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:
“... actresses require protection in their art from blind abuse, from savage criticism. Their work is their religion, if they are seeking the best in their art, and to abuse that faith is to rob them, to dishonor them.”
—Nance O’Neil (1874–1965)
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“The work was like peeling an onion. The outer skin came off with difficulty ... but in no time you’d be down to its innards, tears streaming from your eyes as more and more beautiful reductions became possible.”
—Edward Blishen (b. 1920)