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font color="#FF0000" size="+2"> INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE<
An artificial language designed for international use in a secondary capacity; or a national language, either extinct as such or still living, whose use has spread beyond its’ original boundaries. The most important international language of the latter kind is Latin, which has served for more than a thousand years as a vehicle of communication in the world of learn¬ing and in the Roman Catholic Church. In the 18th century French was cultivated throughout Europe as the language of polite society. It was the diplomatic language of the world and enjoyed considerable popularity in literary and scientific circles. In the 19th century Germany’s schol¬arly and scientific prominence made knowledge of German essential in those fields. In the 20th century, English is the most widely known secondary language.
Among some multilingual populations mixed or hybrid languages have arisen for commercial purposes: they include Lingua Franca in the Levant, pidgin English in the ports of the Far East, and Swahili in East Africa.
Artificial Languages. During the 17th century the concept of a philosophical or a priori language was first thought of. The philosophers Gottfried Wilhelm Leib¬niz and Rene Descartes both believed that a language could be constructed of arbitrary elements arranged according to logical patterns. Several such languages were proposed in the 18th and 19th centuries; as a rule, they were systems of classified concepts represented by corresponding signs.
Much more numerous were the proposed a posteriori languages—those that make use, to a varying extent, of words and notions common to several national languages. Between 1880 and 1907, a total of 53 universal languages were proposed. Some of these enjoyed an amazing, if tem¬porary, vogue. In 1889 Volapiik claimed nearly a million ad¬herents.
Today it is all but forgotten. A few years ago Es¬peranto experienced a similar popularity, but there is no longer much interest in it. Some a posteriori languages, like Esperanto or Ido, are said to be “schematic”; they aim at simplicity through regular and consistent spelling, grammar, and derivation. Others, like Occidental, are called “natural¬istic,” since they aim at greater conformity to natural lan¬guages. By the side of these autonomous languages, there are some schemes which involve drastic simplifications of previously existing languages. Such are Latino sine flexione, where simplification has been achieved at the expense of Latin grammar without trying to reduce the vocabulary, and Basic English, where the chief features of English gram¬mar have been left practically intact, but where the vocabulary has been reduced to fewer than one thousand words.
International languages have been constructed because of a conviction that existing languages are too complicated and too irregular, and also because of the very obvious fact that no one existing national language could be elevated to the position of a universal world language without arousing insuperable nationalistic prejudices on the part of the speakers of other tongues of wide usage and recognized importance. A grave defect (though perhaps unavoidable) is that every international language thus far proposed has been based essentially upon one of the European family of languages and upon the vocabulary of the Latin-Romance or of the English-speaking world. Hence, for the populations of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and even great parts of Europe, acquisition of any one of them would be tantamount to learning a language of a type hitherto more or less unknown.
Knowledge of the sound changes and inflections would be fairly easy to gain; but the vocabulary would remain hopelessly alien. Even if the language proved more than a pleasing theoretical exercise and actually became vernacular, it would either remain static, since it seems to allow little scope for further grammatical evolution, or it would be split into dialects.
Authors of recent schemes to promote an international language do not profess any intention of displacing existing national languages. On the contrary, they insist on the auxiliary character of their proposals: the international lan¬guage is no longer meant to become the sole language of mankind but a second language for all. Experience has shown, it is claimed, that constructed languages can be used with success as international mediums of communica¬tion, and that most of them are very much easier than any national languages. Otto Jespersen, the Danish linguist and creator of the artificial language Novial, pointed out that the best among the international languages would compare favorably with national languages as spoken or written by foreigners.
The International Auxiliary Language Association of New York, founded in 1924, has been con¬ducting researches on the form of international language best fitted to cover the needs of modern civilization. In 1951 this group developed a language called Interlingua. This language is based on word forms occurring in English, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, grouped into word families, and etymologically traced back to the latest form from which they had all derived. The grammar of Inter¬lingua was worked out with the aim of achieving the greatest consistency with the grammars of the source languages.
Some scientists, especially in the field of medicine, have recognized the potentialities of Interlingua. A number of medical periodicals currently use this language for the sum¬maries of their articles. The following is the Interlingua
version of “Twenty-five medical periodicals currently use this language for the summaries of their articles:”
An artificial language designed for international use in a secondary capacity; or a national language, either extinct as such or still living, whose use has spread beyond its’ original boundaries. The most important international language of the latter kind is Latin, which has served for more than a thousand years as a vehicle of communication in the world of learn¬ing and in the Roman Catholic Church. In the 18th century French was cultivated throughout Europe as the language of polite society. It was the diplomatic language of the world and enjoyed considerable popularity in literary and scientific circles. In the 19th century Germany’s schol¬arly and scientific prominence made knowledge of German essential in those fields. In the 20th century, English is the most widely known secondary language.
Among some multilingual populations mixed or hybrid languages have arisen for commercial purposes: they include Lingua Franca in the Levant, pidgin English in the ports of the Far East, and Swahili in East Africa.
Artificial Languages. During the 17th century the concept of a philosophical or a priori language was first thought of. The philosophers Gottfried Wilhelm Leib¬niz and Rene Descartes both believed that a language could be constructed of arbitrary elements arranged according to logical patterns. Several such languages were proposed in the 18th and 19th centuries; as a rule, they were systems of classified concepts represented by corresponding signs.
Much more numerous were the proposed a posteriori languages—those that make use, to a varying extent, of words and notions common to several national languages. Between 1880 and 1907, a total of 53 universal languages were proposed. Some of these enjoyed an amazing, if tem¬porary, vogue. In 1889 Volapiik claimed nearly a million ad¬herents.
Today it is all but forgotten. A few years ago Es¬peranto experienced a similar popularity, but there is no longer much interest in it. Some a posteriori languages, like Esperanto or Ido, are said to be “schematic”; they aim at simplicity through regular and consistent spelling, grammar, and derivation. Others, like Occidental, are called “natural¬istic,” since they aim at greater conformity to natural lan¬guages. By the side of these autonomous languages, there are some schemes which involve drastic simplifications of previously existing languages. Such are Latino sine flexione, where simplification has been achieved at the expense of Latin grammar without trying to reduce the vocabulary, and Basic English, where the chief features of English gram¬mar have been left practically intact, but where the vocabulary has been reduced to fewer than one thousand words.
International languages have been constructed because of a conviction that existing languages are too complicated and too irregular, and also because of the very obvious fact that no one existing national language could be elevated to the position of a universal world language without arousing insuperable nationalistic prejudices on the part of the speakers of other tongues of wide usage and recognized importance. A grave defect (though perhaps unavoidable) is that every international language thus far proposed has been based essentially upon one of the European family of languages and upon the vocabulary of the Latin-Romance or of the English-speaking world. Hence, for the populations of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and even great parts of Europe, acquisition of any one of them would be tantamount to learning a language of a type hitherto more or less unknown.
Knowledge of the sound changes and inflections would be fairly easy to gain; but the vocabulary would remain hopelessly alien. Even if the language proved more than a pleasing theoretical exercise and actually became vernacular, it would either remain static, since it seems to allow little scope for further grammatical evolution, or it would be split into dialects.
Authors of recent schemes to promote an international language do not profess any intention of displacing existing national languages. On the contrary, they insist on the auxiliary character of their proposals: the international lan¬guage is no longer meant to become the sole language of mankind but a second language for all. Experience has shown, it is claimed, that constructed languages can be used with success as international mediums of communica¬tion, and that most of them are very much easier than any national languages. Otto Jespersen, the Danish linguist and creator of the artificial language Novial, pointed out that the best among the international languages would compare favorably with national languages as spoken or written by foreigners.
The International Auxiliary Language Association of New York, founded in 1924, has been con¬ducting researches on the form of international language best fitted to cover the needs of modern civilization. In 1951 this group developed a language called Interlingua. This language is based on word forms occurring in English, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, grouped into word families, and etymologically traced back to the latest form from which they had all derived. The grammar of Inter¬lingua was worked out with the aim of achieving the greatest consistency with the grammars of the source languages.
Some scientists, especially in the field of medicine, have recognized the potentialities of Interlingua. A number of medical periodicals currently use this language for the sum¬maries of their articles. The following is the Interlingua
version of “Twenty-five medical periodicals currently use this language for the summaries of their articles:”