great flexibility, due to its richness in terminology and its abundance of sinonims. It has an unsurpast literature, making a knowledge of it desirable by those who hav no call to speak it. In every respect, except one, it is best fitted to be the language of sience, commerce, and international communication.
The desirability of having such a language is apparent to every one. Knowledge of it would enable the people of every nation to talk, to correspond, and to trade with the peoples of every other nation on equal terms. This desirability has led to the invention of many ingenious artificial languages to serv the purpose.
Failure of Artificial Languages
Granting that Volapük, Esperanto, and the rest, ar as satisfactory as the inventors and their followers contend, the fact remains that none of them has been successful. This is because there is no incentiv to learn an artificial language for other than commercial use, and no assurance that any one who takes the pains to learn it wil find those with whom he wishes to deal also familiar with it.
Why English Has Faild
The superiority of English to every other language, natural or artificial, for use as a world language, would long ago hav forst its adoption as such—the first language that every forener would wish and need to know in addition to his own—wer it not for its complicated spelling. A language, in which to learn to spel imperfectly takes two ful years of scool-time in the countries where it is spoken, does not recommend itself to the forener as a convenient medium for conducting his relations with other foreners.
