Esperanto might be utterly unfamiliar to modern people, but mention the "New Language of All Nations" spoken of by Mr. Tree Man, and one could understand the influence it wielded at its height.
Esperanto had even nearly become the universal language of international diplomacy, but French opposition at the crucial moment prevented it from happening.
In fact, before World War II—or at least before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919—French had always been the foremost language on the diplomatic stage.
Yet it was World War II that truly dealt Esperanto its fatal blow. The great powers all, without prior consultation, strictly banned it, leaving it unable to recover.
Franz naturally harbored no such grand ambitions, nor was he naïve enough to pursue some fantasy of universal harmony. Still, unifying the languages of the Austrian Empire and its surrounding regions was necessary.
If a Polish ophthalmologist who had taken up the field halfway through life could create a language, then the language experts of the Austrian Empire could do far more.
Generally speaking, one had to master more than three foreign languages to be called a language expert. But in the Austrian Empire, scholars who knew fewer than eight languages were too embarrassed to claim linguistics as their profession.
For language experts, it was rare to encounter someone willing to fund them. Besides, this was far safer than jobs such as venturing into the jungles of South America, crossing Africa's death zones, polar expeditions, or descending into ancient tombs.
(In truth, there were not many pure linguists at the time. Most also served as historians, archaeologists, explorers, exorcists, and a host of other roles, often dying in all manner of strange places. That was why such a stereotype remained.)
Inventing a language was no difficult matter for them.