A NEW UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 22 June 1912, Page 10

A NEW UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

ii-niest Thompson Seton 3 an Engiishborn author, naturalist, ana arnso, mmous on two continents, nas come iorward witii a new message, viuu m 1...c progress of nations. Tiiis time it is nou rrom nis friends the wolves, tne cub bears, vhe antelopes, and tne birus. i^ distinguished writer and sclioiar Una perfected, what has been the hope of great philologists and statesmen for three centuries—a means of easy communication between people of every nation and speech.

And the wonder of this universal language, the dictionary of which is soon to be brought out simultaneously in Great Britain and America, is that it is not the creation of an arbitrary tongue. Volapux struggled for expression for a decade until Esperanto supplemented it. The latter language was chosen by a Russian sciiolai tj overcome the feuds between the bermans, the Poles, the Russians, and the Jews in the discordant corner of the Empire in which he lived. These tongues, like "Neutral Idioms" and other efforts at universal speech, have survived, if at all, in the nope of linguists.

The language that Mr Seton is about to give to the world as a finished product does not come from the cloister. It is not library-made. It is not the fantasy of a philologist. . It is not, indeed, new. It is older than the pyramids —older than written words. And though it was the means of communication between prehistoric man, it is the natural language of children to-day. This amazing language which the world I will speedily have opportunity to acquire has survived the fall of the pol ished nations and brilliant tongues. For the context of his dictionary Mr Seton has gone to the Indians of the Canadian plains. For years he has been in correspondence with the deaf and mute throughout the world. He has had the collaboration of great experts. Mr Seton, who is the Chief Scout of the Boy Scouts of the New World, is to teach the language to his enormous following. Already they have adopted a number of jts forms. His dictionary is to be the official glossary of the Boy Scout movement throughout the world. —From "A New Universal Language," by Harold Bolce, jn NasE's Magazine for May.