A Short History of the International Language Movement

Abstract

PROBABLY no subject is more distasteful to the average educated Englishman than the question of an “artificial auxiliary language.” If he be a literary scholar, he feels insulted; if a man of business and affairs, he is coldly indifferent and incredulous. A few men of science may, perhaps, be mildly curious and politely tolerant. If anything can awaken interest and overcome prejudice, it will be this book written by Prof. Guerard, if only by reason of its literary quality and attractive style. But the volume possesses many other merits, since it is by far the best work that has been written on this particular subject? Indeed nothing to compare with it has appeared since the learned and rather ponderous “Histories” of Profs. Couturat and Leau. Moreover, Prof. Guerard takes a wide and dispassionate sweep, considering the respective merits and possibilities of French, English, and Latin, as well as those of the “artificial “languages. Very full information is given with regard to the history and structure of all the more important projects, including, besides the so-called “philosophical “languages, Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Latino sine Flexione, Idiom Neutral, Panroman, Romanal, etc.

A Short History of the International Language Movement.

By Albert Léon Guérard. Pp. 268. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., 1922.) 21s. net.