Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

The linguistics encyclopedia 52
and San Francisco, 1,600 holders of the Volapük diploma and an
estimated one million Volapükists (at least according to their own
estimates; one-fifth of this figure is a more realistic number). Over 300
textbooks on the language had been published and 25 journals were
devoted to Volapük, seven being entirely published in the language. The
First Volapük International Congress, held in Friedrichshafen in August
1884, was conducted in German…as was the Second Congress in Munich
(1887), but the Third International Congress, held in Paris in 1889, was
completed exclusively in Volapük.
Subsequently, however, enthusiasm for the language as a possible universal medium of
communication declined. The grammar, although regular, was complicated, offering
several thousands of different forms of verbs, and because of the strict rules for deriving
vocabulary from other languages, the words were often difficult or impossible to
recognize, so the vocabulary simply had to be memorized. Therefore, the language was
not one which non-experts or enthusiasts would find easy to appropriate, and attempts to
simplify it were met with hostility by Schleyer. The controversy generated by the
simplification issue within the movement led to its rapid decline so that by the time of
Schleyer’s death in 1912 the rival artificial language, Esperanto, had many more
followers than Volapük, and had even won over large numbers of former Volapükists.
Esperanto was created by the Polish Jew and polyglot (Russian, French, German,
Latin, Greek, English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish, according to Large, 1985, p. 71),
Ludwick Lazarus Zamenhof (1859–1917), who was by profession a medical doctor. His
language was called Lingvo Internacia when first published in 1887, but this name was
soon displaced by the author’s pseudonym, Doctor Esperanto. Zamenhof thought that
Volapük was too complicated to learn, and his familiarity with English convinced him
that grammatical complexity such as that which Volapük displayed in spite of its
regularity, was not a necessary feature of a universal language.
Esperanto has only sixteen grammatical rules (listed in Large, 1985, Appendix I) and
its vocabulary is based largely on Romance languages and Latin. Like all living
languages, Esperanto is able to adapt to changes in its environment, since it is highly
receptive to new words, which, if they can be made to conform to Esperanto orthography,
are simply taken over from their source; if they cannot easily be made to conform to
Esperanto orthography or compounded from existing Esperanto roots, new words will be
created. All nouns end with o, adjectives with a and adverbs with e. Plurals end with j
(/I/). Use of affixes to common roots provides for further regularities of word formation,
and ensures that families of words can be created from a relatively small stock of roots—
16,000 in the most comprehensive dictionary of Esperanto, La Plena ilustrita vortaro.
From these roots ten times as many words can be formed. The Esperanto alphabet has
twenty-three consonants and five vowels, each of which has one sound only, so that
spelling and pronunciation are broadly phonological.
Zamenhof’s aim in developing Esperanto was to provide an international language:
‘one that could be adopted by all nations and be the common property of the whole
world, without belonging in any way to any existing nationality’ (quoted from Dr
Esperanto, 1889, in Large, 1985, p. 72). Such a language would have to be easy to learn
and must be a viable intermediary for international communication.