The Linguistic Principles necessary for the Construction of an International Auxiliary Language, with Appendix: Criticism of Esperanto
There exist more than sixty systems or attempts at an artificial universal language, and considering the great diversity of these languages, it might appear hopeless to arrive at unanimity concerning any one of them. When, however, one considers the question more closely, it appears that matters are not so bad as one might imagine. Whereas twenty years ago the systems which appeared were as different as day from night, at the present day one perceives great lines of convergence, pointing to the time when mankind shall have added to the other triumphs of civilisation that of an auxiliary language recognised and used by everybody, to the great advantage of all whose horizon is not limited by the boundaries of their mother country.
Is it possible in a single formula to express everything that is requisite for a practical international language? I think so, and a brief consideration of the two reasons which prevent us from choosing one of the natural languages as an international language will enable me to arrive very quickly at this formula. The first reason is, that such a procedure would unfairly benefit one nation at the expense of all the others and would infringe the fundamental principle of neutrality, which is necessary in all international affairs. The second reason is, that every language is too difficult for foreigners. All existing languages swarm with difficulties of pronunciation, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and especially idiom. It is very seldom that a foreigner succeeds, even after years of study, in learning a language sufficiently well to avoid occasionally making one of those mistakes which instantly betray his origin to the natives; it may be a false stress, or a word employed with an almost imperceptibly different shade of meaning, or placed in a position in a sentence where the native would never place it, or, finally, a phrase which, though logically correct, is nevertheless not permitted by the usage of the language. On account of their innumerable relationships and associations, which is indeed what makes them so dear to the nations that employ them, all natural languages are extraordinarily difficult, and therefore unsuitable for the purpose of international intercourse. We require, accordingly, a language which shall be not only neutral, but also as easy as possible: easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to understand.
These considerations bring me to the sought-for formula, which we may express in a form similar to the celebrated ethical dictum of Hutcheson and Bentham ("That action is best which accomplishes the greatest happiness for the greatest number"):—
That international language is best which offers the greatest facility to the greatest number.
It may be objected, however, that facility is a subjective idea: what is easy for one is not always easy for another. Quite so, and it is exactly that observation which will serve us as a guide in the investigation of the important conclusions which may be drawn from our fundamental principle.
In the first place, as regards the alphabet and the pronunciation, our fundamental principle leads to the choice of the Latin alphabet, with the exclusion of all accented or otherwise specially modified letters; neither ä, ö, á, à, â, ç, nor the circumflexed ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, especially invented by Dr. Zamenhof for Esperanto, can be tolerated, for they hinder, and sometimes even render impossible, writing, printing, and telegraphing. I have shown in the Introduction to the international dictionaries of De Beaufront and Couturat how our fundamental principle leads to the following alphabet and the following sound values: a (as in father), b, c (like ts), d, e (like e in net or like a in fate), f, g (always hard, as in go), h, i (like ee in sweet), j (either like E.[3] or like F.,[3] as in journal), k, l, m, n, o (as in go or as in not), p, q (qu, as in G. or as in E.), r, s (always unvoiced), t, u (always like oo, as in too), v, x (as in G. or as in E. F. in the words exist, exister), y (as in E. F., and therefore like G. j), z (as in E. F., and therefore like the voiced North German s in rose), further the two double letters ch (as in E., for example church) and sh (as in E., G. sch).
The strict phonetic canon "One symbol, one sound," is therefore followed in so far as the same sound is never arbitrarily written one way in one word and another way in another word, and the same letter is never pronounced differently in some words compared with the majority. The small exception that sh and ch are not equivalent to s + h and c + h respectively cannot cause the least difficulty to anyone, and the use of qu and x enables us to retain the international spelling of many words, and, moreover, permits two different pronunciations which cause no difficulty of comprehension and simplify the pronunciation for several nations. Otherwise we should be faced with the difficult problem of choosing between kwala and kvala, eksistar and egzistar. It must not be forgotten, too, that for our purposes the purely theoretical canon "One symbol, one sound," must be subordinated to the fundamental principle of greatest facility, of which phonetic simplicity is itself only a consequence. Practical considerations must, in fact, overrule theoretical objections whenever a small deviation from the fundamental principle "One symbol, one sound," produces greater facility.
There remains to be discussed a matter of very great importance for the phonetics of international language. Whilst all nations pronounce without difficulty a series of sounds in which the vowels alternate with single consonants, and almost all nations have no objections to certain groups of consonants which are easily pronounced (such as tr, sp, bl, etc.), the pronunciation of other heavier groups, especially at the end of words, presents the greatest difficulty to many nations. The French usually simplify too complicated groups by inserting an unwritten vowel (as, for example, in Félix(e) Faure), Italians who speak English do almost the same thing in the case of such groups as kstr (Greek Street) or ksp (sixpence), and the phonetic usages of other nations do not permit even as many successive consonants as the Italians. In order to make matters as easy as possible for everybody, one must avoid the mistake of Neutral Idiom, many of whose words contained very heavy groups of final consonants, endeavouring rather to follow the example of Esperanto, which succeeded very cleverly by means of its predominance of vowel terminations in producing not only grammatical clearness, but also as easy and flowing a pronunciation as possible. In this way the language becomes musical and pleasant to the ear.