The overarching image of relentless progress boosted by such inven- tions and European expansion features among the elements that retro- spectively characterised the period preceding the First World War as La Belle Epoque. The European upper-middle classes were enjoying a moment of apparent peace and prosperity—partly at the expense of the massive exploitation of resources in the Americas, Africa and Asia. In a context of growing European nationalism and imperialism, having access to news from around the globe almost in real time and being able to communicate and travel across borders also increased people's curiosity about foreign and unfamiliar populations, raising Europeans' awareness of the world as something larger than their own continent. As technology affected how the world conceived of itself, it also shaped perceptions of how the world should be.
The celebration of technological developments, nationalism and people's increasing curiosity towards national, ethnic and cultural diver- sity took centre stage at the Universal Exhibitions. Beginning in London in 1851, Universal Exhibitions came to be held regularly, each time in a different city across the world. These world fairs constituted monumental displays of human progress, civilisation and innovation, and counted national and colonial pavilions demonstrating what each country had to offer the world in terms of culture and technology. As these fairs were laboratories of what the world could be like in the future, their partici- pating countries and corporations competed to show their achievements in the pursuit of progress (Bernal 1965: 631—632; Harvey 1996). In this regard, the technologies displayed in these exhibitions—for instance, the central role played by electricity in the Chicago's exhibition of 1893 or the new metal-based construction techniques epitomised by the Eiffel Tower, purpose-built for the Paris' exhibition of 1889 (Ory 1989)— were expected to be adopted worldwide and, consequently, to become universal.
Since world fairs were meant to advertise not only goods but also ideas (Benedict 1983), these displays also conveyed particular Western values as proxies for modernity and human progress. They also reinforced the essential tensions between a universalistic outlook towards the unity of mankind and a particularistic recognition of the diversity of cultures (De L'Estoile 2003). Ultimately, if progress—relying heavily on the imple- mentation of the abovementioned communication and transportation technologies—involved fostering a more interconnected humankind, in which languages should these international encounters be carried out? When journalists or scientists from different countries lifted the receiver from the telephone hook to exchange news or when businesspeople crossed national borders on speedy diesel trains, in which language would they speak to achieve their communicative purposes? A key acknowl- edgement of this issue came in 1900, with the establishment of the Delegation pour l'adoption d'une langue auxiliaire internationale (Dele- gation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language), an outcome of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 (Couturat et al. 1910; Forster 1982: 113—127). With universal emerging as the catch- word of the time, nations and corporations promoted their cultures and technologies as assets to be universalised, whereas various groups designed languages meant to become universal.
One proposed solution to this perceived communication problem was the international use of a national language. However, as languages such as English and French are foreign to many, their use as lingue franche has historically met with opposition from nationalists and anti-imperialists who refrain from communicating in another people's language (Phillipson 1992; Eco 1995: 333; Li 2003). A second proposed solution encompassed the adoption of a classical, extinct language for the purposes of international communication, with Latin and Ancient Greek being the core candidates. Though being less subject to nationalist-driven prejudices and having vocabularies relatively international within the scope of European languages (Kent 1922), the numerous irregularities and variations of Latin and Ancient Greek in both their written and spoken forms were among the drawbacks that rendered the widespread learning of these languages little sustainable.
Yet, another option arose: what if the prospective international auxil- iary language was not among those already existing but, instead, was a language created specifically for international communication? This brings us to the next stage of this debate: the creation of a new language as a nationalism-free alternative to be universalised.
Despite sounding odd at first, as if it was a hobby for lunatics or eccentrics (Yaguello 1984; Edwards 2013: 365), language creation is an old activity, with hundreds of constructed language projects being docu- mented since at least the seventeenth century (Couturat and Leau 1903, 1907; Eco 1995). Beginning with attempts to reconstruct the original language used by Adam to communicate with God and name things in the Garden of Eden, language creation was later converted into a quest for philosophical languages. These proposed to enable human beings to express their ideas clearly through establishing a perfect correspondence between language, on the one hand, and the world and its elements, on the other hand (Maat 2004).
Nonetheless, among countless projects, the ones that gained the most attention were the international auxiliary languages, set to enable communication among people who did not share the same mother tongue. With the relative popularisation of political, social, commercial and scientific exchanges between people laying grounds for a more prag- matic and utilitarian approach to communication, the late nineteenth century saw the apogee of these projects, which multiplied rapidly across Europe.
As with the philosophical languages, the first international auxiliary languages were created on the basis of logical constructions, detached from already existing vocabulary, to avoid being associated with partic- ular national languages (Couturat and Leau 1903, 1907). The most comprehensive example in this sense, aimed at increasing the capacity for human communication in the broadest way possible, was Solresol, a language created in France, in 1817, and based on musical notes. Its initiator, Jean-Fran^ois Sudre, expected it to be the most universal language, insofar as it could be written, spoken, sung, whistled, played on an instrument, signed (using fingers and toes) and represented by colours—being, therefore, accessible even to blind and deaf people. However, this project did not succeed, due to the limited volume of ideas that could be expressed from a combination of seven musical notes.
Attempting to overcome the difficulties of learning such logically constructed codes, subsequent language creators gave preference to systems blending newly designed elements and features derived from existing languages. The first successful specimen of this kind was Volapuk, created in the German Empire in 1879. During a mystical revelation, the Catholic priest Johann Martin Schleyer envisioned this language as an instrument to foster unity and brotherhood among people (Eco 1995: 319). Its main advantage over previous projects was its partial inspiration on European languages, mainly on English, which led Volapuk to sound somewhat familiar to speakers of European languages. This project received wide support in comparison with its predecessors and is said to have achieved more than one million speakers (Couturat and Leau 1903: 142; Garvfa 2015: 64). Alongside Volapuk clubs, classes and congresses, the language also counted magazines and books being published, as well as proficiency certificates being issued. Volapuk was deemed a successful project, since it demonstrated the feasibility of a constructed language for international communication. Yet, internal conflicts—mainly regarding possible reforms to the language itself— undermined such achievement. During this dispute between groups for and against the reform of Volapuk, both sides were rushed to establish and consolidate a final version of the language due to the development of another project, considered to be a prospective threat to Volapuk: Esperanto.