Sylvia Pankhurst and the international auxiliary language

Sylvia Pankhurst was a pioneering figure of socialist feminism who advocated for universal suffrage and against war. Less well-known is her involvement in the movement for an international auxiliary language. In 1927, Pankhurst published a booklet, Delphos. The Future of International Language, where she described the growing need for a world auxiliary language and her support for Interlingua (Latino sine flexione). A biographically informed study of Delphos shows the modernist, cosmopolitan and democratic vocation of the international auxiliary language movement in the early 20th century. Pankhurst’s views on the motivation and principles of an interlanguage-to-come were widely shared by the international auxiliary language community. We present her support for Interlingua as an example of the scientific humanism that dominated the beginnings of interlinguistics, and relate her language activism to her socialist and pacifist stands.