LAST DITCH OF DEMOCRACY - Majority Rights

people who use different languages, they might, however, let bygones be
bygones and consider the scheme which I broached in the JAPAN
TIMES, on May 17, 1940 (or was it ’39?): Namely, the trilingual
system. The JAPAN TIMES gave good display to the article. It was
certainly above the conflict. The Brain Trust scheme seems to ignore the
Orient altogether. My scheme was impartial. It contained one Axis
language, one anti-Axis language, and one Oriental language, or other
means of communication.
I was considering civilization at large, and a means of full
communication, not merely a commercial stenography. I believe it
would be about as simple to learn to write in a foreign tongue as to
restrict oneself to Ogden’s basic English vocabulary. That may be
because I have written in French and Italian, and have not worried about
keeping inside a restricted vocabulary.
My proposal was, as I say, tri-lingual. Italian, English, and ideogram.
That is, Chinese ideogram used as a written tongue, but with Japanese
pronunciation. That gives you the languages of Confucius, Shakespeare,
and Dante. There is no sentiment in this selection. You say the Germans
would never accept this. That is, you don’t say so because you are quite
crazy in talking of re-educating nations which are far more educated
than you are. I believe our Germans would place unsentimental reasons
first, the Germans are more diligent than other men, great numbers of
them habitually— —. Secondly, my opinion is— —I omitted the
German language, because that language retains more inflections than
the three languages I selected.
I say, ideogram with Japanese pronunciation, because almost no
foreigner can pronounce Chinese properly, let alone manage the tones,
because the pronunciation varies with the different regions of China, and
because I find no agreements as how the sounds, such as one can
understand, or really hear, should be transcribed in our alphabet.
Whereas the Japanese is phonetically simple as the Italian, whose sounds