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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.

Contents

Works

See also

References

External links

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''

See also

★ John Wilkins

★ George Dalgarno

★ Cave Beck

★ Lodwick's ''Universal Alphabet'' has been compared to the Tengwar.

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.

External links

★ Bibliography