THE DESIGN OF INTERGLOSSA

world, a world with a much larger common stock of everyday words derived from roots current in modern technology.

Since the word-material of Interglossa is based on roots internationally current in science, every vocable can form the basis of association with familiar words or with new and interesting information about the world we live in. The process of learning the vocabulary can therefore have the excitement of the chase. Thus we track down poly (many) from what is common to polygon and polygamy. From polygon and pentagon the pupil would track down gono (angle), from pentagon and pentameter through gasometer we get penta (five) and metro (measure), thence via cyclometer and bicycle through cycli (circle) via bigamy, giving bi (two) back through polygamy to gameo (marriage). From this we can start in various directions. Anyone who has taken a school course in elementary biology will recognize the last word as the root in gametes (sperm and egg), whose marriage gives rise to the embryo. It turns up again in Phanerogams (conifers and flowering plants) so called because their marital arrangements are manifest (phanero) or clear to the eye in contradistinction to Cryptogams (ferns, mosses, seaweeds and fungi), whose sexual processes are cryptic, i.e. hidden (crypto). Though they are common in international scientific terms, some of the roots employed in what follows are not yet in everyday speech or in school science instruction. Admittedly, copa (oar), which occurs in international zoological names for many swimming animals with oar-like limbs, is not an ingredient of daily conversation; but since the Copepoda (a tribe of small shrimps so called for the reason stated) constitute the majority of animal species in the surface layers of the sea and are the chief food of herrings, the act of learning the meaning of copa need not be as lifeless as that of learning the equivalent Finnish word airo.

With the help of the teacher the beginner should thus be able to associate the meaning of each new vocable with a word already familiar or with some new and arresting piece of information about the modern world. Since this draft is for the English-speaking reader, it is sufficient to show how to do so if the beginner speaks English: Chapter IV and the mnemotechnic notes on pp. 256-282, give appropriate examples for every vocable listed. The claim of Interglossa is that it contains no psychologically inert word-material such as lapin or Knabe. At the school stage learning Interglossa would be learning semantics, everyday science and comparative etymology hand-in-hand.