Note 7 — Chapter VIII · EDUCATION A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE

Should we ever have a “universal” language, is it altogether chimerical to imagine that it might be an idæographic one? Provided that some simple code of idæographic writing were invented to denote the very limited number of concrete notions essential to commercial correspondence, no one who has had occasion to study Chinese, even in the most cursory manner, would think it at all a severe effort of the imagination to conceive of an idæographic notation as being used for business correspondence. In Chinese, the unit of expression is an idea. Words which relate to kindred subjects include, in their idæographs, the sign for the connecting link. Thus the idæograph for “agriculture” is made up of the sign for “strength” and for “a field.” Consequently, although the Japanese language when spoken sounds so entirely unlike Chinese that a person knowing neither can distinguish one from the other when heard across the width of a street, the Japanese can read Chinese books without difficulty, and one form of printing can be read by the Chinese of the North and those of the South, although the spoken dialects differ so much that “pidgin” English is often used by the two as a means of spoken communication. An idæographic medium of commercial writing (not of course so archaic nor so cumbersome as Chinese, but philosophically devised for the purpose) would release the student from all difficulties of speech and accent; he would always name the signs to himself in his own language. ↑