Universal language schemes in England and France 1600-1800

For centuries Latin served as an international language for scholars in Europe. Yet as early as the first half of the seventeenth century, scholars, philosophers, and scientists were beginning to turn their attention to the possibility of formulating a totally new universal language. This wide-ranging book focuses upon the role that it was thought an ideal, universal, constructed language would play in the advancement of learning.

The first section examines seventeenth-century attempts to e...