PASIGRAPHY.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1942, 27 October 1874, Page 3

PASIGRAPHY.

The confusion of tongues is at an end ! Mr Anton Bachmaier, of Munich, has worked out to a successful issue a method which places within the reach of the common-sense natives of every country in the world the opportunity of communicating with each other with ease and perfect certainty, though each person is ignorant of any language save his own. This wonderful feat is effected by Mr Bachmaier by the simple process of numbering the ideas necessary for carrying on correspondence. The numbers are symbols written, and they express identical ideas in all the linguistic keys ; thus 1265 is "money" in the English key, "argent" in the French, u i<eld" in the German, "rupai" in the Urdu, "penge" ia the Danish, &c. A sentence written in these numbers may be penned by an Englishman, and read with perfect ease by a Chinaman or Russian ; an advertisement couched in these figures will be understood all over the world by people possessessed of keys in their own languages. Mr Bachmaier calls his system Pasigraphy, and a Pasigraphical Society has been established in London, comprising a large number of learned and philanthrophical gentlemen, having . Dr Samuel Birch, of the British Museum, at their head, for the purpose of making knovnin this country the advantages of this new universal interpreter. As au instanc3 of j the sort of thing a pasigram is, we give the following as a specimen : — 3296 2676 1635 3311 3177 315 1610 376. The meaning of which is, — " What is now the price of cotton in Bombay?" Of course it would be quicker to writo the sentence in any particular language ; but the advantage of the pasigram is that it is just as intelligent to a Japanese or Hottentot, provided with a key in his own language, as it is to the original writer. The number of mental conceptions indexed in this way by Mr Bachmaier is four thousand three hundred and thirty-four, and this number far exceeds the necessities of the most volumiuous of letter- writers. The extreme simplicity of the process makes its universal exployment possible by practical men of ordinary sense ; and as nothing is required beyond the common material of typography, the printing press may be inexpensively utilised in Pasigraphy.