87 A Universal Language

Perhaps you are familiar with the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, in which humans were punished for their arrogance by having their one language transformed into hundreds of different tongues. Regardless of the origins of our various languages, trying to develop one that could be universally understood has been an obsession to which various people have devoted their lives.

Beginning to examine the problem in the 1500s, philosophers and language experts concluded that it was possible to find an underlying logic that made all languages basically similar. From that point on, scholars began to search for that logic and construct their own languages.

One of the most successful of these artificial languages is called Esperanto. The brainchild of a Polish eye doctor named Zamenhof, Esperanto uses words and grammatical structures from many European languages. At the same time, however, it aims for simplicity: for example, the basic form of all nouns ends in o; the basic form of all adjectives ends in a. At the time it was developed, around 1887, interest in created languages had reached a high point, and Zamenhof was assisted by many other scholars and language experts who believed in his cause. Their work produced an artificial tongue that at one point could boast speakers in over ninety countries.

Today, English has pretty much become the universal language that Zamenhof and others dreamed of, and there seems to be less need for made-up forms. But interest in artificial languages persists, particularly on the Internet: not only Esperanto, but lesser-known forms such as Interlingua, Glosa, and Lojban all have their devoted followers.

87 通用语言

或许你熟悉《圣经》中巴别塔的故事：人类因傲慢而受到惩罚，他们原本统一的语言被变成了数百种不同的语言。无论我们各种语言的起源是什么，研发一种能被普遍理解的语言，一直是许多人毕生痴迷的目标。

从16世纪开始研究这个问题起，哲学家和语言专家们得出结论：可以找到一种底层逻辑，让所有语言本质上是相似的。从那时起，学者们开始寻找这种逻辑，并构建自己的语言。

这些人造语言中最成功的一种叫做世界语。它是波兰眼科医生柴门霍夫的创意，世界语借鉴了许多欧洲语言的词汇和语法结构。同时，它追求简洁：比如，所有名词的基本形式以“o”结尾；所有形容词的基本形式以“a”结尾。在1887年左右它被研发出来时，人们对人造语言的兴趣正处于高峰，许多相信柴门霍夫理念的学者和语言专家都协助了他。他们的成果创造出一种人造语言，一度在超过90个国家拥有使用者。

如今，英语几乎已经成为柴门霍夫等人梦想中的通用语言，人造语言的需求似乎减少了。但人们对人造语言的兴趣依然存在，尤其是在互联网上：不仅世界语，还有像因特林瓜语、格洛萨语和逻辑语这样不太知名的语言，都有忠实的追随者。