In making his Volapük vocabulary, Father Schleyer has sought first for the simplest words now in use. If such words are to be found in the English language, he has adopted them; if not, then he has drawn upon the Latin, German, French, and Spanish languages in the order named. For example, the word man in English, is a sufficiently simple root, and, therefore, _man_, with the same spelling and the continental pronunciation, is made to signify a man, or the man in Volapük--for the articles _a_ and _the_ are discarded. But house in English is inconveniently long and ends with a silent letter, and therefore the word _dom_, from the Latin word _domus_, is taken. In some instances neither of the languages named contains a root sufficiently simple, and then the inventor constructs a new one. But, so rich is the English language in simple Anglo-Saxon roots, that more than one-half of the words in Volapük are derived from them, and the number of new words whose roots are not to be found in any living language is comparatively very small. To the suggestion that, if the English language was to be drawn upon so largely it would have been better to have adopted that, and induce all educated persons to learn it, the advocates of Volapük reply, first, that its irregularities of construction, orthography, and pronunciation make it too difficult to acquire; and secondly, international prejudice would prevent it from being universally adopted. The use of so many English roots, however, makes Volapük much easier to learn by one whose mother tongue is English, and thus bring it within reach of the largest number of people speaking a common language, while it eliminates irregularities and does not arouse national prejudices. The names of the cardinal numbers follow the vowels in their regular order, a denoting the first, e the second, etc. Thus: _Bal_, 1; _tel_, 2; _kil_, 3; _fol_, 4; _lul_, 5; _mäl_, 6; _vel_, 7; _jöl_, 8; _zül_, 9; _bals_, 10; _tels_, 20; _kils_, 30; _tum_, 100; _mil_, 1,000, etc. The year 1887, written out in Volapük, is _Balmil jöltum jölsevel_. The Arabic numerals are used as in English. S added to any word forms the plural, which is never formed in any other way. The first three vowels (a, e, i) added to any noun, form respectively its genitive, dative, and accusative; s added to these forms makes the plurals of the same cases. Man is therefore declined as follows: _Singular._ _Plural._ NOM _man_, the man; _mans_, the men; GEN _mana_, of the man; _manas_, of the men; DAT _mane_, to the man; _manes_, to the men; ACC _mani_, the man; _manis_, the men. Every noun in the language is declined in the same way, so that all declensions may be learned in one minute.