ABSTRACT
DEBATES ABOUT LANGUAGE IN GERMAN COLONIES, 1884-1914
German colonization unfolded against a backdrop of growing metropolitan interest in the creation of artifi cial languages, like Volapük and Esperanto, that were designed to facilitate international communication and cooperation.2 Volapük, which was created in 1878 by a German priest named Johann Schleyer, combined phonetically spelled, simplifi ed words taken primarily from English with a modifi ed grammatical structure based on German. On the other hand, Esperanto, founded in 1887 by a Pole named Ludwig Zamenhof, was built on a phonetic vocabulary drawn largely from Romance languages and used much simpler and more regular grammatical structures. Although both artifi cial languages enjoyed some popularity in Germany during the fi nal decade of the nineteenth century, neither was ever seriously proposed for use in her new colonial empire. Moreover, by
the turn of the century, a combination of rising nationalism and concerns that German language and culture were losing ground to those of other nations weakened metropolitan interest in both of these artifi cial language movements, while simultaneously triggering concern about the linguistic situation inside the far-fl ung German colonies.
