Louis Couturat (2): Leibniz, logic, & artificial language

Now on my web site: a section of Louis Couturat's essay 'The Principles of Logic' in Logic (1913) by Arnold Ruge et al, with a focus on univocity & reversibility in an artificial language, with examples from Ido:

Logic and Language (The Principles of Logic) by Louis Couturat

Couturat's essay reflects the philology (ancestor of modern linguistics) of the time, with notions about the evolution of natural languages and so on. I am not familiar enough with the language Ido to judge its application if any of univocity with respect to the lexicon (semantics), or if the grammar is more logical than Esperanto in ways other than word derivation, not that I am familiar with word derivation in Ido either. Word derivation in Esperanto is inconsistent and less than logical, and the prepositions still carry some idiomatic uses over from Esperanto's source languages. Note also that Couturat is concerned here strictly with logic and precision. There is no consideration of aesthetics, artistic uses, or the speech community of an artificial language, which is where Ido's ancestor, Esperanto, most successfully pitched its tent.

On my web site see also:

Histoire de la Langue Universelle par Louis Couturat & Léopold Leau (1903)

"Leibniz, Couturat kaj la Teorio de Ido" de Tazio Carlevaro

“Lingvoplanado” (Language Planning) de Rudolf Carnap

You will find also updated and additional links on Couturat's work on Leibniz and logic.

Filozofio en Neciklopedio

Neciklopedio estas humuropedio; ĉi-kaze jen:

Filozofio

Jen citaĵo de fifamulo:

"Esperanto kaj filozofio malofte renkontiĝas en respektinda maniero"

     -- Ralph Dumain

La koncerna artikolo estas diversrubrika miksaĵo de amuzaĵoj kaj ne-amuzaĵoj. Ekz., oni klasifas filozofojn senutilaj, malutilaj, utilaj.

Aliloke oni citas min sen mencii mian nomon. Sub rubriko Filozofio kaj Esperanto jen:

Ofte kunmeto de Esperantismo kaj filozofio rezultigas regreseman mistikismon aŭ ekletikismon. Esperanto kaj filozofio malofte renkontiĝas en respektinda maniero. Esperantistaj fanatikuloj enportas absurdajn mistifikajn fuŝideojn en Esperantistan medion, kiu ja bonvenigemas ĉiajn stultajn filozofiojn.

Verŝajne oni utiligas informojn trovitajn miabloge aŭ miareteje:

Filozofio kaj naturismo

Filozofio kaj araneo

Mihály Babits (1883-1941), hungara verkisto

Antaŭ du tagoj la blogo Esperanto-vivo prezentis afiŝon pri la hungara verkisto Mihály Babits, eminentulo en la literatura movado/revuo Nyugat.

Jen interesa ero de la afiŝo:

Pri la forta influo de Babits sur Kalocsay (en la arto de tradukado, sed ankaŭ en la originala versfarado) parolas amplekse la “Historio de la Esperanta literaturo” de Carlo Minnaja kaj Giorgio Silfer, LF-Koop 2015, aparte ĉe p. 122-127.

Ankaŭ mia retpaĝo estas menciita:

“Mitologio” de Mihály Babits, tradukis Ludwig Totsche (Lajos Tárkony)

Aliaj tradukoj de verkoj de Babits troveblas miareteje:

• Studo pri la hungara literaturo de Mihály Babits
• Poemoj de Mihály Babits
• “Oggi” de Mihály Babits, el la hungara trad. Ferenc Szilágyi

Fjodor Dostojevskij en Esperanto (1)

1. Tradukoj haveblaj en la Interreto 

En la literatura retejo de Don Harlow:

Knabo ĉe Krista Abio de Fjodor DOSTOJEVSKIJ, elrusigis Aleksander KORĴENKOV

Rusa literaturo en Esperanto en La Ondo de Esperanto:
Fjodor Dostojevskij (Фёдор Достоевский):

Blankaj noktoj, tradukis Grigorij Arosev. Kaliningrado: Sezonoj, 2010. 50 p.
Krimo kaj puno: Parto 1. Ĉapitro 7. Tradukis A. Parfentjev (Sezonoj, 1993)
Noticoj el la kelo: Komenco. Tradukis A. Korĵenkov (LOdE-93)
Misfortuna historio. Tradukis A. Birjulin (Blankaj noktoj. Sezonoj, 2002)
La taglibro de verkisto: Enkonduko. Tradukis A. Korĵenkov (LOdE-55)
La taglibro de verkisto: Centjarulino. Tradukis A. Korĵenkov (LOdE-57)
La taglibro de verkisto: Iom pri la mensogado. Tradukis A. Korĵenkov (LOdE-73)
La taglibro de verkisto: Kampulo Marej. Tradukis A. Korĵenkov (LOdE-102)
La taglibro de verkisto: Knabo ĉe Krista abio. Tradukis A. Korĵenkov (LOdE-111)
La taglibro de verkisto: Paradoksisto. Tradukis A. Korĵenkov (LOdE-84)

Pri Dostojevskij:

Korženkov, Aleksandr V. Fjodor Dostojevskij en Esperanto [prelegoteksto]. Kaliningrado: Sezonoj, 2005. Bit-eldono, 2011.

2. En la Österreichische Nationalbibliothek:

De Dostojevskij:

Elektitaj verkoj de Dostojevskij en Esperanto. 1. Blankaj noktoj. Kaliningrad: Sezonoj, 2002.

La fratoj de Karamazov, trad. J. Jovlev, Ivanovo, 1966.

Krimo kaj puno: romano en ses partoj kun epilogo, trad. Andrej Parfentjev. Jekaterinburg: Sezonoj, 1993.

En Ido:

Dostojevskij, Fjodor. La inferno. Berlin: Ido-Centrale (Hermann Jacob), ĉ. 1930.

Boxer, Beetle (5)

The Boxer Beetle web site has disappeared, so here is the best I can give you, from the ghost web: Boxer, Beetle. I reproduce the images below:

Boxer, Beetle (4)

Boxer, Beetle has been blurbed as hilarious. I would call it satirical in the extreme, but I haven't been laughing.

There are no redeeming characters in the book. Not only are the fascists obnoxious and stupid, but their would-be victims, the underclass East Ender Jews of London, are primitive and crude. Seth "Sinner" Roach is the crudest of them: a malformed boxer who lives to fight, who hates Jew-haters but has no political perspective, only selfish interest. His bizarre symbiosis with the anti-Semitic fascist entomologist and amateur eugenicist Philip Erskine and their mutual fate is the focal point of the mystery Kevin Broom is trying to solve under extreme duress in the present. As the narrative toggles between tracking down vanished persons and the obscure events of 1936, we descend further and further into the pit.

Erskine not only names a beetle he has bred after Hitler, he receives an effusive letter from Hitler. Sinner becomes a mercenary in a brewing battle in the East End as Mosley's fascists storm the area to confront the Jews, who are poised for battle.

Well, Broom and his kidnapper (and the latter's mysterious boss) finally solve the mystery of the boxer and the beetles, as do we in a flashback to October 1936. Both halves of the story conclude with no justice meted out to the bad guys, no good guys to win or lose, no redemption and no moral. This satiric portrait of degradation and fascism is a brilliantly written tour de force, well worth reading, but don't expect any wisdom to be gotten from it.

What this young man is about I do not know, or if this novel bespeaks a trend in Jewish fiction, but you can learn more about the author and his work at Ned Bauman's web site, which also links to his blog "Oh my god look at its little face!". Bauman, born in 1985, studied philosophy in Cambridge. Make of that what you will. There is also a bibliography for this novel. The references for artificial languages are:

The Artificial Language Movement by Andrew Large (1985)
Esperanto: Language, Literature and Community by Pierre Janton, ed. Humphrey Tonkin (1993)

Boxer, Beetle (3)

In the present (Chapter 12 of Boxer, Beetle) the narrator is kidnapped to Claramore, where the key to the quest is thought to be: an incident suspected to have taken place at a fascist conference in 1936.

Then we are back in 1936, at Claramore, the bizarre estate of the Erskine family. William Erskine, inheritor of the estate, rigged it up with high-tech (for 1936) inventions and gizmos in accordance with his vision of the technological future.

Sinner (Seth Roach) and Philip Erskine arrive for the upcoming conference. Pangaean gets mentioned a few more times (145, 149, 163). Philip's father William reads the son's manuscript and decides to have it bound. Later on as the drama at the household reaches a macabre climax, Erskine--which Erskine I'm not certain--has a morbid fantasy involving the third Pangaean Grammar and Lexicon.

It also bears mentioning that Evelyn, Philip's sister, is an aficionado and composer of atonal music, which she ends up attempting to justify to Sinner (171). I mention this noting that one of the prefatory quotes to the novel comes from Adorno on dissonance.

Chapter 13 (August 1936) teaches us that the entire family and the assembled fascist guests all belong in a looney bin. It's a bizarro Addams Family world, only truly morbid. And each fascist we encounter is crazier than the next; each insists on the peculiarities of his own cobbled together world view, such that none can agree and all end up bickering.

Chapter 14 begins with footman Alex Goodman obsessed with two goals: marrying Evelyn's maid, and securing a "top-class conjugal safety coffin." But that's normal compared to what transpires by the end of Chapter 15, as the insanity at Claramore reaches a climax, in more ways than one.

Boxer, Beetle (2)

In the past two days I have read 11 chapters (133 pages) of Ned Beauman's novel Boxer, Beetle. It's a real page-turner, compelling reading, superbly written, and highly absurdist.

Chapter 10 (Autumn 1881), on which I reported in my previous post on this book, is actually a historical digression from the main two plots. incorporates the real history of artificial languages into the fiction. Erasmus Erskine appears to be the grandfather of Philip Erskine, entomologist, eugenicist, Nazi sympathizer. His main occupation is finding and breeding beetles, until he secures the cooperation of gay, nine-toed Jewish Boxer Seth "Sinner" Roach to serve as a guinea pig for a eugenics experiment. This scenario takes place in Britain in the 1930s.

The other main plot takes place in the present, in which Kevin Broom, a collector of Nazi memorabilia, is sucked into a nefarious intrigue involving the sordid past just described.

At the end of chapter 9, Philip Erskine is forced by his father to leave beetles and boxers be for a time in order to complete another project:

"It was time to write the history of Pangaean--the Erskine dynasty's greatest pride, and greatest embarrassment."

So the chapter on artificial languages, though seemingly out of place, is a historical flashback from the 1930s, and pits not only artificial languages against one another, but anti-Semite against Jew.  Erasmus Erskine, creator of Pangaean, wants to abolish adverbs as well as Jews. In 1881, "on the same day that the Jews were driven out of Fluek, the adverbs were driven out of the English language." Meanwhile, far away in Poland, Seth Roach's grandparents prepare to fight off a pogrom.

Erskine, bigoted and obsessed, makes Pangaean so complicated and difficult, that even he can't master his language.

"He was even forced to consider putting the adverbs back in, but concluded that he had left himself no room for them, on the same day in June 1882 that Sinner's grandfather returned with his wife and daughters to Fluek, where they were told by local officials that, according to Alexander III's new Temporary Regulations, no Jews were allowed to settle in the countryside of Russian Poland."

So they left Fluek and ended up in Bialystok (in real life, the birthplace of Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto), where Sinner's father "was born on the same day that Erskine completed the 998-page first draft of the Pangaean Grammar and Lexicon."

Pangaean, of course, never existed, but the real history of the international language movement, with some historical distortions, serves as the backdrop for the unhappy fate of Pangaean. Erskine opposes Esperanto as a Jewish language, as did Hitler later on, but as fate would have it, Hitler ends up banning Pangaean as well as Esperanto.

Boxer, Beetle

First, here is the web site for the novel Boxer, Beetle.

The novel is prefaced by two quotes. The first is from Jane Jacobs, from her landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The second:

"Dissonance is the truth about harmony." -- Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory

Who knew?

I don't follow trends in fiction generally, or even in various fictional genres, but I have taken note of several contemporary Jewish novelists who have immersed their imaginations in the cultural environments that would have been familiar to their great grandparents, often incorporating real historical figures, or creating alternate histories. Michael Chabon and Joseph Skibell come immediately to mind.  I suppose then it should not be too surprising that Esperanto and its Eastern European Jewish creator L. L. Zamenhof would appear in this fiction. Ned Bauman's novel, published in 2010, can be added to this list.

Entomologists, eugenicists, Nazis, and a Jewish boxer occupy this scenario. Chapter 10 (Autumn 1881) incorporates the real history of artificial languages into the fiction. Erasmus Erskine insists that in a true philosophical language, ambiguity would be eliminated. There is speculation about an alleged archaeological finding of a legendary ancient advanced civilization and the language its inhabitants would have spoken. Sudre's musical language Solresol is mentioned as is perhaps the oldest recorded example of an artificial language, produced in the 12th century by St. Hildegard. The era of a priori constructed languages is mentioned. In the same era in which pogroms in Eastern Europe are feared on a daily basis, Erskine pursues his project, until in January 1890 Erskine completes "the 998-page first draft of the Pangaean Grammar and Lexicon." Zamenhof's native city of Bialystok is also part of the story.

Erskine's friend Thurlow continues to discourage the project, mentioning Volapuk had already achieved success and was a far superior language than Pangaean and easier to learn. (The irony!) But Erskine is more irritated that someone of his acquaintance, Marcus Amersham, is working on his own artificial language Orba, and has a club devoted to it. Amersham's publications include forms to which the reader can subscribe promising to learn the language if 10 million other people do so. This fictional item is borrowed from real life Zamenhof's initial attempt to promote Esperanto.

Esperanto then makes its appearance: "But by 1901 Pangaean, Orba and Volapuk were all being swept aside by the onrush of Esperanto." A few paraphrased quotes from Zamenhof are adduced to demonstrate Zamenhof's Jewish motivation. Erskine learns about the forthcoming Delegation for
the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language (which in real life selected the dark horse Ido, resulting in the famous Esperanto-Ido schism),  and is determined to counterpose Pangaean to the Jewish cosmopolitan Esperanto and mold his language accordingly. Erskine, apparently, is an anti-Semite and presumably a non-Jew.

The 1903 Delegation could not gain assent to its authority, and so no new language definitely triumphed. Bauman correctly describes Hitler's animosity to Esperanto and the Nazi extermination of Zamenhof's family, but adds the fictional element that Hitler bans Pangaean as well as Esperanto. To Stalin's real-life persecution of Esperantists is added Stalin's unverified anecdotal inability to learn Esperanto and purely fictional inability to learn the fictional Pangaean.

And now the final SPOILER: Erskine catches Thurlow with his wife, with a book of Orba grammar between them. Devastated, Erskine discards his notes for the third edition of the Pangaean Grammar and Lexicon.  I have deliberately kept this description as dry as possible, because the actual writing is hilarious.

And undoubtedly the balance of this award-nominated novel is equally as entertaining.

Intervjuo kun Joseph Skibell

Mi jam blogis kelkfoje pri la anglalingva romano A Curable Romantic [Kuracebla Romantikulo] de Joseph Skibell. Jen aperas intervjuo kun li, tradukita en Esperanto, en:

Beletra Almanako, N-ro 13, Februaro 2012 (6-a jaro) (p. 166-171)

István Ertl intervjuas pri la spertoj de Skibell lernante kaj esplorante Esperanton kaj ĝian movadon prepare al la romano. Tiurilate Skibell vojaĝis kaj konsultis esperantologojn. Li ankaŭ eltrovis la Ido-movadon. Li esploris kaj eĉ ĉerpis el Esperanta beletro. Li eĉ tradukis al la angla la Sekretajn Sonetojn de Peter Peneter por adapto al muzika komponaĵo, sed tiu projekto ne plenumiĝis. Ertl trovas ironion en la uzo de Zamenhof en nacilingva fikcio kaj la supriza relativa foresto de Zamenhof en la originala fikcio de Esperanto.

Skibell diskutas sian perspektivon pri ĉefroluloj Zamenhof, Freud, kaj rabeno Kalonymus Kalman Shapira: Ŝapira sintezas la malajn perspektivojn de Zamenhof kaj Freud.

Paradokse, Skibell ne konsideras sin "juda verkisto." Ankaŭ okazas interŝanĝoj pri ebla filmo de la romano, de preseraroj, kaj de aperoj de artefaritaj lingvoj en nacilingva fikcio. La originala anglalingva intervjuo enhavas kelkajn esperantlingvajn frazojn fare de Skibell.

Jen retligaj referencoj el la teksto:

Loneliness and the Novel, Jewish Book Council Blog, June 6, 2011

Joseph Skibell, Writers Read blog, October 11, 2010

Bibliography for A Curable Romantic 

Joseph Skibell's "A Curable Romantic", November 4, 2010

Nu, la tuta ĉi tiu numero de Beletra Almanako estas alloga, do aĉetu se vi povas.

Laboristoj kaj Esperanto en Hispanio

Jen atentinda afiŝo en La Blogo de Tonyo (del Barrio):

Inter laborista edukado kaj kultura alternativo

Li referencas kaj nun interrete eldonas sian eseon publikigita en La Arto Labori Kune: Festlibro por Humphrey Tonkin:

“Inter laborista edukado kaj kultura alternativo” (HTML); PDF-formate

Borges en Ido

Jen traduko en Ido:

La Biblioteko di Babel
da Jorge Luis Borges
Tradukita da James Chandler

Trovu ĉe retejo International Auxiliary Languages de James Chandler:

interlanguages.net (aktuala retejo) aŭ ĉe reocities (malnova retejo).

Louis Couturat, Leibniz, & international languages

Louis Couturat (1868-1914) is not historically beloved in the Esperanto movement, as he was a prime mover behind Ido, a reformed version of Esperanto that split the movement. Couturat nevertheless was a significant figure not only in the international language movement, but in intellectual history, philosophy, logic, and Leibniz scholarship in particular.

Some information can be found in my:

Philosophical and Universal Languages, 1600-1800, and Related Themes: Selected Bibliography

Here I am highlighting Couturat's works of greatest interest to me, with indications of their most current available editions, in English wherever possible. My bibliography overlaps but does not completely coincide with the Wikipedia entry.

De l'Infini mathématique was first published in 1896, and has been reprinted several times.

Two seminal works on Leibniz are La Logique de Leibniz (1901) and Opuscules et Fragments Inédits de Leibniz (1903). See The Logic of Leibniz, a translation in progress by Donald Rutherford.

Histoire de la langue universelle (1903), came out in a 2nd edition in 1907. Also in 1907 Les nouvelles langues internationales was published. There is a reprint edition:

Histoire de la langue universelle, beigebunden ist Les nouvelles langues internationales, by Louis Couturat, Léopold Leau; mit einem bibliographischen Nachtrag von Reinhard Haupenthal. Hildesheim; New York: G. Olms, 1979. xxx, 576, 110 p.

L'Algèbre de la logique appeared in 1905. Note that the English translation is available online courtesy of Project Gutenberg:

The Algebra of Logic, authorized English translation by Lydia Gillingham Robinson, B. A., with a preface by Philip E. B. Jourdain, M. A. (Cantab.) Chicago; London: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1914.

Dover Publications reprinted this translation is 2005. The publisher's description:

In an admirably succinct form, this volume offers a historical view of the development of the calculus of logic, illustrating its beauty, symmetry, and simplicity from an algebraic perspective. Topics include the principles of identity and the syllogism, the principles of simplification and composition; the laws of tautology and of absorption; the distributive law and the laws of duality, double negation, and contraposition; the formulas of De Morgan and Poretsky; Schroder's theorem; sums and products of functions; solution of equations involving one and several unknown quantities; the problem of Boole; Venn diagrams; tables of consequences and causes; and formulas peculiar to the calculus of propositions.

Another seminal work appeared in 1905: Les Principes des Mathematiques: avec un appendice sur la philosophie des mathématiques de Kant. This has been reprinted; the most recent edition I know of is: Paris: A. Blanchard, 1980.

In 1912 a compilation of various authors, Logik, came out in German. An English translation was subsequently published:

Logic, by Arnold Ruge, Wilhelm Windelband, Josiah Royce, Louis Couturat, Benedetto Croce, Federigo Enriques and Nicolaj Losskij; translated by B. Ethel Meyer. London: Macmillan, 1913. x, 269 p.

Of recent vintage is the publication of this important correspondence:

Correspondance sur la philosophie, la logique et la politique, 1897-1913 par Bertrand Russell, avec Louis Couturat ; édition et commentaire par Anne-Françoise Schmid ; transcription et notes sur la langue internationale par Tazio Carlevaro. Paris : Kimé, 2001. 2 v. (734 p.)

Carlevaro is an Esperantist, a co-author of Esperanto en Perspektivo (1974).

Couturat's correspondence with Giuseppe Peano (important mathematician and creator of the language Latino Sine Flexione) has been published (letters in French with introduction in Italian):

Carteggio: 1896-1914. Giuseppe Peano, Louis Couturat; a cura di Erika Luciano e Clara Silvia Roero. Firenze : L.S. Olschki, 2005. lxix, 254 p.

An important conference proceedings (with bibliography) came out in 1983:

L'oeuvre de Louis Couturat: (1868-1914) : ... de Leibniz à Russell. Paris: Presses de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, 1983. 130 p. Contents:

Actualité de Couturat / Maurice Loi -- Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France / Louis Couturat -- Couturat et la conception kantienne de la géométrie / Mario Laserna -- Couturat et la critique des conceptions du temps et ses contemporains Lechalas, Bergson, Evellin / Hervé Barreau -- Louis Couturat et Georg Cantor / Pierre Dugac -- Une remarque sur le problème de la subalternation dans "La logique de Leibniz" de Louis Couturat / Franz Schupp -- Philosophie et science dans la pensée de Louis Couturat / Ubaldo Sanzo -- La correspondance inédite Couturat-Russell / Anne-François Schmid -- Louis Couturat et les mathématiques de son époque / Jean Dieudonnée -- Un promoteur des recherches interdisciplinaires / Alexandre Giuculescu.

The Wikipedia entry contains links to other bibliographies as well as additional references. Aside from other philosophical, mathematical, and logical work, Couturat produced further publications on Ido and international languages.