Grantville Gazette, Volume 66 Read online

  "No, no. Earlier today I asked an acquaintance where I might find you, as I suddenly realized that you would be just the sort of person to appreciate my invention." He raised his chin slightly. "I have developed a universal language. Conceptually, at least."

  Federico wistfully eyed the nearest exit. "I see."

  "The languages you mention, they are all illogically constructed. What is needed is a language based on philosophical principles."

  "Uh-huh," said Federico, trying to strike the right balance between politeness and discouragement. By now there were people standing, drinks in hand, between the tables. The crowd was thick enough that only the experienced bar maids dared plow through, like icebreakers in polar waters.

  "As a mathematician of some note—you perhaps have read my commentary on Euclid?—it initially occurred to me that mathematics is itself, in a sense, a universal language and thus we could express all thought as a series of numbers."

  "Really?" asked Federico, as he contemplated whether, being a dancer, he could make a quick escape by leaping from table to table in the direction of the exit. "How would you obtain the numbers?"

  "Why, if we could assign prime numbers to basic characteristics, then any concept could be expressed by the product of the numbers assigned to the basic characteristics that define that concept. And then all we need for a universal language is to agree on the pronunciation of those numbers."

  "So if being human were denoted by '2', and being crazy were denoted by '3', a crazy human would be a '6,' " prompted Federico. He had decided that if he could not escape, he could at least amuse himself.

  "Exactement!" cried Claude.

  "But what if a concept were a composite of a dozen concepts? Then the number to express would be the product of a dozen prime numbers. Would you just teach the product by rote, or would you expect everyone, to be literate, to do the arithmetic in their heads?"

  "I see your point." Claude shrugged. "Anyway, I decided that it was not possible for the word for a thing to convey all characteristics of the thing. Rather, I needed to devise a hierarchy of concepts, with enough levels and branches that all things could be assigned their proper place. But I kept changing my mind as to which characteristics to give primacy to. For example, should animals first be subdivided by reference to whether they are carnivores or herbivores, or by whether they walk, swim, or fly?

  "I was in a state of despair, until I happened upon a wonderful book in your Grantville library."

  "Which book was that?" asked Federico, who was in a state of despair himself by that point.

  "Roget's International Thesaurus," Claude declared. "The fifth edition, to be precise. It arranges English words, not in alphabetical order as in a dictionary, but according to the ideas that they express."

  "But isn't it just a writer's aid, to make sure that one has chosen the word that best matches the thought?"

  "I suppose, but it is also a useful guide for constructing a useful language. For example, class one encompasses words pertaining to the body and the senses. Suppose we were to specify that all such words were to begin with the syllable "ba". Then each of the categories within the class is identified by the second and if need be the third syllables. One combination for the category "birth," another for "the body," yet another for "hair," and so on. And the final syllables would identify the particular word within the category. Thus, we have a unique word for everything on this earth. Ingenious, no?"

  "Have you ever played Twenty Questions?" asked Federico abruptly.

  "Excuse me?"

  "It's an American word game. One person thinks of something—an animal perhaps—and the other person may ask up to twenty questions in an attempt to guess the animal. The problem-setter must answer truthfully, to the limit of his or her knowledge. You can't ask 'what animal is it?' but you can ask about its characteristics—where it lives, how it moves, what it eats, and so on, and also classification questions, such as 'is it a kind of whale?' Finally, you ask whether it is a specific animal, say, a blue whale."

  "Interesting."

  'It can be amusing, but only if the poser knows enough about the mystery animal. If the answer to too many of the questions is, 'I don't know,' the game becomes frustrating. And that's the problem with your proposed universal language. To name a thing, you must know a great deal about it."

  Hardy sighed. "That is pretty much what Descartes wrote to Mersenne, and Mersenne passed on to me. If the primitive words are chosen to reflect the natural order, they may be easily learned, but finding that natural order would require perfect understanding of the things the words represent, and that true philosophy is achievable only in terrestrial paradise.

  "But your Grantville's presence in this world is the result of a miracle, none can honestly doubt that, and I hoped that here I might uncover the secret of universal language. If the answer lies not with Roget's International Thesaurus, then surely it is somewhere else in Grantville. Could a merciful God intend us to be divided by language until Judgment Day? Is there any doubt that if men understood each other better, that war might become a thing of the past?"

  Federico took a long look at Claude Hardy and felt a little ashamed of treating him as a fool. Founding a universal language on philosophical principles was surely a will o' the wisp, but the greater objective was a noble one.

  "As far as I know," said Federico, "no 'universal language' in which the words were based on some sort of encoding of the properties of the things was ever devised that could be spoken fluently by someone other than its inventor—if that. But there have been artificial languages that made use of a vocabulary drawn from a variety of languages—French, German, and so on—so that all Europeans would suffer equally in learning it.

  "The most successful of them was Esperanto. It had something like a hundred thousand speakers in old time line 2000, but remember, that's out of ten billion people."

  "And where can I find out how to speak Esperanto?"

  "Unfortunately, there isn't much in the public libraries. You can find a few paragraphs in the encyclopedias about the grammar and how the words are constructed, that's about it. It is possible that there's an enthusiast here in Grantville, but I wouldn't count on it. After all, the adult population of Grantville at the time of the Ring of Fire was only about 2,600. The odds are against you.…

  "You could of course construct your own version of Esperanto. But if you must invent and promote a universal language, I would suggest an alternative. My colleague Nicole told me that around the end of the nineteenth century, some mathematician created a language called Latino sine flexione. That is, a Latin with a simplified grammar and minimal inflection of words. As I understand it, it had only the ablative case for nouns, no gender, one kind of plural, one plural form, one adjectival form, one definite article, and verbs aren't inflected for person or number, only for tense."

  Claude pondered this. "That would certainly make it easier to learn."

  Federico added, "And Latin is already the closest that Europe has to a language that is universal in a practical sense, that is, widely known." He paused. "I take it that you know Descartes and Mersenne because you have communicated with them on mathematical questions?"

  "Yes," said Claude, "but not just as a fellow mathematician. I understand Arabic, and I have translated selected passages from several of the great Arabic treatises for them."

  "Really? Can you also understand Turkish then? Or Persian?"

  "Both, but believe me, it is not because I know Arabic. There are a few words in common, but the sound and the grammar are very different. "

  "That's very interesting," said Federico. "Sooner or later the eastern empires are going to sit up and take notice of what's happening in Grantville, or vice versa, and there will be demand for translation between English and those languages. Perhaps, if you are still in town then, you might help us out at Words International.

  "In fact, if you have the time, let me show you around Words International now. I don't know whethe
r my colleagues will be there, but it's possible—they teach at the school during the day and translate at night."

  Claude agreed, and they called the waitress for the check. In due course they were out in the street.

  They had only traveled a block when Federico held up his hand. "Do you hear that?"

  "Some sort of commotion," agreed Claude.

  They reached the intersection, where a narrow side street crossed the road they were on and beheld two wagon drivers screaming at each other. The street in question wasn't wide enough for them to both pass simultaneously, and neither seemed inclined to yield.

  "'Here lies the body of Solomon Grey, who died defending his right-of-way,'" Federico recited.

  "Pardon?" said Claude.

  "I am sorry, I was quoting an American limerick I thought apropos."

  As they came closer, it became apparent why they had failed to negotiate a resolution so far; one was speaking in German and the other in French.

  "They appear to be at an impasse," said Claude, "and soon it may come to blows. Shall we mediate?"

  Federico nodded. "Yes, we should suggest that one with the shorter distance to backtrack should do so," and Claude agreed. A moment later, Claude approached the French-speaking driver and Federico the German-speaking one.

  After a brief exchange, Claude walked back to Federico to report. "He says that while he has the shorter distance to backtrack, he turned onto the street first."

  Federico returned to the German and passed this on. A moment later, he cursed and told Claude, "and this one insists that his load is the harder one to back up safely and so the Frenchman should yield.

  "Should we let these two idiots remain where they are until Judgment Day?"

  "How about a coin flip?" suggested Claude.

  The two drivers grudgingly agreed, the Frenchman won the toss, and the German backed up. The Frenchman drove past and fortunately refrained from giving the German the finger as he did so.

  "You see, the world needs a common language!" declared Claude triumphantly. "If they had that, they could have settled their differences without our help."

  Federico sighed. "I think what the world needs is more common sense."

  ****

  Author's Note: This story was inspired by reading Airka Okrent's In the Land of Invented Languages. Federico Ballarino, a created down-timer, appears previously in "Federico and Ginger" and "Lost in Translation." The French mathematician, linguist and lawyer Claude Hardy (1604-OTL 1678) did propose a universal language to Mersenne (for review by Descartes) in 1629, but the letter is lost and his system is unknown. What is known is that Descartes didn't think much of the practicality of any universal language based on philosophical principles. A math-based language in which the word for each thing was the equivalent of a mathematical product of the numbers representing the properties of the thing was proposed by Thomas Urquhart in 1652 and by Francis Lodwick in 1647. A hierarchical classification approach to a philosophical language was proposed by John Wilkins in 1668. Wilkins' classification in turn inspired Roget's thesaurus. While Roget composed a "catalogue of words" in 1805, he didn't publish his classification system until 1852. Note that the arrangement in the 5th edition (1992) is very different from that of earlier editions, although it, too, is hierarchical.

  Becket’s Blood by Terry Howard

  September 1635

  One fine morning Robert Smythe, the city of York's most popular pulpiteer, went to the doctor.

  "Reverend Smythe! And what can I do for you?"

  "I have, of late, been troubled by these pains in my breast. Well, it is not so much pain as it is pressure. It almost feels like someone is sitting on my chest."

  "Are there any other symptoms?"

  "No."

  "No shortness of breath, or shooting pains in the arm?"

  "Well, now that you mention it, the pain in the arm was more of an irritation than a pain, and the shortness of breath I assumed was just my age creeping up on me."

  "I see, well, let's get a look at you. Take off your shirt please."

  "What?"

  "I want to listen to your heart and organs," the physician said as he opened a beautiful leather box and took out a stethoscope. The cup and ear pieces were silver as was the tee which split the sound to both ears. The tubes were sewn from supple, flexible leather and a horn spring replaced the spring steel which would hold an up-time instrument to one's ears.

  The doctor placed the cone to the preacher's chest. "Take a deep breath and hold it please." He listened for a bit. "Exhale." He moved the cup to the man's back. "Inhale and hold." He shifted the scope to the chest where he moved it around a bit after he said, "Take several deep breaths."

  "What is that thing?" the preacher asked.

  "It is called a stethoscope. It was made in Grantville in the Germanies. A merchant stopped in a month ago and demonstrated this one."

  "Does it work?"

  "I was shocked. It is almost miraculous, a very ingenious device. Would you like to hear?" He asked taking it out of his ears and putting it in his patient's.

  "Truly incredible," Reverend Smythe said.

  "Yes, it is. Do you know anything about Grantville?" The doctor asked by way of stalling. He had bad news and did not want to tell the most popular preacher in York just how little time he had left on earth.

  "I've heard a lot of wild tales. Of course I normally wouldn't have believed them. But a…" He paused to consider the right word; he did not want to admit an old colleague and dear friend was involved. ". . . an acquaintance of mine, brought a book to me which claims to be a reprint of a history book written in the year 1958."

  "Oh, how interesting. Perhaps I could borrow it sometime."

  "I would be happy to lend it to you if I still had it but the acquaintance was not willing to part with it."

  "Too bad. Did you learn anything of interest?"

  "Well, first of all, none of it applies. History has already been changed. After all, Grantville is not in the book. Then, of course, since it was an American history book there wasn't a lot about England or Europe. Notably, in 1776, the American colonies rebelled against King George III. In that history, the Americans went on to great things and the English language was spoken in an Empire, which circumnavigated the globe. Sadly, this will not happen now because Good King Charles—" By way of much practice, he actually managed to say it with a straight face. "—has ceded the new world to the French."

  "I see. There wasn't any mention of a certain physician from York, was there?"

  "No, I am afraid neither of us was named." They both chuckled. It was a sad chuckle, though. After all, who doesn't wish to be remembered in history?

  "Reverend Smythe," the physician said, having screwed up his courage, "I am afraid I have bad news for you."

  ****

  Six Months Later—March 1636

  Reverend Smythe left off massaging his upper left arm. He left his carefully prepared notes on the announced topic sitting on the side table and rose to the pulpit to begin the homily.

  The doctor's words were fresh in his head. "Your heart is giving out. You might have a year. It might be as little as a few days. When you get shooting pains down your left arm that is a sign of the end."

  The sanctuary was full. Robert braced himself with a hand on either side of the lectern to gather his strength for the task before him. The crowd looked up in respectful anticipation. They were used to a lively, entertaining discourse, often on the very edge of political perdition. He had been admonished on several occasions of late to quit skirting the boundaries and stay well away from political topics.

  His bishop had been explicit. "Robert, for heaven's sake, man, leave the king out of your sermons. I've always known you had Puritan leanings, and I've always appreciated your wisely keeping them to yourself." The bishop's frown deepened as he continued, "But ever since you read the book you gave me, you have forgotten to be sensible." At Smythe's not quite uttered protest, the bishop raised his
hands. "I know you feel the king has sold England's future for a bowl of pottage."

  In point of fact, Robert Smythe had only lent the book to the Bishop. When the Bishop deemed it too dangerous to circulate and would not give it back, Robert was a bit upset.

  "It isn't likely to work out so England ends up having an Empire where the sun never sets and the English language dominates the world, now that everyone knows about it before it can start," he said.

  The bishop waved his hand as if chasing off a fly. "I'm telling you as a friend," he said, "you have been noticed. Be certain you are being watched and leave politics alone."

  Today, with the distraction of the pain and the doctor's words foremost in his mind, he would not be anywhere near the edge.

  ****

  "The great whore of Babylon sits on the seven hills of Rome."

  The congregation stirred in anticipation. Reverend Smythe's rants on Roman Catholicism were notable and always a topic of conversation for at least a fortnight.

  "And her daughters follow in their mother's evil and adulterous ways." There was an uneasy rustling in the pews. Several people glanced at the person next to them in concern.

  "Yes! I mean the Church of Rome which wrongly and shamelessly calls itself catholic and is not. And yes, I mean the Lutherans and the Calvinists, who have left off following Christ and now follow after men. And yes, I mean our own Church of England to our shame and disgrace. The daughters of Rome, who have so loudly decried their mother's immorality still have not left the arms of her illicit lovers.

  "'My kingdom is not of this world,' sayeth the Lord. Yet there is the Church of England as there are many churches in many nations, some who defy Rome and some who are in communion with Rome, who answer to the state and wallow in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who did cause the children of Israel to sin."

  The first to leave were those who sat in the back. Enjoying a notable sermon was one thing. Getting noted for it was another. The good reverend had gone too far this time.