ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language

Okay kiddo, so imagine you're trying to talk to someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. It's really hard, right? Well, a long time ago, a man named John Wilkins wanted to figure out how to make it easier for everyone to communicate with each other, even if they spoke different languages.

He came up with an idea called "An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language". Now that might sound like a big, fancy term, but let's break it down.

"An Essay" means a piece of writing where someone explains their thoughts or ideas about something.

"A Real Character" means a way of writing things down that represents them accurately, kind of like how we write letters and numbers.

"Philosophical" means related to thinking or ideas, like how we sometimes talk about "philosophy" in class.

And "Language" means a way of communicating, like how we use English or Spanish or French to talk to each other.

So, Wilkins wanted to create a new language that everyone could use to communicate with each other, called the "Philosophical Language". But to do that, he needed a way of writing it down that was easy to understand and accurate. That's what the "Real Character" was for.

He spent a lot of time thinking about how to create this language, and he even came up with a system of symbols to represent different ideas and concepts. He thought that if everyone used this new language, then we could all understand each other better and work together to solve problems.

Unfortunately, Wilkins' idea never really caught on, and we still speak lots of different languages around the world. But people are still interested in creating new forms of communication that can bridge gaps between different cultures and languages, just like Wilkins wanted to do so many years ago.