Interlingue
Interlingue, known until 1949 as Occidental, is a planned international auxiliary language created by Edgar de Wahl, a Baltic German naval officer and teacher from Tallinn, Estonia, and published in 1922. The vocabulary is based on already existing words from various languages and a system of derivation using recognized prefixes and suffixes. The language is thereby naturalistic, at the same time as it is constructed to be regular. Occidental was quite popular in the years up to, during, and shortly after the Second World War, but declined thereafter.
Interlingue is devised so that many of its derived word forms reflect the forms common to a number of Western European languages, primarily those in the Romance family, along with a certain amount of Germanic vocabulary. Many words were formed through application of de Wahl's rule, a set of rules for regular conversion of verb infinitives into derived words including from double-stem verbs of Latin origin. The result is a language easy to understand at first sight for individuals acquainted with several Western European languages. This readability and simplified grammar along with the regular appearance of the magazine Cosmoglotta made Occidental popular in Europe during the 15 years before World War II.
In The Esperanto Book, Don Harlow says that Occidental had an intentional emphasis on European forms, and that some of its leading followers espoused a Eurocentric philosophy, which may have hindered its spread. Still, Occidental gained adherents in many nations including Asian nations.
Occidental survived World War II, undergoing a name change to Interlingue, but faded into insignificance following the appearance in 1951 of a competing naturalistic project, Interlingua, which attracted among others the notable Occidentalist Ric Berger. The emergence of Interlingua occurred around the same time that Edgar de Wahl, who had opted to remain in Tallinn, was sent to a sanitarium by Soviet authorities and was not permitted to correspond with Occidentalists in Western Europe. His death was confirmed in 1948. The proposal to change the name from Occidental to Interlingue was twofold: to attempt to demonstrate to the Soviet Union the neutrality of the language, and in hopes of a union with Interlingua.
History and activity
Beginnings
The activities of Occidental and its users can be seen through the magazine Cosmoglotta, which began publication in 1922 in Tallinn, Estonia under the name Kosmoglott. The language announced that year was a product of years of personal experimentation by de Wahl under the name Auli, which he used during the period from 1906 to 1921 and which later on gained the nickname proto-Occidental. During the development of the language de Wahl explained his approach in a letter to an acquaintance the Baron d'Orczy written in Auli: "My direction in the creation of a universal language seems quite regressive to you...I understand that quite well, because I am starting it right from the other end. I do not begin with the alphabet and the grammar and then have to adopt the vocabulary to it, but just the other way around: I take all international material of words, suffixes, endings, grammatical forms etc., and then I work to organize that material, put it in order, compile, interpolate, extrapolate and sift through it." During the development of Occidental through Auli, de Wahl corresponded frequently with the Italian mathematician and creator of Latino sine flexione Giuseppe Peano and gained an appreciation for the international vocabulary in that language, writing that "I believe the "Vocabulario commune" book by Professor Peano to already be a more valuable and scientific work than the entire scholastic literature of Ido on imaginary things evoked by the "fundamento" of Zamenhof."Occidental was announced in 1922 at a stage of near but not total completion. De Wahl did not originally intend to announce the language for another few years but did so then through the publication of Kosmoglott after hearing that the League of Nations had begun an inquiry into the question of an international auxiliary language. However, the first known publication in Occidental, a booklet "Transcendent algebra" by Jacob Linzbach appeared already in 1921.
Occidental began gathering followers despite a complete lack of grammars and dictionaries due to its readability. Two years later de Wahl wrote that he was in correspondence with some 30 people "in good Occidental" despite the lack of learning material. The first dictionary was published the next year in 1925, the radicarium directiv which was a collection of Occidental root words and their equivalents in 8 languages.
For a number of years Kosmoglott was a forum for various other planned languages, while still mainly written in Occidental. Until 1924 the magazine was also affiliated with the Academia pro Interlingua, which promoted Peano's Latino sine flexione. In 1927 the name was changed to Cosmoglotta as it began to promote Occidental in lieu of other languages, and in January of the same year the magazine's editorial and administrative office was moved to Vienna, Austria in the region of Mauer, now part of Liesing. Much of the early success for Occidental in this period came from the office's new central location, along with the efforts of Engelbert Pigal, also from Austria, whose article Li Ovre de Edgar de Wahl led to interest in Occidental from users of the Ianguage Ido.
Vienna period, World War II and language standardization
Besides the new location in a city much closer to the centre of Europe, the Vienna period was also marked by financial stability for the first time due to the support from a number of backers, particularly Hans Hörbiger, also from Vienna, and G.A. Moore from London, from which "Cosmoglotta was able to live without difficulty and gained a circle of readers despite the economic crisis". This did not last long as Hörbiger and Moore died at "nearly the same time" in 1931, and Cosmoglotta was again forced to rely on revenue from subscriptions, publications and the like.The growing Occidental movement began a more assertive campaign for the language in the early 1930s, leveraging its at-sight readability by contacting organizations such as embassies, printing houses and the League of Nations using letters in Occidental that were often understood and responded to, usually including the phrasing below: Scrit in lingue international "Occidental" . A large number of numbered "documents" were produced at this time as well to introduce the concept of an international language and advocate Occidental as the answer to Europe's "tower of Babel". Recordings of spoken Occidental on phonograph records for distribution also began to be made in this period.
The years from 1935 to 1939 were particularly active for Cosmoglotta, during which a second edition was produced along with the original Cosmoglotta: Cosmoglotta B which focused on more linguistic issues, reports of Occidental in the news, financial updates and other items of internal interest. In early 1936, not counting the 110 issues of Cosmoglotta and any other journals and bulletins, a total of 80 publications existed in and about Occidental. At the same time, the years leading up to the Second World War led to difficulties for Occidental along with other planned languages which were made illegal in Germany along with Austria and Czechoslovakia, forced to disband, kept under Gestapo surveillance, and had their didactic materials destroyed. The interdiction of auxiliary languages in Germany was particularly damaging as this was where most Occidentalists lived at the time. The inability to accept payment for subscriptions was a financial blow as well, a difficulty that continued after the war when Germany was divided into zones of influence and payments were still not permitted. No communication took place between Edgar de Wahl in Tallinn and the Occidental Union in Switzerland from 1939 to October 1947, first due to the war itself and thereafter from intercepted mail between Switzerland and the Soviet Union, which bewildered de Wahl who had sent multiple letters and even a large collection of translated poetry into Occidental which were never delivered. In 1940 no issues of either Cosmoglotta were produced, but in 1941 Cosmoglotta B began publication once again and continued until 1950. An edition of either Cosmoglotta A or B was published every month between January 1937 and September 1939, and then every month from September 1941 to June 1951. The opting for Cosmoglotta B during this period was due to only those in neutral Switzerland and Sweden being able to fully devote themselves to the language, who carried on activities in a semi-official form using it.
One of these activities was language standardization. De Wahl had created Occidental with a number of unchangeable features, but believed that others that had more than one permissible form could not be resolved by decree alone and left the ultimate decision to the community by including both possible forms in the first Occidental dictionaries. One example concerned the verb scrir and a possible other form scripter. De Wahl expressed a preference for scrir, finding scripter to be somewhat heavy, but commented that scripter was certainly permissible, and also surmised that Occidental might take on a similar evolution to natural languages where both forms come into common use, the longer and more Latin-like form having a heavier and more formal character and the shorter a lighter and more everyday tone.
The decision over etymologic vs. recognizable spellings in words such as attractive and oppression is one example where community usage quickly led to a rejection of the first option and eventually settled on the third. Much of Occidental's vocabulary was solved in this way, but not all. With questions still remaining about the official form of some words and a lack of general material destined for the general public, during World War II much time was spent on standardization of the language and course creation, and in August 1943 the decision was made, given the length of the war, to create an interim academy to guide this process. The standardization process had just about begun not long before the war, and the Swiss Occidentalists, finding themselves isolated from the rest of the continent, opted to concentrate on didactic materials to have prepared by the time the war reached its end. They found themselves confronted with the decision between two forms that had remained in popular usage, but which could be confusing to a new learner of the language. During this time, the academy maintained that standardization efforts were based on actual usage, stating that "...the standardization of the language has natural limits. "Standardizing" the language does not mean arbitrarily officializing one of the possible solutions and rejecting the others as indesirable and irritating. One only standardizes solutions that have already been sanctioned through practice."
During the war, Occidentalists noticed that the language was frequently permitted to be sent by telegram within and outside of Switzerland even without official recognition, surmising that censors were able to read it and may have thought them to be written in Spanish or Romansch, a minor yet official language in Switzerland that at the time lacked a standardized orthography. This allowed a certain amount of communication to take place between the Occidentalists in Switzerland and Sweden. The other centres of Occidental activity in Europe did not fare as well, with the stocks of study materials in Vienna and Tallinn having been destroyed in bombings and numerous Occidentalists sent to concentration camps in Germany and Czechoslovakia. Contacts were reestablished shortly after the war by those who had survived it, particularly from those in France, Czechoslovakia, and Great Britain. A few months before the end of World War II in Europe Cosmoglotta had subscribers in 58 cities in Switzerland. Cosmoglotta A began publication again in 1946.
IALA, Interlingua, and name change to Interlingue
The International Auxiliary Language Association, founded in 1924 to study and determine the best planned language for international communication, was at first viewed with suspicion by the Occidental community. The co-founder of the IALA Alice Vanderbilt Morris was an Esperantist, as were many of its staff members, and many Occidentalists including Edgar de Wahl himself believed that it had been set up to eventually recommend Esperanto over other planned languages under a neutral and scientific pretext using its staff of professional linguists to bolster a final recommendation. Relations soon improved, however, as it became clear that the IALA intended to be as impartial as possible by familiarizing itself with all existing planned languages. Ric Berger detailed one visit he made in 1935 to Morris that vastly improved his opinion of the organization:My personal opinion was not so pessimistic, for, finding myself in Brussels in 1935, I sought out Mrs. Morris and soon obtained an audience with her where my charming host invited me to speak in Occidental. She asked her husband, the American ambassador, to come hear me to confirm what seemed to very much interest them: a language in which all words can be understood without having learned it!... Mrs. Morris could have used her fortune to simply support Esperanto, which was her right as a convicted Esperantist. But instead of that she...decided to donate her money to a *neutral* linguistic tribunal to solve the problem *scientifically*, even if the judgement goes against her convictions.As a result, opinions of the IALA and its activities in the Occidental community began to improve and reports on its activities in Cosmoglotta became increasingly positive. After 1945 when the IALA announced it planned to create its own language and showed four possible versions under consideration, Occidentalists were by and large pleased that the IALA had decided to create a language so similar in appearance to Occidental, seeing it as a credible association that gave weight to their argument that an auxiliary language should proceed from study of natural languages instead of attempting to fit them into an artificial system. Ric Berger was particularly positive about the IALA's new language, calling it in 1948 "almost the same language", though not without reservations, doubting whether a project with such a similar outward appearance would be able to "suddenly cause prejudices to fall and create unity among the partisans of international languages" and fearing that it might simply "disperse the partisans of the natural language with nothing to show for it" after Occidental had created "unity in the naturalistic school" for so long.
While the two languages had a 90% identical vocabulary when word endings and orthographic differences were not taken into account, structurally and derivationally they were very different. Occidental with De Wahl's Rule had either done away with Latin double stem verbs or found a way to work around them, while Interlingua simply accepted them as part and parcel of a naturalistic system. The control languages used by Interlingua to form its vocabulary also conflicted with Occidental's Germanic and other words which would be by definition ineligible in a combined language that retained Interlingua's methodology. Occidental words such as mann, strax, old, sestra, clocca, svimmar, trincar, etc. could only be incorporated into Interlingua if it did away with the control languages, the languages on which Interlingua itself was based. Interlingua also allowed optional verbal conjugations that Occidental had never even considered and viewed as incompatible with an easy international auxiliary language.
Meanwhile, Cosmoglotta was showing financial strain with inflated printing costs after the end of World War II and the inability to collect payments from certain countries, a marked contrast to the well-funded IALA which had been based in New York since the outbreak of the war.
The beginning of the Cold War in 1947 created a particularly uncomfortable situation for the Occidental-Union, which now possessed a name that by chance coincided with that of an anti-Russian political league, and which the Occidentalists in Switzerland believed to be the reason for the interception of all of de Wahl's letters sent from Tallinn. In early 1948 the Czechoslovak Occidentalists had begun requesting approval for a new name that would allow them to continue their linguistic activities without suspicion, proposing the name Interal, to which the union responded that the term Interlingue would be more appropriate and that they were free to introduce the language as Interlingue, or even remove the mention of Occidental in parentheses if they felt it necessary. The official vote on the name change to Interlingue took place at the plenum of the Occidental Union in 1949 and was passed with 91% support, making the official name Interlingue, with Interlingue also permitted, valid as of the 1st of September 1949.
The year 1951 when Interlingua was announced was consequential in weakening Interlingue-Occidental, which until then had been unchallenged in the field of naturalistic planned auxiliary languages. Vĕra Barandovská-Frank's perception of the situation at the time was as follows :
"In the field of naturalistic planned languages Occidental-Interlingue was until then unchallenged, as all new projects were nearly imitations of it. This applied to Interlingua as well, but it carried with it a dictionary of 27 000 words put together by professional linguists that brought great respect, despite in principle only confirming the path that De Wahl had started. The Senate of the Interlingue-Union and the Interlingue-Academie took up the proposals that the Interlingue-Union become a collective member of the IALA and the Interlingue-Union remain favourable to the future activity of the IALA and morally support it. The first proposition was not accepted, but the second was, giving a practical collaboration and support to Interlingua.
André Martinet, the second-last director of the IALA, made similar observations to those of Matejka. He confessed that his preferred variant of Interlingua was the one closer to Interlingue than the one officialized by Gode. In these circumstances the efforts by Ric Berger to move all users of Interlingue en masse to Interlingua de IALA was a shock. His heresy caused doubt and interruptions in Interlingue circles, especially after he became involved in the publication of "Revista de Interlingua". The former idea of a natural fusion of both languages was shown to be unrealistic, with the new language becoming a rival."
Stagnation and revival
While the migration of so many users to Interlingua had severely weakened the Interlingue movement, the remaining users of the language kept the language alive for a time. Besides Cosmoglotta, now publishing once every second month from 1952 and then once per quarter from 1963, bulletins in Interlingue continued to appear such as Interlingue-Postillon, Novas de Oriente, Amicitie european, Teorie e practica, and Novas in Interlingue. Interlingue activity reached a low during the 1980s and early 1990s, when Cosmoglotta publication ceased for a number of years. According to Esperantist Don Harlow, "in 1985 Occidental's last periodical, Cosmoglotta, ceased publication, and its editor, Mr. Adrian Pilgrim, is quoted as having described Occidental as a "dead language."" A decade later, a documentary in 1994 by Steve Hawley and Steyger on planned languages introduced Interlingue speaker Donald Gasper as "one of the last remaining speakers of the language Occidental".In the year 1999 the first Yahoo! Group in Occidental was founded, and Cosmoglotta had been publishing intermittently again. An Interlingue Wikipedia was approved in 2004. In recent years official meetings between Interlingue speakers have begun taking place again: a meeting in Ulm on 10 January 2013, another in Munich in 2014 with three participants, and a third in Ulm on 16 August 2015 with five.
The most recent edition of the magazine Cosmoglotta is volume 324, for the period January to December 2018.
Language philosophy
One of the earliest users of the language Esperanto, Edgar de Wahl encountered it for the first time in 1888 and remained a fervent supporter of the language for a number of years where he collaborated with Zamenhof on the design of the language and translated one of the first works into Esperanto: "Princidino Mary", published in 1889 originally under the name Princino Mary. He remained an Esperantist until 1894 when the vote to reform Esperanto failed, a vote in which de Wahl was one of just two that voted neither for Esperanto unchanged, nor for the reform proposed by Zamenhof, but for a completely new reform. Occidental would not be announced for a full 28 years after de Wahl had abandoned Esperanto, a period in which he spent working with other language creators and trying to develop a system that combined both naturality and regularity. De Wahl's method for doing so was twofold: through de Wahl's Rule to reduce the number of irregularities in verbal derivation to a minimum, and a large number of affixes to do the same with word roots in addition to giving the resulting forms a natural appearance. The large number of suffixes can be seen through a glimpse of just those used to form nouns referring to a type of person: -er-, -or-, -ari-, -on-, -ard, -astr-, -es, -essa. In de Wahl's opinion it was always preferable to opt for a productive suffix than to be forced to coin new words from completely new radicals later on.De Wahl published in 1922 a modification of Otto Jespersen's principle that "the best language is that which is easiest for the greatest number of people", stating that the international language should be easiest for the majority of those who need it, or in other words those that need it in international relations. Along with this came a need for an international language to recognize already international vocabulary regardless of the number of people using it, particularly in specialized areas where for example the term Oenethera biennis should be implemented and not modified beyond recognition even if the entire world population of botanists, those most often knowing and using the word, did not exceed 10,000. This also implied that words belonging to particular cultures should be imported without modifications, which De Wahl believed brought new ideas of value to European culture that had become "sick" after the First World War. He cited the terms karma, ko-tau, geisha, and mahdí in 1924 as examples of those that should not be put in a "vocalic corset" through obligatory endings when imported into the international language: "Such words, still not large in number, have seen a large increase in the past century, and in the future will grow in exorbitant proportion when, through international communication, the ideas of stable Oriental cultures will inundate and influence the sick Europe, which is now losing its equilibrium. And the more mutilated the words are, the more mutilated will be the ideas that they represent." In an article on the future development of language, de Wahl wrote in 1927 that due to European dominance in the sciences and other areas Occidental required a form and derivation recognizable to Europeans, but that it should also be fitted with a grammatical structure capable of taking on more analytical, non-derived forms in the future if worldwide linguistic trends began to show a preference for them.
On the subject of schematic regularity versus naturalism in an international language, De Wahl believed that there was a fine balance to be maintained between the two, where too much of the former may be convenient for the early learner but abhorrent for a speaker, and vice versa in the latter case: "Exceptions are not made to make study more difficult for foreigners, but to make speaking shorter and more fluid....It is clear that in this language as the most impersonal, abstract and businesslike one of all, regularity will be greater and more expanded than in all other national and tribal languages and idioms. But it will never be able to attain a total schematism...Also here the real solution will be a harmonization of the two contrary principles. It requires the sensitive penetration of the real necessity in the instinct of the international superpopulation."
While primarily Romance in vocabulary, de Wahl opted for a large Germanic substrate which he felt more expressive for technical and material vocabulary, with Romance and Greek vocabulary more appropriate in the derivation of international words as well as mental, corporal and natural conceptions. Minor Romance languages such as Ladin, Provençal and Catalan had a large importance in the development of Occidental for de Wahl, who wrote as far back as 1912 that his language under development was more similar to Provençal than Italian or Spanish. The Swiss magazine Landbote made a similar comment in 1945 in a review of the language, commenting humoristically that "reading through the few examples of Occidental gives us the impression of a half-learned Catalan by a foreigner who doesn't much understand the grammar."
Using internationally recognized prefixes and suffixes did not imply wholesale importing of international words. Just before the beginning of the Second World War de Wahl called criticisms of Occidental as a chaotic unfounded, stating that English and French users in particular had a tendency to see Occidental as a mix of the two: " is not the fault of Occidental itself, but rather that of its users and especially the French and English, or those that think that the international language should be a mixture of those two languages...that is a fundamental error, especially if these forms present exceptions and irregularities in Occidental's system." Alphonse Matejka wrote in Cosmoglotta that de Wahl "always claimed a minimum of autonomy for his language and bitterly fought against all propositions that intended to augment the naturality of the language only by blindly imitating the Romance languages, or as de Wahl said crudely in one of his letters to me, "by aping French or English"".
Occidental's erring on the side of regularity led to vocabulary that was still recognizable but different from the international norm, such as ínpossibil in place of impossibil, scientic, and descrition. This is one of the greatest differences between it and Interlingua, which has a vocabulary taken from so-called 'prototypes' while Interlingue/Occidental focused on active, on the fly derivation. After the standardization of Occidental in 1947 and the name change to Interlingue in 1949 there was a push towards greater and greater naturalistic forms inspired by the IALA's soon-to-be-published Interlingua, particularly by Ric Berger who advocated replacing the optional -i adjectival ending with -e. After advocating for the change in April 1949 he began implementing it the following month in his own writing and most of the content in Cosmoglotta, in addition to other changes such as nostre and vostre instead of nor and vor.'' The following April he defended the changes, denying that they were a "concession to the IALA" but instead a simple "concession to the general tendency towards greater naturality found today in the interlinguistic movement", calling critics of the changes victims of "long-lasting habits" and an "optical illusion". Whether these experimental changes would have taken root is not known, as Berger left his position as editor of Cosmoglotta soon after and eventually joined Interlingua, while Cosmoglotta returned to publishing in the 1947 standard that continues to this day.
Symbol
The symbol of Occidental was chosen in 1936 after some deliberation and many other proposed symbols, including stylized letters, a star as in Esperanto and Ido, a setting sun to represent the sun in the west, a globe, and more. The tilde, already used by the Occidental-Union, was eventually selected based on five criteria: symbolic character, simplicity, originality, inconfusability, and for being bichromatic as opposed to polychromatic. Beyond the five criteria, the Occidentalists at the time referenced the lack of a fixed meaning for the tilde in the public sphere, and its similarity to a waveform, implying speech.Alphabet and pronunciation
Interlingue is written with 26 Latin letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z. The letters of the alphabet are pronounced as a, be, ce, de, e, ef, ge, ha, i, jot, ka, el, em, en, o, pe, qu, er, es, te, u, ve, duplic ve, ix, ypsilon, and zet.Pronunciation
The vowels a, e, i, o, and u have a continental pronunciation and are all sounded. The y are pronounced as in "yes", ey as in "they", and eu as éh-oo.The consonants are pronounced as in English, with the following exceptions:
- c when before e and i = : cive, helice
- g when before e and i = , French j, or English s in pleasure: plage, giraffe; but elsewhere c and g are hard as in can, go
- ss = as in pass
- s between vowels = : rose, positiv
- z =
- zz =
- ch = , English sh: chambre
- j = , French j, or English s in pleasure
- t as , except when followed by ia, io, iu, or ie and not preceded by an s. Thus the t in nation is pronounced but in bastion as .
Stress
Words are generally stressed on the vowel before the final consonant: intercalar, parol, forme. Pluralizing a noun does not change the stress: paroles, formes. The endings -bil, -ic, -im, -ul and -um do not change the stress, nor does the adverbial ending -men: rapidmen, duplic, bonissim, singul, possibil, maximum, statisticas. Two vowels together are diphthongized and do not count as two syllables for the purpose of stress: familie, potentie, unless the word is a single consonant or consonant cluster followed by two vowels: die, deo. Compound words are stressed based on the last word in the compound: hodie, substrae. In cases where the accent is irregular, it is indicated by an accent: café, ínpossibil, numeró, númere, felicitá.The accent mark is also sometimes used to stress a word, or over the particles ú when used as a conjunction, ó when used to mean 'either', and é when used to mean 'both'. e.g. Yo ne save u il es, Yo vole trincar e lacte e bir and O il ne save li loc, o il ne vole venir will sometimes be seen written as Yo ne save ú il es, Yo vole trincar é lacte é bir, and Ó il ne save li loc, ó il ne vole venir.
Grammar
Like English, Interlingue has a definite article and an indefinite article. The definite article is li, and the indefinite is un. Plural of a noun is made by adding -s after a vowel, or -es after most consonants. To avoid pronunciation and stress changes, words ending in -c, -g, and -m only add an -s: un libre, du libres, un angul, tri angules, li tric, li trics, li plug, li plugs, li album, pluri albums, li tram, du trams.Personal pronouns
Interlingue has two forms for the personal pronouns: one for the subject form, and one for the object form. In short, the personal pronouns in the subject form are:The variants illa and ella both exist for third person singular feminine. The pronoun expressing politeness is vu, which behaves like second person plural. The indefinite personal pronoun "one" is on in Occidental. If necessary, one can specify the gender of third person plural by using illos or ellas.
In the object form the pronouns are: me, te, le, la, it, nos, vos, and les. In the oblique case, the pronouns are me, te, il, noi, voi, and ili, varying by user and situation outside of the forms me and te. The possessive pronouns are mi, tui, su, nor, vor and lor. They may be pluralized: li mi, li mis, li nor, li nores.
Grammatical endings are used to a certain extent, though to a lesser degree than languages such as Esperanto and Ido where parts of speech are marked with obligatory endings. Only a few parts of speech in Interlingue have entirely obligatory endings, while many others either have endings the usage of which is optional and sometimes recommended. Some grammatical endings are:
- ar, er, ir: verb infinitive. far, posser, scrir
- e: the general substantival ending used obligatorily to differentiate nouns from other parts or speech, for reasons of pronunciation, or optionally for euphony. Examples of obligatory -e endings: capitale vs. capital, contenete vs, contenet, sud vs. sude. A final -e is recommended in words ending with -s to avoid confusion with the plural, -ir, -er- and -ar endings to avoid confusion with the verb infinitive, and other such areas where its addition aids in differentiation or pronunciation. Optional -e endings: can or cane, Pentecost or Pentecoste. The -e and other endings are often omitted for poetic or euphonic reasons.
- i: the general adjectival ending, similar to -e in usage. Examples of obligatory -i endings: pigri, acri for ease of pronunciation, verdi to distinguish from verde. Examples of optional -i endings: etern vs. eterni, imens vs. imensi.
- a: nouns that end in e formed from an -ar verb are often written with the -a ending if one wishes to emphasize the verbal aspect. A me veni un pensa vs. Penses e paroles. The a ending also makes nouns feminine: anglese, angleso, anglesa. This does not apply to nouns that on their own indicate the gender.
- o: indicates the masculine gender in the same way a indicates the feminine.
Correlatives
| QU- | T- | ALQU- | NEQU- | -CUNC | Ø | |
| -I | qui | ti | alqui | nequi | quicunc | omni |
| -O | quo | to | alquo | nequo | quocunc | omno |
| -EL | quel | tel | alquel | nequel | quelcunc | chascun |
| -AL | qual | tal | alqual | nequal | qualcunc | |
| -AM | quam | tam | alquam | nequam | quamcunc | |
| -ANT | quant | tant | alquant | nequant | quantcunc | |
| -ANDE | quande | tande | alquande | nequande | quandecunc | sempre |
| -U | u | ci / ta | alcu | necu | ucunc | partú |
Alcun and necun are respectively the adjectives of alquel and nequel
The -qui series has optional accusative forms ending in -em: quem, alquem, nequem
The -al series is adverbialized with the -men ending: qualmen talmen
The -el and -al series can take the plural ending: queles, quales
Verbs
Verbs in Interlingue have three endings: -ar, -er, and -ir, and are invariable. Conjugation is carried out with a combination of endings and auxiliary verbs. The verb esser is written es in the present due to its high frequency.Simple Verb Tenses
| Form | Interlingue | English | Notes | |
| Infinitive | ar / er / ir | amar / decider / scrir | to love / to decide / to write | |
| Present | a / e / i | yo ama / decide / scri | I love / decide / write | |
| Past | -t | yo amat / decidet / scrit | I loved / decided / wrote | stress thus falls on the last syllable: yo amat |
| Future | va + inf. | yo va amar / decider / scrir | I will love / decide / write | va on its own is not a verb |
| Conditional | vell + inf. | yo vell amar / decider / scrir | I would love / decide / write | Also used for hearsay: Un acusation secun quel il vell har esset... - An accusation alleging him to have been... |
| Imperative | a! / e! / i! | ama! / decide! / scri! | love! / decide! / write! | Imperative of esser is esse. |
Compound Verb Tenses
| Form | Interlingue | English | Notes | |
| Perfect | ha + t | yo ha amat / decidet / scrit | I have loved / decided / written | ha on its own is not a verb |
| Pluperfect | hat + t | yo hat amat / decidet / scrit | I had loved / decided / written | |
| Future Perfect | va har + t | yo va har amat / decidet / scrit | I will have loved / decided / written | |
| Perfect Conditional | vell har + t | yo vell har amat / decidet / scrit | I would have loved / decided / written | |
| Future in the past | vat + inf. | yo vat amar / decider / scrir | I was going to love / to decide / to write | |
| Precative | ples + inf. | ples amar! / decider! / scrir! | please love! / please / write! | |
| Hortative | lass + inf. | lass nos amar! / decider! / scrir! | let's love! / decide! / write! | |
| Optative | mey + inf. | yo mey amar / decider / scrir | I may love / decide / write | Only the same as English may in the optative mood |
| Present participle | -nt | amant / decident / scrient | loving / deciding / writing | -ir verbs become -ient |
| Gerund | -nte | amante / decidente / scriente | loving / deciding / writing | -ir verbs become -iente |
The present participle is used to qualify nouns: un cat ama, un amant cat and is often seen in adjectives such as fatigant. The gerund is used to indicate another action or state of being going on at the same time: scriente un missage, yo videt que....
Many further combinations of endings and auxiliary verbs are possible. Some examples:
Yo vell har esset amat = I would have been loved
Hante retornat al dom... = Having returned to the house...
Other notes on verbs:
The subjunctive does not exist in Interlingue: yo vole que tu ama. Mey is often used to express it when necessary, however: Yo vole que tu mey amar.
Hay is a standalone verb that means there is or there are. Hay du homes in li dom. As a standalone verb there is no official infinitive but users of the language often conjugate it as if there were Other ways of expressing there is or there are: esser, exister, trovar se, etc.
The passive is formed using the verb esser: yo es amat. Se makes the verb refer to itself which often functions as a shorter way to form the passive: li frontieras esset cludet = li frontieras cludet se.
The progressive tense is not used with the same frequency as in English. It emphasizes the continuity of the verb and is often used in storytelling
The verb star may be used to emphasize the completion of a verb: li dom sta constructet
The verb ear may be used to emphasize the continuity of a verb: li dom ea constructet.
Adverbs are formed with the ending -men. The ending may be omitted when the meaning is clear: tu deve far it rapid = you must do it quick.
The double negative is permitted, and was even recommended by de Wahl for its internationality and precision. De Wahl gave the following phrase as an example: "Yo ha trovat li libre, quem vu ha dat me, in null loc, quem vu ha indicat me". In this phrase, not permitting a double negative would result in ambiguity up to the word null, the only indication of a negative in the phrase, recommending Yo ne ha trovat li libre...in null loc. An obligatory double negative was never imposed and later Occidentalists found that they rarely used it, but it remained permitted and is seen from time to time.
The infinitive may also used as a mild or impersonal imperative: ne fumar - no smoking; bon comprender: un crímine es totvez un crímine - let's be clear : a crime is still a crime.
Derivation
The application of de Wahl's rule to verbs and the usage of numerous suffixes and prefixes was created to resolve irregularities that had plagued creators of language projects before Occidental, who were forced to make the choice between regularity and innatural forms, or irregularity and natural forms. The prevailing view was that natural forms needed to be sacrificed for the sake of regularity, while those that opted for naturality were forced to admit numerous irregularities when doing so. The rules created by Edgar de Wahl to resolve this are:- If, after the removal of -r or -er of the infinitive, the root ends in a vowel, the final -t is added. Crear, crea/t-, crea/t/or, crea/t/ion, crea/t/iv, crea/t/ura.
- If the root ends in consonants d or r, they are changed into s: decid/er, deci/s-, deci/s/ion deci/s/iv. Adherer, adhe/s-, adhe/s/ion
- In all other cases, with six exceptions, the removal of the ending gives the exact root: duct/er, duct-, duct/ion.
- ced/er, cess-
- sed/er, sess-
- mov/er, mot-
- ten/er, tent-
- vert/er, vers-
- veni/r, vent-
Affixes
The major prefixes and suffixes used in word derivation in Interlingue are added to either the present theme, verbal root, or perfect theme of verbs, as well as other types of speech. The below is a sample of some of the affixes used.| affix | meaning | affixed to | before affix | after affix | notes |
| -abil/-ibil | able | verbal root | posser | possibil | -abil for -ar verbs, -ibil for -er and -ir verbs |
| -ada/-ida | -ade | verbal root | promenar | promenada | -ada for -ar verbs, -ida for -er and -ir verbs |
| -ach- | pejorative | verbal root | criticar | criticachar | |
| -ar | general verb | noun, adjective | sicc | siccar | General verb final in most cases for all modern verbs |
| -ard | pejorative noun suffix | verbal root | furter | furtard | |
| bel- | kinship by marriage | noun | fratre | belfratre | |
| des- | cessation | various | infectar avantage | desinfectar desavantage | |
| dis- | separation, dispersion | various | membre semar | dismembrar dissemar | |
| -er- | doer of verb | verbal root | lavar | lavere / lavera / lavero | -a or -o to specify female or male gender |
| -ette | diminutive | noun | dom | domette | |
| ex- | ex- | noun | presidente | ex-presidente | |
| ho- | this | noun | semane | ho-semane | |
| -illio | caressive | noun | fratre | fratrillio | affixed to male nouns |
| ín- | in-, un-, etc. | adjective | credibil | íncredibil | |
| -innia | caressive | noun | matre | matrinnia | affixed to female nouns |
| -ion | -ion | perfect theme | crear | creation | |
| -iv | -ive | perfect theme | exploder | explosiv | perfect theme: explod-er --> explod --> explos |
| -ment | -ment | present theme | experir | experiment | |
| mi- | half | noun | fratre | mifratre | |
| mis- | false | various | comprender | miscomprender | |
| non- | non- | noun | fumator | nonfumator | |
| -ntie | -nce | present theme | tolerar experir | tolerantie experientie | -ir verbs add an e: ir --> ientie |
| -or | -er, -or | perfect theme | distribuer | distributor | |
| -ori | -ory | perfect theme | currer | cursori | perfect theme: curr-er --> curr --> curs |
| per- | through, all the way | verb | forar | perforar | |
| pre- | before | various | historie | prehistorie | |
| pro- | to the front | verb | ducter | producter | |
| re- | re- | verb | venir | revenir | |
| step- | step- | noun | matre | stepmatre | |
| -ura | -ure | perfect theme | scrir | scritura |
Ease of learning
As an international auxiliary language, ease of learning through regular derivation and recognizable vocabulary was a key principle in Occidental's creation. The magazine Cosmoglotta often featured letters from new users and former users of other international languages attesting to the language's simplicity: letters from new users to demonstrate their quick command of the language, and attestations from experienced auxiliary language users to share their experiences. Because many users of Occidental had encountered the language after gaining experience in others, objective data on learnability of the language is difficult to find. One experiment to ascertain learning time was carried out however in the years 1956 to 1957 in a Swiss Catholic high school in Disentis on the time required to learn the language. The experiment showed that the students participating in the study, who had previous experience with French, Latin, and Greek, mastered both written and spoken Interlingue after 30 hours of study.Example texts
Possible pronunciation:Translation: "Material civilization, science, and even art unify themselves more and more. The educated European feels himself almost at home in all lands that have European civilization, that is, more and more, in the entire world. Today almost all states war with the same armaments. Without pause the modes of intercommunication improve, and in consequence from that the world seems to decrease. A Parisian is now closer to an Englishman or a German than he was a hundred years before to a French peasant."
| Interlingue/Occidental | Interlingua | Latin | English |
Patre nor, qui es in li cieles, mey tui nómine esser sanctificat, mey tui regnia venir, mey tui vole esser fat, qualmen in li cieles talmen anc sur li terre. Da nos hodie nor pan omnidial, e pardona nor débites, qualmen anc noi pardona nor debitores. E ne inducte nos in tentation, ma libera nos de lu mal. Amen. | Patre nostre, qui es in le celos, que tu nomine sia sanctificate; que tu regno veni; que tu voluntate sia facite como in le celo, etiam super le terra. Da nos hodie nostre pan quotidian, e pardona a nos nostre debitas como etiam nos los pardona a nostre debitores. E non induce nos in tentation, sed libera nos del mal. Amen. | Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo, et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen. | Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done. on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. |
| Occidental | English |
| Si noi vell viver ancor in li felici témpor quel precedet li guerre universal, tande anc li present articul vell reflecter li serenitá per quel noi acustomat salutar li comensa de un nov annu. Ma hodie, li pie desir quel noi ordinarimen expresse per un cordial 'Felici nov annu' ha transformat se in sanguant ironie. Noi plu ne posse pronunciar ti paroles sin sentir lor terribil banalitá e absolut vacuitá de sens. Li future es obscurissim e it promisse nos plu mult sufrenties quam radies de espera. Li pace va sequer li guerre quam li die seque li nocte e quam li calma succede al tempeste. Un nov munde va nascer ex li caos e in ti nov munde anc noi interlinguistes va ti-ci vez luder un rol decisiv. | If we were to still live in the happy time that preceded the world war, then this article would also reflect the serenity by which we used to greet the beginning of a new year. But today, the pious desire that we ordinarily express via a cordial 'Happy new year' has transformed itself into bloody irony. We can no longer pronounce these words without feeling their terrible banality and absolute lack of meaning. The future is beyond dark and it promises us more suffering than rays of hope. Peace will follow war in the same way the day follows the night and the calm comes after the storm. A new world will be born out of the chaos and in this new world we interlinguists will also this time play a decisive role. |
Grammar and Dictionary
- by Dr. F Haas
- by Kemp and Pope, also available as a .
- , information and word lists in English and Russian.
- by Edgar von Wahl. Note: uses old spelling.
Texts
- and at the Austrian National Library
- Helvetia : ,