THE SIMPLEST AUXILIARY LANGUAGE

B A B M

FUISHIKI OKAMOTO

Abridged common expressions (1)

Introduction

In addition to Esperanto, Suma, Picto and Arioni-Boera, many artificial languages have been invented for universal use, but regrettably none of them is free from complexity. Moreover, except for Esperanto, each of these languages lacks facility to freely express all matters and various ideas. While regretting such, I have concentrated my whole energy on the solving of the serious problems concerning human life and social living to my hearty satisfaction until well into my seventies. Because, to my deep annoyance, the existing philosophy, religion, thoughts and ideas could not answer my questions.

There must be the absolute truth and the supreme good concerning life and living. However, even these words and their significance have been entirely ignored until the present time. Logic, dialectic and epistemology do not show what are the absolute truth, the meaning of which, as well as the method of acquiring real truth, are never ascertained? Such was my fundamental question, and I started at first to confirm the sure meaning of truth and the exact method by which to make every truth perfectly clear, without a trace of doubt.

At the age of forty, it was possible for me to gain assurance of what truth is, and I found out the way how to obtain the absolute truth and the supreme good. This was long after my becoming awate that truth must be a fact. All facts are indeed to be discovered through natural sciences, which subjects I began to study at a early age. I was able to successively publish my works on human life and social living, and I commenced to teach young men of this country, China and Korea. An outline of my works was translated into Esperanto and widely presented. Meanwhile, fearing exhaustion of energy ind my advanced years I resolved to engage in the English translation of my main publications, under the title of New Philosophy for the People: Book I Human Life, Book II Human Living.

After ten year’s effort I could widely present these two books to learned men abroad. At this time I grew anxious over the possibility that this prsentation, written by an unknown Oriental, might be ignored. Suddenly the idea occurred to me, that the contrivance of a completely new universal language would fill all the requirements of the necessary conditions of a manmade language, as a theoretical system of the supreme good, which is assured by my philosophical Learning of Knowledge (not yet translated into English). I can say, not in the spirit of boasting, but as a fact, that the basic structure of this contrivance was finished in three days as a leaflet of four pages, which as an appendix, I widely distributed abroad with the English translation of two philosophical works, in the autumn of 1956.

I here select in condensed form the most important items of universal language among the 13 requisites which are explained in the chapter of the supreme good, contained in my Learning of Knowledge, especially in the section of language. Really, the whole supreme good must be in full accordance with the correlated truths of facts, which are to be precisely discovered by scientific methods based upon the foundation inquired into and dealt with most seriously in the Learning of Knowledge. The main selectively condensed requisites of universal language should be as follows:

1. Everyone of all humankind must equally face language, and even men of the lowest consciousness must be able to teach themselves, and thus automatically gain in skill as soon as the letters and their pronunciation are learned.
2. The letters and their pronunciation are to be restricted to a small number, so far as clear discrimination is possible; of course, no letter must be pronounced in two or more ways, nor be similar in sound to others, without a phonetic sign.
3. Grammar and everything else are to be the simplest, to the extent that anyone who has the ability to find the necessary words in the dictionary must be able to write and speak at once, for which purpose the compiling of a dictionary is the most convenient way for finding the necessary words is essential.
4. Vocabulary needs to be increased to the maximum extent, adapting to the incessant progress of art and science in more and more complexity, and the system of language must be adequate to explain every matter and idea whatsoever.
5. One word has its own meaning and only one, and more than two meanings must never be confused by the same pronunciation.

Being a new universal language, Babm is contrived in conformity with all these requirements. In the first place, Roman letters are used in a quite different way from existing European languages, namely the pronunciation of the letters is specially determined for every letter respectively, never changing its utterance without a phonetic sign. The respective utterance is the same as the name of the letters in Babm carefully chosen among the most clear voices, avoiding any similar sound, so that there is no troublesome need to make some pronunciation by combinating a consonant with a vowel. This is a unique feature of Babm differing from European usage.

It may be a slight elaboration to memorize only the name of letters, since people will then find how convenient this is, that every letter has its own peculiar sound. However the method is not ignored that makes it possible to pronounce any and every available voice by adding a few phonetic signs. In this connection a brief note may be added here, that Roman letters will be read in such manner as a:bokodee: [abcde], fugahai:zi [fghij], kelemunao: [klmno], pekuraseto [pqrst], u:viwakijuzo [uvwxyz]. This may be a good method by which to memorize the names of letters, whoich are at the same time the pronunciations specified unchangingly.

For the sake of simplicity, articles as well as auxiliary verbs are not used, and each part of speech is clearly shown in the form of a vord. Nouns are coined from three consonants and one vowel; verbs from one or two vowels between two consonants at the beginning and at the end. Adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, numerals and prepositions have respectively their own peculiar form. In addition every word is systematically arranged in the dictionary according to meanings, which are classified and shown by the first and second consonant letters of words. In such manner, more than forty thousand words have been coined as basic and compound words: However they will be included in the general dictionary which will be published in the distant future; till then any word omitted in this book will be supplied when inquiry is made to me by mail. In case the word has not yet been coined, I will provide it on receiving the detailed meaning from the inquirer.

Above all, the grammar is planned most simply but perfectly, to serve in any expression whatsoever, merely by using neve-rchanging suffixes, brief complements and the like. Consequently, only after a short training of pronunciation, everyone may be able to read and write in Babm, before memorizing a part of vocabulary and grammatical rules, by finding the necessary words in the dictionary and connecting them in accordance with the simple instructions of the grammar in this book. This must really be a greatly advantageous qualification of Babm as a subsidiary universal language theoretically man-made, utterly different from any traditional speech taught naturally in the mother tongue during childhood. Before self-study to write and speak utilizing the grammar, it is advisable to take the first training of pronunciation according to the names of letters. For this first training, the sentence examples in the next part of the grammar may be used, after easier training of word pronunciation by using the dictionary.

It is my hearty satisfaction as a seventy-seven year old man, that six years after starting the preparation of the small leaflet I can publish this book. Needless to say, Babm as a new universal language will serve merely as an international auxiliary speech, which must be used freely by the natives in the Himalayas and the inlanders of African ravines, so that simplicity is the most important requisite. In the near future, the World Society will surely be realized, even though it may be after the realization of the World State through the true United Nations, where the simplest but most complete universal language will be absolutely necessary. My heart is throbbing highly with such need of the whole human race in the eternal future. With such a deep aspiration, one copy of this book will be sent to any person at his request, gratuitously and post-free. If someone translates this book of Babm into his national language or local dialect, all rights of the publication in that language or dialect will be given to him with only one condition, that he will send me his publication.

A brief remark may be conveniently added here about the vocabulary. As to technical terms especially, a certain number of examples are shown in the dictionary of this bookl, preparing extensive spaces in respective positions to induce professional scholars to invent innumerable word of technics. Concerning coinage of Babm, most particular deliberation was necessitated over chemical phraseology, of which the rules of formation have been decided upon as follows:

1. The nouns of elements and their compounds are commenced with a conducting letter f, with and ending j or éj, but to show the simbols of elements both f of the conducting letter and j (éj never omitted) of the ending are to be omitted from the elemental noun.
2. To avoid confusion in any case, the second letter in the original symbols of elements is frequently changed adequately, and in this way the nouns of elements are coined as mentioned in the preceding article and shown from page 59 of the dictionary.
3. A noun of chemical compunds may be coined by connecting the above-mentioned symbols of the elements which are contained in the compound, beginning with the conducting letter f, and mediated by é if there is any fear of confusion. In this case the ending letter j of the final element of the compound may be not omitted, and to show many times the quantity of an element the numeral is to be added after its elemental symbol, as fcod~j (carbonic acid gas).
4. In case where an element is the chief influence in making up a compound, the suffix v may be used to indicated such element in the compund as fclv (chloride) or fkclv (potassium chloride), and fsv (sulfide) or fhgsv (mercury sulfide). Especially in oxide or oxygen acid, v may serve in its ordinary compound as fnov (nitric oxide) or fhclov (chloric acid), y may serve in “per—” as fnoy (nitrogen peroxide) or fhcloy (perchloric acid), év may serve in “hypo—ic” as fhg~pd~oév (hypophosphoric acid), x may serve in “—ous” as fnd~ox (nitrous oxide) or fhclox (chlorous acid), and éx may serve in “hypo—ous” as fhcloéx (hypochlorous acid).
5. In any compound z may denote radical or the group of elements, incase of necessity to show many times the quantity of it, the numeral is to be added before the coinage of the radical or group mediated by é, to avoid confusion as fscéd~nhd~z [SC(NH₂)₂ — thio-urea].
6. A noun of an alloy may be coined in a similar way to the noun of compunds, changing only the ending letter j into q as fcuznq (brass).
7. As the result of these rules, a special chemical technology is conducted by f and ends in j, q, v, x, y or z. Otherwise even a chemical technology is coined as an ordinary word following general rules.

Reading this explanations as well as the rules governing compund words, which begin from page 21, the general public may be astonished at the difficulties facing them in the rules of coinage; however these rules, necessary onlt to those persons who will engage in the formation of words, will enable them to completely make up the simplest coinage of all matters whatsoever, including even the most complicated technics. And then naturally there will indeed be nothing troublesome for any one in using such coined words of Babm according to the truly simplified grammar.

February, 1962

G R A M M A R

I. LETTERS AND PRONUNCIATIONS

In Babm Roman letters and Arabic figures are used. For simplicity Roman letters are named and unexceptionally pronounced as follows:

[er]