An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language
Encyclopedia
An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (London, 1668) is the best-remembered of the numerous works of John Wilkins
, in which he expounds a new universal language
, meant primarily to facilitate international communication among scholars, but envisioned for use by diplomats, travelers, and merchants as well. Unlike many universal language schemes, it was meant merely as an auxiliary to — not a replacement of — existing "natural" languages.
developed at great labor by Wilkins and his colleagues,
which was intended to provide elementary building blocks from which could be constructed the universe's every possible thing and notion.
The Real Character is emphatically not an orthography
in that it is not a written representation of oral speech.
Instead, each symbol represents a concept directly,
without (at least in the early parts of the Essay's presentation) there being any way of vocalizing it at all;
each reader might, if he wished, give voice to the text in his or her own tongue.
Inspiration for this approach came in part from (partially mistaken) accounts of the Chinese writing system.
Later in the Essay Wilkins introduces his "Philosophical Language," which assigns phonetic values to the Real Characters,
should it be desired to read text aloud without using any of the existing national languages.
(The term philosophical language is an ill-defined one, used by various authors over time to mean a variety of things;
most of the description found at the article on "philosophical language
s" applies to Wilkins' Real Character on its own,
even excluding what Wilkins called his "Philosophical Language")
For convenience, the following discussion blurs the distinction between Wilkins' Character and his Language.
Concepts are divided into forty main Genera, each of which gives the first, two-letter syllable of the word; a Genus is divided into Differences, each of which adds another letter; and Differences are divided into Species, which add a fourth letter. For instance, Zi identifies the Genus of “beasts” (mammals); Zit gives the Difference of “rapacious beasts of the dog kind”; Zitα gives the Species of dogs. (Sometimes the first letter indicates a supercategory— e.g. Z always indicates an animal— but this does not always hold.)
The resulting Character, and its vocalization, for a given concept thus captures, to some extent, the concept's semantics
.
The Essay also proposed ideas on weights and measure similar to those later found in the metric system
.
The botanical section of the essay was contributed by John Ray
;
Robert Morison
's criticism of Ray's work began a prolonged dispute between the two men.
One criticism (among many) is that "words expressing closely related ideas have almost the same form, differing perhaps by their last letter only...[I]t would be exceedingly difficult to remember all these minute distinctions, and confusion would arise, in rapid reading and particularly in conversation."
(Umberto Eco
notes that Wilkins himself made such a mistake in the Essay, using Gαde (barley) where apparently Gαpe (tulip) was meant.)
George Edmonds
sought to improve Wilkins' Philosophical Language by reorganizing its grammar and orthography while keeping its taxonomy.
More recent a priori languages (among many others) are Solresol
and Ro.
Jorge Luis Borges
discusses Wilkins' philosophical language in his essay El idioma analítico de John Wilkins (The Analytical Language of John Wilkins), comparing Wilkins’ classification to the fictitious Chinese encyclopedia Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge and expressing doubts about any attempt at a universal classification.
In Neal Stephenson
's Quicksilver
, character Daniel Waterhouse spends considerable time supporting the development of Wilkins' classification system.
John Wilkins
John Wilkins FRS was an English clergyman, natural philosopher and author, as well as a founder of the Invisible College and one of the founders of the Royal Society, and Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death....
, in which he expounds a new universal language
Universal language
Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's population. In some circles, it is a language said to be understood by all living things, beings, and objects alike. It may be the ideal of an international auxiliary language...
, meant primarily to facilitate international communication among scholars, but envisioned for use by diplomats, travelers, and merchants as well. Unlike many universal language schemes, it was meant merely as an auxiliary to — not a replacement of — existing "natural" languages.
Wilkins' scheme
Wilkin's "Real Character" is an ingeniously constructed family of symbols corresponding to an elaborate classification schemeClassification scheme
In metadata a classification scheme is a hierarchical arrangement of kinds of things or groups of kinds of things. Typically it is accompanied by descriptive information of the classes or groups. A classification scheme is intended to be used for an arrangement or division of individual objects...
developed at great labor by Wilkins and his colleagues,
which was intended to provide elementary building blocks from which could be constructed the universe's every possible thing and notion.
The Real Character is emphatically not an orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
in that it is not a written representation of oral speech.
Instead, each symbol represents a concept directly,
without (at least in the early parts of the Essay's presentation) there being any way of vocalizing it at all;
each reader might, if he wished, give voice to the text in his or her own tongue.
Inspiration for this approach came in part from (partially mistaken) accounts of the Chinese writing system.
Later in the Essay Wilkins introduces his "Philosophical Language," which assigns phonetic values to the Real Characters,
should it be desired to read text aloud without using any of the existing national languages.
(The term philosophical language is an ill-defined one, used by various authors over time to mean a variety of things;
most of the description found at the article on "philosophical language
Philosophical language
A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles, like a logical language, but may entail a strong claim of absolute perfection or transcendent or even mystical truth rather than satisfaction of pragmatic goals...
s" applies to Wilkins' Real Character on its own,
even excluding what Wilkins called his "Philosophical Language")
For convenience, the following discussion blurs the distinction between Wilkins' Character and his Language.
Concepts are divided into forty main Genera, each of which gives the first, two-letter syllable of the word; a Genus is divided into Differences, each of which adds another letter; and Differences are divided into Species, which add a fourth letter. For instance, Zi identifies the Genus of “beasts” (mammals); Zit gives the Difference of “rapacious beasts of the dog kind”; Zitα gives the Species of dogs. (Sometimes the first letter indicates a supercategory— e.g. Z always indicates an animal— but this does not always hold.)
The resulting Character, and its vocalization, for a given concept thus captures, to some extent, the concept's semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
.
The Essay also proposed ideas on weights and measure similar to those later found in the metric system
Metric system
The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement. France was first to adopt a metric system, in 1799, and a metric system is now the official system of measurement, used in almost every country in the world...
.
The botanical section of the essay was contributed by John Ray
John Ray
John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...
;
Robert Morison
Robert Morison
Robert Morison was a Scottish botanist and taxonomist. A forerunner of John Ray, he elucidated and developed the first systematic classification of plants.-Life:...
's criticism of Ray's work began a prolonged dispute between the two men.
Related efforts, discussions, and literary references
The Essay has received a certain amount of academic and literary attention, usually casting it as brilliant but hopeless.One criticism (among many) is that "words expressing closely related ideas have almost the same form, differing perhaps by their last letter only...[I]t would be exceedingly difficult to remember all these minute distinctions, and confusion would arise, in rapid reading and particularly in conversation."
(Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
notes that Wilkins himself made such a mistake in the Essay, using Gαde (barley) where apparently Gαpe (tulip) was meant.)
George Edmonds
George Edmonds (lawyer)
George Edmonds was an English teacher, lawyer, and scholar. He is principally remembered for his book A Universal Alphabet, Grammar, and Language, which enlarges upon John Wilkins' earlier An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language...
sought to improve Wilkins' Philosophical Language by reorganizing its grammar and orthography while keeping its taxonomy.
More recent a priori languages (among many others) are Solresol
Solresol
Solresol is an artificial language devised by François Sudre, beginning in 1827. He published his major book on it, Langue musicale universelle, in 1866, though he had already been publicizing it for some years...
and Ro.
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
discusses Wilkins' philosophical language in his essay El idioma analítico de John Wilkins (The Analytical Language of John Wilkins), comparing Wilkins’ classification to the fictitious Chinese encyclopedia Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge and expressing doubts about any attempt at a universal classification.
In Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's Quicksilver
Quicksilver (novel)
Quicksilver is a historical novel by Neal Stephenson, published in 2003. It is the first volume of The Baroque Cycle, his late Baroque historical fiction series, succeeded by The Confusion and The System of the World . Quicksilver won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for the Locus...
, character Daniel Waterhouse spends considerable time supporting the development of Wilkins' classification system.
Further reading
- E.N. da C. Andrade, The real character of bishop Wilkins. Ann. Science, Vol. 1, Iss. 1 (January 1936), pp. 4–12
- Steven Pinker, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language, 2000