Let Volapük Have Its Moment

So enthusiastic about the new one.

A week after announcing the creation of Esperanto, Baltimore, Maryland's Deutsche Correspondent was again reporting on Weltsprachen, world languages. The beginning of the article deals with some Volapük news in Barveria. They don’t go long before repeating, almost word-for-word, the September 14 article on Esperanto.

Can we keep our news reports to one topic please? The article is on Volapük in Bavaria; don’t rain on their parade with news about Esperanto in Warsaw. Also, on September 21, 1887, it's too early to start recycling your earlier article on Esperanto.

Volapük, die Weltsprache, ist in Bayern als fakultativer Lerngegenstand für die Gymnasien in Aussicht genommen worden, es soll am neuen Luitpold-Gymnasium in München Präfekt Schnepper zum Professer der Weltsprache ernannt werden. Ein Herr Dr. Esperanto hat übrigens eine Sprache erfunden und verspricht, demnächst in polnischer Sprache eine Broschüre herauszugeben, welche einen vollständigen Kursus der neuen Weltsprache enthalten soll. Der Erfinder versichert , daß man in Laufe von höchstens einer Stunde hinter das Geheimniß dieser Sprache kommen und später an der Hand dieses Leitfadens ganz selbstständig es sowohl dahin bringen könne, Andere hinreichend zu versehen, wie sich selbst darin verständlich zu machen. Ferner behauptet der Autor, das Jeder, auch wenn er keine Ahnung von der Sprache habe, dennoch im Stande sein würde sie zu verstehen mit Hülfe eines sogenannten Wörterbuchs, welches nur aus einer einzigen Tafel bestehen soll, trotzdem aber den ganzen Vorrath der in dieser Sprache zu verwenden den Wörter enthalte. Dr. Esperanto schlägt, um seine Erfindung zu erproben, eine Art allgemeiner Abstimmung vor.

This is all of the new news:

Volapük, the world language, has been taken in Bavaria as an optional course of study for the high schools, in view of which, prefect Schnepper is to be appointed the new instructor of world languages at Luitpold Gymansium in Munich.

Okay, back to the old report to fill up space:

A Doctor Esperanto has incidentally invented a language and promises to soon publish a booklet in Polish which will contain a full course of the new world language. The inventor assures that after a course of an hour with this guide in hand, you will have the secret of this language, enough to understand other and to make yourself understood. Further, the author claims that anyone, even if he had no idea of the language would be able to understand it with the help of a so-called dictionary, which will consist of only a single table, but from which the whole stock of the language can be made. Dr. Esperanto proposes to test his invention by a kind of public vote.

It kinda makes you feel bad for Volapük. Here they are, getting instructors into the public schools, and the Deutsche Correspondent wants to talk about the new language, Esperanto. They haven’t even seen it yet, got some promises.

I can tell you, that I was grateful when transcribing it that I realized I had seen this block of text before. There I was puzzling over “Ferner behauptet der Autor, das Jeder” when I thought, “my German stinks, but I know I’ve seen this.” It was much easier this way.

This is only the second time that Esperanto gets written up in an American newspaper, it’s already rubbing up against Volapük, and getting more space.