The Utopian Communist: A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling

CHAPTER XV

NEW FRONTIERS

T

HE quest for a universal language has not been a specialty-

limited to experts on linguistics and phonetics; it also has

been a major objective of many reformers. The litera­

ture of the subject is extensive. Weitling was neither the first nor

the last to work on plans to unify mankind into "one world" by

the simple device of inventing a new common tongue.

The Promethean (London) of February, 1842, reprinted a

letter from Lewis Masquerrier of New York to Goodwyn

Barmby, its editor, in which the writer expressed his desire to

join the London communist society and offered to send "my uni­

versal alphabet, improved orthography, etc." and "get you to be­

come its godfather." In an earlier number Barmby had published

his own "Essay Towards Philanthropic Philology, or Ideas on

Language in reference to the future, or transition and com­

munity." The author maintained that "we must no longer have

only learned philology; we must have philanthropic philology.

The benevolent reformers of society, with prophetic hope, call

out with a voice of high and harmonious cadence, for a universal

language." Barmby was convinced that what the world needed

was "a general tongue" and a "grammar of humanity" for hitherto

the "various idioms and tongues of languages" had been a barrier

to the "greatest designs of humanity." He referred to other pio­

neers in this field, including Benjamin Franklin, and suggested that

English, "a decomposition of Greek, Latin, French, German" and

other languages, might well serve as the transitional tongue until