Francis Lodwick

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Francis Lodwick (or Lodowick) (1619–1694) was a pioneer of a priori languages (what in the seventeenth century was called a 'philosophical language'). He was a merchant of Dutch origin who lived in London. His name appears in A Collection of the Names of the Merchants living in and about the City of London (1677), with the address "Fan-church street". He did not have any higher education, and was admitted as a Fellow to the Royal Society only at the age of 60.

Lodowick may have been acquainted with Daniel Defoe. Francis' nephew Charles (1658-1724), Mayor of New York City in 1694, signed at Defoe's marriage as a witness, and Francis may have introduced Defoe to "Roscommon's Academy", a group founded by Lord Roscommon in 1683.

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[edit] Works

  • 1647 A Common Writing: / Whereby two, although not under- / standing one the others Language, yet by / the helpe thereof, may communicate / their minds one to another. / Composed by a Well-willer to Learning. / Printed for the Author, / MDCXLVII.
  • 1652 The / Ground-Work, / Or / Foundation Laid, / (or so intended) / For the Framing of a New Perfect / Language: / And an Vniversall or / Common Writing. / And presented to the consideration of / the Learned, / By a Well-willer to Learning. / Printed, Anno MDCLII.
  • ca. 1675, A Country Not Named
  • 1686 An Essay / Towards An / Universal Alphabet

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Cram, David and Jaap Maat, Universal language schemes in the 17th century In Auroux, Koerner, Niederehe, Versteegh (eds.), History of the Language Sciences, Berlin/New York, Walter de Gruyter, 2000.
  • Lewis, Rhodri, The efforts of the Aubrey correspondence group to revise John Wilkins’ Essay (1668) and their context, Historiographia Linguistica 28 (2001), 331–364.
  • Poole, William, A Rare Early-Modern Utopia: Francis Lodwick’s A Country Not Named (c. 1675), Utopian Studies 15 (2004), 115-37.
  • Poole, William, The Genesis Narrative in the Circle of Robert Hooke and Francis Lodwick In Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England, Hessayon and Keene (eds.), Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.
  • Poole, William, Francis Lodwick’s Creation: Theology and Natural Philosophy in the Early Royal Society., Journal of the History of Ideas, 2005.
  • Salmon, Vivian, The Works of Francis Lodwick, London: Longman, 1972.

[edit] External links

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