Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 560

THE LATIN ALPHABET
559
PROBLEM OF A STANDARD INTERNATIONAL ALPHABET
This brings us to another linguistic problem; until the present day the alphabet has been the only means of international communication. Its privileged position is due to a natural development lasting many centuries, and accompanied by many other elements. There have been, however, in the last two generations many attempts to aid international communication by the creation of an artificial international language; the attempts have failed. Those who tried to disseminate the study of Esperanto, Volapük, Idiom neutral, Ido, Latino sine flexione, Antido, Occidental and Novial, in order to foster international amity, have been bitterly disappointed as one catastrophic war after the other has swept away the frail connections over national boundaries. An artificial language, taken alone, is insufficient in promoting brotherhood among peoples; much more is needed than a single speech to end wars. These remarks, however impinge upon the domain of politics.
Another problem is that of the possibility of introducing a standard alphabet for rendering English, French, Russian, German, and all the other European and non-European forms of human speech.
This problem is, strictly speaking, a combination of two problems, namely:
(1) The problem, already discussed, of the reform of spelling. This reform of the English and the other European and non-European alphabets should-it is suggested-be based mainly on the Latin alphabet, accepting the consonants b, d, f, g (always hard as in "go"), h (always aspirate as in "hand"), j, k, l, m, n, r (always trilled), s, t, v, to, y, z, pronounced according, for instance, to the long-established English custom, while the basic vowels should be pronounced according to their values in Italian (a as for instance in "father", e, as for instance in "get," i as for instance in "little," u as in "rule" and o as in "oriental").
(2) The second problem consists in establishing a uniform representation of sounds which are peculiar to some languages, such as the sounds th and dh in "think" and "that," the gh of the Arabic ghain, the ch (as in "church"), which is nowadays represented in Czech by e, in Polish by ca, in Hungarian by es (or ts), in German by tsch, and so forth; the palatization of some consonants such as the French and Italian gu; the indeterminate vowel-sounds, for instance of the English terminal e in "marble"; the nasal vowels in French "un," in English "king," in Polish a and e, and so forth; the guttural consonants of Arabic and Hebrew; the clicks of the Hottentot speech; the German ö, ä, ü, and many other sounds, which are, nowadays, represented differently in the various "national" alphabets.