As examples of the former may be quoted almost all modern achievements. The metric and decimal systems have come to stay. The bicycle, the motor car, and the typewriting machine have undergone successive improvements till finally they have attained to their more or less definite form. We see from this that when inventions have once reached a certain degree of suitability they are not afterwards easily replaced by others. There is, therefore, only one adequate criterion of the stability of an international language, namely, that of suitability or adaptation to its purpose, and we maintain that it is only by means of continuous reforms and improvements that it will succeed in satisfying this criterion and so finally attain to stability. In the work of Couturat and Leau, referred to above, there are described about ten artificial languages which have sprung up during and after the period of Volapük and Esperanto, and in which the experience of their predecessors has been more or less made use of. A study of these attempts leads to the surprising result that they often differ amongst themselves less than, for example, the Romance languages. If, then, one were to choose any one of these languages and to direct its systematic development according to the principles which experience and knowledge have shown to be requisite for the construction of an international language, one would in each case arrive finally at approximately the same result.
At the present day the rapid development in every department of life has made us only too ready to regard everything around us as transient. We forget, however, that the rapidly accumulating inventions and discoveries which startle and surprise us always refer to new things. One must bear in mind that there also exist things which in their essential features can only be invented once, and that the international language in its final form is one of these.
An excellent means of convincing the incredulous is to demonstrate the absence of arbitrariness in the character of an invention or improvement, and the degree of general consent which a given system has already obtained. Whenever one has recognised the natural and logical basis of a discovery one perceives relationships which restrict the ideas of chance and haphazard originally associated with it in one's mind. It is, therefore, quite unnecessary in the case of an international language to be afraid of "the arbitrary action of private persons who possess neither the right nor the authority to introduce reforms into Esperanto," as Dr. Zamenhof has recently stated. One ought rather to feel sure that the best means of defending an international language against arbitrary changes is the degree of its concordance with sound theoretical principles.
Wilhelm Ostwald has given us an account of the work of the Delegation. The commission consisted of representatives of the English, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and Slavonic languages. Famous philologists such as Otto Jespersen, of Copenhagen, and Baudouin de Courtenay, of St. Petersburg, as well as the philosopher L. Couturat, of Paris, rendered priceless services. The proceedings, which were held in the Collège de France, began with the interviewing of a number of the inventors of artificial languages or their representatives, all such people having been invited to the conference. Where this procedure was not possible the corresponding writings and documents were examined and discussed. Concerning this work Ostwald writes, "Although these labours were very fatiguing, they proved all the more effective for the progressive elucidation of the problem in hand. From the very multiplicity of the attempts at a solution and their discussion there arose in the minds of the workers, in a manner never to be forgotten, a clear conception of the main conditions required for a successful solution of the problem, and a recognition of the errors which a disregard of one or other of these conditions had produced in the existing systems." Whilst an account of the nature of these principles and of their application to the construction of an international auxiliary language will be given by competent authorities in the following chapters, we may here mention that the Delegation decided that none of the existing systems satisfied the conditions necessary for an international auxiliary language, but that the widely known Esperanto could serve as a basis for the working out of such a language, although it would require to undergo a certain number of changes.
A standing committee was elected, including Ostwald, Couturat, De Beaufront, and Jespersen, which was entrusted with the task of determining the new forms of the international auxiliary language on the basis of the principles laid down in the sittings mentioned above.
The changes carried out by the committee of the Delegation are embodied in the form of new grammars and dictionaries. The Delegation succeeded not only in recognising, but also in correcting in a competent manner, the errors of Esperanto, with the result that we are to-day in possession of a language which in respect of facility, lucidity, variety, and elegance of expression, represents the high-water mark of international speech.
The success which this reform achieved amongst the public and also in Esperantist circles immediately after the publication by the Delegation of the first specimen of the new language was astonishing. That which the Esperantists had scarcely succeeded in doing during six years of their existence took place with astonishing rapidity before our eyes, and in scarcely as many months there were formed in sixty towns of Europe and America local groups of enthusiastic people affiliated to the Delegation.
Unfortunately the Fundamentists persist in their obstinacy and continue to manifest their discontent. Although the new language has sprung from Esperanto and is based upon it, the Esperantists have forbidden that the name Esperanto should be used. The conventional name Ido (i.e., a descendant) has therefore been given to it. There exist already some periodicals in the linguo internaciona. The chief organ of the new movement is the periodical Progreso (pronounced Progresso), "oficiala organo di la Delegitaro por adopto di linguo helpanta internaciona." It is edited by Professor L. Couturat in Paris, and owes its name, programme, and policy to the advice and initiative of Ostwald.
The superiority of Ido over Esperanto is so striking and is so incontestably borne out by practical experience that one can now really speak, after the Volapük and Esperanto periods, of a third world-language movement which has started off with a reaction-velocity hitherto unknown in this department of knowledge. It is characteristic of the new language that it has been taken up by the English and Americans, whilst an introduction of primitive Esperanto amongst the Anglo-Saxons encountered insuperable obstacles, for, as was pointed out with good reason, the English language, especially in regard to its grammar, was superior to Esperanto on account of a number of clumsy constructions and errors which the latter contained. But, apart from the regularity of pronunciation, Ido excels the English language both in regard to grammar and, what is of great importance, brevity, a printed Ido text being even briefer than the corresponding English one.
For the benefit of those who are unacquainted with the nature of international language and who still regard an artificial language as an impossible monstrosity, we may remark that the new vocabulary contains in round numbers 5,400 stems, and that, in spite of the Romance character which the international language necessarily possesses, 40 per cent. of these are common to the following six languages: German, English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish (and to many others). Moreover, there are naturally innumerable other stems which occur simultaneously in five or four of the great languages. In the face of this overwhelming evidence, no one can contest the possibility of an international language, for the above numbers tell their tale with unmistakable clearness. They prove the existence of the international language apart from every theory. It is only necessary to select judiciously the words common to the living languages, that is to say, by an artificial process, in order to construct the international language.