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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.
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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.
De Wahl was first introduced to planned languages through Volapük, an international auxiliary language released in 1879. De Wahl ended up becoming one of the earliest users of Esperanto, which he encountered for the first time in 1888 during his period as a Volapükist and for which he was in the process of composing a dictionary of marine terms. [1] He quickly became a fervent supporter of Esperanto for a number of years in which he collaborated with Zamenhof on some parts of the language's design [2] and translated one of the first works into Esperanto: "Princidino Mary", [3] published in 1889 originally under the name Princino Mary. He remained an Esperantist until 1894 when the vote to reform Esperanto failed; he was one of just two that voted neither for Esperanto unchanged, nor for the reform proposed by Zamenhof, but for a completely new reform. [4] 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 trying to develop a system that combined naturalism and regularity, a combination that became a frequently referenced selling point in the promotion of Occidental. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
De Wahl spent the years after abandoning Esperanto in collaboration with linguists such as Waldemar Rosenberger (Idiom Neutral), [1] Julius Lott (Mundolingue), and Antoni Grabowski (Modern Latin for a time, before returning to Esperanto). [10] The method sought after by these "partisans of naturalism" was the distillation of existing words into their parts to obtain the international roots within them (such as naturalisation to nat-ur-al-is-ation), then used in other words to keep root words to a minimum while maintaining a natural appearance. 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. [11] In addition to this, de Wahl's rule developed later allowed for regular derivation from double-stem Latin verbs. [12]
The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language, a body of academics formed to study the problem of an international language and which recommended Esperanto with reforms (leading to the language known as Ido), occurred in 1907 before Occidental was announced. De Wahl thus chose to send a memorandum of principles on which to base an international language, a memorandum which arrived after the committee had already adjourned. [13] The memorandum was only noted in passing by Louis Couturat, who was already familiar with de Wahl and his collaborators. [14]
Edgar de Wahl announced the creation of Occidental in 1922 with the first issue of the magazine Cosmoglotta, published in Tallinn, Estonia under the name Kosmoglott. [15] Occidental was a product of years of personal experimentation under the name Auli (auxiliary language), which he used from 1906 to 1921 and which later on gained the nickname proto-Occidental. [16] De Wahl, originally a proponent of Volapük and then Esperanto, began creating Occidental after the failed vote to reform Esperanto in 1894. [17] 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." [18]
De Wahl also corresponded with Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano, creator of Latino sine flexione, gaining an appreciation for its selection of international vocabulary. "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", he wrote.
Upon its announcement in 1922, Occidental was nearly complete. [19] [20] De Wahl had not intended to announce the language for a few years; after hearing that the League of Nations (LON) had begun an inquiry into the question of an international language he decided to accelerate its release [21] and after receiving a favorable reply the year before from Under-Secretary General Nitobe Inazō of the LON which had adopted a resolution on the subject in 1921. [22] The first known publication in Occidental, a booklet entitled Transcendent Algebra by Jacob Linzbach, appeared shortly before Kosmoglott debuted. [23]
Occidental began gathering followers due to its readability, despite a complete lack of grammars and dictionaries. [24] Two years later in 1924, de Wahl wrote that he was corresponding with about 30 people "in good Occidental" despite the lack of learning material. [25] Two Ido societies joined Occidental in the same year, one in Vienna (Austria) called IdoSocieto Progreso (renamed as Societé Cosmoglott Progress) and the Societo Progreso in Brno (Czechoslovakia), which changed its name to Federali (Federation del amicos del lingue international). [26] The first dictionary, the Radicarium Directiv, a collection of Occidental root words and their equivalents in eight languages, was published the following year. [27]
Kosmoglott was also 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. [28] The name was changed to Cosmoglotta in 1927 as it began to officially promote Occidental in lieu of other languages, and that January the magazine's editorial and administrative office was moved to the Vienna neighborhood of Mauer, now part of Liesing. [29] [30] 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 (The Work of Edgar de Wahl) led to interest in Occidental from users of Ido. [30] Use in France began in 1928, and by the beginning of the next decade the Occidental community was established in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Switzerland. [31]
The Vienna period was also marked by financial stability. With the help of two major backers, Hanns Hörbiger, also from Vienna, and G.A. Moore from London, "Cosmoglotta thrived despite the economic crisis. After the two died in 1931, Cosmoglotta was again forced to rely on revenue from subscriptions and republications. [32]
The growing movement began campaigning more assertively for Occidental in the early 1930s, [33] leveraging its at-sight readability by contacting organizations such as companies, embassies, printing houses and the LON with letters entirely in Occidental that were often understood and answered. [34] [35] Those letters often included the footer Scrit in lingue international "Occidental" ("Written in the international language Occidental"). A large number of numbered "documents" [36] were produced at this time as well to introduce the concept of an international language and advocate for Occidental as the answer to Europe's "tower of Babel". [37] Recordings of spoken Occidental on gramophone records for distribution were first made in this period. [38] [39]
The years from 1935 to 1939 were particularly active for Cosmoglotta and a second edition of the journal was published. Originally entitled Cosmoglotta-Informationes, [40] it was soon renamed Cosmoglotta B, focusing on items of more internal interest such as linguistic issues, reports of Occidental in the news, and financial updates. In early 1936, not counting the 110 issues of Cosmoglotta and other journals and bulletins, a total of 80 publications existed in and about Occidental. [41] [42]
But the years before World War II posed difficulties for Occidental and other planned languages. They were banned in Germany, [43] Austria [44] and Czechoslovakia, forced to disband, [45] kept under surveillance by the Gestapo, [46] which also destroyed instructional materials. [47] The prohibition of auxiliary languages in Germany was particularly damaging as this was where most Occidentalists lived at the time. [48] The inability to accept payment for subscriptions was a financial blow that continued after the war [49] along with Germany's division into zones of influence, not all of which allowed payments. [50]
De Wahl, in Tallinn, was unable to communicate with the Occidental Union in Switzerland from 1939 to October 1947, first due to the war and thereafter the interception of mail between Switzerland and the Soviet Union. [51] [52] Unaware of this, de Wahl was bewildered at the lack of response to his continued letters; even a large collection of poetry translated into Occidental was never delivered. The only letter of his received in Switzerland came in 1947, asking the Occidental Union why it had not answered any of his. [53] Meanwhile, de Wahl's house and his entire library had been destroyed during the bombardment of Tallinn. De Wahl himself was incarcerated for a time after refusing to leave Estonia for Germany, and later took refuge in a psychiatric hospital where he lived out his life. [54] [55]
The outbreak of war in 1939 put a halt to publications of both Cosmoglottas through 1940, but in 1941 Cosmoglotta B began publication once again and continued until 1950. [56] An edition of either Cosmoglotta A or B was published every month between January 1937 and September 1939, and then (after the initial shock of the war) every month from September 1941 to June 1951. [56] During the war, only those in neutral Switzerland and Sweden were able to fully devote themselves to the language, carrying on activities semi-officially. [57] [58]
During the war, Occidentalists noticed that the language was often permitted to be sent by telegram within and outside of Switzerland (especially to and from Sweden) [59] even without official recognition, surmising that censors were able to understand it [60] and may have thought them to be written in Spanish or Romansch, [61] a minor yet official language in Switzerland that at the time lacked a standardized orthography. This allowed some communication to take place between the Occidentalists in Switzerland and Sweden. The other centers 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 [62] and numerous Occidentalists sent to concentration camps in Germany and Czechoslovakia. [63] [64]
Contacts were reestablished shortly after the war by those who remained, with letters from countries such as France, Czechoslovakia, Finland and Great Britain reaching Cosmoglotta. Writers said they were ready to begin activities anew for the language. [65] [66] Cosmoglotta had subscribers in 58 cities in Switzerland [67] a few months before the end of World War II in Europe, and Cosmoglotta A began publication again in 1946. [56]
During the war many Occidentalists took to standardizing the language. [68] De Wahl had created Occidental with a number of unchangeable features, but believed that its following of the "laws of life" gave it a firm enough base that it could follow a "natural evolution". [69] Its flexibility would "allow time and practice to take care of modifications that would prove to be necessary". [70] As a result, some words had more than one permissible form, which could not be resolved by decree alone, thus leaving the ultimate decision to the community by including both possible forms in the first Occidental dictionaries. [71]
One example concerned the verb scrir (to write) and a possible other form scripter, as both created internationally recognizable derivations: scritura and scritor from scrir, or scriptura and scriptor from scripter. [72] De Wahl expressed a preference for scrir, finding scripter to be somewhat heavy, but commented that the latter was certainly permissible and that Occidental might take on a similar evolution to natural languages in which both forms come into common use, with the longer form having a heavier and formal character and the shorter form a lighter and more everyday tone (such as English story vs. history). [72]
Orthography was another area in which several possibilities existed, namely etymologic orthography (adtractiv, obpression), historic orthography (attractiv, oppression), or simplified orthography (atractiv, opression). [73] The first option was hardly if ever used, and simplified orthography eventually became the standard by 1939. [74] Much of the standardization of the language took place in this way through community preference (e.g. both ac [75] and anc were proposed for the word "also" but the community quickly settled on anc), 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, [76] much time during World War II was spent on language standardization and course creation, and due to the continuing war, in August 1943 the decision was made to create an interim academy to officialize this process. [68]
This 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 instructional materials to have ready by the end of the war. [77] [78] While doing so, they frequently found themselves confronted with the decision between two "theoretically equally good" forms that had remained in popular usage, but whose presence could be confusing to a new learner of the language. [79] 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." [80]
The International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), founded in 1924 [81] to study and determine the best planned language for international communication, was at first viewed with suspicion by the Occidental community. Its co-founder Alice Vanderbilt Morris was an Esperantist, as were many of its staff, [82] and many Occidentalists including de Wahl himself [82] believed that its leadership under Esperantist William Edward Collinson (known among readers of Cosmoglotta for an article of his entitled "Some weak points of Occidental") [83] meant that it had been set up with a staff of professional linguists under a neutral and scientific pretext to bolster a final recommendation for Esperanto. 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, a prominent Occidentalist who later joined Interlingua in the 1950s, detailed one such 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. [84]
In 1945, the IALA announced that it planned to create its own language and showed four possible versions under consideration, all of which were naturalistic [85] as opposed to schematic. Occidentalists were by and large pleased that the IALA had decided to create a language so similar in nature 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 in describing the language the IALA was creating as a victory for the natural school ("Li naturalitá esset victoriosi!") [85] and "almost the same language" in 1948, [86] But he still had reservations, doubting whether a project with such a similar aspect and structure would be able to "suddenly cause prejudices [against planned languages] to fall and create unity among the partisans of international languages". [87] He also feared 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. [87]
Interlingua and Occidental were similar; although while the two languages had a 90% identical vocabulary [88] without orthographic differences taken into account (e.g. with filosofie and philosophia considered the same word), structurally and derivationally they were very different. De Wahl's Rule in Occidental had mostly done away with Latin double stem verbs (verbs such as act: ager, act- or send: mitter, miss-), while Interlingua simply accepted them as part and parcel of a naturalistic system. [89] The control languages (Italian, Spanish and/or Portuguese, French, English) used by Interlingua to form its vocabulary for the most part require an eligible word to be found in three source languages (the "rule of three"), [90] which would conflict with Occidental's Germanic substrate and various other words which would be by definition ineligible in a unified language that retained Interlingua's methodology. Accepting Occidental words such as mann, strax, old and sestra (Interlingua: viro, immediatemente, vetere, soror) into Interlingua could only be done by doing away with the control languages, the very core of Interlingua's methodology for determining its vocabulary. Interlingua also allowed optional irregular verbal conjugations such as so,son and sia [91] as the first-person singular, third-person plural and subjunctive form of esser, the verb 'to be'.
Occidental was also still recovering from the war. Cosmoglotta continued to report into 1946 on who had survived the war, who among them were ready to participate again and those who were still out of touch. [92] [93] The magazine was financially strained by inflated postwar printing costs and its inability to collect payments from certain countries, [94] a marked contrast to the well-funded [95] New York-based IALA. [96]
International politics was another difficulty for Occidentalists after the war. The beginning of the Cold War created a particularly uncomfortable situation for the Occidental-Union, [97] [98] [99] whose name coincided with that of an anti-Russian political league; the Swiss Occidentalists believed that was why all of de Wahl's letters from Tallinn were intercepted. [100] De Wahl remained unaware of developments in the language and the proposal for the rest of his life. [101] In early 1948 the Czechoslovak Occidentalists had begun requesting a new name that would allow them to continue their linguistic activities without suspicion, proposing the name Interal (International auxiliari lingue), to which the union responded that the term Interlingue would be more appropriate and that they were free to introduce the language as "Interlingue (Occidental)", or even remove the mention of Occidental in parentheses if they wanted. [102] Ric Berger began advocating for a change of name from Occidental to Interlingue in 1948 [103] which he also hoped would aid in a fusion between the two languages. [104] 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 per cent support, making the official name Interlingue, with Interlingue (Occidental) also permitted, starting September 1949. [105]
The 1951 debut of Interlingua weakened 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 (translated from Esperanto):
In the field of naturalistic planned languages Occidental-Interlingue was until then unchallenged (especially after the death of Otto Jespersen, author of Novial), 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 (1) the Interlingue-Union become a collective member of the IALA and (2) 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. [106] [107]
Don Harlow similarly summarizes the year 1951 for Occidental:
Interlingua had a ready-made constituency. Almost thirty years had passed since the creation of Occidental, whose strength in the "naturalistic" world had prevented other "naturalistic" projects from developing their own movements. But Occidental's star had waned since the war. Now, like a bolt from the blue, came this heaven-sent gift: a new constructed language even more "naturalistic" than Occidental. In spite of attempts by diehard supporters of Occidental to stave off the inevitable — for instance, by such tactics as renaming their language Interlingue — most remaining Occidentalists made the short pilgrimage to the shrine of Interlingua. [95]
While the migration of so many users to Interlingua had severely weakened Interlingue, the ensuing drop in activity was gradual and took place over decades. [108] [109] Cosmoglotta B ceased publication after 1950, and the frequency of Cosmoglotta A began to gradually drop: once every second month from 1952, and then once per quarter from 1963. [56] Other bulletins in Interlingue continued to appear during this time such as Cive del Munde (Switzerland), Voce de Praha (Czechoslovakia), Sved Interlinguist (Sweden), International Memorandum (United Kingdom), Interlinguistic Novas (France), Jurnale Scolari International (France), Buletine Pedagogic International (France), Super li Frontieras (France), Interlingue-Postillon (1958, Germany), Novas de Oriente (1958, Japan), Amicitie european (1959, Switzerland), Teorie e practica (Switzerland-Czechoslovakia, 1967), and Novas in Interlingue (Czechoslovakia, 1971). Barandovská-Frank believed that the ebb in interest in Occidental-Interlingue occurred in concert with the aging of the generation that was first drawn to it from other planned languages (translated from Esperanto):
Most of those interested in Interlingue belonged to the generation that became acquainted in turn with Volapük, Esperanto and Ido, later on finding the most aesthetic (essentially naturalistic) solution in Occidental-Interlingue. Many subsequently moved to IALA's Interlingua, which however did not prove to be much more successful despite the impression its scientific origin made, and those who remained loyal to Occidental-Interlingue did not succeed in imparting their enthusiasm to a new generation. [107]
Activity in Interlingue reached a low during the 1980s and early 1990s, when Cosmoglotta publication ceased for a few years. While issue 269 was published in 1972 after publishing once per season between 1963, [56] issue 289 was not reached until summer 2000 [110] for an average of less than one issue per year. According to 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.'" [95] A decade later, a documentary film 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". [111]
As was the case for other planned languages, the arrival of the Internet spurred Interlingue's revival. [112] [113] [108] In the year 1999 the first Yahoo! Group in Occidental was founded, Cosmoglotta had begun publishing intermittently again, and the language became a subject of discussion in literature on auxiliary languages. [114] One example is The Esperanto Book released in 1995 by Harlow, who wrote 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. [95] [115] Still, the opposite view [116] [117] [118] was also common in the community and Occidental gained adherents in many nations including Asian nations. [119] [120] An Interlingue Wikipedia was approved in 2004. In recent years official meetings of Interlingue speakers have resumed: one in Ulm in 2013, [121] another in Munich in 2014 with three participants, [122] and a third in Ulm the next year with five. [123]
The most recent edition of Cosmoglotta is volume 327, for the period from January to June 2021. [124]
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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 billions 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 von Wahl was a Baltic German mathematics and physics teacher who lived in Tallinn, Estonia. He also used the pseudonym Julian Prorók, and is best known as the creator of Interlingue, an international auxiliary language that was known as Occidental throughout his life.
Interlinguistics, also known as cosmoglottics, is the science of planned languages as it 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.
Li Europan lingues is a quotation in Occidental (Interlingue), an international auxiliary language devised by Edgar von Wahl in 1922. It is used in some HTML templates as a fill-in or placeholder text.
De Wahl's rule is a rule of word formation, developed by Baltic German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and applied in the constructed language Interlingue, which was also his creation.
A pan-Romance language or Romance interlanguage is a codified linguistic variety which synthesizes the variation of the Romance languages and is representative of these as a whole. It can be seen as a standard language proposal for the whole language family but is generally considered a zonal constructed language because it's the result of intense codification. Zonal languages are, according to interlinguist Detlev Blanke, constructed languages which "arise by choosing or mixing linguistic elements in a language group".
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.
Alphonse Matejka was a Swiss exports specialist and proponent of international auxiliary language. Born in St. Gallen to a Czech father and Swiss mother, he worked in the textiles and watchmaking industries, and lived much of his life in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Matejka is best known for his work in the international language movement; first supporting Ido, and later Occidental, he led numerous organisations in the fields, and authored several books teaching these languages. Matejka also helped to found the Center for Documentation and Study about the International Language.
Interlingue literature broadly encompasses the body of fiction and 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.
Carl-Erik Sjöstedt was a Swedish mathematician, teacher, and philosopher. Sjöstedt focused much of his work on the teaching of mathematics in the Swedish curriculum, especially in the fields of geometry and logic. Sjöstedt was a follower of the Swedish philosopher Adolf Phalén, and a supporter of Uppsala philosophy. He also was a speaker and author in the constructed language Interlingue, founding a national association for the language in 1928.
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-Jewish accountant, and poet and translator in several constructed languages. From Odesa, Russian Empire, Kofman learned Esperanto in 1889 and was an early supporter of the language's adoption. He was one of the first Russian Jews to write poetry in Esperanto and has been described by several as a "pioneer". His work appeared in several Esperanto-language magazines and early anthologies, including the Fundamenta Krestomatio. He was the translator of several sections of the Hebrew Bible in both Esperanto and its daughter language, Ido. He was the first Ancient Greek–Esperanto translator, producing a rendition of parts of the Iliad starting in 1895.
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.
Carl Yngve Segerståhl was a Swedish rector and painter. Born in Norrköping in southern Sweden, his initial studies included folkloristics, religion, and economics in Lund, working in archives as a student and collecting folk tales. For almost the entirety of his career, he was a teacher, later headmaster, of the folk high school in Vindeln. Segerståhl was a republican, and a supporter of the constructed language Occidental. In the latter part of his life, he held several exhibitions as an artist, and published a magazine generally concerning Vindeln and its surrounding localities.
Johann Robert Hörbiger (1885–1955), commonly known as Hans RobertHörbiger, was an Austrian engineer and proponent of the Welteislehre, a pseudoscientific theory which asserted that the base material of the universe was ice. Initially studying engineering and running a business with his father and brother, Hörbiger later worked to promote the theory; he worked under Heinrich Himmler in the Ahnenerbe, where the theory was used to generate weather forecasts.
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.
Inter omni projectes, Occidental es li sol quel in altissim gradu ha penat satisfar li amalgamation del du quasi contradictori postulates: regularitá e naturalitá.
Do secun li principies fundamental de Occidental: «junter quant possibil regularitá e naturalitá», just li form «radica» es li sol rect e apt por ti parol.
Nu, si li europan popules va un die introducter un tal radical ortografic reforma in su lingues quam li turcos, it va esser natural que anc li lingue international va secuer ti reforma, ma til tande, noi pensa, noi have ancor sufficent témpor e prefere ne chocar li publica e destructer li etymologie, do li regularitá e naturalitá.
Qui in li divers revues interlinguistic...retrosecue li labores de Wahl til lor origines, ti va constatar, que li autor de Occidental ja in su unesim publicationes esset un consecuent representant e protagonist del strict naturalitá del futuri lingue international; ma in contrast a altri interlinguistes del camp naturalistic, Wahl ha sempre accentuat que ti ci naturalitá deve accordar con plen regularitá del structura del lingue.
Occidental esset publicat de Prof. E. de Wahl in 1922. It ha monstrat nos que li vocabularium del grand lingues de civilisation posse esser regularisat per un sistema de derivation admirabilmen simplic, sin arbitrari formes, sin inventet regules». Pro to Occidental es un excellent combination de naturalitá e regularitá. Ti du caracteres merita esser expresset in li insigne e yo proposi representar ti du atributes per li equigambi rect-triangul sur li diametre de un circul. Li equigambie expresse que li naturalitá e li regularitá esset tractat con egal cuidas per sr. de Wahl.
Translation: "But I do not understand why the word "celibatario" does not fit Ido. If you have the root "celibat" you derive words such as "legatario, millionario" etc. in the same way. Someone who like M. de B[eaufront] does not understand the sense of the suffix in "secundari" may learn the word as a whole, as it is done in Ido, but I think it is better to have a perhaps somewhat fluctuating suffix than to learn 100 new root words, where I never know if the inventors in one case have preferred an international word or in another a "logical" new formation that I could never even imagine."
Male al la "Regul De Wahl", kiu ebligas en Interlingue regulajn derivaĵojn, Interlingua konservas plurajn radikojn, ekz. ag/act (agente/actor), frang/fract (frangibil/fraction), ung/unct (unguento/unction), tiel ke sen lingvistikaj antaŭscioj pri infinitiva kaj supina formoj oni ne povas diveni la ĝustan rezulton.
Translation: "I found the most precise sense of "-atu" for example no earlier than 1924 ... maybe with time I will also find the precise sense of "-il, -esc, -itudo", etc."
Translation: "He asserts that Occidental, despite being easily readable, is very difficult to write and that one could hardly find 10 people in the world able to write it without errors. Well, with me alone there is already three times that number corresponding in good Occidental."
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)...Occ. esset unesimli propagat per Germanes, Austrianes, Svedes, Tchecoslovacos e solmen ante du annus ha penetrat in Francia.
Un commercial firma in Tchecoslovacia scri spontanmen al redaction: "Mi firma...opera in Italia solmen per li medium de Occidental, e to in omni romanic states. To es un miraculos fact. Vu posse scrir a omni romano in Occidental e il va comprender vor idées."
(Translation) Regrettably, public propagation of Occidental was not possible in Germany from 1935 (the year when artificial languages were banned in Germany) until the end of the war...
English translation: The final exchange of telegrams between us was your telegram in March 1938 where you asked me if I would go to The Hague to participate in the IALA conference, and my quick negative response, not followed by a letter explaining why. You certainly had guessed the cause, but you cannot know what actually happened. Immediately after the coming of Hitler I had the "honour", as president of an international organisation, to be watched by the Gestapo, which interrogated me multiple times and searched through my house, confiscating a large part of my correspondence and my interlinguistic material."
Translation: "I myself lost my entire rich Occidental-Interlingue possessions in 1936 through home raids by the infamous Gestapo...How thankful you must be to your governments which have avoided such catastrophes that our land (Germany) has suffered, one after another, for 35 years now."
Post la okupo de Tallinn per sovetia armeo estis deportita kaj malaperinta la edzino de De Wahl, lia domo komplete forbruliĝis dum bombardado, detruiĝis lia riĉa biblioteko kaj manuskriptoj. Post la alveno de naziaj trupoj De Wahl rifuzis translokiĝon al Germanio kaj estis enkarcerigita. Por savi lin, liaj amikoj lasis proklami lin mense malsana. En la jaro 1944, 77-jaraĝa, li eniris sanatorion Seewald apud Tallinn kaj restis tie ankaŭ post la milito, ne havante propran loĝejon
English translation: "At the assembly of the Swiss Association for Occidental in Bienne it was noted with satisfaction that despite the war the cooperation at least with the Swedish worldlanguage friends was always able to be maintained, in that the letters and telegrams written in Occidental passed by the censors without problem."
English translation: "When I arrived in Prague after my escape from the concentration of Leitmeritz, I had literally nothing except a ragged prison uniform, the so-called "pyjama" of the prison camps...Soon after I arrived in Prague I published an ad to search friends of the international language..."
English translation: "The letters from France are starting to arrive in Switzerland. Especially appreciated are those from Mr. Lerond, a teacher in Bréville tra Donville (Manche) and from Mr. René Chabaud, who happily returned safe and sound from a prison camp in Germany."
Von seiner Entstehung bis zum Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkrieges 1939 wurde die Rechtschreibung der Sprache deutlich vereinfacht. Diese sogenannte „simplificat ortografie" löste die alte „historic ortografie" ab.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Alphonse Matejka konstatis, ke la publikigita vortprovizo de Interlingua en 90% kongruas kun tiu de Interlingue, se oni ne rigardas ortografion (historian kaj simpligitan) kaj uzon de finaj vokaloj.
Translation: "Unfortunately, in 1947 we were not able to publish more than two printed editions: the enormous increase of printing costs and the difficulties transferring the credits accumulated in certain countries were the reasons why we had to be prudent about expenses...even though printing costs have increased by 5 times compared to before the war, the subscription fees have remained the same. Regretfully we have been forced to increase the subscription price this year to 8 Swiss francs..."
Li recent evenimentes politic e li division del munde in du sectores de influentie (occidental e oriental) ha mettet nor propagatores de quelc landes in delicat situation. It ha devenit desfacil nu parlar pri un lingue de quel li nómine in cert landes evoca suspectiones in li circul politic. Pro to nor Centrale ha recivet ti-ci mensus, precipue de Tchecoslovacia, propositiones usar vice li nómine de Occidental ti de Interal (=INTER/national Auxiliari lingue).
La postmilita divido de Eŭropo en orientan kaj okcidentan sektoron sentigis la nomon "Occidental" propagando por kapitalisma okcidento, tial venis proponoj ŝanĝi la nomon.
Schließlich wurde aus Gründen der Neutralität mit 1. September 1949 der Name der Sprache in Interlingue geändert.
Translation: "One should not forget that the name Occidental had been selected in 1922, when it had absolutely no political significance. And today, by strange chance the title of the Occidental-Union coincides with that of a political league opposed to the Russians. It is possible that in Tallinn they considered de Wahl a person requiring police surveillance. How to protest and explain the misunderstanding from so far away?"
Postea, de 1934 a 1950, ille esseva co-redactor del magazin del Occidental-Union, "Cosmoglotta", e esseva le interprenditor in 1948 quando occidental - presentate per le estoniano Edgar de Wahl - cambiava nomine a interlingue.
Proque yo esperat que noi vell posser un vez fusionar con Interlingua, ti-ci nov nómine devet facilisar li transition por nor membres, evitante talmen, coram li publica, un nov radical changeament de nómine. Yo dunc proposit, in februar 1948, in Cosmoglotta, remplazzar li nómine Occidental per Interlingue malgré li oposition del presidente del Academie.
English translation: "91% of the voters have adopted the proposition of the Senate of the Occidental Union, i.e. the new name: INTERLINGUE. The usage of the name INTERLINGUE, or if one wishes INTERLINGUE (Occ.) is valid from 1.9.1949."
...la simileco inter ambaŭ interlingvoj estas tiom granda, ke certe eblos iu racia sintezo inter ili, konkludis Matejka en 1951...La senato de Interlingue-Union kaj la Interlingue-Academie pritraktis la proponojn, ke (1) Interlingue Union iĝu kolektiva membro de IALA kaj (2) Interlingue-Union restu favora al estonta aktiveco de IALA kaj morale subtenu ĝin. La unua propono ne estis akceptita, sed jes la dua, do praktike kunlaboro kaj subteno de Interlingua.
Yo confesse que yo vide poc in li Europan cultura del ultim 1900 annus quel es tam remarcabilmen preciosi. To quo es max visibil es tyrannie, oppression, guerres e nigri superstition.
In ti témpor yo esset in Sydney, e pro que yo havet grand interesse por li indigenes e volet converter mi blanc fratres a un bon opinion pri ili, yo scrit in li presse pri ti heroic action e comparat li brutalitá del blanc rasse con li conciliantie e self-sacrificie del negros.
Tal paroles nu ancor ne tro numerosi, ja in li secul passat ha augmentat in grand quantitá, e in futur va crescer in exorbitant proportion, quande, per li international comunication, li idées del stabil oriental cultures va inundar e influer li maladi Europa, quel just nu perdi su equilibrie.
JAPAN: Kokusaigo-Kenkyusho, Daita 11-784, Setagaya, TOKIO (Pch. Tokio 62 061)
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| Journals and magazines | ||
| Occidentalists | ||