Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/861

* UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. T37 eler, Stuttgart, 1893; (7) 'Novilatiin,' liy Dr. E. Beeriimnn, Leipzig, 1895; (8) 'Idiom neutral,' by 'the International Academy of the Universal Language,' 1893-1903. 'Spelin' is formed on the same lines as Vola- })ilk. is simpler in its phonetic form and in- llexioiial system, and is hriefer. The first named, 'Esperanto,' after a long quicseenee, has re- cently gained much attention, and has an active following in Eurojjc and America. The phonetic basis of 'Esperanto' is the Latin alphabet, ex- cept q and y, and with the addition of five new letters (old letters with diacritical marks) forthe sounds represented in English by ch (tsh), / or (/ or dg (dzh ), oh (kh or x ) , is in loch, sh, and z (zh) , as in azure. The structure is simple. Every noun ends in -o, every adjective in -a. The present tense of verbs ends in -as, the past in -is, the future in -os. The conditional mode ends in -us, the imperative in -v. the infinitive in -i, the present participle in -aiita, the past participle in -inta, the future participle in -oiitn. The persons are expressed by separate pronouns. Thus, ami, to love, mi ainas, I love, vi amis, you loved, li ■amos, he will love, i7i' amiis, they should love, etc. The vocabulary is taken mainly from Latin, with less change than Volapiik allows. With a little practice, any educated person, wlio knows some Latin or French, can recognize nearly all the words. The context indicates the meaning of the more arbitrary words and the rest is easy. The language is, as it were, a 'composite photo- graph' of Latin, French, and Italian. English as such hardly appears. The last-named scheme, the 'Idiom neutral,' developed out of Volapiik, resembles 'Esperanto' in taking its vocabulary mainly from Latin or Romance, with the minimum of change ; but it abandons the use of purely arbitrary formatives, preferring formatives taken from Latin or Eng- lish. Thus dom, house, domi, houses. There are no case-endings at all, their place being supplied by prepositions ( de dom, a dom, etc. ). The verb goes thus: Mi am. I love, I'O am, you love, etc., mi amav, I loved, mi amero, I shall love, mi es ■amed, I am loved, etc. The prepositions, conjunc- tions, etc., are chiefly adopted or adapted from Latin or French. The result is a 'composite photograph' of Latin and French, and the Latin side of English. The object of easy intelligibility is fairly attained. It is quite possible for an educated reader to read the 'Idiom neutral' upon ten minutes' sight, without the aid of either grammar or dictionary. So much of the text is intelligible on mere inspection that the rest ma}' easily be inferred. 'Esperanto' and 'Idiom neutral' approach a principle which has been made since 1880 the basis of several attempts at an international lan- guage. That principle is to employ the historical Latin for the purpose, without mutilation or serious alteration, but with a free addition of modern terms in Latin form, and with a mod- ernized syntax, the order of words, in particular, being conformed to that of the modern languages. In view of the universal use of the Latin vocab- ulary, with the Oreek. as the basis of modern scientific nomenclature, and of the continued and inevitable us(e of Latin in all kinds of historical, literary, and ecclesiastical scholarsliip. the pro- posal to extend it, in an emancipated form, to UNIVERSITY. the uses of ordinary international correspond- ence and commerce is not at all unreasonable. Consult: Steiner, I'dsiliiiyiia (Ncuwied. 1885- 88) ; Ellis, "On the Conditions of a L niversal Language," in I'hiloluiiirul Sociclii Tninsat'lions (London, 18SS) ; Bauer, Oer Forlschritt der Wiltsiu-achc-ldrc {Agram, 1888) ; Schleyer. Vola- piik. Die Weltsjiruchc (Sigmaringen, 1881); id., Volapiik. Grammatik des Universalsprache (4th cd., Ueberlingen, 1884) ; O'Connor, Esper- anto, the Universal Language (New York, 1903) ; Andrfi, Le latin: le probUme de la languc inter- nutionale (Paris, 1803). Monthly periodicals are Lingvo internacia (Paris) ; L'Espcrantiste { Epcrnay ) . UNIVEESALS. Characteristics or attri- butes of objects when regarded as common to an indefinite number of individuals. There have been philosophers who denied the real existence of universals (see Nominai.i.sh), and others who asserted that luiiversals exist apart from and prior to the objects they qualify. See Realism. UNIVERSITY (Lat. unirersifas) . A term which, as originally used, denoted any corporate body, community, or association regarded as a whole. In its modern sense, that of a corporate body devoted to study, teaching, and investiga- tion, the term came into use in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The institutions first so designated in this modern sense of the t*rm came into existence some two centuries before the com- mon use of the term, and others somewhat simi- lar had existed in ancient times under Oreco- Roman influence. There was at Athens, at the time of the Ronuxn Empire, a university not only in all the essentials of a great centre of learning, but one that closely corresponded even to what we now mean by that word. Schools of philosophy and letters similar to those at Athena sprang up at other great cities of the Roman Em- l)ire — at Constantinople, at Alexandria, at Rhodes, at Marseilles, at Apollonia (lllyria), and at Rome itself. These, however, had little or no influence on mediaeval institutions. ilEDi.EVAL Universities. The university, in a modern sense, originated during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as an outgrowth of schools which had existed prior to that time in connection with cathedrals and monasteries. Throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries there had grown up a new interest in dialectic, logic, and philosophy through the many theologi- cal controversies aroused by the earlier schoolmen and the heresies of the times; in Roman law through the controversies between the Holy Roman Empire and the Italian municipalities and the growing importance of canon law in Church administration; and in medicine on ac- count of the Crusades and the contact with the East and with Saracen learning. When a teacher of eminence appeared, such as -Vb^lard or Peter Lombard at Paris, or Irnerius at Bologna, a large number of students were attracted. This student body is said to have numbered 30.000 at Paris at the time of Ab<^lard. Such a place of learning and concourse of students was called a studinvt, or later a stiidiiim generate to distinguish such a one from the more selected clientrlr and func- tion of the monastic or cathedral school. The addition of the subject jnatter of philosophy to the previous religious discussions, the new meth-