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Volapük ( in English;〔OED〕 in Volapük) is a constructed language, created in 1879–1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. Schleyer felt that God had told him in a dream to create an international language. Volapük conventions took place in 1884 (Friedrichshafen), 1887 (Munich) and 1889 (Paris). The first two conventions used German, and the last conference used only Volapük. In 1889, there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals in or about Volapük, and 316 textbooks in 25 languages;〔(Handbook of Volapük ), Charles E. Sprague (1888)〕 at that time the language claimed nearly a million adherents.〔''A History of the English Language, 5th ed.'' Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable. Ch. I ''English Present and Future''; Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (2002)〕 Volapük was largely displaced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Esperanto.〔''The Loom of Language'' F. Bodmer and L. Hogben (eds.) Ch. XI ''Pioneers of Language Planning''; Allen & Unwin Ltd, London (1944)〕 ==History== Schleyer first published a sketch of Volapük in May 1879 in ''Sionsharfe'', 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. André Cherpillod writes of the third Volapük convention, In August 1889 the third convention was held in Paris. 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 before the Boulogne convention, an international convention spoke an international language.〔Foreword to ''Konciza Gramatiko de Volapuko'', André Cherpillod. Courgenard, 1995.〕 The Dutch cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs was for a number of years Director of the Academy of Volapük, and introduced the movement to several countries. 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 of Idiom Neutral and other new constructed language projects. Another reason for the decline of Volapük may have been the rise of Esperanto. In 1887 the first Esperanto book (''Unua Libro'') was published. Many Volapük clubs became Esperanto clubs. 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 as Nal Bino, Balta, Bopal, Spelin, Dil and Orba were invented and quickly forgotten.〔 By 1900 there were only 159 members of Volapük clubs recognized by Schleyer.〔 The umlauts, which may have been one of the reasons for the language's eventual decline into obscurity, were the subject of ridicule. For example, the ''Milwaukee Sentinel'' published the poem: ::A charming young student of Grük ::Once tried to acquire Volapük ::But it sounded so bad ::That her friends called her mad, ::And she quit it in less than a wük. 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 called ''Volapük Nulik'' "New Volapük" as opposed to the Volapük 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 the phoneme and used it to make some morphemes more recognizable. For instance, ''lömib'' "rain" became ''rein''.〔(Arie de Jong's Revision of Volapük (1931) ) by Ed Robertson〕 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 artificial language, the Spanish scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal wrote in the first edition of his ''Tonics 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."〔Ramón y Cajal, S. (2009): ''Tonics of Willingness: Rules and Advices about Scientific Investigation''. Formación Alcalá: Alcalá la Real, Jaén.〕 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." Large Volapük collections are held by the International Esperanto Museum 〔(Collection for Planned Languages ) (in German)〕 in Vienna, Austria; the Centre de documentation et d'étude sur la langue internationale in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland; and the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.〔(Volapük Collection ) - American Philosophical Society〕 In 2000 there were an estimated 20 Volapük speakers in the world.〔 In December 2007 it was reported that the Volapük version of Wikipedia had recently jumped to 15th place among language editions, with more than 112,000 articles. 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. By March 2013 the Esperanto Wikipedia, with a very active user community, had risen to 176,792 articles, while the Volapük Wikipedia had at that point 119,091 articles. There has been a continuous Volapük speaker community since Schleyer's time, with an unbroken succession of ''Cifals'' (leaders). These were: # Johann Martin Schleyer 1879–1912 # Albert Sleumer 1912–1948 # Arie de Jong (provisionally) 1947–1948,〔http://www.volapük.com/kadam/Dalebud_Cifala_de_1947-01-15,_Num-_1.html〕 1951–1957〔http://www.volapük.com/kadam/Dalebud_Cifala_de_1950-12-21,_Num-_4.html〕 # Jakob Sprenger 1948–1950 # Johann Schmidt 1950–1977 # Johann Krüger 1977–1983 # Brian Bishop 1984–2014 # Hermann Philipps 2014–present〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Yahoo! Groups )〕〔"(Volapuko havas novan Cifal! )", ''La Balta Ondo'', May 29, 2014.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Volapük」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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