Interlingua
| Interlingua | |
| Spoken in: | many countries of Earth |
| Timeline/Universe: | international auxiliary language |
| Total speakers: | unknown |
| Genealogical classification: | A posteriori
|
| 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).
Anthropology
Interlingua focuses on common vocabulary shared by Western European languages, which are often descended from or heavily influenced by the Latin language (such as the Romance languages) and Greek language. Interlingua organizers have four "primary control languages" where, by default, a word (or variant thereof) is expected to appear in at least three of them to qualify for inclusion in Interlingua. These are English; French; Italian; and a combination of Spanish and Portuguese which are treated as a single mega-language for Interlingua purposes, as both are west Iberian languages. Additionally, German and Russian have been dubbed "secondary control languages". While the result is often akin to Neo-Latin as the most frequent source of commonality, Interlingua words can have origins in any language, as long as they have drifted into the primary control languages as loanwords. For example, the Japanese words geisha and samurai and the Finnish word sauna are used in most Western European languages, and therefore in Interlingua as well; similarly, the Guugu Yimithirr word gangurru is used in latinized form (Interlingua: kanguru, English: kangaroo).[3]
The maintainers of Interlingua attempt to keep the grammar simple and word formation regular, and use only a small number of roots and affixes. This is intended to make the language quicker to learn. The American heiress Alice Vanderbilt Morris (1874–1950) became interested in linguistics and the international auxiliary language movement in the early 1920s. In 1924, Morris and her husband, Dave Hennen Morris, established the non-profit International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA) in New York City. Their aim was to place the study of IALs on a more complex and scientific basis. Morris developed the research program of IALA in consultation with Edward Sapir, William Edward Collinson, and Otto Jespersen.
Investigations of the auxiliary language problem were in progress at the International Research Council, the American Council on Education, the American Council of Learned Societies, the British, French, Italian, and American Associations for the advancement of science, and other groups of specialists. Morris created IALA as a continuation of this work.
Phonology
The phonology of Interlingua was described in 1951 by Alexander Gode and Hugh Blair in the IALA publication A Grammar of Interlingua.[1]
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
| 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
| Universal Languages | ||
|---|---|---|
| AFRICA | SEDES (Horn of Africa), Middle Semitic (Semitic languages), Kintu (Bantu languages), Guosa (West Africa) | 
|
| CENTRAL ASIA | Jalpi (Turkic languages), Zens (Iranian languages), Dravindian (Dravidian languages), Neo-Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan languages) | |
| EUROPE | Interlingua (Romance languages), Folksprak (Germanic languages), Interslavic Slavic languages, Balkan (Balkans) | |
| FAR EAST | Dan'a'yo (CJKV), MSEAL (Mainland Southeast Asia), Indo-Malay (Maritime Southeast Asia) | |
| This article is part of a series on International Auxiliary Languages. Romance-based Auxlangs: Aercant * Atlango * Interlingua * Latin Nov * Novial * Occidental (Interlingue) * Panroman * Romanal |
