An Essay towards a Real Character & a Philosophical Language

[Gray Richardson]

I had been looking for this book for a long time: John Wilkins' An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_ ... l_Language)

It's a nearly forgotten classic of conlanging. Despite having been published in the 1600's, no one has issued reprints of it in a very long time, and those reproductions were selling for around $600 on used book sites. I've seen this book referenced in many sources regarding the history of universal language schemes. I'd read about it in the books of Umberto Eco and Jorge Louis Borges. I'd been keeping my eyes out with no luck for awhile now.

Finally, Google books has scanned it and put it up online! In fact, they have made not one, but 2 separate versions available online which you can even download as free pdf's.

This is a really cool reference for conlangers, especially people interested in creating a priori or philosophical languages. At the very least, it makes for an interesting historical artifact. It's an attempt at constructing a completely scientific language based on first principles in the manner of a Linnaean taxonomy of all human knowledge. And Wilkins published it more than 2 centuries before Esperanto was even a gleam in Zamenhof's eye.

Check it out here: http://books.google.com/books?id=BCCtZjBtiEYC
and/or here: http://books.google.com/books?id=Q85TAAAAcAAJ
You can click on the little cogwheel in the upper right to get a menu that will allow you to select "Download PDF" if you like.

[Curlyjimsam]

I've always thought this was a pretty poor conlang - it's hard to read, and too easy to confuse concepts. The taxonomy side of things is probably the most interesting aspect, though it's also somewhat arbitrary.

[Gray Richardson]

Yeah, it's got a lot of issues that make it unworkable as a means of communication. But it's very interesting as a historical artifact. It's pretty remarkable given the time period. It was created only about 50 years after Shakespeare died. It's not necessarily the first conlang, but it's surely the first, most complete published grammar of a conlang, and arguably the first auxlang.

I agree that what's most fascinating about it is the taxonomy. And while the taxonomy may be somewhat arbitrary, it is the precursor of the touchstone for such taxonomies, Peter Mark Roget's thesaurus, and his efforts to divide up and classify the whole of the English language into fundamental concepts.

Wilkins' Real Character is really the first published attempt at creating a universal language. Though it was not itself successful, it should be considered a foundational document in the fields of semantics and lexicography. It was a first in a long line of research that has led today to the science of Natural Language Processing, which allows computers to understand and manipulate human language.

[WeepingElf]

Wilkins' Real Character is really the first published attempt at creating a universal language

George Dalgarno's Ars signorum, a similar beast, was seven years earlier.

[Gray Richardson]

I stand corrected!

However, Dalgarno originally worked together with Wilkins on the language before they split over disagreements and went in different directions. Dalgarno did beat Wilkins to print by a few years.

Dalgarno's Ars Signorum is criticized, though, for being incomplete. It supposedly has scant and incomplete grammar, and his taxonomy is said to have a tinier vocabulary made up of a smaller set of broader concepts that the speaker must narrow down through, I guess, circumlocution.

I can't read it because it has the added disadvantage of having been published in Latin.

But, I was also able to find a copy of that on google books, which can also be downloaded as a PDF at this link here if anyone is interested: http://books.google.com/books/about/The ... 4HAAAAQAAJ

[WeepingElf]

I stand corrected!

However, Dalgarno originally worked together with Wilkins on the language before they split over disagreements and went in different directions. Dalgarno did beat Wilkins to print by a few years.

Dalgarno's Ars Signorum is criticized, though, for being incomplete. It supposedly has scant and incomplete grammar, and his taxonomy is said to have a tinier vocabulary made up of a smaller set of broader concepts that the speaker must narrow down through, I guess, circumlocution.

Exactly. Wilkins attempted an "encyclopedic" taxonomy, while Dalgarno was content in deriving a basic vocabulary from his taxonomy, which was then to be used for making more specific words via compounding (pretty much like Ogden's Basic English).

I can't read it because it has the added disadvantage of having been published in Latin.

It has been translated into English in 2001 by David Cram and Jaap Maat under the title George Dalgarno on Universal Language. The text is swollen and incomprehensible even in the English version, though, and it doesn't say much about the grammar; it is all philosophical flatulence. This page sums up what knowledge I could extract from it.

[justin]

A wild sentence appears! (because I was bored)



aȣ dato ιa cȣambe cȣαpyi na vabo lȣ bαpȣ na tebα.

aȣ - every
dato - human
(W.V.5.) World>Animate Things>Rational>Man (i.e. human)
ιa - is
copula, present tense
cȣambe - born
(adj.p.AC.I.3) Corporeal Actions>Secondary>Bringing forth>Parturition (i.e. birth)
passive adjective (i.e., being born)
cȣapyi - free
(adj.AS.IV. Spritual Actions>Of the Will>Affections of the Will Itself>Liberty
adjective (i.e. free)
na - and
vabo - equal
(adj.TM.I.5) Transcendentals Mixed>General>Definitely>As to Being>Equality
adjective (i.e. equal)
lȣ - concerning
bαpȣ - dignity
(T.IV.6) Transcendentals General>Difference re: END of Action>Nature of the End>re: Esteem Among Good Men>Worthiness
na - and
tebα - justice
(Man.I.1) Manners>Virtue>Obligations>By Law>Justice