Max Talmey

Max Talmey (born Max Talmud; ; 1869 – November 7, 1941) was a Lithuanian-born American ophthalmologist and educator of Jewish descent, best known as Albert Einstein's tutor who introduced him to fields of and books on natural science and philosophy, for his success in treating cataracts, and for his work on auxiliary languages.

Early life and education Talmey was born in Tauroggen (now in Lithuania) near the Prussian border into a poor Jewish family. At 18, Talmey was fluent in six languages. Talmey studied medicine in Germany; his older brother, Bernard S. Talmey (1862-1926), was also a medical doctor. Talmey was then attending Medical School in Munich, Germany. For five years, from 1889 to 1894, Talmey was a weekly lunch guest of Einstein's family, as was Jewish custom. They used to discuss themes of interest to Albert Einstein, and Talmey lent him a number of books about science, including works on general science like multi-volume Popular Book on Natural Science by Aaron Bernstein; on physics like Force and Matter by Ludwig Buchner; on mathematics like Theodore Spieker's popular textbook on geometry for higher schools , which was based on classic Euclid's Elements, and which he called "his holly little geometry book"; and philosophy, like The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant. According to Talmey, "Kant's works, incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, seemed to be clear" for young Einstein. He also published an account of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. In 1906 he published the first grammar of Esperanto in the US, but by 1907 he became disappointed in the language and resigned from the Esperanto Society.

Talmey thought that Esperanto was flawed: In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, he described some of the problems of universal languages. "I have been studying painstakingly the 300 years' history of an auxiliary language for twenty years. The auxiliary international language must be absolutely neutral and extremely easy to learn to write and to speak. These two requirements exclude all natural languages". He found two important faults with Esperanto. First, an international language must contain types that can be printed anywhere. However, Esperanto contains five unusual symbols that are not found in any natural language. Second, the international language must be mellifluous. "The sound of Esperanto is nothing short of repugnant". Although Esperanto had some success in practice, Talmey felt these defects doomed it. which can be regarded as offspring of Esperanto and Novial. Talmey intended Gloro more as a "model language" for precise exchange of ideas, such as the explanation of relativity to laymen, than another general purpose international language like Esperanto. That exactness was to be achieved by the requirement that each word existing in Gloro has a precise and unique meaning. Thus multi-meaning words in natural languages, like in English, would have different distinct corresponding words in Gloro, one for each meaning. Talmey performed public readings of works translated into Gloro, which had similarities to Latin and Spanish. Talmey praised Gloro as a language of "extreme simplicity, no rules of grammar, and a pleasant sound".

Time described Gloro in 1937 and printed an excerpt in it: "" Its description reads: "In Gloro there are 18 suffix forms to denote different parts of speech, verb tenses, case endings. There are no other rules of grammar. It looks and sounds even more like a hodge-podge of Latin, Italian and Spanish than that more famed lingua franca, Esperanto, which it considerably resembles. Its roots were chosen with great care, however, from various languages, especially English."

Talmey died in 1941 in New York.

Selected bibliography Ido, Exhaustive Text Book of the International Language of the Delegation, and Fundamentals of an Artificial International Language, by Dr. Max Talmey, 1919.

Medicine Influenza or acute articular rheumatism? Their diagnosis with a report of my own illness. New York Med J 1904; 80: 496–498. Reflections concerning pretended therapeutic successes obtained by some practitioners of the ophthalmological specialty. New York Med J 1905; 82:1165 A contribution to the study of pseudo-neuritis optica. New York Med J 1906; 83: 442. Corneal burn by direct flame. New York Med J 1907; 85: 974–976. A case of congenital cataract, successful operation at the age of 23 years. New York Med J 1910; 91 : 592.

Manic depressive insanity or recurrent insanity? New York Med J 1911; 93: 19–22. Bilateral optic pseudoneuritis and unilateral medullated nerve fibers in cranial injury by blunt force. Med Rec New York 1913; 84: 13–15. Predisposing factors in infantile paralysis. New York Med J 1916; 104: 202–204. Restoration of sight in a case of hypermature cataract of twenty years' standing, complicated by acute glaucoma. New York Med J 1917; 105: 401–406. Suggestions for improving the operation for cataract. New York Med J 1918; 107:1108-1114. Freud's psychoanalysis (letter). New York Sun Nov 8, 1939.

Einstein Einstein as a boy recalled by a friend. New York Times Feb 10, 1929; x, 11. Personal Recollections of Einstein's Boyhood and Youth. Scripta Mathematica, Sept. 1932, pp. 68–71 The Relativity Theory Simplified. NY: Falcon Press, 1932; 163

Linguistics

New edition The Language Question (letter). New York Times Dec 3,1922, IX.

Suplemento al Raporto XXVIII. Reflekti pril Universala Linguo e Nova Vorti, Ilo Press, 1925. Arulo. Text Book of the Universal Language, New York: Ilo Press, 1925. Lexikologio di Arulo - Sugestioni, New York: Ilo Press, 1927.

Other A tribute to Dr. Bernard Simon Talmey. Am Med 1926; 32: 465-467