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What is Interlingue? |
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Interlingue is an International Language, started by a Baltic-German called Edgar von Wahl. He presented his project in 1922 in a little magazine that he called «Kosmoglott» and that he published himself in Reval, now Tallinn (in Estonia). For seven years «Kosmoglott» was open to every critic of the new language and offered a forum also for other projects. But in 1929 they observed that the new language had so proved itself in practical use that they published the magazine only in that language and thereby gave it a proper forum. The name of the magazine was adapted to international spelling; now it was named «Cosmoglotta». Wahl named his language «Occidental», because the international vocabulary derived almost solely from the great western (occidental) languages. For his international language project he sought to utilise the already-existent international vocabulary as fully as possible, but without the irregularities present in the national languages. This point was the new idea of Wahl’s language: It completely assimilates the international vocabulary, so that only a few elements must be learned and so understanding is possible almost at first sight. But at the same time it structures the international vocabulary according to a system so clear and easy that even people who do have to learn the vocabulary, do not have to learn it together with all the irregularities of the national languages. You can look at Wahl’s language as a successful middle road, as a compromise between the inherited international vocabulary, which represents European cultural heritage, and a simple and regular linguistic structure, which gives everyone, not just Europeans, the ability to use the language after a very short time. After the Second World War the name of the language, «Occidental», became an obstacle to its use in communist countries. They supposed counter-revolutionary tendencies would follow its use. But it is self-evident that a language itself is free from ideology. Anyone can use or misuse it to promote any ideology. To counter the prejudices in the east-european countries, people decided to call the language «Interlingue». A second motivation for the choice of the new name was the fact that the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA) had itself devised a new international language, whose name was «Interlingua». To avoid new schisms in the world-language movement, they tried to bridge the gap between the two language projects, which were already very similar. But in fact a fusion of the two languages did not occur. The basic difference between them is the fact that IALA-Interlingua, in contrast to Interlingue-Occidental, was essentially conceived as the sum of the common elements among the southern Romance languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian). But it does not offer a means of organizing those elements consistently, which would enable people who speak none of those languages to learn it rapidly and well. IALA-Interlingua is, then, an interesting model of the features common to the southern Romance languages. Interlingue-Occidental on the other hand is a «pan-europan» language. But because today «European culture» (at least where language is concerned) essentially represents the «international culture» (without belittling other cultures!), Interlingue-Occidental is the «international language». |
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