What follows is an introduction of an old Volapük course. The rest of the course will be slowly posted here chapter by chapter. While there are more modern resources to learn this first attempt of a universal constructed language, there is still merit to seeing how learning such new languages was tackled in the old days. With the relative success of Esperanto and the philosophy behind it, Volapük had been shoved aside to the margins as a curiosity. This is not to say that Volapük was not without problems and did not have any involvement its own decline, but it was also Volapük that seemed to be the first widely-accepted answer to the question of how can we be made to understand each other easily in a world that sees itself more connected than before.
Creating a new language is a daunting task, from building words to making the grammar work. How can one create a language that will fully cover every linguistic situation it will make? Volapük came with a simple proposition: make everything regular. This concept has its first complete manifestation in this language and its idea has always been a goal for those creating a language that is meant to be easily learned.
Creating a new language is a daunting task, from building words to making the grammar work. How can one create a language that will fully cover every linguistic situation it will make? Volapük came with a simple proposition: make everything regular. This concept has its first complete manifestation in this language and its idea has always been a goal for those creating a language that is meant to be easily learned.
The fanaticism over a new language becoming the world lingua france had faded by the time English had maintained the stronghold for this position, but the hope of a linguistic equalizer has never waned within those who support constructed languages.
For a course for a language created for the goal of universal use, this introduction is rather aware of the constructed nature of Volapük. It is insisted that of Volapük will not have its own original literature. While this is framed under the refutation of the idea that Volapük will become the sole world language, it is a disservice to think that a language cannot have its literature because of its form. Esperanto showed how it can be done, but so far, these original works have not been translated.
For a course for a language created for the goal of universal use, this introduction is rather aware of the constructed nature of Volapük. It is insisted that of Volapük will not have its own original literature. While this is framed under the refutation of the idea that Volapük will become the sole world language, it is a disservice to think that a language cannot have its literature because of its form. Esperanto showed how it can be done, but so far, these original works have not been translated.
[Volapük set new language ideas to the table that few linguists have taken interests, nor have language creators utilized such features to better effect.]
Esperanto is now seen as the model conlang, but let us not forget Volapük's role as the first that tried to speak for the world.
[to be added on]
Note: The Volapük of this course may have some differences to the Volapük known nowadays as laid out by Arie de Jong.
Author's Introduction:
The new language Volapük (vol, the world, and pük, language) has only existed six years. In 1881, Father Schleyer, a Roman Catholic parish priest in Baden, published, at Constance, his grammar, and dictionary, in German, of the language newly invented by him. There now exist nearly two hundred clubs for the propagation of Volapük in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and in other countries of Europe, as well as in America, Canada, and Asia. Courses have been opened, and journals founded, to teach and spread the new language in most of the countries above named. This striking success has been owing to the simplicity and logical clearness of the language, which are such that it can easily be learned, for all the purposes of ordinary and commercial correspondence, in a few weeks. Many learned and clever men have tried, since the seventeenth century, to create an artificial universal language, but all these attempts have failed through the difficulty of the various systems devised. What so so long been looked upon as a dream is now an accomplished fact, and it is no exaggeration to say that Volapük is surely destined to become the great international commercial medium of the future.
Here, however, it is necessary to warn the reader against certain exaggerations unhappily accepted by overenthusiastic adherents of Volapük, and even by the inventor of the language himself, and which can only injure the cause intended to be promoted. We are told that Volapük wil become the one language of the world, that a universal Volapük will come to existence, and that poetry, music and science will have their independent Volapük authors. This is a mistake which often cause Volapük to be laughed at by those who know nothing of its real nature. The languages of Shakespeare, Dante, Voltaire, Goethe, Cervanted, and Gogol will never be supplanted by Volapük. A few books of science may some day be translated to Volapük for use of those who are ignorant of the European tongues, but no scientific writer or inventor will ever first publish in Volapük. A cursory glance at the alphabet and words of the language will show it to be utterly unsuited to music. As to poetry, two leading principles in Volapük will always prevent any one, who possesses and ear and common sense, from attempting to write verse in it; those two principles are, firstly, that the accent always falls on the last syllable of a word, secondly, that a strict and invariable construction is required by the grammar. Were this last point no the case, the language would soon become an imitation of German, French, or English, as the case might be. To neglect the correct order of the words, and to employ arbitrary accents, as all those who write Volapük verse do, and must do, is simply to invent another language, and to disfigure the one invented by Father Schleyer. There is however, one poetical form possible in Volapük, and that is, blank verse, for which inversions contrary to the Volapük rules can be avoided, and, above all, for which the correct accents can always be preserved, because the iambus is a natural and prevalent form in Volapük.
There is another point on which I must say a few words. With all the ingerent simplicity of Volapük, with its single declension and one invariable conjugation, both admirably conceived, a number of unnecessary and difficult grammatical forms have been introduced into it and these are all enthusiastically adopted in the greater part of Germany. Professor Kerckhoffs has simplified the language from all this useless complication, and I have followed his example in doing the same. Those who care for the success of Volapük owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Kerckhoffs for the admirable way in which this task of simplification has been performed. I have put i na chapter apart all those German forms rejected by Professor Kerckhoffs, for the convenience of those who may happen to meet with Volapük on the German system, as without some guide they will certainly understand nothing.
Father Schleyer has made over to Professor Kerckhoffs the right of publishing all grammars, manuals, and dictionaries for Volapük, in all languages excepty German, and this arrengement will go far to secure an important point—the unity of the language. The present adaptation of Professor Kerckhoffs' "Cours complet de Volapük" is published with his consent, but I have naturally been obliged to alter considerably some of the details of the method for English readers.
Professor Kerckhoffs is of opinion that, in teaching Volapük, it is better to begin with translations from the language itself, and accordingly he places an exercise in Volapük after the vocabulary of each lesson, giving the same exercise corrected in French in the third part of his book. I must confess that I prefer asking my pupils to translate the other way, i.e., to write at once in Volapük. I have, however, followed the "Cours complet" as to the place of the exercises, because any one teaching the language, or any one studying it without a master, can always use the exercises as he may think best.
I. HENRY HARRISON.
Here, however, it is necessary to warn the reader against certain exaggerations unhappily accepted by overenthusiastic adherents of Volapük, and even by the inventor of the language himself, and which can only injure the cause intended to be promoted. We are told that Volapük wil become the one language of the world, that a universal Volapük will come to existence, and that poetry, music and science will have their independent Volapük authors. This is a mistake which often cause Volapük to be laughed at by those who know nothing of its real nature. The languages of Shakespeare, Dante, Voltaire, Goethe, Cervanted, and Gogol will never be supplanted by Volapük. A few books of science may some day be translated to Volapük for use of those who are ignorant of the European tongues, but no scientific writer or inventor will ever first publish in Volapük. A cursory glance at the alphabet and words of the language will show it to be utterly unsuited to music. As to poetry, two leading principles in Volapük will always prevent any one, who possesses and ear and common sense, from attempting to write verse in it; those two principles are, firstly, that the accent always falls on the last syllable of a word, secondly, that a strict and invariable construction is required by the grammar. Were this last point no the case, the language would soon become an imitation of German, French, or English, as the case might be. To neglect the correct order of the words, and to employ arbitrary accents, as all those who write Volapük verse do, and must do, is simply to invent another language, and to disfigure the one invented by Father Schleyer. There is however, one poetical form possible in Volapük, and that is, blank verse, for which inversions contrary to the Volapük rules can be avoided, and, above all, for which the correct accents can always be preserved, because the iambus is a natural and prevalent form in Volapük.
There is another point on which I must say a few words. With all the ingerent simplicity of Volapük, with its single declension and one invariable conjugation, both admirably conceived, a number of unnecessary and difficult grammatical forms have been introduced into it and these are all enthusiastically adopted in the greater part of Germany. Professor Kerckhoffs has simplified the language from all this useless complication, and I have followed his example in doing the same. Those who care for the success of Volapük owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Kerckhoffs for the admirable way in which this task of simplification has been performed. I have put i na chapter apart all those German forms rejected by Professor Kerckhoffs, for the convenience of those who may happen to meet with Volapük on the German system, as without some guide they will certainly understand nothing.
Father Schleyer has made over to Professor Kerckhoffs the right of publishing all grammars, manuals, and dictionaries for Volapük, in all languages excepty German, and this arrengement will go far to secure an important point—the unity of the language. The present adaptation of Professor Kerckhoffs' "Cours complet de Volapük" is published with his consent, but I have naturally been obliged to alter considerably some of the details of the method for English readers.
Professor Kerckhoffs is of opinion that, in teaching Volapük, it is better to begin with translations from the language itself, and accordingly he places an exercise in Volapük after the vocabulary of each lesson, giving the same exercise corrected in French in the third part of his book. I must confess that I prefer asking my pupils to translate the other way, i.e., to write at once in Volapük. I have, however, followed the "Cours complet" as to the place of the exercises, because any one teaching the language, or any one studying it without a master, can always use the exercises as he may think best.
I. HENRY HARRISON.
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