This international auxiliary language, which forms one of the foundation stones of our general, scientific, and technical culture, is so closely bound up with the life and existence of science and has become so much the second nature of all scientific men, especially investigators, that they have long become accustomed to write and think in this language apart from their nationality. It is an easily ascertained fact, and one that is well known to the scientific men of all countries, that the latter can read foreign scientific literature much more easily than newspapers or novels written in the same languages. The explanation of this is that the foreign scientific works, on account of their technical vocabulary, are written in a language which possesses a much more international character than that of the novels or newspapers. It cannot, therefore, be denied that there actually exist already, particularly in science, the beginnings of an international (and largely artificially created) auxiliary language which is written, spoken, and read. We find here ready made the first provisional lexicon of the scientific international language. It cannot, therefore, be urged that science should "select" any one of the proposed artificial languages, because the selection of words is by no means an arbitrary process. The only procedure possible to science must be the construction of an international language on the basis of the already existing foundations. Science can never accept as an international language, one which destroys the actually existing internationality of scientific nomenclature.
As we see, these considerations, like the former, lead us to the conclusion that the auxiliary language must be based on the principle of maximum internationality; that is to say, its vocabulary must be taken à posteriori from the international treasury, and must not be invented according to any à priori system or special idiom. It follows from this that the auxiliary language of the future must inevitably be chiefly Romance in its character, for Latin is the international auxiliary language which still lives and flourishes for, and by means of, science.
The objection might be made here that the simplest solution would be the reintroduction of Latin into science as the auxiliary language. But this contradicts one of our fundamental premises, for Latin fails just as much as all other national languages to satisfy our second criterion, namely, that of complete logical precision. Besides, it is too difficult.
Esperanto does not even approximately satisfy the necessary conditions; it infringes, in fact, all three. On the one hand, its vocabulary is very far from being constructed according to the principle of maximum internationality; on the other hand, the Esperantists are supposed to make up for this defect by the famous principle of vortfarado (i.e., word manufacture!), with the result that their language falls into the error of creating idioms. For example, in Esperanto the beginning of the sentence "A rotary transformer might be called a motor-generator, but the latter name is usually applied to machines with independent armatures," is translated in the following way: Turnighan alispecigilon oni povas nomi motorproduktanto, which literally translated reads, "A self-turning otherwise-making instrument can be called a motor-producer."
Apart from these fundamental errors of Esperanto, it lacks a systematic method of word formation, the importance of which has been demonstrated in a masterly and convincing fashion by Couturat in the previous chapter. Hundreds of times the puzzled reader of an Esperanto text is in doubt about the sense of an adjective, even such common expressions as stony and made of stone being rendered in Esperanto by the same word (shtona). A phrase such as "It is perhaps possible" cannot be accurately translated into Esperanto, since, on account of its "simplicity," the words perhaps and possible are both rendered by the same à priori word, eble. With regard to choice of vocabulary, other systems, in particular "Neutral Idiom," are exceedingly superior to Esperanto. In this last product of the Volapük movement the principle of internationality has been finally recognised. A language academy was founded which constructed a lexicon according to this principle. Unfortunately, as Jespersen has very fully shown in [Chapter III.], this principle was not interpreted in the right manner, so that the language lacks logical clearness in spite of the international character of its vocabulary.
We need not, therefore, be surprised that science has hitherto been unable to adopt any of the artificial systems as the international auxiliary language. That would have been a false step, and would only have produced confusion.
It is only at the present time that one has arrived at a clear recognition of the principles on which such a language must be based. The only artificial system which can claim that its "inventors" have endeavoured in its "construction" to combine and consistently carry out the principles of internationality and logical precision (namely, systematic choice of stems and a regular system of derivation) is, as will be sufficiently evident from the preceding chapters of this book, the language of the Delegation. Without doubt the internaciona linguo di la Delegitaro will have to undergo changes and improvements, for one cannot expect that such a gigantic task as the introduction of an international auxiliary language can be accomplished all at once. We hold, however, that "Ido" represents the first artificial language concerning whose introduction into science serious discussion is possible. We may state with full confidence to-day that, so far as human calculation is possible, the attempt to carry this out will be crowned with success.
On the other hand, this introduction will not be without a useful reaction on science, not only in respect to the development and extension of its external life as an international Great Power, but also with regard to the more perfect unification and extension of its language and nomenclature on the lines of strict and complete internationality. An expression of opinion on this point will be given in the following chapter.
Richard Lorenz.