Speak a Little Volapük ? May 21, 2013

Posted by cantueso in language, philo101.
6 comments

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Volapük was invented by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Catholic priest. In a dream God told him to create an international language, and so he did.

A 19th century schoolclass painted by Albert Anker in public domain at Wikimedia.

According to Wiki, about 100 years ago there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals and 316 textbooks. Today there are an estimated 20-30 Volapük speakers in the world.

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Sumolsöd stäni blodäla!

Dikodi valik hetobs;

Tönöls jüli baladäla ***

*** Volapük hymn calling for a single language as part of a sense of global brotherhood and peace : Volapüke kosyubobs, Vokobsöz ko datuval „Menade bal, püki bal!“

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There was a lot of praise for it when it first hit the news more than 100 years ago .

“Si jamais une langue universelle a quelque chance de s’imposer au monde commercial, c’est assurément celle-là”

“If ever an artificial language were to become standard in the business world, it would surely be Volapük,” said the French , probably hoping it would not be English instead.

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And ever so helpful the Germans joined in : “Wir erfahren, daß an leitenden Stellen in Deutschland der weltsprachlichen Bewegung mit Ernst und Teilnahme gefolgt wird.”

“We take due note that among opinion leaders the movement to create a world language is seen with empathic seriousness.”

The idea was simply to prevent English from becoming the global language.

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The term “Volapük” is also used in slang Danish and Russian to mean “nonsense” and “gibberish”.

In Esperanto, a rival constructed language, the expression “Tio estas volapukajo por mi” is sometimes used to mean “I can’t understand this” or “this is nonsense”.

Drawings by Raphael Wuensch