Work
Beck is remembered for his book, "The Universal Character", published in London in 1657; it was also published the same year in French. The books's full title was "The Universal Character, by which all Nations in the World may understand one another's Conceptions, Reading out of one Common Writing their own Mother Tongues. An Invention of General Use, the Practise whereof may be Attained in two Hours' space, Observing the Grammatical Directions. Which Character is so contrived, that it may be Spoken as well as Written".
In his book Beck sought to invent a universal language that could be understood and used by anyone in the world, no matter what their mother tongue. It was based on the ten Arabic numerals, 0-9, which he proposed the following pronunciations:
1. Aun, 2. Too, 3. Tray, 4. For orfo, 5. Fai, 6. Sic, 7. Sen, 8. At, 9. Nin, 0. o.
The combinations of these characters, intended to express all the main words in any language, were to be arranged in numerical order, from zero to 10,000, which he considered sufficient to cover all words in general use.
Every word was assigned a unique number and this number was the same whatever the native language of the user. Each language would have its own alphabetically ordered list of words for reference. Letters were also used in his system, either before or after the number, to indicate concepts like nouns, cases, verbal tenses etc.
The system, though arousing interest, was not well received by those who studied it. The words were in most instances extended to an unmanageable length, and the difficulty of discovering the meaning of the numerical group which represented the desired "radical" was increased by the still greater difficulty of disconnecting the number from the modifying appendage, and of analysing the component parts of the latter.
On the frontispiece of Beck's "The Universal Character" is an engraving by William Faithorne, and the figure of the European is supposed, with great probability, to be the portrait of the author.
Read more about this topic: Cave Beck
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“It is not true that there is dignity in all work. Some jobs are definitely better than others.... People who have good jobs are happy, rich, and well dressed. People who have bad jobs are unhappy, poor and use meat extenders. Those who seek dignity in the type of work that compels them to help hamburgers are certain to be disappointed.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“If your work is made more easy
By a friendly, helping hand,
Say so.”
—Unknown. If You Have a Friend (l. 31–33)
“However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology, fate . . . until we can actually live in a society where mothers and children genuinely matter, ours is an essentially powerless responsibility. Mothers carry out most of the work orders, but most of the rules governing our lives are shaped by outside influences.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)