Interlingua

Interlingua
Spoken in:	many countries of Earth
Timeline/Universe:	international auxiliary language
Total speakers:	unknown
Genealogical classification:	A posteriori Romance-based
Basic word order:	SVO
Morphological type:	agglutinating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	accusative
Created by:
IALA	1951

Interlingua is an international auxiliary language developed and promoted by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). The language is a naturalistic IAL based on common grammar and vocabulary found in Romance languages (namely French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) and Latin-influenced non-Romance languages (namely English and, to a lesser degree, German and Russian).

Phonology

The phonology of Interlingua was described in 1951 by Alexander Gode and Hugh Blair in the IALA publication A Grammar of Interlingua.

Consonants

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Labial- velar		Velar		Glottal
Plosive	p	b			t	d							k	ɡ
Nasal	m				n
Tap						ɾ
Fricative			f	v	s	z	ʃ	(d)ʒ							(h)
Affricates					ts~s
Approximant										j		w
Lateral approximant						l

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Open	a

Morphology

There is some systemic marking for parts of speech. But, for example, nouns do not have to end in any particular letter. Typically, however, adjectives end in -e or -a, adverbs end in -menti or -o, while nouns end in -a, -e, -o or a consonant. Finite verbs virtually always end in -a, -e, or -i, while infinitives add -r: scribe, 'write', 'writes'; scriber, 'to write'.

Articles

Interlingua 2.0

Definite article	le	la
Indefinite article	un	una

The definite article is le, the indefinite article is un, and neither article shows any agreement in form with nouns. The prepositions a ("to") and de ("of") fuse with a following le into al and del respectively.

The definite article is, on the whole, used as in English, with the exception that it should not be omitted with titles preceding proper names nor with abstract nouns representing an entire class, species, etc.

Nouns

Interlingua 2.0 has gender,
like all Romance languages

Nouns inflect for number only. Plural nouns take -s after a vowel, -es after a consonant (but final -c, -g change in spelling to -ches, -ghes to preserve the hard [k] and [g] sound of c and g).

catto   'cat'  →  cattos  'cats'

can  'dog'  →  canes  'dogs'

roc   'rook' [chess]   →  roches  'rooks'

Interlingua has no grammatical gender. Animate nouns are sex-neutral, unless they refer specifically to a male or a female. Thus, jornalista 'journalist' and scientista 'scientist' are sex-neutral, while rege 'king' and regina 'queen' are sex-specific. Explicit feminine forms can be created by substituting final -a for a final -o or -e or by adding the suffix -essa.

puero   'boy'   →  puera  'girl'

tigre   'tiger'   →  tigressa  'female tiger'

These colour the regular forms as masculine when they appear in the same context.

Unlike in English, nouns cannot take adjectival forms, such as 'winter weather', 'research laboratory', 'fall coat', etc. Such constructions instead require the use of a preposition or a corresponding adjective, respectively tempore hibernal, laboratoria de recerca, and mantello pro autumno. This is however excepted by proper nouns which can be used adjectivally as in English: contator Geiger 'Geiger counter', motor Diesel 'Diesel engine', radios Röntgen 'Roentgen rays', etc.

Despite the above restrictions, Interlingua permits use of apposition, where the two nouns refer to the same thing.

arbore nano 'dwarf tree'

nave domo 'house boat'

Male and female forms should match.

Adjectives

Interlingua 2.0 adjective
agree with their head noun
in number and gender.

belles oculos or oculos belles
una bona idea, una idea ingeniosa

Adjectives may precede or follow the noun they modify. As a matter of style, short adjectives tend to precede, long adjectives tend to follow. Numerals always precede the noun.

belle oculos or oculos belle   'beautiful eyes'

un bon idea, un idea ingeniose   'a good idea, an ingenious idea'

An adjective never has to agree with the noun it modifies, but adjectives may be pluralized when there is no explicit noun to modify.

le parve infantes   'the little children';   but   le parves   'the little ones'

Comparative degree is expressed by plus or minus preceding the adjective and superlative degree by le plus or le minus.

un plus feroce leon   'a fiercer lion'

un traino minus rapide   'a less speedy train'

le plus alte arbore   'the tallest tree'

le solution le minus costose   'the least costly solution'.

The suffix -issime may be used to express the absolute superlative degree.

un aventura excellentissime   'a most excellent adventure'

The adjectives bon 'good', mal 'bad', magne 'great', and parve 'small' have optional irregular forms for the comparative and superlative.

bon → plus bon → le plus bon		or		bon → melior → optime
mal → plus mal → le plus mal		or		mal → pejor → pessime
magne → plus magne → le plus magne		or		magne → major → maxime
parve → plus parve → le plus parve		or		parve → minor → minime

Theoretically, every adjective may serve as a pronoun referring to something expressed in a previous passage.

Adverbs

There are two types of adverbs, primary and secondary. Primary adverbs are a closed class of grammatical operators, such as quasi, 'almost'; jam, 'already'; and totevia, 'anyway'. Secondary adverbs are an open class derived from corresponding adjectives by adding the suffix -mente (-amente after final -c).

felice   'happy'   →   felicemente   'happily'

magic   'magical'   →   magicamente   'magically'

A few common adverbs have optional short forms in -o.

sol   'alone'   →   solo or solmente   'only'

Like adjectives, adverbs use plus and minus to express the comparative and le plus and le minus to express the superlative.

Illa canta plus bellemente que illa parla.   'She sings more beautifully than she speaks.'

Le gepardo curre le plus rapide de omne animales.   'The cheetah runs the fastest of all animals.'

The adverbs equivalent to bon, 'good' and mal, 'bad' have optional irregular forms.

bonmente → plus bonmente → le plus bonmente		or		ben → plus ben → le plus ben		or		ben → melio → optimo
malmente → plus malmente→ le plus malmente		or		mal → plus mal → le plus mal		or		mal → pejo → pessimo

Notes

This article is part of a series on International Auxiliary Languages. Romance-based Auxlangs: Aercant * Atlango * Interlingua * Latin Nov * Novial * Occidental (Interlingue) * Panroman * Romanal Germanic-based Auxlangs: Folksprak * Nordien Slavic Auxlangs: Novoslovnica Turkic Auxlangs: Jalpi Turkic African Auxlangs: Afrihili Mixed-Origin Auxlangs: Esperanto * Adjuvilo * Ido * Ayola * Medial Europan * Bolak * Kotava * North American * Pantos-dimou-glossa * Pasetok * Sasxsek * Universalglot * Volapük A priori auxlangs: -