Volapük (; , "Language of the World", or lit. "World Speak") is a
constructed language
A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...
created between 1879 and 1880 by
Johann Martin Schleyer, a
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
priest in
Baden
Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine.
History
The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
, who believed that
God had told him in a dream to create an
international language. Notable as the first major constructed international auxiliary language, the grammar comes from
European languages and the vocabulary mostly from English (with some German and French). However, the roots are often distorted beyond recognition.
Volapük
conventions took place in 1884 (
Friedrichshafen
Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''K ...
), 1887 (
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
) and 1889 (
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
). The first two conventions used
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, and the last conference used only Volapük. By 1889, there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals in or about Volapük, and 316 textbooks in 25 languages;
[Handbook of Volapük](_blank)
Charles E. Sprague (1888) at that time the language claimed nearly a million adherents. However, Volapük was largely displaced between the late 19th and early 20th century by
Esperanto.
History
Schleyer first published a sketch of Volapük in May 1879 in ''Sionsharfe'', a Catholic poetry magazine of which he was editor. This was followed in 1880 by a full-length book in German. Schleyer himself did not write books on Volapük in other languages, but other authors soon did.
André Cherpillod writes of the third Volapük convention,
The
Dutch cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs was for a number of years Director of the
Academy of Volapük, and introduced the movement to several countries.
The French Association for the Propagation of Volapük was authorized on 8 April 1886, with A. Lourdelet as president and a central committee that included the deputy
Edgar Raoul-Duval.
However, tensions arose between Kerckhoffs and others in the Academy, who wanted reforms made to the language, and Schleyer, who insisted strongly on retaining his proprietary rights. This led to schism, with much of the Academy abandoning Schleyer's Volapük in favor of
Idiom Neutral and other new constructed language projects. Another reason for the decline of Volapük may have been the rise of
Esperanto. In 1887 the first Esperanto book (''
Unua Libro'') was published. Many Volapük clubs became Esperanto clubs.
By 1890 the movement was in disarray, with violent arguments among the members. Schleyer resigned from the Volapük Academy and created a rival academy. Derived languages such as
Nal Bino, Balta, Bopal, Spelin, Dil and Orba were invented and quickly forgotten.
In the 1920s,
Arie de Jong, with the consent of the leaders of the small remnant of Volapük speakers, made a revision of Volapük which was published in 1931 (now called ''Volapük Nulik'' "New Volapük" as opposed to the Volapük Rigik 'Original Volapük' of Schleyer). This revision was accepted by the few speakers of the language. De Jong simplified the grammar, eliminating some rarely used verb forms, and eliminated some gendered pronouns and gendered verb endings. He also rehabilitated the
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
and used it to make some morphemes more recognizable. For instance, ''lömib'' "rain" became ''rein''.
Volapük enjoyed a brief renewal of popularity in the Netherlands and Germany under de Jong's leadership, but was suppressed (along with other constructed languages) in countries under Nazi rule and never recovered.
Regarding the success of this artificial language, the Spanish scientist
Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (; 1 May 1852 – 17 October 1934) was a Spanish neuroscientist, pathologist, and histologist specializing in neuroanatomy and the central nervous system. He and Camillo Golgi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or M ...
wrote in the first edition of his ''Tonics of Willingness'', in 1898:
However, some years later (1920), in the third edition of the same book, he added the following footnote to the former assertion: "As it was presumable, nowadays -1920-, the brand new Volapük has been forgotten definitively. We forecast the same for Esperanto."
Large Volapük collections are held by the
International Esperanto Museum in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
; the
Center for Documentation and Study about the International Language in La Chaux-de-Fonds,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
; and the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
.
In 2000 there were an estimated 20 Volapük speakers in the world.
In December 2007 it was reported that the
Volapük version of Wikipedia had recently jumped to 15th place among language editions, with more than 112,000 articles.
A few months earlier there had been only 797 articles. The massive increase in the size of "Vükiped", bringing it ahead of the Esperanto Wikipedia, was due to an enthusiast who had used a computer program to automatically create geographical articles, many on small villages. The motive was to gain visibility for the language.
By March 2013 the Esperanto Wikipedia, with a very active user community, had risen to 176,792 articles, while the
Volapük Wikipedia had at that point 119,091 articles.
There has been a continuous Volapük speaker community since Schleyer's time, with an unbroken succession of ''
Cifal
The CIFAL Global Network is part of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). The Network comprises 25 International Training Centres (CIFALs) and aims to serve as a platform for capacity-building of government authorities a ...
s'' (leaders). These were:
#
Johann Martin Schleyer 1879–1912
#
Albert Sleumer 1912–1948
#
Arie de Jong (provisionally) 1947–1948, 1951–1957
#
Jakob Sprenger 1948–1950
#
Johann Schmidt 1950–1977
#
Johann Krüger 1977–1983
#
Brian Bishop 1984–2014
#
Hermann Philipps 2014–present
Orthography and pronunciation
The alphabet is as follows:
That is, the vowel letters ''ä, ö, ü'' have the pronunciations they do in German, roughly like English ''end'', ''fern'', ''über''. ''C'' is pronounced like English ''j'' or ''ch'', and ''j'' like English ''sh'', or like the ''s'' in English "usually". is pronounced after voiced consonants, for example ''bs, ds, gs, ls'', as plural ''-s'' is in English. ''R'' was not found in the original proposal.
The letters ''ä'', ''ö'', and ''ü'' do not have alternative forms such as the ''ae'', ''oe'', and ''ue'' of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, but Schleyer proposed alternate forms ''ꞛ'', ''ꞝ'', and ''ꞟ'' for them, all of which are part of
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
since version 7.0 released in June 2014:
*
*
*
*
*
*
There are no diphthongs; each vowel letter is pronounced separately.
Special consonantal letters
The author Alfred A. Post mentions in his ''Comprehensive Volapük Grammar'' some additional letters created by Schleyer:
:And the following letters are constructed by the inventor to designate sounds which occasionally occur –
Most of these letters can already be found in Unicode:
* ()
* ()
* (for composing m̂ and n̂)
*
*
* ()
Letter ''r''
Some phonemes, such as ''ö'' and ''ü'' , were not avoided, despite being uncommon.
[Front rounded vowels such as and occur in only 7.10% of the languages in the UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Databasebr>]
/ref>
Schleyer's 1880 Volapük as well as Modern Volapük has minimal pair, minimal ''l–r'' pairs such as ''rel'' "religion" versus ''lel'' "iron".
Syllabic stress
Polysyllabic words are always stressed on the final vowel; for example, ''neai'' "never" is pronounced . (However, the question clitic "-li" does not affect the stress of the word it attaches to.) Where there is secondary stress, as is found in the compounding of several roots together, it is found on the final syllable between the roots.
Vocabulary
Schleyer adapted the vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the ...
mostly from English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
, with a smattering of German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
. Some words remain readily recognizable for a speaker of one of the source languages, but many others are modified beyond easy recognition.["For example, while it is true that words like vol and pük don't really look like world and speak, but the whole language is not like that. Scores of words are very obvious as what they mean – if, fasilik, gudik/badik, smalik, jerik (pronounced sherík – expensive), bank, bäk (back), deadik". �]
"What the L!"
AUXLANG list posting by Thomas Alexander, 15 November 2005. For instance, ''vol'' and ''pük'' are derived from the English words ''world'' and ''speak''. Although unimportant linguistically, and regardless of the simplicity and consistency of the stress rule, these deformations were greatly mocked by the language's detractors. It seems to have been Schleyer's intention, however, to alter its loan words in such a way that they would be hard to recognise, thus losing their ties to the languages (and, by extension, nations) from which they came. Conversely, Esperanto and Interlingua are commonly criticized as being much easier to learn for Europeans than for those with non-European native languages.
Grammar
The grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...
is based on that of typical European languages, but with an agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative l ...
character: grammatical inflections are indicated by stringing together separate affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ...
es for each element of meaning.
Nouns
Nouns inflect for case and number, but not for gender.
The following is the declension of the Volapük word ''vol'' "world":
As in German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, the Volapük noun has four cases: nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...
, genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
, dative
In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...
and accusative
The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
. In compound words, the first part of the compound is usually separated from the second by the genitive termination ''-a'', e.g. ''Vola-pük'', "of-world language": "language of the world". However, the other case endings (''-e'' dative, ''-i'' accusative) are sometimes used if applicable, or the roots may be agglutinated in the nominative, with no separating vowel.
Adjectives and adverbs
Adjective
In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
s, formed by the suffix ''-ik'', normally follow the noun they qualify. They do not agree with the noun in number and case in that position, but do if they precede the noun, are separated from it by intervening words, or stand alone. Adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
s are formed by suffixing ''-o'', either to the root or to the adjectival ''-ik'' (''gudik'' "good", ''gudiko'' "well"); they normally follow the verb or adjective they modify.
Pronouns
The pronouns begin with ''o-.'' In the singular, they are ''ob'' "I", ''ol'' " thou", ''om'' "he/it", ''of'' "she", ''os'' (impersonal), ''on'' "one", ''ok'' "oneself". They are pluralized with ''-s'': ''obs'' "we", ''ols'' "ye", ''oms'' "they". The possessive may be formed with either the genitive ''-a'' or with adjectival ''-ik'': ''oba'' or ''obik'' "my". Prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are also formed from noun roots by appending appropriate suffixes. In later, reformed Volapük, ''om'' was narrowed down to males only, whereas ''on'' got the meaning of 'it' as well as impersonal 'they'.
Verbs
The verb
A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
carries a fine degree of detail, with morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
s marking tense, aspect, voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
, person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
, number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...
and (in the third person) the subject's gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...
. However, many of these categories are optional, and a verb can stand in an unmarked state. A Volapük verb can be conjugated in 1,584 ways (including infinitives and reflexives).
;Person
For the simple present, the pronouns are suffixed to the verb stem:
:''binob'' I am, ''binol'' thou art,
etc. The present passive takes the prefix ''pa-'':
:''palöfons'' they are loved.
;Tense, aspect, and voice
The three tenses in the indicative, and the three perfect aspects, each take a characteristic vowel prefix:
The present-tense prefix is omitted in the active voice, so:
:''binob'' I am, ''äbinol'' you were, ''ebinom'' he has been, ''ibinof'' she had been, ''obinos'' it will be, ''ubinon'' one will have been.
These are seen as being more distant from the present tense the further the vowel is from in vowel space, and they can be used with temporal words to indicate distance in the past or future. For example, from ''del'' 'day',
:''adelo'' today, ''odelo'' tomorrow, ''udelo'' the day after tomorrow, ''ädelo'' yesterday, ''edelo'' the day before yesterday, ''idelo'' three days ago.
The passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or '' patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing ...
is formed with ''p-'', and here the ''a'' is required for the present tense:
:''palöfob'' I am loved, ''pälogol'' you were seen, ''pologobs'' we will be seen.
;Infinitive mood
The infinitive is formed with the suffix ''-ön''. It can be combined with tense/aspect prefixes:
:''Logön'' to see, ''elogön'' to have seen.
;Interrogative mood
Yes–no questions are indicated with the particle ''li'':
:''Pälogom-li'' was he seen?
The hyphen indicates that the syllable ''li'' does not take stress. It occurs before the verb to avoid a sequence of three consonants or a double el: ''li-pälogol? li-binoms?''
;Participles and the habitual aspect
Participles, both active and passive, are formed in ''-öl'':
:''Logöl'' seeing, ''elogöl'' having seen, ''ologöl'' being about to see, ''palogöl'' seen (being seen), ''pelogöl'' seen (having been seen), ''pologöl'' about to be seen.
''Binob penöl'' is literally 'I am writing', though ''penob'' is also used. For "I write" as habitual action, the habitual aspect is used. This is formed by adding ''-i-'' after the tense prefix, and here again the present-tense ''a-'' is required. The forms are thus active ''ai-, äi-, ei-, ii-, oi-, ui-,'' passive ''pai-, päi-, pei-, pii-, poi-, pui-.'' All are pronounced as two syllables.
:''Aifidob bodi'' I eat bread (as a daily occurrence), ''äipenob penedis'' I used to write letters.
With temporal words,
:''aidelo'' daily (at the present time)
;The imperative moods
The imperative ''-öd'' follows the person suffix:
:''Gololöd!'' Go! (to one person), ''gololsöd!'' go! (to more than one person)
Optative
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mood ...
''-ös'' is used for courteous requests, and jussive
The jussive (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood of verbs for issuing orders, commanding, or exhorting (within a subjunctive framework). English verbs are not marked for this mood. The mood is similar to the ''cohortative'' mood, which typically a ...
''-öz'' an emphatic command.
;Conditional mood
Conditionals are formed with ''-la'' for the protasis (''if''-clause) and ''-öv'' for the apodosis (''then''-clause):
: ''If äbinob-la liegik, äbinoböv givik'' – if I were rich I would be generous.
: ''Ibinomöv givik, if ibinom-la liegik'' – he would have been generous if he had been rich.
Note that the tense changes as well, so that in the first example the past tense is used even though the present tense is intended. Like the question particle, the ''-la'' is written with a hyphen to indicate that it is not stressed in speech.
;Potential mood
A potential mood is formed with ''-öx'':
:''Pelomöx'' he might pay.
;Reflexive verbs
Reflexive forms are made from the active voice and the pronoun ''ok'':
:''Vatükob'' I wash, ''vatükobok'' (or ''vatükob obi'') I wash myself.
In the third person, the periphrastic form of ''vatükomok'' (he washes himself) must use the reflexive pronoun, ''vatükom oki'', as ''vatükom omi'' would mean "he washes him (someone else)".
The plural ''-s'' may precede or follow the reflexive, as the speaker chooses:
:''vatükomoks'' or ''vatükomsok'' they wash themselves.
Here there is a meaningful distinction between joining the pronoun to the verb, and inflecting it independently:
:''Löfobsok'' we love ourselves, ''löfobs obis'' we love each other.
;Gerundive
The gerundive arguments are active ''ö-'', passive ''pö-''.
Examples
The Lord's Prayer
Usage as common noun
The word ''Volapük'' or a variation thereof means "nonsense, gibberish" in certain languages, such as Danish '' volapyk'' and Esperanto '' volapukaĵo''.[Burger, Harald, et al. ''Phraseologie.'' .] In Russian, the term Volapuk encoding refers to writing Cyrillic letters with the Latin alphabet based on what they look like, for example writing instead of волапюк.
See also
*'' Kosmopolan''
* Volapük Wikipedia
* Esperanto
* Ido
* Interlingua
References
External links
* The Volapük-language Wikipedia's page on Volapük
A Volapük portal, with links to grammar, vocabulary, exercises etc
Description and history of the Volapük Academy
Summaries
in Otto Jespersen's pro Novial
Novial is a constructed international auxiliary language (IAL) for universal human communication between speakers of different native languages. It was devised by Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist who had been involved in the Ido movement tha ...
''An International Language'' (1928)
*
Volapuk
at the Conlang Atlas of Language Structures.
Tutorials
(Follow the 'next' link at the foot of each page for each succeeding lesson...)
Handbooks, grammars and dictionaries
Ralph Midgley's web-page - grammar, lessons, vocabulary, examples
Malgranda gramatiko de Volapuko per Esperanto
by the ex-''Cifal'' Brian Bishop (2015) - Volapük Nulik
Volapük to English dictionary
English to Volapük dictionary
Charles Sprague's Grammar of Volapük, 1888
Fictional treatments
* . Reprinted 201
(Amazon)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Volapuk
1879 introductions
Constructed languages
Endangered languages
Agglutinative languages
International auxiliary languages
International auxiliary languages introduced in the 1880s