Aside from the challenge posed by German linguists, there was another problem in store. This was the emergence of other language projects: Weltsprache, the Langue Internationale Neo-Latine, and Pasilingua, launched in 1885; to be followed by Bopal, Spelin, Myrana, Kosmos, and Lingvo Inter- nacia, later called Esperanto.22 For the Volapukists, this unending procession of artificial languages was a source of anxiety and embarrassment, since by attempting to solve the Tower of Babel problem, a new Babel of artificial lan- guages had been created, as not a few people were happy to point out.
To make things worse, in 1887 the American Philosophical Society an- nounced its plan to establish a committee to thoroughly evaluate Volapŭk, compare it with other new artificial languages, and issue a report about its suitability as an international language. This committee attests to the generic appeal of an artificial language, but given Volapŭk's detractors in some aca- demic circles, the announcement was somewhat alarming to Volapŭkists.
The Society's eventual report confirmed Volapŭkist fears and concerns. The report was devastating. Contrary to most German linguists, the Society did concede that an artificial international language was possible and neces- sary, especially for scientific communication, hindered by nationalist senti- ments and linguistic chauvinism. While an artificial, auxiliary language could serve this purpose, the Society concluded that it could not be Volapŭk, since it was too inflectional and its vocabulary unrecognizable. A suitable artifi- cial language, according to the Society, should have a non-inflectional gram- mar, similar to that of English or most Romance languages, as well as a recognizable "Aryan lexicon," a vocabulary naturally derived from the roots of the Indo-European languages. A supplementary report also scrutinized Lingvo Internacia (Esperanto) and Pasilingua, and they were not given a for- mal endorsement, either. The Society held that an artificial language should not be the work of a single person, but of an international committee of ex- perts, who would be in a better position to create such a language and, more importantly, to obtain international recognition and acceptance. A univer- sal language, in short, could be created, agreed upon, and launched in the same manner as most other international standards. To this end, the Society invited other learned societies to join in a new international committee.23
The learned societies, however, showed little interest in the Society's pro- posal, especially after the Philological Society of London published a detailed refutation of the American report.24 According to the Philological Society, the flaws in Volapŭk's grammar and vocabulary that the Americans had noted were minor, based on misconceptions and a bias in favor of inflectional lan- guages. Though imperfect, the Philological Society of London found, Volapŭk was good enough to serve as an auxiliary language. However, much to the chagrin of Volapŭkists, the Society regarded Spelin as superior and alleged that if Spelin had been launched first, it would have been "far more widely accepted, and have become as its name implies the All-language." Conse- quently, although the Philological Society of London concluded its report with a ringing "lifom5s Volapuk, long live Volapuk," this enthusiasm was not owing to the language's inherent qualities: since Volapuk has "the ear of the public and is in possession of a vast organization highly interested in propagating it," expediency counseled its support."25 The Society, in short, had countered the conclusions of the Americans, but for reasons that displeased Volapukists.
But for as much as some journalists, entertainers, nationalists, and schol- ars might have opposed Volapuk, those most responsible for the language's collapse were the Volapukists themselves.
CHAPTER5
"Strangled in the House of Its Friends": Volapuk's Demise
When Volapukists met at their First Congress in 1884, they agreed that they needed to spread the language and movement outside of the German-speaking world. They were successful. Two years after their First Congress the num- ber of Volapukists had increased substantially, and more than 100 support- ers had earned the Volapuk teaching certificate. Local organizations sprang up in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United States, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In path dependence terms, Volapuk had an important ad- vantage as the first mover.
A growing membership, however, kindled competing views within the Volap uk movement, both about the final purpose of the language and about the design of the language itself. These competing views and their inability to reach a working consensus within the movement undermined the advan- tage that the Volapukists had. The continuous succession of rival language projects, the interference of scientific societies, the opposition of the German linguists, and the apprehension of the most nationalist-minded only exacer- bated the internal difficulties in the Volapukist camp. While conservatives took these external developments as evidence of the need to rally around the language as it was instead of tinkering with it, no matter how well intentioned or expedient the proposed reforms might be, the reformists radicalized their position. For them, the critique of outside scholars and the publication of rival projects only lent new urgency to reforms that would give the language its definite shape.
The Association fran^aise pour la propagation du Volapuk was most crit- ical of the language as Schleyer had outlined it. Its leader, Auguste Kerckhoffs, saw Volapuk as something similar to a code system, where simple rules or the kind of one-to-one functions that governed cryptographic systems would allow for a precise and unambiguous translation between a natural language and Volapuk. As he put it: "The international language of commerce [Volapuk] is the complement to the [Maritime] Signal Code. It is a dictionary of 15,000 words, neither pleasant, nor unpleasant, but easy to learn for whoever has the key.'n
Schleyer took a different approach, aiming at a complexity that would leave room for the smallest nuances and subtleties of human cognition. Kerckhoffs contended that this very complexity could ruin the language and the move- ment. Rather than perfect coverage and ornamentation, his goals were sim- plicity and practicality. To this end, Kerckhoffs had already introduced some simplifications in the language in the first edition of his Cours, and would add more in later editions. Among them was the elimination of four tenses from the conditional, and also of the genitive and dative suffixes, which he replaced with prepositions. He also proposed new rules for word formation.2 In 1887, and right before the Second Congress of Volapukists, Kerckhoffs pub- lished his Examen critique des simplifications qi'il y a introduire dans le Volapuk. His suggestions were not minor. They involved substantial changes in both the grammar and the lexicon, about which he was adamant. As he put it before the congress: "the Volapuk that we have seen in some German grammars, with all its exuberance of grammatical forms and lacking clear word-formation rules, does not have any chance of being favorably accepted by the practical and intelligent minds."3 Right or not, Kerckhoffs's reform pro- posals distressed Schleyer and many other Volapukists, since no matter how helpful or appropriate they might be, they surely had the potential to jeopar- dize the integrity of the language and the movement.
In early August 1887, the Volapukists met at their Second Congress. It was attended by around 200 delegates. The congress took place at the main hall of the L5wenbrau-Keller in Munich, where some years later Hitler would give his annual speech to celebrate his 1923 putsch. The congress was organized by the Munich Volapuk club, which, along with the Nuremberg club, was one of the movement's two strongholds, and similarly inclined toward reform of the language. The German geographer Alfred Kirchhoff acted as the presi- dent, while Schleyer was honorary president. If the mood among the dele- gates to the First Congress was rather friendly, the delegates of the Second Congress, coming from the United States and different European countries, had to work thoughtfully in order to smooth out internal differences that could no longer be concealed. Kerckhoffs had openly challenged Schleyer's author- ity, and some wanted to reinforce his leadership. Leading them was Kirch- hoff. In both his opening speech and in his capacity as president, Kirchhoff saw the opportunity to make some things crystal clear. As he stated, without explicitly mentioning Kerckhoffs: "Within the well-defined limits of our lan- guage a command of Schleyer is much more valuable to us than the seduc- tive sirens calls of the jolly reform-embracing storm troopers. We do not follow commands as mindless slaves, but as a well-disciplined army under a lead- ership well aware of our end purpose."4