INTERLINGUA in le Encyclopedia Americana

The Encyclopedia AMERICANA. International Edition. 30 volumes. New York 1975. Iste articulo super interlingua appareva al minus ancora in 1999: Encyclopedia AMERICANA International Edition. Volume 15. Grolier 1999. ISBN 0-7172-0131-7 p 279. INTERLINGUA INTERLINGUA, is the name for a system of international verbal communication. Interlingua has proved useful in various applications, particularly in scientific and medical communication, with the auxiliary function of providing research reports with summaries of virtually universal accessibility. (This sentence translates into Interlingua as "Interlingua se ha provate utile in varie applicationes, particularmente in communicationes scientific e medical, con le function auxiliari de provider reportos de recerca con summarios de un comprehensibilitate practicamente universal.") Interlingua differs from other international languages in that its elaboration was prompted not simply by the desire to provide a universal language but essentially by the finding that such a language could utilize a number of the phenomena observed in linguistic research. These phenomena include the existence of an "international scientific vocabulary" and the close structural affinity of all the languages of Western civilization. The international scientific vocabulary, for which B. Glove, as editor of Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, introduced the lexicographical label "ISV", consists almost entirely of words and word-building elements native to classical Greek and Latin. This vocabulary, therefore, is shared historically by the Romance and Teutonic languages as keepers and beneficiaries of the cultural and linguistic Greco-Latin tradition; and it has been made familiar to sophisticated speakers of all languages (including those outside the Greco-Latin orbit) through the spread of science and technology. The structural affinity of the languages of Western civilization, which induced the American linguist Benjamin L. Whorf to coin the term "Standard Average European" (SAE), makes it possible to evolve from the ISV a full complement of operating particles (and other elements not directly represented in it), resulting in a full-fledged and "self-generating" vocabulary. This structural affinity also makes it possible to derive a system of grammatical principles that are natural and congenial to that vocabulary. Aside from its practical contributions, Interlingua is of considerable theoretical interest to comparative linguistics. It also is useful in language teaching (as a standard or "bridge" language) and in aiding "developing" languages to create technical terminologies. Interlingua is fully described in the Interlingua-English Dictionary and the Interlingua Grammar, first published in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (of New York) as the final products of a program of linguistic research begun in 1924. Interlingua is represented by an international organization (the Union Mundial pro Interlingua) and by associations in the Scandinavian countries, France, Britain, Switzerland, the United States, and elsewhere. See also UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. ALEXANDER GODE Editor of "Interlingua-English Dictionary" Further Reading: Gode Alexander and Blair Hugh E., Interlingua, A Grammar of the International Language, 2d ed. (New York 1956); Guerard Albert L., A Short History of the International Language Movement (New York 1922); Pei, Mario, One Language for the World (New York 1958). UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE or INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE, terms applied to ethnic languages, the use of which has spread beyond their natural limits; and also to artificial languages designed for international use in an auxiliar capacity. The most important language of the first kind is Latin, which has prolonged its natural span of life over a thousand years by serving as a universal language to the world of learning throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and, till this day, to the Roman Catholic Church. French has long been the international language of diplomacy; English has become that of trade. Hindustani is the common language in all parts of India. Hybrid, universal languages current among multilingual populations are lingua franca in the Levant, and pidgin English in the ports of the Far East. Among the artificial universal languages were first thought of in the 17th century. Both Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and René Descartes held that construction of a labguage based on logic was possible. Several such schemes invented in the 18th and 19th centuries were systems of classical concepts with corresponding signs: numbers, letters or syllables. The originators of the so-called a posteriori types of constructed languages proceeded to build their schemes by using available language material (concepts, words, and grammatical features) from different living languages. The first two languages of this type, Volapük and Esperanto achieved considerable initial success. As a reaction to the artificial schematicism of these languages, a more natural approach to language construction became widespread among interlinguists. Some naturalists held that in the living languages there was an abundance of cognate elements (words and grammatical features) of international currency, so that actually an international language potentially existed and only had to be discovered, not invented and constructed as the schematists had thought. In connection with this new movement, a whole series of languages came to existence. Ido (1907), Nov-Esperanto (1925), and Esperanto II (1942) appreared as revised forms of Esperanto; Idiom Neutral (1902) was a development of Volapük. New languages were: Mundolingua (by Julius Lott, 1890); Universal (by Dr. H. Molenaar, 1906); Latino Sine Flexione (frequently called Interlingua, 1903), evolved by the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano through a radical simplification of classical Latin; Occidental, worked out by Edgar de Wahl of Estonia (1925; it has since then won for itself a certain amount of recognition in Europe); Novial (1928), produced by the Danish philologist Otto Jespersen; and Interlingua (1951; not to be confused with the Interlingua devised by Peano), an American contribution to interlinguistics, which deserves special attention. Interlingua. - In 1924 the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA) was formed under the leadership and patronage of Mr. and Mrs. Hennen Morris of New York. Conferences of linguists and other communication specialists were organized in the United States and Europe. Taking counsel from the conferences, IALA embarked on its research program. Words forms occurring in English, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese (with German and Russian consulted), grouped into word families, were etymologically traced back to the historically latest form from which they all had taken their derivation. Meanings were ascribed to these standardized international words after an equally thorough comparative study of the semantic situation in the mentioned source languages. The compiled vocabulary was published in 1951 as the Interlingua-English Dictionary. The grammar of Interlingua was worked out with the aim of achieving greatest regularity within the possibilities offered by the source languages. The merits of Interlingua were first recognized by researcj scientists in the medical field. The Second World Congress of Cardiology, which took place in Washington, D.C., in September 1954, adopted Interlingua as a secondary language for the summaries of its official program. The foregoing sentence expressed in Interlingua reads: Le Secunde Congresso Mundial de Cardiologia, que habeva loco in Washington, D.C., in septembre 1954, adoptava interlingua como lingua secondari del summarios in su programma official.     Interlingua summaries have since become a regular feature in the programs of a number of international medical congresses as well as in over 30 medical journals. The Journal of the American Medical Association, Chicago, Ill., being the most important with an international circulation of 25,000. The promotion of Interlingua in the field of science and medicine is handled by Science Service, Washington, D.C., at its New York Interlingua Division. Bibliography. - Couturat,L., and leau,L., Histoire de la langue universelle (Paris 1907); Gurard, Albert L., A Short History of the International Language Movement (New York 1922); International Auxiliary Language Association, Interlingua-English; a Dictionary of the International Language and Interlingua; a Grammar ... (New York 1951); Gode, Alexander, "The Case for Interlingua," The Scientific Monthly (Washington D.C., August 1953); id., Interlingua a Prime Vista (New York 1954); id., "Interlingua: Tool of International Communication," Journal of Dental Medicine (New York 1956). NICOLAI RABENECK Linguist and Writer on European Nations and Cultures.

Actualisate le 2009-02-21 Administrator de iste sito: -------------------------- Allan Kiviaho SILY - Suomen Interlinguayhdistys ry. FILF - Föreningen för Interlingua i Finland AFIL - Association Finlandese pro Interlingua