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قراءة كتاب Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 Volume 1, Number 7

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‏اللغة: English
Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887
Volume 1, Number 7

Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 Volume 1, Number 7

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

night in honor of Judges Key and Trewhitt, Mr. Templeton of Knoxville related an incident which occurred during the war at a revival service held by his father in North Georgia.

“About the time that Sherman was driving Johnson toward Atlanta,” said he, “some time in the early part of August, 1864, my father was conducting a revival at a little house called Pine Log Creek Church, about ten miles from Calhoun. The times were most terrible about then; murder, robbery and rapine were of daily occurrence, and the whole country was subject to visitations by marauding parties from both armies. One day the old gentleman was preaching a sermon of unusual power, and before he had gotten well under way a gang of Confederate soldiers rode up, and, dismounting out back of the church, asked if they might be admitted to the church. Of course they were cordially invited in, and took prominent seats in the church.

“Not long afterward a cloud of dust was seen in the road from the opposite direction to what the rebels had come, and pretty soon the tramp of horses’ hoofs was heard, and it was soon discovered that it was a squad of Federal troops, and before the Confederates in the church could be apprised of the approach, they had ridden up to the door. Perceiving that religious services were being held, they alighted and asked to be admitted. They were told that there were Confederate soldiers in the church, but they insisted on going in, and they were admitted.

“Naturally the strange spectacle created some consternation in the congregation, and for a time it seemed as if the confusion would break up the meeting. But my father raised his voice and began most fervently to plead a better life, beseeching his soldier hearers to become religious and abandon their sins. He preached with unusual force and power, the strange scene lending him inspiration. When he had concluded his sermon, as was the custom then, he invited those who were converted to come forward to the mourner’s bench and pray and talk with him on the all-important subject.

“Then it was that one of the grandest sights ever witnessed occurred. Those soldiers, enemies to each other, engaged in a bloody war, arose as one man, friend and foe together, and marched to the front of the church and kneeled together, Confederate by Federal, their muskets joining and crossing each other; their revolvers touching each other as they kneeled; their heads bowed upon the same altar, and their tears mingling almost in their deep contrition and profound feeling. All animosities were forgotten, all strife forgotten—they were together as brothers around a common altar.

“After the service they met on the outside of the church, shook hands, pledged fraternity, and each party went off, taking opposite directions. They had been looking for each other, perhaps with murderous intent. They found each other, but they separated with love instead of hate, friendly instead of angry.”


The Volapük Language.

In the attempt to form a universal language, no one has proceeded more philosophically than the late Stephen Pearl Andrews, who attempted to construct a language in which all the sounds should be selected in accordance with nature, being such as are naturally associated with the ideas they are used to express.

Mr. Andrews, by his personal amiability, enthusiasm, and lucid intelligence, interested a number of disciples who have studied his language called the Alwato, and it may be hoped will not allow it to disappear with the life of its highly gifted and philosophic teacher.

The Volapük language which has no such pretention to philosophic construction, is coming into such prominence as to deserve the attention of the readers of this Journal, hence I present the following sketch which has been abridged from an article in the American Magazine for June, written by Richard Walker:

Volapük is the invention of the Rev. Father Johann Martin Schleyer, of Constance, Baden, Germany. He is an accomplished linguist, having for forty-six years been interested in the study of language. He can speak and write twenty-eight tongues, including the Chinese and three African languages, and is also eminent as a priest, hymnologist and religious editor. He invented his universal language in 1878, announced it in 1879, and had so far perfected it in 1881 as to publish in that year a small book, entitled “Entwurf einer Weltsprache für alle gebildte Erdbewohner” (“Plan of a Universal Language for all the Civilized Inhabitants of the Earth”). Thus the name, Volapük; vola meaning of the world, and pük language.

“Schleyer does not propose that Volapük shall supercede any living language. He has attempted to make it so scientific and natural, so regular in all the rules of construction, and therefore so easy to learn, that every educated person will acquire it next after the mother tongue; and he hopes that it will thus become the accepted medium for all international communications. With this end in view, he has formed it on the general model of the Aryan family of languages; that is, its signs represent letters and words, and not ideas; and the root words of which it is constructed, instead of being arbitrary sounds and signs, as in Bishop Wilkin’s philosophical language, or sounds that have a real or fancied natural meaning, as in Stephen Pearl Andrews’ “Alwato,” are taken principally from living languages, the English being more largely drawn upon than any other.

“The alphabet employed is the Roman with some of the German dotted letters added, and the continental sounds are given to the letters. All words are phonetically spelled, so that there are none of the difficulties of orthography and pronunciation to be encountered which are so formidable in most natural languages.”

In making his Volapük vocabulary, Father Schleyer has sought first for the simplest words now in use. If such words are to be found in the English language, he has adopted them; if not, then he has drawn upon the Latin, German, French, and Spanish languages in the order named. For example, the word man in English, is a sufficiently simple root, and, therefore, man, with the same spelling and the continental pronunciation, is made to signify a man, or the man in Volapük—for the articles a and the are discarded. But house in English is inconveniently long and ends with a silent letter, and therefore the word dom, from the Latin word domus, is taken. In some instances neither of the languages named contains a root sufficiently simple, and then the inventor constructs a new one. But, so rich is the English language in simple Anglo-Saxon roots, that more than one-half of the words in Volapük are derived from them, and the number of new words whose roots are not to be found in any living language is comparatively very small.

To the suggestion that, if the English language was to be drawn upon so largely it would have been better to have adopted that, and induce all educated persons to learn it, the advocates of Volapük reply, first, that its irregularities of construction, orthography, and pronunciation make it too difficult to acquire; and secondly, international prejudice would prevent it from being universally adopted. The use of so many English roots, however, makes Volapük much easier to learn by one whose mother tongue is English, and thus bring it within reach of the largest number of people speaking a common language, while it eliminates irregularities and does not arouse national prejudices.

The names of the cardinal numbers follow the vowels in their regular order, a denoting the first, e the second,

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