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New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 82, 21 November 1874, Page 14

Pasiobatht. — The confusion of tongues is at an end ! Mr Anton Bachmaier, of Munich, has -worked out to a successful issue a method which places within the reach of the common-sense natives of every country in the world' the opportunity of communicating with each other with ease and perfect certainty, thoxigh each person is ignorant of any language save hiß own. This wonderful feat is effected by Mr Bachxnaier by tho simple process of numbering the ideas necessary for carrying on correspondence. The numbers are symbols written, and they express identical ideas in. all the linguistic keys ; thus 1265 is "money "in the English key, "argent " in the French, " geld" in the German, "rupai" in the Urdu, "penge" in the Danish, &c. A sentence written in the numbers may be penned by an Englishman, and read with perfect ease by a Chinaman or Russian ; an advertisement couched in these figures will be understood all over the world by people possessed of keys in their own language. Mr Bachmaier calls his Bystem Pasigraphy, and a Pasigrahphical Society has been established in London, comprising a large number of learned and philanthropical gentlemen, having Dr Samuel Birch, of the British Museum, at their head, for the purpose of making known in this country the advantages of this new universal interpreter. As an instance of the sort of thing a pasigram is, we give the following as a (specimen :— 3226 2676 1635 3311 3177 315 1610 376. The meaning of which is, — "What is now the price of cotton in Bombay?" Of course it would be quicker to write the sentence in any particular language ; but the advantage of the pasigram is is that it just as intelligible to a Japanese or Hottentot, provided with a key in his own language, as it is to the original writer. The number of mental conceptions indexed in this way by Mr Bachmaier is four thousand three hundred and thirty-four, and this number far exceeds the necessities of the mOBt voluminous of letter-writers. The extreme simplicity of the process makes its universal employment possible by practical men of ordinary sense; and "nothing is required beyond the common material of typography, the printing press may be inexpensively utilised in Pasigraphy. *