The Matejka family originated from Vyškovec in Bohemia. Matejka's father emigrated to Switzerland in his youth, arriving before 1900, and was granted Swiss citizenship in 1915. His mother was Swiss, and came from the canton of St. Gallen.[1] Alphonse was born in St. Gallen on 9 January 1902.[2]
Matejka completed gymnasium and graduated in St. Gallen, and became a Swiss citizen himself. He apprenticed in an embroidery shop, Reichenbach & Co; he spent ten years working at its Paris branch. While in Paris, he took evening classes in foreign languages, learning Romance and Scandinavian languages, as well as Swahili and Russian. For a period, Matejka wrote for a Russian-language journal and translated for the Academy of Sciences. Matekja also worked in the exports of a button company, first in Zürich and from 1936 in Amsterdam.[2][1]
On 26 July 1928 while in Paris, Matejka married the French Jeanne Bellanger. In 1937, Matejka settled in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland – he worked in the watchmaking industry as an exports specialist.[2][1] After the death of Bellanger in 1987, Matejka withdrew from public activities and moved to the nursing homeL'Escale (English: The Stopover) in La Chaux-de-Fonds; he died on 27 October 1999, aged 97.[2]
Views
Alongside several other supporters of international languages, Matekja was a proponent of Pan-Europeanism, and writing and speaking on the topic;[3] according to Edo Bernasconi, he was an ethnocentrist in believing that "the international auxiliary language should be a phenomenon and ideal of 'higher civilizations'".[4] In addition, he was a supporter of the ideas of Silvio Gesell, who advocated for economic freedom.[5] Matejka had a strong interest in foreign languages, and also supported reform of German spelling.[2]
International languages
Ido
In 1918, Matejka bought a copy of Albert Nötzli's Ido textbook, and upon comparing the language with Esperanto found it to be superior; Matejka was thus never an Esperantist, and joined the Idist movement.[2] Matejka took on roles in several societies, and attended four congresses; for the next three years, he was a member of the Ido club in St. Gallen, and later joined an organisation for the language in Paris. He was secretary of the Union for the International Language Ido (ULI) from 1929 to 1934, and its president in 1940 after he had moved to Paris. For a term spanning 1934-35, Matekja was president of the national Swiss Ido society (Ido: Suisa Ido-Societo).[2][6] Matejka worked with Ido periodicals such as Suisian Idisto and Ido-Kuriero,[7] and was the editor of the ULI's bulletin during his period as secretary. When the magazine Progreso[io; eo] was restarted in 1913, Matejka was made its editor-in-chief; he kept the position until 1934.[8]
Interlingue-Occidental
And years later, a thunderstorm broke out, although only a very small portion of the world population noticed it, when the Idist Alphonse Matejka... switched to de Wahl's army.
After Edgar de Wahl created Occidental in 1922, several Idists came to support it, especially from 1928.[7][10] Matejka, however, was a critic of the language – believing that the best international language would come from improving Ido, he had argued against Occidental: Ric Berger described him as "the most active and competent defender of Ido, and polemist against Occ[idental]". When Matejka argued against the Occidentalists, he often did so using the pseudonyms "Franko Veramido" and "Scorpion".[11] However, disillusioned by the attitudes of more conservative Idists, he renounced Ido and joined the Occidental movement in 1937.[12]
Matejka's departure from Ido caused a stir in the Idist movement;[9] he soon became a corresponding member of the Occidental-Acadamie[ie]; from 1943 to 1946 he was its interim president, and president in 1949. Throughout the 1940s, Matejka was president of the senate of the Occidental-Union[ie] (the international Occidentalist organisation), and represented the language at the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA).[9][11] Author of several courses and textbooks for Interlingue, for over two decades[lower-alpha 1] between 1937 and 1985, Matejka was editor of Cosmoglotta, the main organ of the Occidental movement. His position as editor brought him respect in the international language movement; in Cosmoglotta, he published his own works and translations (such as the works of Anton Chekhov), as well as essays against other languages, such as Basic English and Interlingua.[11]
When Interlingua was published by the IALA in 1951, many Occidentalists left Interlingue,[lower-alpha 2] especially following Berger's departure – this largely destroyed the movement.[9][14] Matejka found the two languages to be 90% similar in vocabulary, and the Interlingue-Union advocated positive relations with the Interlingua movement, even after the IALA was liquidated in 1953.[14] Matejka published his last article in Cosmoglotta aged 85, in 1985.[15]
Matejka, Alphonse (1942). Occidental, die internationale Welthilfssprache: vollständiger Lehrgang in 20 Lektionen[Occidental, the international auxiliary language: Complete course in 20 lessons] (in German). Interlingue Institute. OCLC732181314.
—— (1945). Wörterbuch occidendal-deutsch und deutsch-occidental[Occidental-German and German-Occidental dictionary] (in German). Interlingue Institute. OCLC1283653928.
——; Michajlov, Stoyadin (1971). Rukovodstvo po mezdunarodnija ezik Interlingue za búlgari[Guideline to the international auxiliary language Interlingue for Bulgarians] (in Bulgarian). Institute Institute. OCLC84518015.
Footnotes
Notes
↑ Sources disagree on Matejka's period as editor of Cosmoglotta: Künzli (2006) writes that Matejka was co-editor from 1937 to 1958, and chief editor from 1958 to 1980. Barandovská-Frank (2020) says that Matejka was editor from 1950 to 1954, with Kurt Hamburger[ie] as editor from then until 1962 – no editor is mentioned until the editorship was given to Adrian J. Pilgrim[ie] in 1985.
↑ Occidental was renamed to "Interlingue" in 1949 - this was to avoid associations with the West in the background of a Europe divided by the Cold War.[13]
↑ Bernasconi, Edo (1977). "Neo-Romanticism in Language Planning". Esperanto aŭ Interlingua. La Chaux-de-Fonds: Kultura Centro Esperantista. pp.66–85. Retrieved 2024-01-02.
Ido is a constructed language derived from Reformed Esperanto, and similarly designed with the goal of being a universal second language for people of diverse backgrounds. To function as an effective international auxiliary language, Ido was specifically designed to be grammatically, orthographically, and lexicographically regular. It is the most successful of the many Esperanto derivatives, called Esperantidoj.
Interlingua is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It is a constructed language of the "naturalistic" variety, whose vocabulary, grammar, and other characteristics are derived from natural languages. Interlingua literature maintains that (written) Interlingua is comprehensible to the hundreds of millions of people who speak Romance languages, though it is actively spoken by only a few hundred.
Interlingue, originally Occidental ( ), is an international auxiliary language created in 1922 and renamed in 1949. Its creator, Edgar de Wahl, sought to achieve maximal grammatical regularity and natural character. The vocabulary is based on pre-existing words from various languages and a derivational system which uses recognized prefixes and suffixes.
An international auxiliary language is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a foreign language and often a constructed language. The concept is related to but separate from the idea of a lingua franca that people must use to communicate. The study of international auxiliary languages is interlinguistics.
Richard "Ric" Berger (1894–1984) was a Swiss professor of design, decoration, and art history. He is best known for his numerous newspaper articles about historical monuments, mainly in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, including his own drawings of the buildings. Through these articles, he contributed to an increased interest in historical monuments and settings among many hitherto uninformed people, and probably also contributed indirectly to a wider interest in preserving and saving historical monuments from destruction.
Edgar Alexei Robert vonWahl was a Baltic German mathematics and physics teacher who lived in Tallinn, Estonia. He is best known as the creator of Interlingue, an international auxiliary language that was known as Occidental throughout his life.
The Centre de documentation et d'étude sur la langue internationale in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, was founded in 1967 by Claude Gacond. It is the main branch of the city's library and contains more than 20,000 bibliographic units. Interlinguistically neutral, CDELI aims to preserve documents in and about all kinds of constructed languages: it offers, in addition to Esperanto books and periodicals, the richest collections of materials about Volapük and Interlingue, among others.
Interlinguistics, also known as cosmoglottics, as the science of planned languages has existed for more than a century. Formalised by Otto Jespersen in 1931 as the science of interlanguages, in more recent times, the field has been more focused with language planning, the collection of strategies to deliberately influence the structure and function of a living language. In this framework, interlanguages become a subset of planned languages, i.e. extreme cases of language planning.
Esperanto II or Esperanto 2 was a reform of Esperanto proposed by René de Saussure in 1937, the last of a long series of such proposals beginning with a 1907 response to Ido with a project called Lingwo Internaciona, later called Antido 1. Esperanto II was one of several languages investigated by the International Auxiliary Language Association, the linguistic research body that eventually standardized and presented Interlingua de IALA.
Novial was created as an international auxiliary language by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, who introduced it to the world in 1928. Jespersen had previously been a co-author of Ido, which started to take form around 1907. Both languages base their vocabularies primarily on prominent Germanic and Romance languages, but differ grammatically in several important respects. Novial is more analytic in its grammar than Ido, and, in Jespersen's view, more natural.
Phiippe-André Schild was a Swiss linguist known for his work with international auxiliary languages, especially Interlingua.
Interlingue and Interlingua are constructed international auxiliary languages.
The language Interlingue, originally Occidental ([oktsidenˈtaːl]), is an international auxiliary language created in 1922 by Edgar de Wahl, who sought to achieve maximal grammatical regularity and natural character. The vocabulary is based on pre-existing words from various languages and a derivational system which uses recognized prefixes and suffixes.
The constructed language Interlingue, originally known as Occidental, has a history spanning a century since its original publication by its creator Edgar de Wahl in 1922.
Weltdeutsch was a proposal for a German-based zonal international auxiliary language by chemist and interlinguist Wilhelm Ostwald. Published in 1916 in Ostwald's Monistic Sunday Sermons, Weltdeutsch was a reflection of the advance of German nationalism during the First World War – Ostwald had long been a pacifist, being aligned with the German Monistic League founded by Ernst Haeckel.
Interlingue literature broadly encompasses the body of fiction an nonfiction work created or translated into Interlingue, a constructed language created by Edgar de Wahl. Although largely composed of original short stories and translations published in the central magazine of the language, Cosmoglotta, full length novels and poetry anthologies also exist, in particular those by authors such as Vicente Costalago, Jan Amos Kajš, and Jaroslav Podobský.
Hermann Alfred Tanner, also known as Major Tanner, was a Swiss publisher, war correspondent, and author. Born in 1873 to a publisher father, he trained as a printer, before founding a newspaper company with his father. Tanner later was the director of several periodicals, primarily concerning winter sports in Switzerland. Tanner had an interest in colour theory, and patented a device for determining colour harmony in 1920.
Abram Antoni Kofman, also known as Abraham S. Kofman, was a Russian Esperanto–language poet. Born in Odesa, Kofman was an early supporter of Esperanto, and one of the first Russian Jews to be so, learning the language in 1889. Kofman was a high-profile member of the first school of Esperanto literature, and had his work featured in the first anthologies of Esperanto poetry. He was responsible for translations of several sections of the Hebrew Bible in both Esperanto and its daughter language, Ido. Kofman also influenced the development of the international religion Hillelism by the creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof in 1901. Eventually switching languages from Esperanto to Ido, and later Occidental, Kofman purportedly died during aerial bombing in Odesa.
Jules Meysmans was a Belgian stenographer and linguist, best known for coining the term interlinguistics. Meysmans invented his own shorthand system, one of several adaptations he made of existing systems. The founder of an institute for stenography, he was active in the international auxiliary language movement, supporting various projects throughout his life, including Volapük, Esperanto, Idiom Neutral, and Occidental.
Heinrich Albert Nidecker, also known as Henri Nidecker, was a Swiss librarian and philologist. Born in Alsace, he completed degrees at the University of Basel, earning a doctorate English philology in 1924. Nidecker spent most of his career as a librarian at the Basel University Library, where he developed a cataloguing system, and was responsible for the departments of English philology and philosophy. Nidecker was involved in the international auxiliary language movement, supporting Ido and later Interlingue; he authored several works in the latter. Nidecker also wrote on topics of social reform, and on the history of music in Switzerland.
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