Page:An attempt towards an international language.pdf/18

 and not judge hastily of my method, for the sole reason that perhaps, to him, it appears to be too simple. I say this because I know that the tendency of mankind is to undervalue things that seem simple and easy, and to set store on those whose acquirement has been to them difficult and laborious. Such persons, on seeing so small a work, of such extreme simplicity, on so great a subject, easily comprehended by the whole world, may be inclined to pass it over with contempt or indifference; yet here has lain the greatest difficulty in the undertaking, the attaining of this very simplicity and conciseness, and the transformation of things from the very complicated forms in which they took their origin, into others more simple and more easily comprehensible. To do this, great difficulties have been surmounted.

My solution of the first problem is as follows:

(a) 1 have manipulated the grammar until its forms have reached a simplicity hitherto unheard of, preserving, however, in part, the spirit that pervades the grammars of living tongues, so that its study can be facilitated, and yet that it should in no wise be deprived of clearness, pliability and exactitude. The entire grammar of my language can be learned perfectly in one hour. It can easily be seen how the simplicity of such a grammar will facilitate the study of a language.

(b) I have created rules for the formation of the words, and by this means I have reduced enormously the quantity of words needful to be learnt, yet without depriving the speech of its richness; on the contrary, I make it still more copious than any of the modern tongues, on account of the ease with which from any one word any quantity of others can be formed so as to express every possible shade of thought. This I do by means of prefixes and suffixes, by whose aid, at will,