The Problem of an International Language

Paris remains for most people the intellectual capital of Europe; French is still very generally used for purposes of intercommunication throughout Europe, while the difficulty experienced by all but Germans and Russians in learning English is well known. Li Hung Chang is reported to have said that, while for commercial reasons English is far more widely used in China than French, the Chinese find French a much easier language to learn to speak, and the preferences of the Chinese may one day count for a good deal—in one direction or another—in the world's progress. One frequently hears that the use of French for international purposes is decaying; this is a delusion probably due to the relatively slow growth of the French-speaking races and to various temporary political causes. It is only necessary to look at the large International Medical Congresses. Thus at one such Congress at Rome, at which I was present, over six thousand members came from forty-two countries of the globe, and over two thousand of them took part in the proceedings. Four languages (Italian, French, German and English) were used at this Congress. Going over the seven large volumes of Transactions, I find that fifty-nine communications were presented in English, one hundred and seventy-one in German, three hundred and one in French, the rest in Italian. The proportion of English communications to German is thus a little more than one to three, and the proportion of English to French less than one to six. Moreover, the English-speaking members invariably (I believe) used their own language, so that these fifty-nine communications represent the whole contribution of the English-speaking world. And they represent nothing more than that; notwithstanding the enormous spread of English, of which we hear so much, not a single non-English speaker seems to have used English. It might be supposed that this preponderance of French was due to a preponderance of the French element, but this was by no means the case;