A Universal Language

A Universal Language

Many have been the attempts to establish a universal language throughout the last couples of centuries. Solresol, Volapük and Esperanto are among those constructed languageswhich were once created in search of a better world for everyone. Despite the continual endeavours to make this happen, it was not possible to set up a language spoken and understood by all or most ofthe world's population. But will it be possible to establish a universal language in the future? Why have all the previous attempts failed? What would happen to the existing languages?

The idea ofliving with only one language flourished around the seventeenth century with Descartes’ philosophy of language. Among the criteria he developed were the principles of phonetic regularity andgrammatical rationality. “That language would have only one kind of conjugation, declension, and word structure. The changes in verb and word construction would have to be effected by affixes added to thebeginning or end of the root word.” Descartes wrote in 1629. In addition to this, John Wilkins in 1668, in his “Essay Towards a Real Character and A Philosophical Language” stated that “since everybody’sminds functioned in the same way and had a similar ‘apprehension of things’, it should be possible to cultivate a rational universal language and a character that would also articulate things andnotions”. The influence of these two important linguists boosted the creation of the three main constructed languages: Solresol, Volapük, and Esperanto. Solresol was the first constructed languagedeveloped by François Sudre in 1827.  It is based on the eight-note musical scale. It could be spoken, sung or played on a musical instrument. Volapük (vol=world, pük=speech) was invented by Johann MartinSchleyer in 1879. His inventor worked out a grammar, which was completely regular, and a vocabulary derived from English, German and Latin. On another hand, Esperanto, the most famous Interlanguage...