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VOLAPUK

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 178 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VOLAPUK , the first artificial See also:

language (see UNIVERSAL See also:LANGUAGES) to attain any measure of See also:practical success. First published in 188o, it was the See also:work of J. M. Schleyer (b. 1839), a See also:south-See also:German See also:priest. Volapuk is not, like the earliest attempts of the See also:kind, an a priori language, but is based mainly on See also:English, the See also:rest of the vocabulary being made up from Latin and the See also:Romance languages. The borrowed words are reduced to a monosyllabic See also:form and are often altered in a very arbitrary manner. Thus the name Volapuk itself is made up of the two English words, See also:world and speak, the first in the genitive, the three vowels, a, e, i, being used to See also:express the three cases, genitive, See also:dative and See also:accusative respectively; the nominative is expressed by the See also:bare See also:root, and s is added to form the plural. The See also:grammar of Volapuk is therefore partly borrowed, like the vocabulary, partly See also:original. Adjectives end in -ik. The persons of the verb are indicated by adding the pronouns ob " I," of " See also:thou," om " he," &c., plural obs " we," &c.; the tenses and the passive are indicated by prefixes, the moods by suffixes following the See also:person-endings, many other inflections being used as well, so that the Volapuk verb boasts of no less than 505,440 different forms. Although founded on English, Volapiik is mainly German in structure.

It gets rid of the German word-See also:

order and the irregularities of German grammar, but it is often impossible to understand a Volapuk See also:text without thinking in German. The following is a specimen of the language: Lofob 'kemenis valik vola lolik, patiko etis pekulivol, kels konfidoms Volapuke, as See also:bale medas gletikun netasfetana. " I love all my See also:fellow-creatures of the whole world, especially those cultivated (ones) who believe in Volapuk as (being) one of the greatest means of nation-binding." Here konfid governs the dative just as its German See also:equivalent does, and " cultivated " is used in the sense of the German gebildeter. The See also:history of Volapuk has an See also:interest greater than that of the language itself. It has proved (1) that See also:people in See also:general are ready to adopt an artificial language, and (2) that an artificial language is easier to learn than any See also:national language, and supplies an efficient means of communication between those who have no other language in See also:common. Volapuk had no See also:special philological merits to recommend it; yet, after a few years' See also:incubation in south See also:Germany, it spread, first to See also:France (about 1885) and then in a few years over the whole civilized world, so that in 1889, when the third Volapuk See also:congress met I thing like two centuries, and it is believed that the See also:Japanese at See also:Paris, there were 283 Volapuk See also:societies all over the world, and the See also:total number of Volapuk students was estimated at over a million. At this congress every one—even the waiters—spoke Volapuk, and the permanent See also:triumph of the language seemed certain. But the See also:year of its See also:zenith was the beginning of a decline even more rapid than its rise. It See also:fell to pieces through dissensions in its own See also:camp, the first cause of which was the opposition of the inventor to those of his disciples who aimed at making the language mainly an See also:instrument of commercial See also:correspondence, and advocated the greatest possible simplification of grammar and vocabulary. The divergence of views between the inventor and his colleagues became more and more marked; and after the third congress the See also:breach between M. Schleyer and the Volapuk See also:Academy (founded at the second congress in 1887) became a definite one: the director of the Academy proposed a totally new See also:scheme of grammar, and other members proposed others, although one of the See also:objects of the See also:foundation of the Academy was the preservation of the integrity of the language. A new director, M.

Rosenberger of St See also:

Petersburg, was elected in 1893; and from this moment the Academy dissociated itself from Volapuk and began to construct a new See also:international language, See also:Idiom Neutral (see UNIVERSAL LANGUAGES). (H.

End of Article: VOLAPUK

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