Note 86 — Chapter III · THE LAWS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE CREATION OF ROOTS.

One or two philosophers (e.g. Kircher, Becher, Dalgarno, Bp. Wilkins, Descartes, Leibnitz) have amused themselves with the invention of languages quite arbitrary, in which every word was to be accurately determined; but no artificial language actually used has ever thus arisen. The German rothwelsch, the Italian gergo, the French narquois, the English “thieves’ language,” the lingua franca which serves for commercial purposes on the shores of the Mediterranean, the strange jargon spoken by the Chinese and English at Hong Kong, &c., have all arisen from a corruption of existing languages by metaphors, new words, new meanings, derivation, composition, &c. See Leibnitz, Nouv. Essai sur l’Entendement Humain, iii. I. 2.