and
he became known outside the Jewish community as  "Ljudovik-Lazar  Za-
mengof". Early Western reports about his work invariably referred  to
him by this "Christian" name  or  Westernized  variants  �  "Ludwig",
"Louis", even "Lewis".
     Zamengof, by whatever name, was born and spent his  early  years
in the city of Bialystok in what is now Eastern Poland and  was  then
part of the Russian Empire. The population of the city was half  Jew-
ish, the rest being Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, and  Germans  [11].
The mutual distrust and hatred between  the  various  ethnic  groups,
much of which he attributed to language differences, deeply impressed
the young Zamengof, and it was at this time that he resolved  to  in-
itiate an international language. Later life in almost equally  poly-
glot Warsaw only intensified his enthusiasm. For a  very  interesting
description of the environment of the Central European  19th  century
Jewish Enlightenment, in which  Zamengof's,  like  those  of  Zigmund
Freud and Albert Einstein, evolved, see [12].
     Much has been written about Zamengof's early life and about  his
work on Esperanto. Unfortunately, the only  authoritative  source  is
Zamengof's own letter [11] written in Russian long  after  the  fact.
Zamengof himself does not mention certain events  which  have  become
part of the mythology of Esperanto; e.g., his father's destruction of
his papers may well be a product of Edmond Privat's fertile  imagina-
tion [13].
     What we do know for sure is that a version of the language,  ap-
parently as well-developed as Volapuek, already existed at  the  time
of Zamengof's nineteenth birthday party in December,  1878  �  before
Schleyer had even conceived the idea of Volapuek! We know that Zamen-
gof was not satisfied with the shape of the language and  spent  what
free time he had during the next few years, as a medical  student  at
Moscow University and later back in Warsaw, polishing  and  reworking
the language, largely through practical use in translating  from  the
two or three ethnic languages that he knew well.  We  know  that  the
language, as it existed in  1881,  was  considerably  different  from
Classical Esperanto as we know it today, at first glance even more so
than the prototype version of 1878. We know that the language had ta-
ken on what was essentially its present form by 1885, and that Zamen-
gof's next two years were spent in trying to find a publisher. And we
know that after his marriage to Klara Aleksandrovna Zilbernik in 1887
she used part of her dowry to help him publish  the  first  Esperanto
textbook (in Russian) in July of 1887.
     The history of Esperanto, from that takeoff point,  deserves  at
least a chapter or two all to itself. Leon Courtinat dedicates  three
volumes to it, but I am not so ambitious.  In  the  context  of  this
chapter I only want to touch upon its general relationship with other
constructed languages, from 1887 until the time, in the early 1950's,
that the movement to construct an  international  language  began  to
languish, at least temporarily.
     By the early 1890's the same sort of sociolinguistic forces that
had already broken the back of the Volapuek movement  were  beginning
to develop in the budding Esperanto movement. One of the main reform-
ists, a German surveyor named Wilhelm Heinrich Trompeter, was at that
time the chief financial support of what was then the only  Esperanto
magazine "La Esperantisto". As a sop to him and the other reformists,
in 1894 Zamengof actually proposed a reform project of his own,  made
up of suggestions offered by the reformists. The result was a  heavi-
ly-Europeanized variant of Esperanto that attempted  to  satisfy  all
the reformists and therefore bore little similarity to Classical  Es-
peranto. This patchwork, in my opinion, could not have emerged fortu-
itously from the same brilliant mind that produced Classical Esperan-
to, and I suspect that Zamengof deliberately created as  unacceptable
a reform project as he could manage, for the express purpose of kill-
ing off the reform movement. The tactic was at least temporarily suc-
cessful: this reform, and any others, were overwhelmingly rejected by
the five hundred readers of the magazine � except  for  a  few  local
groups, the only organized body of Esperantists in the world. The re-
form movement was put to rest, a figurative stake through its  heart;
but, like a comic-book Dracula, it would reappear some thirteen years
later in even more virulent form. Following the  plebiscite,  Trompe-
ter, as expected, withdrew his support from the magazine,  which  was
to disappear shortly in any case because of political  considerations
which I'll go into in another chapter.


                                 Ido
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)

     Around the year 1900, Esperanto, which had been gradually making
progress in such out-of-the-way corners of the world as Russia,  Ger-
many, and Sweden, was brought to the Civilized West  by  a  group  of
French intellectuals, and during the next five years made significant
headway in France and Britain. But not everyone west of the Elbe  was
pleased with the structure, phonology, and vocabulary  of  Esperanto.
The supersigned letters, the  many  Germanic  and  occasional  Slavic
words, the agglutinative morphology, the  Slavic  syntax,  all  these
seemed to some leading Western adherents  of  Esperanto  a  deviation
from the world's linguistic norms � French and  English.  This  basic
theme � that "The Way We Do Things Is The One And Only Right  Way"  �
would be reiterated over and over again, ad tedium, in the internati-
onal language movement during the next half century.
     In 1900 the renowned French mathematician Louis-Alexandre Coutu-
rat, with the help of his inseparable amanuensis Leopold Leau, under-
took an ambitious program to convince a number of major international
organizations that they should give their support to an international
committee chosen to select an international language.  Couturat  him-
self was apparently "an Esperantist", but I hope that I may be forgi-
ven for supposing that his Esperantism was  at  best  epidermal:  his
correspondence with  Zamengof  seems  to  have  been  exclusively  in
French. Nonetheless, to gain support for his plan  from  the  already
very large French Esperanto movement, he basically promised them that
such a committee could not help but put its imprimatur upon Zamengof'
s language.
     Over the next few years, in  spite  of  massive  help  from  the
French Esperantists, such support was not forthcoming.  Undaunted  by
this failure, he went ahead with plans to  establish  his  committee,
ignoring objections by Zamengof (and others) that such  a  committee,
without authoritative backing, would be a laughingstock. The  commit-
tee � calling itself the Delegation for the Adoption of an Internati-
onal Language � met in Paris in late 1907.
     Esperantists on the Delegation might be forgiven for being  con-
fused by its activities. Although Couturat  had  all  but  guaranteed
that Esperanto would be the language selected, he  seemed  determined
to bury it in a flood of strange artificial tongues with stranger na-
mes � Balta, Bolak, Bopal, Dil, Orba, Spelin, etc., etc., etc.  There
were rules of procedure, but these were often selectively flouted  or
ignored. Zamengof, e.g., was not allowed by the rules to present  his
own "project", but had to be represented by the chief French Esperan-
tist, the ultraconservative Marquis Louis de Beaufront who  could  be
counted on to support Esperanto to the death; but the Italian  mathe-
matician Giuseppe Peano was invited to personally appear  and  defend
his Latino Sine Flexione � later known as Interlingua (but not to  be
confused with the Interlingua discussed below) (Peano, in  fact,  was
not only invited to defend his own language, but to be  a  member  of
the Delegation!).
     And then, one morning, the members of the Delegation arrived  at
their meeting table to discover, neatly laid out before their chairs,
copies of a draft proposal for the modification of Esperanto to  make
it acceptable to "civilized" � i.e., French- and  English-speaking  �
people. The author, a modestly anonymous person  who  signed  himself
"Ido" � Esperanto for "offspring" � obviously had only the  best  in-
tentions � a few simple reforms such as removal  of  the  supersigned
letters and consequent dephoneticization of the language, abandonment
of the anathematized "-n" ending, adoption of a system of  derivation
based upon certain theories of Couturat, the replacement of  the  ag-
glutinative plural with a more Western inflected plural, purification
of the vocabulary of barbarous non-Western elements �  all  of  which
would convert Esperanto into the Perfect International Language,  im-
mediately acceptable to everyone.
     Couturat found the whole idea enchanting and could not  say  en-
ough good things about the anonymous  author  of  these  reforms.  In
light of future revelations, this was understandable. What was really
surprising to the Delegation's  Esperantists  was  Beaufront'  s  im-
mediate and unrestrained enthusiasm. He immediately  "packed  it  in"
for Esperanto and converted to the Ido reforms, without so much as  a
telegram to his principal.
     The Delegation held a special meeting from which many Esperanto-
speaking members were excluded by the simple expedient of failing  to
inform them of it, and closed its proceedings by  declaring  that  it
would adopt Esperanto "en bloc, with reforms along the lines suggest-
ed by Ido". A permanent commission, consisting  mainly  of  Couturat,
was appointed to supervise the adoption of the reforms, and everybody
went home, glad to be out of the mess.
     Recently James Chandler has suggested that the story is not fun-
damentally as I have quoted it here. For the exchange of  information
between Chandler and myself, which includes the results of some of my
own readings of the correspondence between a number of  the  princip-
als, you may want to visit the page [14].
     Most Esperantists felt betrayed, and they were no  happier  when
Couturat quickly delivered an ultimatum to the  Committee,  demanding
acceptance of Ido's reforms and insisting on a reply within a  month.
In a world without transoceanic aircraft or wireless electronic  com-
munications, an organization that already had members as far away  as
the Americas might be forgiven for considering this  an  unreasonably
short time. Negotiations between the Esperantists and the  reformers,
henceforth to be known as Idists, proponents of a  separate  language
known as Ido, broke down.
     A number of leading Esperantists,  particularly  in  the  French
contingent, actually did go over to Ido, but a vast majority of those
who had learned Esperanto simply to be able to use it did not � which
led to a comment, popular at the time even outside the  international
language movement, that the Esperantists were an army  without  gene-
rals and the Idists were generals without an army.  Relations  became
even more strained when Couturat, by accidentally switching a  couple
of letters, revealed to the Danish linguist Jens Otto  Harry  Jesper-
sen, a leading proponent of Ido but not part of the francophone cons-
piracy that had created it, that it was  Beaufront,  presumably  with
the knowledge of Couturat, who had invented Ido. Jespersen, a  honest
man, insisted that Couturat reveal all details of the  conspiracy  to
the world, under threat of losing his support for the "reforms". Sin-
ce Jespersen was essential to the progress of Ido � he was  the  only
linguist in the committee who had not either stuck with Esperanto  or
given the whole thing up in disgust � Couturat finally 'fessed up.
     More recent evidence suggests that "Ido" was a cooperative  ven-
ture between a group of French-speaking reformists,  including  Beau-
front (who, it later turned out, was not a Marquis � but  that's  an-
other story!), Couturat, a Belgian Esperantist named Lemaire, and an-
other French Esperantist named Michaux. This was not their first  at-
tempt at instituting reforms; the story of how Zamengof, the poverty-
stricken Jewish oculist, refused a bribe of 250,000  francs,  offered
secretly by Lemaire and Zamengof's close friend Emil Javal in  return
for his support for reforms, is not just a part of Esperanto mytholo-
gy, but is documented by Lemaire himself [15].
     Ido had a number of things going for it, not least  the  use  of
Jespersen, who was internationally respected, as a front man, and fi-
nancing from Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald's Nobel Prize  for  Chemistry.
But Ido, just as Volapuek and Esperanto before it, suffered from pro-
blems that the mathematician and logician Couturat had not  anticipa-
ted, that he did not understand and for which he had made no provisi-
on.
     "Reformomania" is an addictive disease. Once the  precedent  had
been set, there was no dearth of Idists willing to make their perfect
international language yet more perfect. At times, Ido seemed  to  be
in a constant state of flux, one modification replacing another  with
lightning speed, so that the language you learned one day  might  not
be quite the same as the language you were expected to speak  on  the
next. Eventually, a "period of stability"  was  declared;  one  joker
suggested that during this period reforms were permitted  only  every
other day. Even though Couturat, the motor of the Ido movement,  died
in an auto accident in 1914, the movement itself went on by  momentum
well into the 1920's.
     A rump Ido movement exists even today. In 1988 I was given a co-
py of 1987 issue #2 of "Ido Vivo", the 24-page typed and xeroxed  of-
ficial organ of the International Language  (Ido)  Society  of  Great
Britain; there was no indication of how often it appeared. Three oth-
er magazines were mentioned: "Progreso" (the main Ido organ) and "Nia
Torcho", both of which appear once every four months, and "Komuniki",
whose first issue appeared in April, 1987. There is  some  discussion
about correcting the numerous "errors" (a possible reference to  lin-
guistic dissension among the remaining Idists?) that apparently  dis-
figure the pages of "Progreso", and there is also some discussion  of
changing the name of Ido to something more like Esperanto ("Esperido"
is proposed). This question is not new; the original name of the lan-
guage was intended to be "Esperanto  Reformita",  and  Large  reports
Couturat' s complaint to Bertrand Arthur William  Russell  that  such
scum as Esperantists should have a monopoly on such a euphonious word
as "Esperantist", and why couldn't Idists  have  something  as  nice?
(Russell's suggestion of the term "Idiot" was apparently not well re-
ceived.) [15]
     There is also a long letter from Russia, describing Ido's  obvi-
ous superiority over Esperanto; but the letter was originally written
in Esperanto and had to be translated into Ido for publication.  This
reminds me of the letter that once appeared in (the now defunct) "Re-
vista di Interlingua" from a minor Polish Esperantist poet, who prai-
sed Interlingua to the skies and lauded its apparent superiority over
Esperanto � and then, at the end of this letter written (and printed)
in Esperanto, asked for replies in Esperanto, as  he  knew  no  other
language but his own. The proof of the pudding, gentlemen!
     The surface differences between Ido and Esperanto are relatively
minor. It is often said � correctly � that a person who can read  one
language can read the other. But the structural differences  are  ma-
jor. Ido, like French and English, is a language  with  a  relatively
strict word-order; Esperanto is not. Esperanto has added  some  extra
letters to ensure that it is phonetic; Ido  uses  only  the  standard
twenty-six and is not. Esperanto has an agglutinative  word-formation
system that allows easy creation of new  words;  Ido  has  a  complex
word-derivation system that does not.
     Perhaps the best empirical demonstration of the difference comes
from a study done at Columbia University in the 1930's. Two groups of
students were asked to learn corresponding sets of words from Ido and
Esperanto. The next day they were tested on their knowledge. The  two
groups did equally well in terms of passive recognition, but when  it
came to active knowledge � the ability to write the words  down  when
given their English equivalents � the Esperanto group did about twice
as well, to the surprise of the experimenter,  whose  own  prejudices
(as he admitted in his report) told him that the Ido group  would  do
better, their set of words being more "natural".
     The Ido schism was catastrophic for the  international  language
movement as a whole; among those outsiders who had already  begun  to
accept the idea of a  constructed  international  language,  it  cast
doubt on the whole matter. But it was far from being  an  unmitigated
catastrophe for the Esperanto movement; it served as a  safety  valve
for drawing off the most vociferous forces  in  favor  of  "reforms".
Henceforth linguistic dissension within the Esperanto  movement,  al-
though at times relatively acerbic, would restrain itself well  short
of the level needed to provoke another schism.
     The proponents of Ido, on the other hand, having  already  shown
their interest in reforms, were certain to be fertile ground for  re-
cruitment for the next major language project to come along.

     Postnote 2001:
     The era of the Internet may or may not have  given  Ido  a  new,
though very tenuous, lease on life. Books in or,  more  often,  about
Ido continued to be published through the 1990's, numbering perhaps a
dozen in that decade, about as many as were published in  the  1970's
before a slump in the 1980's (the record decade appears to have  been
the 1920's, with perhaps half a hundred books in or about Ido  publi-
shed). In addition, as of 2001 one webpage [16] lists  some  six  Ido
serials currently in publication: "El Correo Idista" of  the  Spanish
Idist Society; "Ido-Saluto", published in Germany; "Ido-Vivo" of  the
International Language Society of Great Brittain [sic]; "La  Kordiego
Geyal", aimed at gay and lesbian Ido speakers; "Letro  Internaciona",
a magazine of various nonlinguistic topics; and the unkillable "Prog-
reso". There are several Ido mailing lists, of  which  one  has  more
than a hundred participants.


                             Occidental
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)

     It appeared shortly after the World War I. The inventor  was  an
Estonian with the un-Estonian name Edgar von Wahl  (later  de  Wahl).
Wahl had been interested in language projects for many years and  had
in fact been one of the first to learn  Esperanto  to  the  point  at
which he became the proponent of the only modification to the langua-
ge's structure that Zamengof found worthy of adoption after  publica-
tion of the "First Book". But he found  Esperanto  unsatisfactory  in
many ways; it simply was not Western enough for him. He left Esperan-
to early and experimented with a number  of  "naturalistic"  projects
before, in the 1920's, emerging with his own, a language with the ap-
propriately Western name "Occidental".
     "Naturalistic" is a term that is widely used (and even more  wi-
dely misused) in the movement for a constructed international langua-
ge. It is generally used to refer to a posteriori languages which at-
tempt to reproduce, although in a somewhat rationalized way,  (South)
Western Indo-European linguistic norms.  A  rationalized  variant  of
Japanese, to the contrary, would not  be  considered  "naturalistic".
Most of this century's constructed languages have been "naturalistic"
in this sense, for reasons about which I will theorize in the conclu-
sion to this chapter. The best known examples are Occidental and  In-
terlingua, which is discussed  below.  Languages  such  as  Esperanto
(and, to a lesser extent, Ido), whose structures are rationalized be-
yond similarity to the European languages, are referred to as  "sche-
matic".
     Occidental was developed by Wahl on the basis of an earlier pro-
ject, Julius Lott's Mundo-Lingue. The language itself, although  hea-
vily rationalized, resembled an ethnic Romance language far more than
any of its predecessors, and a linguist unfamiliar with it  might  be
forgiven for assuming it to be a minor Romance dialect that had grown
up after the collapse of Rome, somewhere in the Northwestern  reaches
of the former Empire � Northwestern because of the number  of  German
and Scandinavian words incorporated into the language.
     Occidental, like Ido, sacrificed phoneticity, but it did restore
supersigns � if only to show  stress-location  on  words  which  were
stress-irregular. The derivational system, in an effort to  reproduce
words of the Romance languages, was consciously analytical; that  is,
four or five affixes might have the same meaning, and which  one  was
to be applied in any particular case was  etymologically,  not  logi-
cally, decided. So while the person  familiar  with  several  Romance
languages might find it easy to recognize a particular derived  word,
it was impossible for him to derive new words on his own: he must de-
pend on the dictionary.
     It should be added, in all fairness to Wahl's work, that the set
of rules he developed for analyzing any derived word was simply bril-
liant. These rules deserve the attention of any student of any of the
Romance languages, starting with Latin, inasmuch as they seem  to  be
generally applicable to that family of  languages.  The  problem,  of
course, as far as an autonomous language is concerned, was that  they
permitted analysis of a compound Occidental word, but  �  because  of
the multiplicity of affixes � not synthesis.
     But perhaps the worst thing about Wahl's language was the appar-
ent philosophy of those who supported it. Wahl and his disciples were
interested in the West, and to him the rest of the world was unimpor-
tant; it was doomed, or destined, to play, not merely a  minor  role,
but no role at all. Civilization was a European phenomenon; only  Eu-
ropeans could be interested in international communication (plus tho-
se few Asians � Africans may not have entered into his world-view  at
all � who would consciously adopt the trappings of  the  West:  seer-
sucker suits, neckties, Catholicism and a Romance language),  and  so
an international language should be intended only for Europeans  (for
some thoughts on this philosophy, see e.g. [17], particularly part 3,
"Li sociologic caracter" (in Occidental)). More specifically: Western
Europeans, Wahl's followers, like many Westerners of his day,  gener-
ally expressed a cordial detestation for things Slavic, and this  may
have been the Estonian Wahl's attitude, as well.
     In an era when Italy was dumping mustard gas on  Galla  warriors
armed only with spears and German crowds were screaming their delight
as Adolf Hitler pumped out his anti-Semitic nonsense, it  was  to  be
expected that such a philosophy would strike a chord. One Occidental-
ist author, writing in the magazine "Cosmoglotta"  in  1936,  greeted
the Nazi ban on the teaching of Esperanto in Germany  as  proof  that
there was something wrong not with Naziism  but  with  Esperanto.  In
fact, it is a surprising, and perhaps hopeful, sign that the Esperan-
to movement in Western Europe was never even remotely  threatened  by
the Occidental movement.
     Occidental survived the World War II and endured  in  straitened
circumstances into the 1950's; but eventually it disappeared, its re-
maining adherents attracted away by yet another variant  of  reforms.
In 1985 Occidental's last periodical, "Cosmoglotta", ceased  publica-
tion, and its editor, Adrian Pilgrim, is quoted as  having  described
Occidental as a "dead language".
     An attempt to revive Occidental by Robert J.Petry is  now  under
way, though Petry appears to be implementing yet another name change,
this time to "Auli-PRIM". It is worth noting that naming any  planned
language "dead" is perhaps indulging in over-optimism, or over-pessi-
mism, depending on your preferences. More recently (1999�2000) it ap-
pears that "Cosmoglotta" continues in publication, though whether  in
Europe or from Petry's headquarters in Tucson remains unclear to me.


                            Basic English

     Basic English is something of a deviation from our general  dis-
cussion, as it was a deviation from the general development  of  con-
structed languages. Published in 1930 by Charles Kay Ogden, Basic En-
glish claimed to be English reduced to a vocabulary of 850 words, yet
still suitable for uses in commerce, science, and the arts.
     Over its relatively short lifetime, Basic English gained support
from a number of famous English speakers such as Sir Winston  Leonard
Spencer Churchill, whose enthusiasm may  later  have  waned  somewhat
when he was told that "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat" translates into
Basic English as "Blood, hard work, eyewash, and body  water"  �  the
last term, of course, being somewhat ambiguous. But Basic English ne-
ver succeeded as a language in its own right, except in  science-fic-
tion novels, such as Herbert George Wells's "The Shape of  Things  to
Come", which predicts its eventual success, or  H.  Beam  Piper's  "A
Planet for Texans", which offers an entire courtroom scene  in  Basic
English. Its claims were exaggerated; far more than 850 words  turned
out to be necessary for any reasonable form  of  communication.  Fur-
thermore, many people saw Basic English as a Trojan Horse for  Stand-
ard English. The event proved them right; in  the  postwar  era,  the
British Council, an organization devoted to the promulgation of  Eng-
lish around the world, purchased the rights  to  Basic  English,  and
since that time it has been used  primarily  as  an  introduction  to
standard � i.e., British � English for foreigners.
     It should be mentioned that Basic English had not  only  propon-
ents but opponents among famous English-speakers. It was long assumed
that George Orwell based the mind-controlling  language  Newspeak  in
his novel "1984" on Esperanto � Orwell, it happens, was  closely  ac-
quainted with Esperanto and had what he  considered  good  reasons  �
personal, not linguistic � to dislike the language  (Apparently,  Or-
well, during his down-and-out phase in Paris, had to accept a room in
the lodgings of a cousin. The fact that she  and  her  live-in  lover
spoke only Esperanto together at home � a language he could  not  un-
derstand � left him less than enthusiastic.); but a radio  report  in
the early 1980's indicated that  recently  discovered  papers  proved
that Newspeak had, in fact, been a satire on Basic English, which Or-
well considered far more of a crime against the English language than
Esperanto.
     There have been a certain number of  other  "simplified"  ethnic
languages proposed as international languages as  well;  e.g.,  Basic
Spanish. The Nazis apparently intended a sort of Basic German  to  be
the international language of a postwar  united  Aryan  Europe  [18].
There were also various constructed tongues aimed at the speakers  of
particular groupings of  languages;  e.g.  pan-Teutonic,  pan-Slavic,
pan-Celtic. I have ignored these in this chapter, though an objective
observer might insist that "naturalistic" languages such as Occident-
al and Interlingua belong to this group in the "pan-Romance"  catego-
ry.


                               Novial
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)

     Novial, which was the brainchild of famous Danish linguist  Jens
Otto Harry Jespersen, mentioned earlier as an important supporter  of
Ido, is invariably mentioned in books about constructed languages.  I
am not sure why. It was a language of the same general type as  Occi-
dental, but less well known and perhaps a bit more schematic. Jesper-
sen created it, I believe, as an  attempted  compromise  between  the
schematic languages (Esperanto and Ido) on the one hand and the  "na-
turalistic" languages (Occidental) on the other.
     As far as I know, few people ever spoke it, and the  only  move-
ment backing it was Jespersen himself. Its author modified it several
times before it disappeared into the landfill of linguistic  history.
Its main impact on the history of constructed languages  is  that  it
served to decimate the Ido movement when  it  appeared  in  the  late
1920's by attracting away a substantial minority, or possibly a majo-
rity, of the earlier language's proponents. Commenting on the  above,
Chandler in personal communication with me, 1997.07.28, notes:

     "You say <Novial> never had a movement, then  you  say  that  it
took perhaps more than half the Ido movement with it when it was pub-
lished. How can both be true? I believe that a few of the top  Idists
did go over to Novial, and also some Occidentalists. But I doubt that
as many as half the Idists went over. The Ido journal "Mondo"  (edit-
or: Per Ahlberg) was renamed "Novialiste" from 1934 and served as the
official Novial journal and organ of linguistic discussion, of  which
there was much. A "Lingue-Jurie Novialisti" was formed  in  1937  and
made some reforms. I am sure that Novial did have enough support dur-
ing 1928�1939 that we can say it had a movement. But, unlike Ido, No-
vial was it seems killed off by World War II.  Jespersen's  death  in
1943 may also have contributed to its demise."

     This is a valid criticism, and I might better have said that No-
vial virtually  never  had  a  supporting  movement.  While  it  took
strength from the Ido movement (e.g. Chandler's comment on the  maga-
zine "Mondo" and its editor), the Ido movement by that time  had  al-
ready been greatly sapped by Occidental, and it would seem  that  the
individuals who went over to Novial lacked either the numbers or  the
enthusiasm to constitute a movement. The disappearance of Novial  can
indeed be attributed largely to Jespersen's death; note that no plan-
ned language with a functioning movement  at  the  beginning  of  the
World War II disappeared on account of the war, as witness  the  rump
Ido movement itself. That Novial could not survive its creator  indi-
cates that it had no functioning support movement.
     As of early 1997 a few individuals on the Internet  are  engaged
in attempting to revive Novial; the title of this section  is  linked
to the webpage of one of them. As is usually the  case  in  such  at-
tempts, the would-be revivers are also attempting to modify the  lan-
guage to clean up what they consider to be the errors made by the or-
iginal creator.


                        Interglossa and Glosa
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)

     One interesting constructed language of this period  was  Inter-
glossa. Interglossa was created by Prof.  Lancelot  Hogben  of  Great
Britain, who is best remembered in the United States for  such  works
of scientific popularization as "Mathematics for  the  Millions"  and
"Science for the Citizen".
     Hogben attempted to fuse two completely distinct linguistic tra-
ditions by creating a tongue whose vocabulary consisted  entirely  of
roots from Greek � presumably a part of the common linguistic herita-
ge of the West � but whose grammar was syntactically borrowed  almost
en bloc from Chinese. (Whether Hogben was actually using Chinese syn-
tax or how much of his syntax has actually been carried over into la-
ter Glosa, is the subject of some argument. It is a fact that  almost
all specimens of written Glosa that I has seen to date indicate  that
Glosa is merely recoded English � which may simply be due to the fact
that most or all of its proponents are native English speakers.) Very
few people followed up on this invention, and the language fell  into
desuetude for a quarter of a century.
     Then, in 1972, it was given a second chance when Ronald Clark in
England discovered the language, decided that with some slight  modi-
fications it could be turned into the perfect international language,
and � after obtaining permission from Hogben and with the help  of  a
second English enthusiast, Wendell Ashby, � began to modify the  lan-
guage, renaming it "Glosa". By 1985 Large felt justified in  devoting
several pages of his book to Glosa; and in 1992,  thanks  largely  to
comments by one British Member of Parliament, the language had become
fairly well-known in England [various communications from Robin  Gas-
kell, "Conlang" mailing list <majordomo@diku.dk>, Internet].  But  it
remains almost totally unknown elsewhere in the world, and there  re-
mains some question as to how many people actually speak it [communi-
cation from Edmund Grimley-Evans, "Esperanto" mailing list <esperant\
o-l-request@netcom.com>, Internet; also, personal observation].


                             Interlingua
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)

     The International Auxiliary Language Association was founded  in
1924 by Alice Vanderbilt Morris, wife of the United States Ambassador
to Belgium and member of the Vanderbilt family. During its early  ye-
ars it did much useful work in the study of the language problem; the
experiment at Columbia, referred to earlier, was  carried  out  under
IALA auspices. IALA also sponsored a number  of  conferences  in  the
1930's; their main purpose was to try to reach some sort of compromi-
se among the proponents of the various language projects. Compromise,
however, was unattainable; the "naturalists" were unwilling to accept
further "artificial" elements into their languages, and the Esperant-
ists � who were the vast majority of all proponents of an  artificial
international language � saw no value in compromising with  competit-
ors who were no threat. In the absence of such a compromise, IALA set
out to resolve the situation by building its  own  language.  Francis
Esterhill [19] suggests that IALA's idea was always to construct  its
own language: "In 1937, realizing that all of the previously elabora-
ted languages were fundamentally flawed and that compromise  was  im-
possible, IALA reverted to its original intention of  doing  its  own
independent work". However, Edo Bernasconi [20, p. 120], citing  from
W.J.A.Manders [21], suggests that "the purpose of IALA  in  1924  was
the scientific study of the problem of a  planned  language  and  the
promotion of the generalized introduction of a planned language  pro-
ject, but not at all the creation of a new one". Certainly nothing in
IALA's activities through the 1920's and early 1930's indicated  that
it intended to play such a role. The idea of creating its own planned
language was apparently first officialized in a decision of  1933,  a
set of criteria for such a language (criteria to which  the  ultimate
Interlingua did not very closely adhere) was proposed  in  1937,  and
only by 1939 did actual work begin [20, p. 123].
     I don't know how much of IALA's work was the result of dispassi-
onate scientific research and how much of it developed out of the or-
ganization's internal politics. IALA appears to have been a primarily
American organization, founded  by  Americans,  incorporated  in  New
York, and with a long sequence of strictly American presidents  [com-
ment by Esterhill in private communication to Jay Bowks, 2000, posted
by Bowks publicly in the "Auxlang" mailing list, Internet (An earlier
comment here that it was originally headquartered in  Great  Britain,
would seem to have been in error, though pretty obviously much of IA-
LA's productive scientific work was carried on in  Great  Britain  in
the 1930's by its scientific secretary, the linguist  (and  Esperant-
ist) Edward Collinson, for whom a special Chair in Esperanto was  la-
ter founded at the University of Liverpool.)] and several of its ear-
ly Directors were speakers of Esperanto (Some of IALA  Director  Ezra
Clark Stillman's Esperanto poetry can be found in the [22, p.  328].)
this was during the period when compromise was  its  goal.  But  when
World War II broke out, the organization was completely  centered  in
New York. This was when it started to work on its own language.  Pre-
liminary work was done under the directorship of the French  linguist
Andre Martinet; but most of the  substantial  linguistic  development
was carried out in the late 1940's by  an  Americanized  German  lin-
guist, Dr. Alexander Gode.
     Gode made no bones about the fact that he personally did not ev-
en subscribe to the concept of an international  language.  Gode,  in
fact, once stated that he referred to proponents of  his  Interlingua
as an international language as Esperantists, because their world-vi-
ew more closely resembled that of the Esperantists than  it  did  his
own (In a letter to Esperantist William Auld, originally published in
"The International Language Review" and quoted by Auld in [23]). Gode
always insisted that his purpose was to produce a definitive Standard
Average European vocabulary, based on the common  word-stock  of  the
European (i.e. Romance) languages. When Interlingua was finally  pub-
lished, in 1951, that was essentially what it was � a pan-Romance vo-
cabulary with a minimal grammar and an only vaguely defined phonology
and syntax.
     Gode must have been a bit rushed at the end. IALA's Maecenas  of
several decades, Vanderbilt Morris, died at about that time and  left
nothing in her will to IALA; it is quite possible that  she  was  not
totally pleased at the direction the organization was taking  (Ester-
hill suggests that this is not the case, but then refers  to  savings
bonds presented to IALA several years earlier but not cashed in until
after Vanderbilt Morris's death as proof of a bequest.). IALA folded,
and Gode had to get into print quickly or lose his project.
     Interlingua had a ready-made constituency. Almost  thirty  years
had passed since the creation of Occidental, whose  strength  in  the
"naturalistic" world had prevented other "naturalistic" projects from
developing their own movements. But Occidental's star had waned since
the war. Now, like a bolt from the blue, came this heaven-sent  gift:
a new constructed language even more "naturalistic" than  Occidental.
In spite of attempts by diehard supporters of Occidental to stave off
the inevitable � e.g., by such tactics as renaming their language In-
terlingue � most remaining Occidentalists made the  short  pilgrimage
to the shrine of Interlingua.
     Interlingua is an even more restricted and restrictive  language
than Occidental. Its only concession to non-Romance  languages  is  a
nod in the direction of English; the other Germanic languages are ig-
nored, as are the Slavic languages. Where Wahl attempted to establish
a logical, though strictly analytical, system of word-derivation, In-
terlingua's is neither: every word must be learned anew.  Interlingua
has three verb conjugations, and it reintroduces one of the banes  of
Latin students, the double-stem verb (e.g. "vid|er" � "to  see",  but
"vis|ion" � "sight"). Gode made few, if any, concessions to rational-
ity in this regard; irregularities are permissible  if  they  can  be
justified etymologically.
     All this is understandable once we recognize that Gode was  try-
ing to produce not an international language but a language that  was
intended for strictly passive use by people who already spoke one  or
more Romance languages. This is emphasized through much of  the  lan-
guage's grammar. How do you pronounce the letter "c" in  Interlingua?
"As you would in your own language". What about  certain  syntactical
usages? "As in Spanish or French". Nowhere is it suggested  that  In-
terlingua is intended to be an autonomous language such as  Volapuek,
or Esperanto, or Ido, or even Occidental. It is a  crutch-language  �
intended to solve part of the language problem for  certain  selected
people under certain selected  conditions  but  nowhere  granted  the
breadth of action that belong to Esperanto and, potentially,  to  Ido
or Occidental.
     Interlingua gained much publicity but few adherents in the  Uni-
ted States and Western Europe during the 1950's and 1960's. "The Sci-
ence News Service", which used to put out "Science  Newsletter",  ac-
quired Gode's services and the rights to  Interlingua  shortly  after
IALA folded, and published a short monthly column in the language un-
til Gode's death.
     The only Interlingua magazine I myself ever saw �  although,  as
with Ido, several may still exist �  was  "Revista  di  Interlingua",
which used to come to the ELNA office and which apparently died  with
its publisher, Swiss former-Esperantist, former-Idist,  former-Occid-
entalist, Ric Berger. As with Ido, a rump Interlingua movement  still
exists today � a "Union Mundial pro Interlingua" operates out of  the
Netherlands, and an international Interlingua conference held in that
country in 1989 attracted about 50 people �  but  publicity  for  the
language seems to have dried up, though I am assured by a Swedish In-
terlingua proponent Kjell Renstroem in a personal communication  that
the language is still going strong (The letter in question was,  how-
ever, written in Esperanto.), and activity in several Internet  mail-
ing lists indicate that it is certainly not dead, though the last Ex-
ecutive Director of the recently  liquidated  Interlingua  Institute,
described as "the successor organization to IALA", suggests  that  it
is indeed dead: "There was no need (and no use) ever for the  `inter-
national' languages of the late 19th and early  20th  centuries;  and
today, with the unparalleled ascendency of English, there is no long-
er any need for Interlingua" [19, p. 26] and "Interlingua,  the  only
interlanguage every [sic] adopted for use in the  sciences,  survived
little more than a quarter of a century, and there is  no  reason  to
believe that it could now be revived" [19, p. 25]. The "quarter of  a
century" estimate suggests that Esterhill dates  Interlingua's  death
from shortly after its use in the "Multilingual Compendium  of  Plant
Diseases" (1976 and 1977), though his own Interlingua Institute last-
ed for almost another quarter of a century, and  "Union  Mundial  pro
Interlingua" continues to function even today.


                               Loglan
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)
                             and Lojban
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)

     In the late 1950's a constructed language somewhat  out  of  the
mainstream, as we have described it, appeared:  James  Cooke  Brown's
Loglan. Loglan is a language that in many ways harks back to the old-
er a priori languages, not to the "naturalistic" projects  that  have
characterized language construction in this century. Unlike the other
languages discussed here, Loglan does not appear to have been origin-
ally intended as an international language, although some of its pro-
ponents have touted it as such throughout its lifetime,  not  except-
ing, recently, its inventor. Its original purpose seems to have  been
to test the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.
     The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, codified by  linguist  Benjamin  Lee
Whorf, in its most extreme and simplistic form states that human  be-
havior is determined by the structure and lexicon of the language  in
which the person in question actually thinks. To illustrate: a person
whose language contains no word for falsehood cannot tell a  lie;  he
cannot even understand the concept. The idea has been a  popular  one
for many years, especially with science-fiction  authors;  it  formed
the basis of John Vance's excellent science-fantasy "The Languages of
Pao".
     Loglan might actually be a good language to test this  hypothes-
is: it differs considerably from those languages with  which  we  are
all familiar. Originally, it was created as a  shake-and-bake  tongue
from the five most spoken languages in the world  (Chinese,  English,
Hindi, Russian, Spanish); the resulting construct was interesting. It
was not, however, particularly fruitful: no actual test of the Sapir-
Whorf Hypothesis using Loglan was ever carried out, for reasons given
below. Furthermore, most modern linguists deny the validity of Sapir-
Whorf and would probably be unwilling to fund a major test of the hy-
pothesis. Fortunately for Brown  and  his  successors,  his  solution
looking for a problem encountered a problem looking for  a  solution:
the international language problem.
     A minor Loglan movement, encouraged by a widely read article ab-
out the language [24], developed in the 1960's and, to  some  degree,
persists even today. But the language has two major problems.
     First of all, Loglan is so complex that it is unlikely  that  it
will ever be viable as a spoken language. Since a valid test  of  the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis would involve raising a child, or children, in
a strictly Loglan-speaking environment, at least a few Loglan  speak-
ers able to handle the language as easily as they speak their own na-
tive languages are a necessity; but to my knowledge the language  has
never actually been used for free-wheeling  conversation  by  anyone,
including the inventor. A friend of mine Dr. David K.Jordan once ask-
ed Brown about this: he is reported to have  replied,  proudly,  that
"we once sustained conversation in Loglan for fifteen  minutes".  The
author of the language, scarcely more optimistic, himself writes: "In
1977�1978 the competence of four early [sic] speakers was attested by
their ability to sustain daily conversation in Loglan unaided by Eng-
lish for 45-minute periods  over  intervals  from  two  weeks  to  30
days... At least two other competent speakers, one  self-taught,  the
other taught by one of the original set, have since been  identified;
and an unknown number of users have taught the language  to  themsel-
ves" [25, p. 72, footnote 2]. This  achievement  is  somewhat  muted,
however, by the recognition that "because of the low geographic  den-
sity of the loglaphone population, no  true  speech-communities  have
formed; so there are still no fluent speakers of the  language"  [25,
p. 44], though the experience of at least  Esperanto  would  tend  to
show that the lack of a geographically oriented speech community will
not hinder the development of fluency in an easily learnable  langua-
ge.
     Secondly, despite a complete lack of speakers, the Loglan  move-
ment has already undergone schism, and for much the same  reasons  as
the Volapuek movement in its time. Brown claims  copyright  authority
over the language; a splinter group in Fairfax, Virginia, has develo-
ped its own version of the language, called Lojban. Both groups  pub-
lish newsletters, which at last report appeared almost completely  in
English. That of Brown's Loglan Institute in Gainesville, Florida, is
relatively professional in appearance, but not too thick and general-
ly representative only of his own viewpoint; that of Bob  LeChevalier
in Fairfax is massive, rather amateurish  in  appearance,  represents
several different viewpoints (including that  of  the  Esperantists),
and usually contains pleas for funding. The recent  conclusion  of  a
court trial over the right of the Fairfax group to use the name "Log-
lan" � the result was favorable to  the  Lojbanists  �  has  not,  it
seems, resulted in any change of name of this latter language,  since
it now appears to be better known and advertised than the original.


                                 Neo

     In the early 1960's Floyd and Evelyn Hardin of Colorado put  out
a very interesting mimeographed magazine, "The International Language
Review", which was intended as a forum for proponents of the  various
international language projects. This was really where I had my first
introduction to Ido, Occidental, and Interlingua, all of  which  were
well-represented there � better, in fact, than Esperanto, whose  pro-
ponents deigned to be represented on its pages only occasionally  and
usually in English (for the benefit of the magazine's almost exclusi-
vely English-speaking clientele) rather than in Esperanto. I remember
that magazine with very great pleasure, and every now and then I  al-
most go out into my garage to try to dig up back issues out  of  old,
dust-covered boxes. Almost.
     I mention this because in 1964 or 1965 a new language was intro-
duced in the magazine, which began to show a certain partisanship  in
its favor. This was Neo, invented by a Arturo Alfandari of Belgium.
     Neo was born full-blown, complete with beautiful little diction-
aries, grammars, and readers bound in red plastic. Alfandari and  the
Hardins founded an organization, "Friends of Neo", and it looked  for
a while as though Neo might be a major competitor  to  the  declining
Interlingua, if not to Esperanto.
     But Alfandari died, and Neo died with him. Rumor has it that all
those beautiful plastic-bound  dictionaries,  grammars,  and  readers
rotted away in a warehouse somewhere in Belgium. For which I am genu-
inely sorry � for all his work and expense, and for his dream, Alfan-
dari deserves a better monument than that. I mention him here only to
make sure that he and his dream are remembered for just a little  bit
longer.
     And, in a sense, Alfandari's fate, and that of  Neo,  is  really
symbolic of the situation in the movement to create an  international
language since the early 1950's.


                               Klingon
      (http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/volagram.eo.html)
                 (This section added on 1996.10.17)

     Despite the fact that the word "Klingon" sounds remarkably  like
a sometime competitor to "Velcro", it would be hard to find anyone in
the Western world today who would not recognize that a Klingon  is  a
member of a race (species)  of hereditary warriors � some might  jus-
tifiably prefer the term "low-browed thugs" � who grace our televisi-
on screens in the various "Star Trek" television series  and  movies.
(In 1977, at a meeting of astrophysicists at a well-known Western un-
iversity, when one individual quoted an "Astro  10"  ("Astronomy  for
Basket-Weaving Majors") student as saying that he was studying astro-
nomy because he "wanted to learn about things in  outer  space,  like
Romulans and Klingons", one famous specialist in globular cluster dy-
namics stood up and diffidently said: "I hate to display my ignorance
in public, but... what are "Romulans" and "Klingons"?")
     The Klingons first appeared, if I remember correctly,  on  1967.
12.01, as a throwaway competitor empire in a single "Star Trek"  epi-
sode. They seem to have struck fire and were revived for two or three
more episodes including the instant classic "The Trouble With  Tribb-
les". Klingons in the original "Star Trek" were slightly darkened hu-
mans with beards who spoke English. But by the time  that  the  first
"Star Trek" movie came out, twelve years later, Klingons had  evolved
the distinctive brow ridges that we know and love,  and  spoke  their
own language, complete with subtitles. Hence the popular, if somewhat
pejorative, sobriquet "ridgehead" often applied to Klingons by  fans.
The distinctive Klingon forehead ridges set a trend; most alien races
on "Star Trek", e.g. the Kardassians, are today distinguished by  si-
milar ridges. In what may be a conscious attempt at parody,  we  have
the Minbari of "Babylon 5" � a competing space station where not only
English, but a "galactic Esperanto", is spoken � whose major  distin-
guishing feature is an upstanding bone,  like  a  crown,  around  the
backs of their heads.
     The original Klingon language consisted of a few  ad  hoc  words
invented, it is said, by James  Doohan  ("Enterprise  Chief  Engineer
Montgomery Scott"). It was a remarkably terse language, at least  the
dialect spoken by the Klingon navy: the single semisyllable  "Chrkt!"
according to the subtitles apparently meant something like "Swab  the
yardarm, keelhaul the mizzenmast, run out the foppish cannon, prepare
for boarding, and laggards get salt beef  and  weevilly  tack  for  a
week!" In fact, there were no more than half a dozen or so such  syl-
lables heard in the entire movie, all in the first scene.
     Klingons did not reappear in the second  movie,  though  Ricardo
Montalban anachronistically refers to their proverbs  at  one  point,
but they were apparently quite popular because with the third  movie,
in which they reappeared in the persons of "Christopher Lloyd", "John
LaRocquette", and others, "Paramount" had decided  that  they  needed
their very own language, and had hired linguist Marc Okrand to create
one for them.
     Okrand compiled a basic vocabulary for the language, later to be
collected as "The Klingon Dictionary", and since that  time  Klingons
in all the "Star Trek" movies and television series  have  had  their
own language.
     That would not rate more of a mention in this chapter, any  more
than Tenctonese or Jordan's Old Tongue, except that some "Star  Trek"
fans seem to have actually bought into the myth that Klingon  is  now
being used for international communication, and has a good chance  of
becoming an international language.
     "The Klingon Dictionary" has sold about a quarter of  a  million
copies to date, not  counting  its  companion  tapes  "Conversational
Klingon" and "Power Klingon"; however, these seem  to  be  considered
more in the nature of curiosities than anything else by most of their
owners. One authority is quoted as saying that "all the fluent  Klin-
gon speakers can comfortably go out to dinner together" [26].
     Klingon, intended to be a totally alien language, has a  made-up
vocabulary along with grammatical features taken from various earthly
sources, a few of which resemble those of Esperanto  to  some  degree
[27]. Some Klingon aficionados claim that Klingon is, at least  theo-
retically, easier to learn than Esperanto, though  practice  and  re-
sults do not seem to bear this out. Nevertheless, there has even been
a certain amount of literary output in the language (by  coincidence,
I heard my first example of Klingon opera while  typing  these  lines
[28]). At least two of Shakespeare's plays have been translated  into
Klingon by an Australian linguist, part of a presumably ongoing prog-
ram inspired by a throwaway line of Christopher  Plummer's  in  "Star
Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country". In 1994, a number  of  newspapers
published stories about a project to translate the Bible  into  Klin-
gon; but since that time, so I understand,  the  primary  translators
have agreed to disagree over the perennial  question  of  whether  to
create new words by internal agglutination or  to  borrow  them  from
Terrestrial languages. Klingon, it appears, is sadly short  on  words
that the "Prince of Peace" might have used, though it would  seem  to
be an ideal language into which to translate "No Time for Sergeants".
In addition, it is worth noting that one individual is even raising a
son to speak Klingon as one of his  two  native  languages  (D'Armond
Speers, mentioned by Gavin Edwards [28]. This attempt to raise a  na-
tive speaker of Klingon apparently fell through shortly after the ar-
ticles was written. See Edwards' follow up in [29].).
     Any enduring success of Klingon would appear to be predicated on
the ongoing popularity of the "Star Trek" phenomenon, and  what  part
the Klingons may or may not play  in  that  phenomenon.  Interest  in
Klingon waned somewhat after the termination of the "Next Generation"
television series; but with the reassignment of  the  "Klingon  Worf"
(Michael Dorn) to the cast of "Deep Space 9" and the role  played  by
the Klingon Empire in the struggle between the Alpha Quadrant politi-
cal entities and the Gamma Quadrant Dominion, interest may wax again.
Nevertheless, given Klingon's lack of success as an  actually  spoken
language to date, it is unlikely to become a  serious  contender  for
the mantle of international language.


                         A Personal Analysis

     As I explained at the end of the last chapter, there  have  been
at least a thousand different language projects constructed or outli-
ned during the past two centuries. This figure is probably  conserva-
tive. Mario Pei, one of the few American linguists to take an  active
interest in this entire field, once in a talk to the  Esperanto  Club
of Los Angeles in 1963 said that he would receive for comment �  pre-
ferably, for approval � an average of  one  new  artificial  language
project per week.
     Of these projects, at most a few dozen have  been  developed  in
detail. Very few have gone on to generate  supporting  movements.  Of
these latter, besides Esperanto with its  several  million  speakers,
the only survivors appear to be a small Ido movement, a minuscule In-
terlingua movement now in the throes of dying out, perhaps a  handful
of Volapuek aficionados, and a number of supporters of Loglan or  its
variant Lojban who apparently do not speak the  language.  Gary  Jen-
nings believes that Esperanto's "only current competitor of  note  is
Interlingua", which, however, he has apparently confused with Peano's
Latino Sine Flexione. Jennings also points out that this  competition
occurs "in a fairly limited area", though he does not define what ar-
ea this might be � presumably North America and Western  Europe.  See
[30].
     The contrast between the situation of Esperanto and that of  its
predecessors and erstwhile successors is striking. Why has  Esperanto
succeeded � given that it has succeeded, at least in maintaining  its
viability � when all other constructed languages have failed?
     The failure of the a priori languages, from those of the  Refor-
mation period all the way down through Loglan, is  easily  explained.
The inventors of these languages attempted to create  a  pattern  for
human thought. In doing so, they failed to reflect human  thought  as
it is. Loglan, e.g., aims to remove all ambiguity from the language.
But human beings thrive on ambiguity. A disambiguated language is not
an impossibility: people write computer software  in  such  languages
every day. But human beings do not use them to communicate with  each
other, and never have. Bob LeChevalier's comment in personal communi-
cation that his variant of Loglan more closely resembles the computer
language Prolog than it does such languages as C or Pascal, does  no-
thing to increase my faith in his language's eventual success. Loglan
and Lojban, to my untutored eye, appear to be based, like Prolog,  on
a particular variant of symbolic logic known as predicate calculus. A
good basic description of predicate calculus can be found  in  Rudolf
Carnap's book "An Introduction to Symbolic Logic and  Its  Applicati-
ons". When I last looked (and got my copy), this book  was  available
in paperback from "Dover". Predicate calculus notwithstanding,  howe-
ver, Carnap was an Esperanto speaker...
     With the rise of descriptive linguistics in the 19th century ca-
me a new concept in interlinguistics: the language that tried to  se-
lect and rationalize the common elements of a number of other langua-
ges. Schleyer's Volapuek was not the first such language, but it  was
the first to catch the public imagination. But Volapuek did not carry
the process far enough. It took Esperanto to  really  streamline  the
rationalization procedure.
     There can be no question in the mind of anyone who has  actually
studied Esperanto: it is a work of artistic genius. Not, as is  often
claimed for it, a "scientifically constructed  language"  �  Zamengof
was a schoolboy and later an ophthalmologist, not a scientist � but a
work of art. It may well be possible to improve on Esperanto, just as
it might be possible to improve on the Mona Lisa; it seems impossible
to create a language of the same type that is significantly  superior
to Esperanto. And, let's face it, most  of  the  so-called  "improve-
ments" proposed for Esperanto, e.g., by the Idists, are the  linguis-
tic equivalent of drawing a mustache on La Gioconda.
     It appears that, even if Zamengof never explicitly stated  this,
Esperanto was constructed with the dual criteria of facility and ver-
satility in mind. Given that in this regard Esperanto is close to be-
ing an optimal language, all subsequent language creators either  had
to admit the inferiority of their products to Esperanto or else  base
them upon quite a different set of criteria. And so we have the  "na-
turalistic" languages of the 20th century �  those  which  strive  to
outdo each other in adherence to pan-Romance norms. Ido was the first
rather hesitant move in this direction;  Occidental  and  Interlingua
marked its apogee.
     In retrospect, it appears that Zamengof's criteria were the ones
with the greatest chance of success. It is no  accident,  I  suspect,
that the three languages which most clearly adhered to them were  the
three that generated the largest and most successful bodies of speak-
ers.
     Up to now I have spoken mainly  of  linguistic  comparisons.  At
this point, most critics of Esperanto and other constructed languages
stop, certain that such matters as Esperanto's n-ending or Volapuek's
umlauted vowels were the cause of their respective failures to be in-
stantly accepted as The World Language. In fact, social and political
factors have always played a much more important role in the evoluti-
on of constructed languages and their supporting movements.  Volapuek
had some success because, as French  gradually  lost  its  privileged
place in the international world, the time seemed ripe for the  adop-
tion of an international language. The Esperanto  movement  developed
around not just the language but also an associated ethic, the "inner
idea". Many of Ido's proponents, coming as they did from the Esperan-
to movement, shared some of the idealism  surrounding  that  language
and injected it into the Ido movement; much of Ido's failure, on  the
other hand, seems to have been due to the fact that all of its  lead-
ing proponents came from a rationalist society (the French  intellec-
tual elite) that was constitutionally incapable of accepting such  an
ethic. The latter point has also been, to a greater or a lesser  deg-
ree, true of other subsequent language projects. Zamengof's injection
of this idealism into the complex of ideas surrounding  his  language
may be what gave it the impetus it needed to survive and flourish.


                             Conclusion

     Loglan and Neo are not the only constructed  languages  to  have
emerged since the early 1950's; but I know little  or  nothing  about
the others. I, like most Esperantists, became convinced very early on
that the future lay strictly with Esperanto and not with any  of  its
would-be supplanters, which, for reasons mentioned above, have  never
gone very far, and very likely never will. Yet I do feel  sure  that,
from time to time, new constructed languages will appear, flourish in
a small way for a short time, and then fade away again; the appearan-
ce of such new projects as Unitario, Uropi, and  Eurolengo,  and  the
recent revival of such earlier projects as Loglan, Romanid,  and  In-
terglossa, suggest that this is the case. And I hope that a new gene-
ration of would-be Esperantists will take as much interest  in  these
new irritations as I did in my time. They really are a lot of fun.


                             References

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 2. http://www.io.org/~jackal/laadan.htm.
 3. http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~c2kd/tencton/istls1.1.html.
 4. http://www.kli.org/KLIhome.html.
 5. Ernst Drezen. Historio de la Mondlingvo. � Jap.,  Osaka:  Pirato,
    3a eld., 1969.
 6. Pierre Janton. Esperanto. � Ned., Roterdamo: Universala  Esperan-
    to-Asocio, 1987.
 7. Mario Pei. One Language for the World. � NY: Devon-Adair, 1958.
 8. Andrew Large. The Artificial Language Movement. � UK, Oxford: Ba-
    sil Blackwell, 1985.
 9. Literatura Foiro. � Apr 1977.
10. W.J.Clark. International Language Past Present & Future. �  Ldn.:
    J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd., 2nd ed., 1912.
11. Letter by Ljudovik-Lazar Markovich Zamengof to Nikolajj Afrikano-
    vich Borovko, 1894. � ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/e�
    speranto-texts.dir/borovko1.txt.
12. Naftali-zvi Maimon. La ka\^sita vivo de Zamenhof. � Jap.,  Tokio:
    Jap. Esperanto-Instituto, 1975.
13. Edmond Privat. Vivo de Zamenhof (Several editions are  available,
    including an English-language translation.).
14. Ido: The Beginning. � http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wow/vola�
    gram.eo.html.
15. Kulisaj manovroj // Gaston Waringhien. 1887 kaj la sekvo. � Ned.,
    Antverpeno: TK-Stafeto, 1980.
16. http://www.angelfire.com/id/Avance/REVUI.html.
17. Edgar de Wahl. Psychologic e sociologic caractere del lingues.  �
    http://members.tripod.de/interlingue/cursu/let.htm.
18. Ulrich Lins. La dan\^gera lingvo. � Rus.,  Moskvo:  �ண���,  2a
    eld., 1990.
19. Francis Esterhill. Interlingua � R.I.P.  //  Verbatim.  �  Autumn
    2000.
20. Edo Bernasconi. Esperanto a\`u Interlingua?. � Suisse, La  Chaux-
    de-Fonds: Kultura Centro Esperantista, 1977.
21. W.J.A.Manders. Vijf Kunsttalen. �  Ned.,  Purmerend:  Muuses  J.,
    1947.
22. William Auld (ed.). Esperanta Antologio. � Ned., Roterdamo:  UEA,
    1984.
23. William Auld. Enkonduko en la Originalan Literaturon de  Esperan-
    to. � Ok. Ger., Sarbrukeno: Artur E.Iltis, 1980.
24. Scientific American. � Jun 1960.
25. James Cooke Brown, Scott Layson Burson, Christopher C.Handley, et
    al. An Unambiguous Grammar for Loglan, a Speakable Language // La
    Logli. � Jan 1996.
26. Gavin Edwards. Dejpu'bogh Hov rur Qabllj! // Wired. � Aug 1996. �
    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.08/es.languages.html.
27. Glen Proechel. Klingon and Esperanto: The Odd Couple // Esperanto
    U.S.A. � 1994. � http://donh.best.vwh.net/Languages/klingon.html.
28. "Star Trek: Deep Space 9", episode titled "Looking for Par'  Mach
    In All the Wrong Places".
29. Gavin Edwards. Babble on Revisited // Wired. � Aug 1999. � http:/
    /www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/mustread.html?pg=8.
30. Gary Jennings. World of Words. � NY: Atheneum, 1984 (orig. 1965).


                              Postnote

     To a great extent, as indicated in the  initial  "Warning",  the
material contained above may be considered polemical by  some.  Those
who would like a somewhat different (and usually more optimistic) vi-
ew of the history and fate of constructed languages other than Esper-
anto may wish to investigate what on-line materials exist for  these.
A good place to start is my "Planned Languages Web Page" (http://www.
webcom.com/~donh/conlang.html), which contains links to several other
sites � from which, as usual, one can progress.
     While "How to Build a Language" has been treated on the  WWW  as
an independent document for a long time, it is really part of a long-
er work titled "The Esperanto Book".
     Materials about Esperanto on the net are too  numerous  to  list
here. A good place to start  would  be  my  "Esperanto  Access  Page"
(http://www.webcom.com/~donh/esperanto.html). Another  good  starting
point, if you know some Esperanto, is the "Virtuala Esperanto-Biblio-
teko" (http://www.esperanto.net/veb/).
     Enjoy!


        Appendix: The Exact Spelling of Some Names Mentioned

Andre Martinet                    Andr\'e Martinet
Bialystok                         Bia\lystok
Gyoergyi Selyem                   Gy\"orgyi Selyem
Jan Amos Komensky                 Jan \'Amos Komensk\'y
Jean Francois Sudre               Jean Fran\ccois Sudr\'e
Kjell Renstroem                   Kjell Renstr\"om
Klara Aleksandrovna Zilbernik     ���� ����ᠭ�஢�� ���졥୨��
Laadan                            L\'aadan
Ljudovik Lazar Markovich Zamengof �����-������ ��મ���� ���������
Nikolajj Afrikanovich Borovko     ������� ��ਪ������� ��஢��
Rene Descartes                    Ren\'e Descartes
Volapuek                          Volap\"uk

                                   Don Harlow <don@donh.vip.best.com>

[http://donh.best.vwh.net/Esperanto/EBook/chap03.html]