Weltdeutsch Explained

Weltdeutsch
Familycolor:constructed
Also Known As:Wede
Posteriori:German
Creator:Wilhelm Ostwald
Iso3:qdw
Iso3comment:(local use). Also used for Coast Yuki
Ietf:art-x-weltdeut (local use)
Date:NA
Fam1:Constructed
Fam2:International auxiliary language
Fam3:Simplified language

Weltdeutsch (pronounced as /de/,) was a proposal for a German-based zonal international auxiliary language by chemist and interlinguist Wilhelm Ostwald.[1] Published in 1916 in Ostwald's Monistic Sunday Sermons, Weltdeutsch was a reflection of the advance of German nationalism during the First World War – Ostwald had long been a pacifist, being aligned with the founded by Ernst Haeckel.[2]

The language consisted of Standard German with some orthographic and phonemic simplifications, but was never fully developed. After publication, there was little further interest in Weltdeutsch; it was not taken up by any German institutions, and was denounced as an act of chauvinism by the interlinguistic circles which Ostwald had been part of.

Background

Wilhelm Ostwald was born a Baltic German in Riga, and thus was raised multilingual in Latvian, German, and Russian. Although best known as the 1909 German laureate of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Ostwald had a long relationship with interlinguistics, being first introduced to the science via Volapük by physicist Arthur von Oettingen at the University of Tartu.[3] He later became a member of the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language at the behest of one of its founders, Louis Couturat (later cocreator of Ido) in October 1903, and later assumed chairmanship on 20 November 1906, continuing to chair it in 1907 when it introduced Ido,[4] greatly disrupting the Esperanto movement.[5]

For the majority of his time as a proponent of an international language, Ostwald was an Idist, remaining a proponent of the language after the dissolution of the Delegation, although he spent much time as an Esperantist. Having been invited to be one of Harvard University's visiting scholars by Hugo Münsterberg,[6] he advertised Esperanto to the point of founding 100 Esperanto clubs across the country,[7] and remarking while visiting the Louisiana Purchase Exposition:

German: Da standen die Männer nebeneinander, die sich gegenseitig das Belangreichste zu sagen hatten, aber sie konnten sich nicht verständigen. Denn wenn die meisten Gelehrten und Praktiker heute auch mehrere Sprachen soweit beherrschen, dass sie Fachabhandlungen lesen können, so ist es doch von diesem Punkte noch eine weite und mühsame Reise zum mündlichen Verkehr in der fremden Sprache. So entstand aus der Not der Gedanke der internationalen Sprache von neuem.[8]

English translation:

The men who had the most important things to tell each other stood there, but they could not understand one another. Even if most of today's scholars and practitioners have mastered several languages to the point of being able to read technical papers, it is still a long and arduous journey hence to the point of oral communication in the foreign language. So, out of these distressing thoughts, arose the idea of an international language once again.

Ostwald eventually left Esperanto for Ido for several reasons, including issues with Esperanto orthography, the irregularities in its grammar, but most importantly the "blind fanaticism often attached to religious movements." Aside from Ido, Ostwald had also joined Peano's Academia pro Interlingua.[9] As an internationalist, Ostwald was also a pacifist,[10] deeming pacifism a "scientific duty".[11]

During the First World War, German nationalism was popularised even amongst pacifists such as Ostwald. Ostwald was a signatory of the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three, and expressed his newfound nationalistic sentiments, alongside speeches and sermons, through the creation of his Weltdeutsch,[12] [13] a simplified form of German with the goal of easing learning of the language in countries to be conquered by Germany and occupied by German troops,[14] [15] as part of the German colonial empire.[16] Aside from uses as an easy to learn form of German, Ostwald also promoted Weltdeutsch as a new international language for science. In 1916, Ostwald published the fifth volume of his Monistic Sunday Sermons, wherein he introduced the language in its 36th chapter, entitled "Weltdeutsch".

From the mid-19th century to Ostwald's project, several other projects for the aim of creating an international German by the use of corpus planning had existed, several of which were under the name Weltdeutsch: that of Dr. N. Lichtenstein[17] in his 1853 book "Pasilogy, or, World Language" (),[18] and Adalbert Baumann's (also known as Wede, amongst many later incarnations).[19] Also of note is Oswald Salzmann's Simplified German, published in 1913,[20] which partly used an extensive spelling reform to achieve the goal of simplification.[21] Languages created for chauvinistic purposes had also already existed: according to Detlev Blanke, Elias Molee's Tutonish falls under this category.[22]

Features

Outside of the work published in Monistische Sonntagspredigten, little is known about the language; Ostwald left it simply as a theory, without further developing its lexicon or grammar.[23]

Arguing that the "pointless squandering of energy that lies in the multiplicity and irregularity of older linguistic forms" needed to be eliminated,[24] his language included reforms such as a simplification in phonology and orthography, simplifying the use of grammatical gender in the language to one article ("de", as in Dutch), and the removal of the letters <ä>, <ö>, and <ü>, corresponding to the phonemes [ɛ], [ɛ], and [ʏ], as well as the multigraphs , , with the digraph replaced with .[25]

Weltdeutsch is one of many simplified and regularised constructed languages; other examples in a similar vein include Swedish engineer August Nilson's 1897 , Felix Lenz's Pasilingua Hebraica, French judge 's 1907 , and Serafin Bernhard's .[26]

Reception

Weltdeutsch was met with disappointment from the interlinguistic community, and the language was denounced as a product of chauvinism.[27] [28] On 30 December 1915, Ostwald was met by a letter from colleague Leopold Pfaundler, with whom Ostwald had collaborated on the 1911 book International Language and Science,[29] in which Pfaundler wrote:

"Your suggestion of a world German not only seems to be inconsistent with our prior approach and an act of ingratitude, but also entirely hopeless with respect to feasibility. Thus I am making an appeal to you not to continue the plan further, granting us moreover in this besieged time your exceedingly valuable continued cooperation as well. I remain despite the war in contact with Swedish and Danish Idists and dins everywhere the greatest willingness to cooperate. We must advance the work from these neutral states and Switzerland, and not let it slumber."[30]
To this, Ostwald responded: "I was very conscious that my suggestion of Weltdeutsch would arouse displeasure and even also protest among my Ido friends", turning away from the Ido movement:
"I will not publicly turn my back on Ido, since it represents a very significant im-provement over Esperanto under all circumstances, but from the above articulated reasons I can also not any longer expend any special effort on this, in my opinion, hopeless labor."

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Says . Michael Noelle . 2017-02-26 . German Auxiliary Languages – Weltdeutsch © SmarterGerman 2022 . 2023-04-04 . smartergerman.com . en-US . 4 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230404220911/https://smartergerman.com/blog/weltdeutsch/ . live .
  2. Storm . Jason Ānanda Josephson . Jason Josephson Storm . November 2021 . Monism and the Religion of Science: How a German New Religious Movement Birthed American Academic Philosophy . . 25 . 2 . 10.1525/nr.2021.25.2.12 . 240478349 . 5 April 2023 . 5 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230405153629/https://online.ucpress.edu/nr/article-abstract/25/2/12/118733/Monism-and-the-Religion-of-ScienceHow-a-German-New?redirectedFrom=fulltext . live .
  3. Book: Ostwald, Wilhelm . Lebenslinien Eine Selbstbiographie . 1927 . Karl-Maria Guth . Berlin . 965679633 . 6 April 2023 . 20 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230420173337/https://books.google.com/books?id=1qMQwAEACAAJ . live .
  4. Web site: Wilhelm Ostwald on World-Language . 2023-04-10 . interlanguages.net . 10 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230410193126/http://interlanguages.net/WO.html . live .
  5. Schor . Esther . 2009-12-30 . L.L. Zamenhof and the Shadow People . The New Republic . 2023-04-25 . 0028-6583 . 25 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230425145005/https://newrepublic.com/article/72110/ll-zamenhof-and-the-shadow-people . live .
  6. Book: Information beyond borders : international cultural and intellectual exchange in the Belle Époque . 2016 . Routledge . W. Boyd Rayward . 978-1-315-58851-3 . London . 98 . 952728882.
  7. Book: Krajewski, Markus . Language as a Scientific Tool: Shaping Scientific Language Across Time and National Traditions . 2016-01-29 . Routledge . 978-1-317-32750-9 . 182–190 . en . One Second Language for Mankind: The Rise and Decline of the World Auxiliary Language in the Belle Époque . 6 April 2023 . 20 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230420173341/https://books.google.com/books?id=WDF-CwAAQBAJ . live .
  8. Book: Ostwald, Wilhelm . Die Forderung des Tages . Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft . 1911 . 453 . de . Wilhelm Ostwald.
  9. Book: Guérard, Albert Léon . A short history of the International Language Movement . 1921 . New York : Boni . Robarts - University of Toronto . 176.
  10. Wall . Florence E. . January 1, 1948 . Wilhelm Ostwald. . Journal of Chemical Education . en . 25 . 1 . 2 . 10.1021/ed025p2 . 1948JChEd..25....2W . 0021-9584 . 10 April 2023 . 10 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230410193125/https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed025p2 . live .
  11. Holt . Niles R. . 5 January 2009 . Wilhelm Ostwald's 'The Bridge' . The British Journal for the History of Science . en . 10 . 2 . 146–150 . 10.1017/S0007087400015399 . 144077756 . 1474-001X . 10 April 2023 . 10 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230410193125/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/abs/wilhelm-ostwalds-the-bridge/F9599C888DD74D01ADA6CD122B6AC933 . live .
  12. Book: Leber, Christoffer . Freethinkers in Europe: National and Transnational Secularities, 1789−1920s . 2020-08-24 . De Gruyter . 978-3-11-068828-3 . Kosuch . Carolin . 196–197 . 10.1515/9783110688283 . 242623815 . 4 April 2023 . 4 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230404220906/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110688283/html . live .
  13. Web site: Anton . Günter . L'agado di profesoro Wilhelm Ostwald por la LINGUO INTERNACIONA IDO - Wikisource . 2023-04-06 . wikisource.org . io . 28 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230428170954/https://wikisource.org/wiki/L%27agado_di_profesoro_Wilhelm_Ostwald_por_la_LINGUO_INTERNACIONA_IDO . live .
  14. Book: Information beyond borders : international cultural and intellectual exchange in the Belle Epoque . 2016 . Warden Boyd Rayward . 978-1-315-58851-3 . London . 16 . 1081423428.
  15. Book: Lins, Ulrich . Dangerous language -- esperanto under Hitler and Stalin. Volume 1 . 2016 . Palgrave Macmillan . Humphrey Tonkin . 978-1-137-54916-7 . London, England . 49 . 985044614.
  16. Constructing worlds with words : science and international language in the early twentieth century . . 2014 . 10.26481/dis.20140618fk . Fabian . de Kloe . 10 April 2023 . 28 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230428170945/https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/en/publications/constructing-worlds-with-words-science-and-international-language . live . free . pp. 140-144.
  17. Book: Barandovská-Frank, Vĕra . Interlingvistiko: enkonduko en la sciencon pri planlingvoj . 2020 . Wydawnictwo Rys . 978-83-65483-53-9 . 123 . eo . 28 April 2023 . 25 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230425113405/https://books.google.com/books?id=IxZczgEACAAJ . live .
  18. Book: L, Dr . Pasilogie oder die Weltsprache. Von Dz. L. . 1853 . Kern . de . 28 April 2023 . 28 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230428170945/https://books.google.com/books?id=elL_ts6JqcsC . live .
  19. Book: Janton, Pierre . Esperanto: Language, Literature, and Community . 1993-01-01 . SUNY Press . 978-0-7914-1253-4 . 10 . en . 28 April 2023 . 25 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230425113412/https://books.google.com/books?id=rTZhbJq8pJ0C&q=lichtenstein+%22weltdeutsch%22 . live .
  20. Book: Salzmann, Oswald . Das vereinfachte Deutsch, die Sprache aller Völker, von Oswald Salzmann . 1913 . O. Salzmann . de . 28 April 2023 . 28 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230428171003/https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-9iQwAACAAJ . live .
  21. Fáy . Tamás . 2014 . Vereinfachtes Deutsch als Verständigungssprache . Simplified German as a Language of Communication . Publicationes Universitatis Miskolcinensis Sectio Philosophica . 18 . 3 . 28 April 2023 . 15 March 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230315021851/https://matarka.hu/koz/ISSN_1219-543X/tomus_18_fasc_3_2015/ISSN_1219-543X_tomus_18_fas_3_2014_085-094.pdf . de . live .
  22. Book: Interlinguistics : aspects of the science of planned languages . 1989 . Mouton de Gruyter . Dan Maxwell, Klaus Schubert . 978-3-11-088611-5 . Berlin . 74 . Planned languages - a survey of some of the main problems . 815504999.
  23. Book: Schweizer, Frank . Seltsame Sprache(n): Oder wie man am Amazonas bis drei zählt . 2011-10-04 . Militzke Verlag . 978-3-86189-788-0 . de . 6 April 2023 . 28 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230428170949/https://books.google.com/books?id=qmF4DwAAQBAJ&dq=Weltdeutsch&pg=PT180 . live .
  24. Book: Gordin, Michael D. . Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English . 2015-04-13 . University of Chicago Press . 978-0-226-00029-9 . 129, 160–162 . en . In the Linguistic Shadow of the Great War . https://books.google.com/books?id=pAvyBgAAQBAJ&dq=Weltdeutsch&pg=PA363 . 6 April 2023 . 28 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230428170951/https://books.google.com/books?id=pAvyBgAAQBAJ&dq=Weltdeutsch&pg=PA363 . live .
  25. Blanke . Detlev . Detlev Blanke . January 1999 . Wilhelm Ostwald, Ido und die Interlinguistik . Mitteilungen der Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gesellschaft zu Großbothen e.V. . 4 . 54–55 . 28 April 2023 . 4 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230404222748/https://www.wilhelm-ostwald.de/joomla/attachments/article/134/Mitt.%20WOG%204(1999)1.pdf . live .
  26. Book: Pei, Mario . One Language for the World . 1968 . Biblo & Tannen Publishers . 978-0-8196-0218-3 . 123 . en . 6 April 2023 . 20 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230420173336/https://books.google.com/books?id=6hV0zzsyxzUC&dq=Weltdeutsch&pg=PA123 . live .
  27. Book: McElvenny, James . Language and meaning in the age of modernism : C.K. Ogden and his contemporaries . 2018 . 978-1-4744-2504-9 . Edinburgh . 140 . 1037351840 . 10 April 2023 . 5 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220205075717/http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1037351840 . live .
  28. Book: Forster, Peter G. . The Esperanto Movement . 2013-02-06 . Walter de Gruyter . 978-3-11-082456-8 . 134 . en . 6 April 2023 . 20 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230420173341/https://books.google.com/books?id=tbgfAAAAQBAJ&dq=Weltdeutsch&pg=PA134 . live .
  29. Book: Ostwald . Wilhelm . International Language and Science: Considerations on the Introduction of an International Language Into Science . Jespersen . Otto . Lorenz . Richard . Couturat . Louis . Pflaundler . Leopol . 1910 . Constable, limited . Donnan . Frederick George . en . Otto Jespersen . Richard Lorenz (chemist) . Louis Couturat . 28 April 2023 . 28 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230428171012/https://books.google.com/books?id=rloKAAAAIAAJ . live .
  30. Book: Wilhelm Ostwald Gesellschaft . Mitteilungen der Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gesellschaft zu Großbothen e. V Sonderheft . 1999 . 1433-3910.

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