Latino sine flexione


Latino sine flexione, Interlingua de Academia pro Interlingua or Peano's Interlingua, is an international auxiliary language compiled by the Academia pro Interlingua under chairmanship of the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano from 1887 until 1914. It is a simplified version of Latin, and retains its vocabulary. Interlingua-IL was published in the journal Revue de Mathématiques in an article of 1903 entitled De Latino Sine Flexione, Lingua Auxiliare Internationale, which explained the reason for its creation. The article argued that other auxiliary languages were unnecessary, since Latin was already established as the world's international language. The article was written in classical Latin, but it gradually dropped its inflections until there were none.

History

In 1903 Peano published the article De Latino Sine Flexione to introduce his language, by quoting a series of suggestions by Leibniz about a simplified form of Latin. Peano’s article appeared to be a serious development of the idea, so he gained a reputation among the movement for the auxiliary language.
In 1904 Peano undertook an essay about the way to obtain the minimal grammar of an eventual minimal Latin, with a minimal vocabulary purely international.
Peano and some colleagues published articles in Latino sine flexione for several years at the Revue de Mathématiques. Because of his desire to prove that this was indeed an international language, Peano boldly published the final edition of his famous Formulario mathematico in Latino sine flexione. However, as Hubert Kennedy notes, most mathematicians were put off by the artificial appearance of the language, and made no attempt to read it.
In October 1907, Peano was at the Collège de France in Paris to take part in the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language. Having declared for Latino sine flexione to be adopted, he eventually could not participate in the final voting, because of labour affairs at Turin.
On 26 December 1908, Peano was elected member and director of the Akademi internasional de lingu universal still using Idiom Neutral, which was refounded one year later under the name Academia pro Interlingua. Every academician might use their favourite form of Interlingua, the term being initially used in a general sense as a synonym for international language, yet it soon began to be specially used to denote a reformed Latino sine flexione based on the common rules the academicians were reaching by frequent votings. Thus, the name Interlingua soon began to denote the language evolving from the Academia Pro Interlingua, with the corresponding abbreviation IL.
However, every member was free to write in their own personal style, and indeed some members were proposing radical reforms which eventually might end up as independent languages. For this reason, the name Peano’s Interlingua or Interlingua might be regarded as the most accurate for the particular standard by Peano.
The discussions to reach a standard Interlingua may be seen on the pages of Discussiones, the official journal of the Academia pro Interlingua from 1909 to 1913. This and subsequent journals of the academy have been recently published in a CD-Rom by the mathematics department of the university of Turin, the place where Peano developed his teaching and research.
Since De Latino Sine Flexione had set the principle to take Latin nouns either in the ablative or nominative form, in 1909 Peano published a vocabulary in order to assist in selecting the proper form of every noun, yet an essential value of Peano’s Interlingua was that the lexicon might be found straightforward in any Latin dictionary.
Finally, a large vocabulary with 14 000 words was published in 1915.
A reformed Interlingua was presented in 1951 by Alexander Gode as the last director of the International Auxiliary Language Association. It was claimed to be independent from Peano's Interlingua, because it had developed a new method to detect the most recent common prototypes. But that method usually leads to the Latin ablative, so most vocabulary of Peano's Interlingua would be kept. Accordingly, the very name Interlingua was kept, yet a distinct abbreviation was adopted: IA instead of IL.

Alphabet and pronunciation

According to Peano's guide to the language in 1931, "most Interlinguists are in favour of the old Latin pronunciation." This gives the pronunciation of vowels as follows:
Consonants are pronounced largely as in English, with the following clarifications:
Not all consonants and vowels are pronounced distinctively by all people. The following variant pronunciations are allowed:
The stress is based on the classical Latin rule:
A secondary accent may be placed when necessary as the speaker deems appropriate.

Parts of speech

Though Peano removed the inflections of Latin from nouns and adjectives, he did not entirely remove grammatical gender, permitting the option of a feminine ending for. The gender of animals is immutable. All forms of nouns end with a vowel and are taken from the ablative case, but as this was not listed in most Latin dictionaries, he gave the rule for its derivation from the genitive case. The plural is not required when not necessary, such as when a number has been specified, the plural can be read from the context, and so on; however Peano gives the option of using the suffix -s to indicate it when needed. Verbs have few inflections of conjugation; tenses and moods are instead indicated by verb adjuncts. The result is a change to a positional language.

Particles

Particles that have no inflection in classical Latin are used in their natural form:
The form of nouns depends on the Latin declensions.
Latin declension number 1: -ae2: -i3: -is4: -us5: -ei
Latino ending-a-o-e-u-e

Latin declension/nominative formLatin genitiveLatin ablativeLatinoEnglish
1st: rosarosaerosarosarose
2nd: lauruslaurilaurolaurolaurel
3rd: paxpacispacepacepeace
4th: casuscasuscasucasucase
5th: seriesserieiserieserieseries

Those proper nouns written with the Roman alphabet are kept as close to the original as possible. The following are examples: München, New York, Roma, Giovanni.

PronounsManuale Practico de Interlingua https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manuale_Practico.pdf. Pronomines: p. 29.

NumberSingularPlural
1st personmenos
2nd persontevos
3rd personillo, illa, id illos
Reflexivesese

Verbs are formed from the Latin by dropping the final -re of the infinitive. Tense, mood, etc., are indicated by particles, auxiliary verbs, or adverbs, but none is required if the sense is clear from the context. If needed, the past may be indicated by preceding the verb with e, and the future with i.
There are specific endings to create the infinitive and participles:
The endings -ra and -re are stressed in future and conditional.

Compound tensesManuale Practico de Interlingua https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manuale_Practico.pdf. De verbo: p. 10-25.

Composite tenses can be expressed with auxiliary words:
Adjectives are formed as follows:
Adjectives can be used as adverbs if the context is clear, or cum mente or in modo can be used:
As with Latin, neither the definite nor the indefinite article exists in Latino sine flexione. When necessary they may be translated with pronouns or words such as illo or uno :

The Lord's Prayer

This is a sample text, intended to give the reader a basic understanding of how the language sounds, and how closely it is related to Latin.
Latino sine flexione version:Interlingua de IALA versionLatin version:English

Nostro patre, qui es in caelos,
que tuo nomine fi sanctificato;
que tuo regno adveni;
que tuo voluntate es facto
sicut in caelo et in terra.
Da hodie ad nos nostro pane quotidiano,
et remitte ad nos nostro debitos,
sicut et nos remitte ad nostro debitores.
Et non induce nos in tentatione,
sed libera nos ab malo.
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 caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in caelo, 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 in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Latin proverbs converted to Latino sine flexione

[Publius Cornelius Tacitus], ''De origine et situ Germanorum (Germania)'' (fragmentum initiale)

Latina classica Latino sine flexione / Interlingua de A.p.I.
Germania omnis a Gallis Raetisque et Pannoniis Rheno et Danuvio fluminibus, a Sarmatis Dacisque mutuo metu aut montibus separatur: cetera Oceanus ambit, latos sinus et insularum inmensa spatia complectens, nuper cognitis quibusdam gentibus ac regibus, quos bellum aperuit. Rhenus, Raeticarum Alpium inaccesso ac praecipiti vertice ortus, modico flexu in occidentem versus septentrionali Oceano miscetur. Danuvius molli et clementer edito montis Abnobae iugo effusus pluris populos adit, donec in Ponticum mare sex meatibus erumpat: septimum os paludibus hauritur.Fluvios Rheno et Danuvio separa toto Germania ab Gallos, Raetos et Pannonios; montes, aut metu mutuo, separa illo ab Sarmatas et Dacos: Oceano ambi ceteros, complectente sinus lato de mari et spatios immenso de insulas, ad certo gentes et reges recente cognito, aperto ab bello. Rheno, orto in vertice inaccesso et praecipite de Alpes Raetico, flecte se parvo versus occidente et misce se in Oceano septentrionale. Danuvio, effuso in jugo molle et clemente edito de monte Abnoba, visita plure populo, usque illo erumpe in mari Pontico per sex cursu: ore septimo perde se in paludes.

Criticism

Peano formally defended the maxim that the best grammar is no grammar, bearing in mind the example of Chinese. According to Lancelot Hogben, Peano's Interlingua still shares a major flaw with many other auxiliary languages, having "either too much grammar of the wrong sort, or not enough of the right".
Hogben argues that at least nouns and verbs should be easily distinguished by characteristic endings, so that one can easily get an initial understanding of the sentence. Thus, in Peano’s Interlingua the verbs might be given some specific, standardized verbal form, such as the infinitive, which is sufficient at the Latin indirect speech. Instead, the raw imperative is proposed in De Latino Sine Flexione:
According to Hogben, another handicap is the lack of a pure article, which might clearly indicate the nouns. Nevertheless, Peano occasionally suggested that illo and uno might be used as articles.
Once more according to Hogben, the syntax of Peano's Interlingua remained conservative:
Reviewing the list of more widely known Latin titles, one might conclude that the sequence noun-adjective is the norm in Latin, yet the inverted sequence is also current. The ratio is over 2 to 1 in a list of Latin titles commented by Stroh. E.g. "Principia Mathematica".
As for a sequence nominative-genitive, it may be the norm in Latin in a similar ratio. E.g. "Systema Naturae". Indeed, the sequence nominative-genitive must always be the norm in Peano's Interlingua, since the preposition de must introduce the genitive. Thus, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica would turn into Principio Mathematico de Philosophia Naturale. Since the function of both the adjective and the genitive is often the same, one might infer that the sequence noun-adjective might always be the norm.