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Brusel, 2 yuli 1906
Hobbema-Strad 73
Sinior G. Peano, Torino (Italia)
Pardona mi, kar sinior e amik, ke mi fasiav atendar vo. Multfoa mi es sufrant e totale inkapabl korespondar. Extr it mi es diskurajed sitempe di laxitet de mie fratri neutralist. Ili fasi kuasi nihil. E labor fasied es ankor fasied in manier autoritar. Mi es malkontent de direktion de s. Holmes, kel remov omnikos in respondi de membri kekos no plis. Multe scientifik!
Mi es excesive rekonosant pro votr paroli e rekomendationi. If mi potesav truvar kolaboreri e el mon neses pro payament de ili, mi komenserio ko plesir revu independent pro lingua universal. On aksepterio texti in omni versioni existant de sistemi, keli volu konstruar lingua universal ko paroli international e gramatik leplu konsis, kuale vo av exprimed it.
Provisore mi av finied labor pro lingua universal. Mi skrib in revui de laboreri, ma in lingu nederlandik e di otr subytekti.
Vo resiv simultane nr. 2 e 3 de Progres. Volua retromitar ili po lektur. Ili aparten a grup.
Korespondent in Trieste av komuniked ke s. prof. Niceforo av skribed di Idiom Neutral in jurnal de el urb Il Piccolo.
Ko saluti kordial, et a votr marita, da omni noi:
W. Bonto v. B.
Brussels, July 2, 1906
Hobbema-Strad 73
Mr. G. Peano, Turin (Italy)
Please forgive me, dear sir and friend, for making you wait. I have often been suffering and completely unable to correspond. Moreover, I am currently discouraged by the laxity of my fellow neutralists. They are doing almost nothing. And the work that is being done is still done in an authoritarian manner. I am dissatisfied with the direction of Mr. Holmes, who removes everything from members' responses that he does not like. Very scientific!
I am extremely grateful for your words and recommendations. If I could find collaborators and the necessary funds to pay them, I would gladly start an independent journal for the universal language. Texts in all existing versions of systems that aim to construct a universal language with international vocabulary and the most concise grammar, as you have expressed, would be accepted.
For the time being, I have finished my work on the universal language. I am writing in workers’ journals, but in Dutch and on other subjects.
You will receive issues No. 2 and 3 of Progres simultaneously. Please return them after reading. They belong to the group.
A correspondent in Trieste informed me that Professor Niceforo has written about Idiom Neutral in the city’s newspaper Il Piccolo.
With cordial greetings, and to your wife, from all of us:
W. Bonto v. B.
NOTES:
Instead of annotating individual words in this letter, it may be quicker to state that M. Bonto van Bÿlevelt’s Idiom Neutral is nonstandard in comparison to the 1902 grammar and vocabulary. Such variations are to be expected given that Rosenberger's lingu universal project was ever-evolving. Only a few years after his 1902 publication, Rosenberger is writing about a reformed version of the language (and in later correspondances, he uses spelling and vocabulary that are to be found in his Reform-Neutral project, as does Bonto here).
In this letter in particular we have:
The use of the letter x in place of Idiom Neutral’s ks — extr (ekstr), laxitet (laksitet), existant (eksistant).
The use of -ation instead of -asion — direktion (direksion), rekomendationi (rekomendasioni), international (internasional).
Vocabulary for which a different form is given in the 1902 dictionary (shown in brackets) — inkapabl (nekapabl), nihil (nokos), malkontent (nekontent), kolaboreri (kolaboratori — although note the use of laborer in the 1906 supplement), independent (nedependant), lingua (lingu), korespondent (korespondant), lektur (lektasion).
Vocabularly for which there is no explicit word in the 1902 dictionary: autoritar, payament.
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