Prof. Christen. Well, he formed his vocabulary; he selected these words because they were international—to the exclusion of anything else.
Mr. Towner. Well, that was not definite; it might be enlarged?
Prof. Christen. Oh, yes.
Mr. Towner. What was the vocabulary that he first issued?
Prof. Christen. Offhand, I think, about 963 words.
Mr. Towner. What is the vocabulary now?
Prof. Christen. Probably about 3,000 words. Now, I have dealt with the so-called international words; but the bulk of every language consists of what I would call home words, which every country has for its own; and the only way to bring equivalents for such words into the language was to select them from all the principal languages under consideration, which means, of course, the European languages and to select these words on the principle of greatest internationality—that is to say, such verbs as to come, to do, to write, etc., or the nouns, hand, knife, water, table, etc., or adjectives, like good, bad, healthy, etc. Before he put these words into his vocabulary, Zamenhof had their equivalents in all the European languages before him, and then he took from the whole list the root which was the most prominent, the root that occurred oftenest, and this became Esperanto, the idea being that the words selected should be common to at least four or five different languages.
Mr. Towner. You do not mean that, do you? You do not mean that the only words you would put into the Esperanto vocabulary would be those that might be common to at least four or five of the principal languages?
Prof. Christen. Yes; whenever it is possible to find such words, and the words do not conflict with the general harmony of the language.
Mr. Towner. That is what I thought you meant.