Some Unconscious Factors in the International Language Movement with Especial Reference to Esperanto1

It is now about forty years since the movement in favour of the adoption of an international auxiliary language came before the cultured Western world as a serious practical proposition. The idea of such a language dates back to a much earlier period, Descartes and Leibnitz being among the first and most illustrious who have concerned themselves with the question. But it was the first congress of Volapükists at Friedrichshafen in 1884 that definitely marked the emergence of an international language from the study of the philosopher or philologist into the practical affairs of everyday life. Since that time, although the movement itself has had a chequered history, the majority of cultured individuals in the more progressive countries have been vaguely aware of the possibility of international language, and dimly conscious of its desirability on general grounds, while an increasing number of enthusiastic individuals have been engaged in the elaboration or study of new linguistic schemes or in propaganda of some already existing language. Although the number of those who have in one of these two ways come closely into touch with the problems involved is still comparatively small, it is pretty generally recognized among those competent to judge, that these problems have some very real importance for the modern world. The few congresses of Volapük at the beginning of this active period, and of Ido in quite recent times, together with the far more numerous and larger congresses of Esperanto that have been held in many parts of the world during the last twenty years, have, moreover, shown conclusively that an international language is a perfectly practical proposition from the linguistic point of view. A study of the psychological factors underlying or connected with this movement in favour of an international language should therefore have some interest for the social psychologist and sociologist, especially as such a study promises to throw some additional light