IN LINGUISTICS NEWS.

Professor Rodney Glottal-Stopp, the noted linguist and cat fancier, announced yesterday the development of a successful auxiliary language that will, for the first time, make international communication possible for people of all levels of education.

The difficulty that faced other constructed languages, such as Esperanto, Volapük, or Lingua Franca Nova, was that, however much they might be simplified in comparison with naturally evolved languages, they still required a speaker and a listener to spend a great deal of effort on learning grammatical principles and a vocabulary in order to effect even the most rudimentary communication.

Prof. Glottal-Stopp, recognizing this inherent limitation of constructed languages that rely on grammar and vocabulary, has constructed a language made up entirely of grunting and pointing at things.

It is intended primarily to be a spoken language for international communication. Making use of the regular principles in the on-line manual he created for the language, Prof. Glottal-Stopp has named it “Ungh [pointing at mouth].”

According to Prof. Glottal-Stopp, his studies show that a person of merely ordinary intelligence can be taught the basic principles of Ungh [pointing at mouth] in six and a half minutes, and then proceed to make himself understood by persons with no formal training in Ungh [pointing at mouth]. The apathy of the general public in regard to constructed languages is thus no longer a barrier to international communication.

Asked whether he expected to benefit personally from his invention, Prof. Glottal-Stopp rubbed his hands together, held out his left hand with the palm up, intoned the syllable “Euh,” and pointed to his open palm with the index finger of his right hand.

It is believed that Prof. Glottal-Stopp has been working under a large grant from an anonymous donor.