Volapükconventions took place in 1884 (Friedrichshafen), 1887 (Munich) and 1889 (Paris). The first two conventions usedGerman, and the last conference used only Volapük. By 1889, there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals in or about Volapük, and 316 textbooks in 25 languages;[6] at that time the language claimed nearly a million adherents.[7] Volapük experienced a small revival in the 1930s due toArie de Jong's reforms of the language, which became called Volapük nulik. This form simplified the language and became the commonly accepted form of it. Volapük was largely displaced between the late 19th and early 20th century byEsperanto, as many Volapükists switched to Esperanto due to the internal conflicts within the Volapükist movement.[8][9][10]
Volapük still maintains a small userbase to this day, and it has seen a small revival in the 21st century.[11]
Volapük was first created byJohann Martin Schleyer, who was aRoman Catholic priest. As Schleyer met an oldGerman peasant who could not write to his son due to the linguistic barrier, he was very symphathetic, causing him to decide that there should be a means of international communication. He first created a "National alphabet", which could express the sounds of every language in the world. However, his alphabet system did not gain any recognition, which caused him to develop insomnia. During one sleepless night, he believed that God told him not to despair, and had called him to create an international auxiliary language.[1] Schleyer first published a sketch of Volapük in May 1879 inSionsharfe,[12] a Catholic poetry magazine of which he was editor. This was followed in 1880 by a full-length book in German. Schleyer himself did not write books on Volapük in other languages, but other authors soon did, such asComprehensive Volapük Grammar by Alfred A. Post,[13]A Complete Grammar of Volapük by A. K. Linderfelt, andA Handbook of Volapük by Andrew Drummond.
André Cherpillod writes of the third Volapük convention,
In August 1889 the third convention was held inParis. About two hundred people from many countries attended. And, unlike in the first two conventions, people spoke only Volapük. For the first time in the history of mankind, sixteen years beforethe Boulogne convention, an international convention spoke an international language.[14]
Volapük experienced a short period of very high success, spreading first toFrance, and then elsewhere. At one point there were perhaps up to even one million students of Volapük, but later began to decline.[5]
TheDutchcryptographerAuguste Kerckhoffs was for a number of years director of theAcademy of Volapük, and introduced the movement to several countries.[15]The French Association for the Propagation of Volapük was authorized on 8 April 1886, with A. Lourdelet as president and a central committee that included the deputyEdgar Raoul-Duval.[16]However, tensions arose between Kerckhoffs and others in the Academy, who wanted reforms made to the language, and Schleyer, who insisted strongly on retaining his proprietary rights. This led to schism, with much of the Academy abandoning Schleyer's Volapük in favor ofIdiom Neutral and other new constructed language projects. Another reason for the decline of Volapük may have been the rise ofEsperanto. By 1890 the movement was in disarray, with violent arguments among the members. Schleyer resigned from the Volapük Academy and created a rival academy. Derived languages such asNal Bino, Balta, Bopal, Spelin, Dil and Orba were invented and quickly forgotten.[17][18][19]
In 1887 the first Esperanto book (Unua Libro) was published. However, the internal collapse of the Volapük movement caused its gradual replacement by Esperanto, as many of its speakers joined the Esperanto movement which was linguistically simpler, and lacked central control, causing many previous Volapük clubs were converted to being Esperanto clubs. The influence of Volapük was thus a major driver of the initial Esperanto movement, as it set the stage for the widespread usage of constructed languages, though its own usage declined radically.[19]
Commemorative inscription for J. M. Schleyer on the wall of the parsonage in Litzelstetten,Konstanz, written in Volapük and German:
Menade bal – püki bal Eine Menschheit – eine Sprache (One mankind – one language)
In the 1920s,Arie de Jong, with the consent of the leaders of the small remnant of Volapük speakers, made a revision of Volapük which was published in 1931 (now calledVolapük Nulik "New Volapük" as opposed to theVolapük Rigik 'Original Volapük' of Schleyer). This revision was accepted by the few speakers of the language. De Jong simplified the grammar, eliminating some rarely used verb forms, and eliminated some gendered pronouns and gendered verb endings. He also rehabilitated thephoneme/r/ and used it to make some morphemes more recognizable. For instance,lömib "rain" becamerein.[20] These reforms made the language simpler overall.[9] Volapük enjoyed a brief renewal of popularity in the Netherlands and Germany under de Jong's leadership, but was suppressed (along with other constructed languages) in countries under Nazi rule and never recovered.
Regarding the success of this constructed language, the Spanish scientistSantiago Ramón y Cajal wrote in the first edition of hisTonics of Willingness, in 1898:
Nowadays, many scientific papers are published in more than six languages. To the likely attempt of restoring Latin or using Esperanto as the universal language of science, wise men have responded by multiplying the number of languages in which scientific works are published. We have to acknowledge that Volapük or Esperanto are practically one more language to be learnt. This result was predictable because neither the essentially popularized and democratic tendencies of modern knowledge, nor the economic views of authors and editors consent in a different way.[clarification needed][21]
However, some years later (1920), in the third edition of the same book, he added the following footnote to the former assertion: "As it was presumable, nowadays -1920-, the brand new Volapük has been forgotten definitively. We forecast the same for Esperanto."
In 2000 there were an estimated 20 Volapük speakers in the world.[1]
In December 2007 it was reported that theVolapük version of Wikipedia had recently jumped to 15th place among language editions, with more than 112,000 articles.[24]A few months earlier there had been only 797 articles. The massive increase in the size of "Vükiped", bringing it ahead of the Esperanto Wikipedia, was due to an enthusiast who had used a computer program to automatically create geographical articles, many on small villages. The motive was to gain visibility for the language.[25]By March 2013 the Esperanto Wikipedia, with a very active user community, had risen to 176,792 articles, while theVolapük Wikipedia had at that point 119,091 articles.[26] In 2013 and 2014, the Volapük Wikipedia was presented as evidence that the internet is helping revive the Volapük movement,[27][28] albeit merely as a hobby, devoid of its former internationalist aim. As one of the largest works written in the language over the last century, it has an impact on the development of modern Volapükneologisms, particularly geographical terms.[29]
There has been a continuous Volapük speaker community since Schleyer's time, with an unbroken succession ofCifals (leaders). These were:
^abW and R were not included in the original version of Volpük.
Additionally, ⟨x⟩ represents the sequence /ks/. The letters C, J, S and Z are pronounced voiced after voiced consonants and unvoiced otherwise.[36]
There are no diphthongs; each vowel letter is pronounced separately. Polysyllabic words are alwaysstressed on the final vowel; for example,neaicode: vol promoted to code: vo "never" is pronounced[ne.a.ˈi]. Exceptionally, the question clitic "-li" does not shift the stress of the word it attaches to. When words are compounded together, secondary stress is retained on the final syllables of the compounded elements, as long as that does not result in adjacent stressed syllables.[36]
The lettersä,ö, andü do not have alternative forms such as theae,oe, andue ofGerman, but Schleyer proposed alternative formsꞛ,ꞝ, andꞟ for them, all of which are part ofUnicode since version 7.0 released in June 2014:[37]
Schleyer adapted thevocabulary mostly fromEnglish, with a smattering ofGerman,Italian,Spanish,Russian andFrench. Some words remain readily recognizable for a speaker of one of the source languages, but many others are modified beyond easy recognition, as Schleyer wanted to keep most vocabularymonosyllabic.[4][3] For instance,vol andpük are derived from the English wordsworld andspeak. Although unimportant linguistically, and regardless of the simplicity and consistency of the stress rule, these deformations were greatly mocked by the language's detractors. It seems to have been Schleyer's intention, however, to alter its loan words in such a way that they would be hard to recognise, thus losing their ties to the languages (and, by extension, nations) from which they came. Conversely,Esperanto andInterlingua are commonly criticized as being much easier to learn forEuropeans than for those with non-European native languages.[38] However, during the reforms of the language in the 1930s, some of the vocabulary was made more recognizable, particularly with the introduction of the letter r, thus words such aslilöm (rain) andlilädön (to read) becamerein andreidön. This also made international words such asdolar (dollar) easier to recognize.[39]
Grammatically, Volapük was highly influenced particularly byGerman, although it gets rid of the irregular features of German grammar.[5] The reforms of Volapük also however simplified its grammar, and removing grammatical features such as theaorist.[39]
Thegrammar is based on that of typical European languages, but with anagglutinative character: grammatical inflections are indicated by stringing together separateaffixes for each element of meaning.
Nouns inflect for case and number, but not for gender.
The following is the declension of the Volapük wordvolcode: vol promoted to code: vo "world":
Case
Singular
Plural
Nominative
vol (world)
vols (worlds)
Genitive
vola (of the world)
volas (of the worlds)
Dative
vole (to the world)
voles (to the worlds)
Accusative
voli (world)
volis (worlds)
As inGerman, the Volapük noun has four cases:nominative,genitive,dative andaccusative. In compound words, the first part of the compound is usually separated from the second by the genitive termination-a, e.g. Vola-pük, "of-world language": "language of the world". However, the other case endings (-e dative,-i accusative) are sometimes used if applicable, or the roots may be agglutinated in the nominative, with no separating vowel.
Adjectives, formed by the suffix-ik, normally follow the noun they qualify. They do not agree with the noun in number and case in that position, but they do if they precede the noun, are separated from it by intervening words, or stand alone.Adverbs are formed by suffixing-o, either to the root or to the adjectival-ik (gudikcode: vol promoted to code: vo "good",gudikocode: vol promoted to code: vo "well"); they normally follow the verb or adjective they modify.
The pronouns begin witho-. In the singular, they areobcode: vol promoted to code: vo "I",olcode: vol promoted to code: vo "thou",omcode: vol promoted to code: vo "he/it",ofcode: vol promoted to code: vo "she",oscode: vol promoted to code: vo (impersonal),[40]oncode: vol promoted to code: vo "one",okcode: vol promoted to code: vo "oneself". They are pluralized with-s:obscode: vol promoted to code: vo "we",olscode: vol promoted to code: vo "ye",omscode: vol promoted to code: vo "they". The possessive may be formed with either the genitive-a or with adjectival-ik:obacode: vol promoted to code: vo orobikcode: vol promoted to code: vo "my". Prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are also formed from noun roots by appending appropriate suffixes. In later, reformed Volapük,omcode: vol promoted to code: vo was narrowed down to males only, whereasoncode: vol promoted to code: vo got the meaning of 'it' as well as impersonal 'they'.[41]
Theverb carries a fine degree of detail, withmorphemes markingtense,aspect,voice,person,number and (in the third person) the subject'sgender. However, many of these categories are optional, and a verb can stand in an unmarked state. A Volapük verb can be conjugated in 1,584 ways (including infinitives and reflexives).[42]
Person
For the simple present, the pronouns are suffixed to the verb stem:
binob I am,binol thou art,
etc. The present passive takes the prefixpa-:
palöfons they are loved.
Tense, aspect, and voice
The three tenses in theindicative, and the threeperfect aspects, each take a characteristic vowel prefix:
Tense
Prefix
Past
ä-
Past perfect
i-
Present
a-
Present perfect
e-
Future
o-
Future perfect
u-
The present-tense prefix is omitted in the active voice, so:
binob I am,äbinol you were,ebinom he has been,ibinof she had been,obinos it will be,ubinon one will have been.
These are seen as being more distant from the present tense the further the vowel is from[a] invowel space, and they can be used with temporal words to indicate distance in the past or future. For example, fromdel 'day',
adelo today,odelo tomorrow,udelo the day after tomorrow,ädelo yesterday,edelo the day before yesterday,idelo three days ago.
Thepassive voice is formed withp-, and here thea is required for the present tense:
palöfob I am loved,pälogol you were seen,pologobs we will be seen.
Infinitive mood
The infinitive is formed with the suffix-ön. It can be combined with tense/aspect prefixes:
Logön to see,elogön to have seen.
Interrogative mood
Yes–no questions are indicated with the particleli:
Pälogom-li was he seen?
The hyphen indicates that the syllableli does not take stress. It occurs before the verb to avoid a sequence of three consonants or a double el:li-pälogol? li-binoms?
Participles and the habitual aspect
Participles, both active and passive, are formed with-öl:
Logöl seeing,elogöl having seen,ologöl being about to see,palogöl seen (being seen),pelogöl seen (having been seen),pologöl about to be seen.
Binob penöl is literally 'I am writing', thoughpenob is also used. For "I write" as habitual action, thehabitual aspect is used. This is formed by adding-i- after the tense prefix, and here again the present-tensea- is required. The forms are thus activeai-, äi-, ei-, ii-, oi-, ui-, passivepai-, päi-, pei-, pii-, poi-, pui-. All are pronounced as two syllables.
Aifidob bodi I eat bread (as a daily occurrence),äipenob penedis I used to write letters.
With temporal words,
aidelo daily (at the present time)
Imperative mood
The imperative-öd follows the subject suffix:
Gololöd! Go! (to one person),gololsöd! go! (to more than one person)
Optative-ös is used for courteous requests, andjussive-öz an emphatic command.
Conditional mood
Conditionals are formed with-la for theprotasis (if-clause) and-öv for the apodosis (then-clause):
If äbinob-la liegik, äbinoböv givik – if I were rich I would be generous.
Ibinomöv givik, if ibinom-la liegik – he would have been generous if he had been rich.
Note that the tense changes as well, so that in the first example the past tense is used even though the present tense is intended. Like the question particle, the-la is written with a hyphen to indicate that it is not stressed in speech.
Reflexive forms are made from the active voice and the pronounok:
Vatükob I wash,vatükobok (orvatükob obi) I wash myself.
In the third person, the periphrastic form ofvatükomok (he washes himself) must use the reflexive pronoun,vatükom oki, asvatükom omi would mean "he washes him (someone else)".
The plural-s may precede or follow the reflexive, as the speaker chooses:
vatükomoks orvatükomsok they wash themselves.
Here there is a meaningful distinction between joining the pronoun to the verb, and inflecting it independently:
Löfobsok we love ourselves,löfobs obis we love each other.
^These letters were most likely used for contractions and/or a better letter–phoneme correspondence in very rare loanwords from languages like French and Spanish.
^ab"For example, while it is true that words like vol and pük don't really look like world and speak, but the whole language is not like that. Scores of words are very obvious as what they mean – if, fasilik, gudik/badik, smalik, jerik (pronounced sherík – expensive), bank, bäk (back), deadik". –"What the L!", AUXLANG list posting by Thomas Alexander, 15 November 2005.
^A History of the English Language, 5th ed. Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable. Ch. IEnglish Present and Future; Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (2002)
^The Loom of Language F. Bodmer and L. Hogben (eds.) Ch. XIPioneers of Language Planning; Allen & Unwin Ltd, London (1944)
^"Members du Comité Central"(PDF),Le Volapük (in French), Association Français pour la propagation du Volapük:2–3, archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2017-08-11, retrieved2018-01-24
^Gobbo, Federico (2005)."The digital way to spread conlangs".Academia.edu. Università degli Studi dell'Insubria. Retrieved28 July 2014.The Volapük movement appears to have been given a new lease on life by the Internet. At least, internet has given less successful auxlangs the opportunity to demonstrate the tenacity of their supporting movements: Wikipedia, a web place which reflects the engagement of a linguistic community supporting a language, has a version of its own in Volapük, counting 44 entries.
^Fiedler, Sabine (2015). "The topic of planned languages (Esperanto) in the current literature".Language Problems and Language Planning.39 (1):84–104.doi:10.1075/lplp.39.1.05fie.
^Oscode: vol promoted to code: vo is used for cases where the pronoun has no obvious antecedent, such as "I swear it", and perhaps withimpersonal verbs.Omcode: vol promoted to code: vo is used for abstract things such aslitcode: vol promoted to code: vo "light".
