The World Language

Abstract

The beginning. The lectures on Natural Philosophy in 1900 had led me to examine more or less every major issue from the stand point of energetics and where necessary to take a closer look. In the course of this I noted the enormous waste of energy which arises from the differences between languages. This waste is so great that, even in times when the energetic principles had not been formulated, educated people had sought an explanation for it. The legend of the tower of Babel was constructed as a warning that should men ignore God and follow ideas which had not been approved by the priests then they would be punished by a confusion of languages. The authors or editors of this old myth regarded the fact that different peoples spoke different languages as so senseless and stupid that they could only explain it as resulting from a divine punishment.