Alphabet of human thought

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The idea of an alphabet of human thought originates in the 17th century, when proposals were first made for a universal a priori language.

René Descartes suggested that the lexicon of a universal language should consist of primitive elements. The systematic combination of these elements, according to syntactical rules, would generate "an infinity of different words." In the early 18th century, Gottfried Leibniz outlined his characteristica universalis, an artificial language in which grammatical and logical structure would coincide, which would allow much reasoning to be reduced to calculation. Leibniz acknowledged the work of Ramon Llull, particularly the Ars generalis ultima (1305), as one of the inspirations for this idea. The basic elements of his characteristica would be pictographic characters representing unambiguously a limited number of elementary concepts. Leibniz called the inventory of these concepts "the alphabet of human thought." There are quite a few mentions of the characteristica in Leibniz's writings, but he never set out any details.