Sona – an auxiliary neutral language
The writer of this book has been working quietly for a number of years on a new language. Has he been wasting his time? That may, even to him, seem less important than the question – Will others, who take his attempt seriously, be wasting theirs?
If it is true that the value of such a language as he has made after all these years may best be judged in relation to theory, and that any new idea in the international language field may be of use to those who come after, then the answer is certainly, No!
Those who are wasting time are the makers of systems which seem to have a value for the present, for which organizations are formed to put up arguments in the papers, but which have their roots in thin air which will one day give them their death-blow. Some of these systems have had a good idea at the start. One of these is Esperanto. But the trouble was that its friends went on taking it seriously even after the countries of the East came into the front of the international picture.
The suggestion that Esperanto or Ido, Occidental or Novial, is ‘neutral’ for the East is like saying that if the Chinese or Japanese came to Europe with a form of Cantonese whose endings had been changed, and which was used by no one in China or Japan, though some of its roots were common to Chinese, Japanese, and certain groups in Mongolia, it would for these reasons be ‘neutral’ for Europe, India, Africa and the rest of the East.
It is very necessary to make clear to the supporters of languages based on a selection of European roots that (as Captain Searight says on page 12) they are all not only mixed forms of low Latin, but of a Latin so low that its roots are frequently hard to see even in that small part of the Earth which gave them birth. That is why I, who am on other points so far from being in agreement with him, am writing this in Basic to give his interesting and well-designed little book such help as I am able.
–C.K. OGDEN
√ root, radical | ||
|
a. adjective
|
A. Arabic
| |
The problem of creating a satisfactory “Interlanguage” has yet to be solved. Even its probable base is still under discussion. Is it to be an adaptation of a national language, such as English, French or Chinese? Is it to be a semi-constructed language, such as Esperanto, Ido, or Novial? Or is it to be a constructed language, such as Bishop Wilkins' “Philosophical Language,” “Pasigraphy” or “Solresol”? Let us consider a few of the difficulties involved.
Of national languages English and Chinese are the most widely spoken, the most logical, terse, and free from inflexional elements; but in their orthography and ideography respectively are quite unsuitable. Mr. Ogden, compiler of “Basic English,” has simplified the structure of English; but although the Basic eight hundred and fifty words may be sufficient for all practical purposes, and it can be claimed that English is the language of some five hundred million people, there is some doubt as to whether, on political grounds, English in whatever form would be acceptable to all European nationals. The adoption of Chinese seems grotesque; yet there are Chinese scholars who look forward to the time when all the world will speak their language (C.K. Ogden, Debabelization, 1931) and perhaps even think its thoughts. Indeed the genius of Chinese has much to teach us, as I shall endeavor later to show– though by no means associating myself with the aspirations of the said Chinese scholars.
A further claimant to internationality is Latin. Miss Pankhurst, in her excellent little volume Delphos, develops an interesting argument in favour of it. But even Peano's ‘Latin without Inflexion’ was too cumbersome for daily use. Latin has already been internationalized as a scientific and technical medium, and as such it had best remain. Our conclusion therefore is that any national or dead language is unsuitable for our purpose if adopted complete, while at the same time recognizing the necessity for borrowing, assimilating, and even improving upon their choicest gifts. For instance, we should adopt the logical word-order of English and Chinese (almost identical) in preference to those of German or Japanese, while from the latter we may conveniently borrow the structure wherein one verb only in a clause, or series of clauses, shows the time of action. In Japanese it is the last verb; but we improve upon the idea by making it first, thereby anticipating the sense. We find that Italian, in company with Chinese and Japanese, often suppresses the personal pronouns without loss of clarity. Indeed, in telegrams, we may do the same in English to some extent. Both Arabic and Russian get on quite well without ‘is’ and ‘are.’ The English verb is analytical but irregular. Let us assimilate the method but not the irregularities. There is no reason why we should not borrow, assimilate, and methodize many of the radical elements of many languages, such as I.G.: PA (feeding), C.: TA (great), A.: RU (go), J.: TE (hand), T.: SU (water), and so on, provided they fit in to the general scheme.
We cannot get away from the fact that at various times man has endeavoured to fashion an ‘Interlanguage’ from elements borrowed from national languages:– Hindustani, Swahili, Pidjin English, Beach la Mar– and even soldiers' war argots.
Turning to what I have called semi-constructed languages, from Volapuk to Novial– Prof. Jespersen's modifications of Esperanto-Ido– we find a monotonous series of hybrid Teuto-Romanic languages having the aspect of a kind of debased Latin sprinkled with wrongly spelt English and German. As the Japan Chronicle (Kobe, 27.3.30) remarks of Novial– “Professor Jespersen lays down the rules on which an international language should be based, but they are rules which are founded on European experience. Familiarity with an Asiatic language does not make them so imperative.” The criticism is just. Not one of these semi-constructed languages so much as considers the claims of Asia or Africa in spite of the millions of enlightened races speaking Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic… They are not ‘Interlanguages’ at all, but inter-European– and very partial at that. ‘Esperanto’– which has the largest following– is crude and uninspiring enough to raise a laugh… Ido boasts of having no more than 5,000 radicals– Chinese between four and five hundred. It is clear we do not require such an unwieldy number of elements… In fact these semi-constructed languages appear to have a slavish predilection for a posteriori forms which, when all is said and done, appeal only to a small section of the language world.
We last consider the constructed or a priori languages. All have proved too difficult, too “tabloid” in form, and almost impossible to speak. Some have but one radical to express an idea, as “a” (animal), “b” (feline)– “ab” = cat. Delormel's ‘Decimal Language’ and Sudre's ‘Solresol,’ based on the seven notes of the scale, were ingenious but impracticable. Roget, in his masterly ‘Thesaurus’ divided the whole of the English language into a thousand categories. In his preface he foresaw how good an idea it would be to allot a radical to each and so have a ready-made language. On these lines, some twenty years ago, I began to work. I found that so many categories were interlacing, opposite and redundant that it was possible to reduce the essentials from 1,000 to between 300 and 400– actually just less than Chinese. I decided finally on 360 radicals and 15 particles, and with this modest number proceeded to compile grammar and dictionary.
table of contents | next chapter
this version ©2002 by the Sona Sojigi