Francis Lodwick FRS (or Lodowick; 1619–1694) was a pioneer of ''a priori'' languages (what in the seventeenth century was called a ' philosophical language').

Biography

Francis Lodwick was a merchant of Flemish origin who lived in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. His name appears in ''A Collection of the Names of the Merchants living in and about the City of London'' (1677), with the address "Fan-church street" ( Fenchurch Street). He did not have any higher education and was admitted as a Fellow to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

at the age of 60.

John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He was a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England ...

(1626–1697) reported that there was a group of men taking up the task of constructing a philosophical language left unfinished by John Wilkins (d. 1672). This group included Lodwick, besides Andrew Paschall (c. 1630–c. 1696), Thomas Pigott,

Robert Hooke Robert Hooke (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath who was active as a physicist ("natural philosopher"), astronomer, geologist, meteorologist, and architect. He is credited as one of the first scientists to investigate living ...

and John Ray, the latter being former members of Wilkin's original committee. Lodwick had been working on a universal alphabet for some time, and Wilkins had borrowed some of Lodwick's papers for his 1668 ''Essay''. Hooke notes in his diary for 12 November 1673 that Lodwick had lent him a revised version of his universal alphabet. For 10 July 1675, Hooke notes that Lodwick had discussed the universal character with him and on 28 that he (Hooke) himself had written in the character. The group maintained correspondence until at least 1682. Lodwick's alphabet consists of a system of representing consonants systematically; symbols indicating

place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...

(labial, dental, palatal, velar, sibilant) are modified by indication of the

manner of articulation articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators ( speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, h ...

(voiced, voiceless, aspirated, nasal). Vowels are added as diacritics. This approach is entirely parallel to the

tengwar The Tengwar () script is an artificial script, one of Tolkien's scripts, several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''. Within the context of Tolkien's fictional world, the Tengwar were invented by the ...

alphabet, developed by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

in the 1930s. Lodwick may have been acquainted with

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; 1660 – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, merchant and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translati ...

. Francis' nephew Charles Lodwik (1658–1724), Mayor of New York City in 1694, signed at Defoe's marriage as a witness, and Francis may have introduced Defoe to " Roscommon's Academy", a group founded by Lord Roscommon in 1683. L. L. Zamenhof, creator of

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

, the most widely used constructed

international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a ...

, chose ''Ludwik'' as his non-Jewish name in honor of Francis Lodwick.

Works

*1647 ''A Common Writing: Whereby two, although not understanding one the others Language, yet by the helpe thereof, may communicate their minds one to another'' *1652 ''The Ground-Work, Or Foundation Laid, (or so intended) For the Framing of a New Perfect Language: And an Vniversall or Common Writing. And presented to the consideration of the Learned'' *ca. 1675, ''A Country Not Named'' *1686 ''An Essay towards An Universal Alphabet'',

Philosophical Transactions ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the second journ ...

16, pp. 126-37.

References

Bibliography

*Cram, David and Jaap Maat, ''Universal language schemes in the 17th century'', In Auroux, Koerner, Niederehe, Versteegh (eds.), ''History of the Language Sciences'', Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. * Eco, Umberto, '' The search for the perfect language'', Fontana Press, 1997, , pp. 260-268 *Lewis, Rhodri, ''The efforts of the Aubrey correspondence group to revise John Wilkins’ Essay (1668) and their context'', Historiographia Linguistica 28 (2001), 331-364. *Poole, William, ''A Rare Early-Modern Utopia: Francis Lodwick’s A Country Not Named (c. 1675)'', Utopian Studies 15 (2004), 115-37. *Poole, William, ''The Genesis Narrative in the Circle of Robert Hooke and Francis Lodwick'', in Hessayon and Keene (eds.), ''Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England'', Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. *Poole, William, ''Francis Lodwick’s Creation: Theology and Natural Philosophy in the Early Royal Society.'', Journal of the History of Ideas, 2005. *Salmon, Vivian, ''The Works of Francis Lodwick'', London: Longman, 1972.

External links

Francis Lodwick: A Brief Sketch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lodwick, Francis 1619 births 1694 deaths Linguists from the United Kingdom Flemish philosophers Constructed language creators Creators of writing systems 17th-century linguists Fellows of the Royal Society British people of Flemish descent

Biography

Works

See also

References

Bibliography

External links