Over 5o schemes have appeared for "reformed" Esperanto, "re formed" Ido or some compromise; none of these projects, how ever, has had any success. Prof. R. de Saussure, believing that some minor features of Esperanto handicap propaganda, proposed to eliminate them while preserving the essential qualities of the language. From 1907 onwards a stream of experimental projects and literature has issued from his language laboratory—Antido I.. Antido II., Lingvo Kosmopolita, Esperantido and finally Nov Esperanto (1925). His attitude of scientific detachment and re search, however, has been insufficiently appreciated.
The first international language to be used in fact was the once famous Volapiik. This was invented in 1880 by an Austrian priest, the Rev. F. Schleyer. It was founded, as to 4o%, on English, but the roots were so distorted in accordance with arbitrary rules that they were almost unrecognizable, and the language was further encumbered by an almost Greek profusion of terminations and variations. The collapse of Volapiik, which in 1889 claimed a million adherents and had held three successful congresses, was ensured by the refusal of Bishop Schleyer to permit any modi fication. The central Volapiik academy, Kadem Beviiretik Vola piika, directed by Dr. W. Rosenberger (d. 1918), nevertheless
continued its researches into the best possible form of an inter national language. In 1898 it issued a vastly improved language which it called Idiom Neutral and changed its own name to Akademi de Lingu Internasional. From that time, both within and without the academy, research has not ceased, nor has the stream of proposed languages. Latinesce (by Henderson), Nov-Latin (by Rosa), Monario (by Lavagnini), Occidental (by de Wahl), Euro pan (by Weisbart), Optez (by S. Bond), Romanal (by Michaux), deserve particular mention.
The greatest advance has perhaps been made by Prof. G. Peano, since 1908 director of the academy, now the Academia pro In terlingua. Peano's Interlingua arises out of an address written by him in 1903 ; he began in good classical Latin and pointed out that certain features—e.g., conjugation, gender, irregularity of verbs, agreement of adjectives—were no longer necessary. As he proved each point he removed the offending practice from his own text and the address, which began in Ciceronian Latin, finished in "Latino sine flexione," a tongue now known as Interlingua, which consists of the living Latin roots in all European languages, with the modern rules of the order of words, and without grammar.