Idiom Neutral

Last updated
Idiom Neutral
Created by Waldemar Rosenberger
Date1902
Setting and usage international auxiliary language
UsersNone
Purpose
Sourcesdeveloped from a heavily revised form of Volapük
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Glottolog None
IETF art-x-idiomneu

Idiom Neutral is an international auxiliary language, published in 1902 by the International Academy of the Universal Language (Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal) under the leadership of Waldemar Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg engineer.

Contents

History

The Academy had its origin as the Kadem bevünetik volapüka (literally 'International Academy of the World Language') at a congress in Munich in August 1887, was set up to conserve and perfect the auxiliary language Volapük. Under Rosenberger, who became the Academy’s director in 1892, the group began to make considerable changes in the grammar and vocabulary of Volapük, changing its nature into an entirely different language. The vocabulary was almost completely replaced by words more closely resembling those used in Western European languages, and a number of grammatical forms unfamiliar to Western Europeans were discarded. It was understood that the changes effectively resulted in the creation of a new language, which was named Idiom Neutral (which means “the neutral idiom” or “the neutral language”).

The name of the Academy was changed to Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal in 1898 and the circulars of the Academy were written in the new language from that year. Those who continued to use Volapük re-formed the International Academy of Volapük, retaining its name (with a spelling change) as Kadäm Bevünetik Volapüka.

Dictionaries of Idiom Neutral including an outline of the grammar were published in several European languages in 1902 and 1903.

The language, sometimes referred to as “Neutral” or “the Neutral language” by English-speaking writers, created interest among international language enthusiasts at the time. Rosenberger published a periodical in the language called Progres. In 1907 Neutral was one of the projects considered by a committee of scholars which met in Paris to select an international auxiliary language (what the committee actually decided upon is disputed; see Ido and its external links for more information).

In 1908 the Akademi which had created Idiom Neutral effectively chose to abandon it in favor of Latino sine flexione, a simplified form of Latin developed by Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano. Peano was appointed the director of the Akademi, and its name was changed to Academia pro Interlingua . Peano's language was also called Interlingua, not to be confused with the better-known Interlingua presented in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA).

In 1912 Rosenberger published a reformed version of Neutral called Reform-Neutral. [1]

Grammar

The following is a rough sketch of Idiom Neutral grammar. It does not lay out every detail of grammar worked out for the language. The simple grammar of Idiom Neutral is similar to Interlingua's.

Writing and pronunciation

Idiom neutral alphabet (+ 1 digraph)
Number12345688910111213141516171819202122-
Upper case A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V Y SH
Lower case abcdefghijklmnoprstuvysh
IPA phonemes a b t͡ʃ d e f g h i ʒ k l m n o p r s t u v j ʃ

Twenty-two letters of the Latin script are used to write Neutral; the letters q, w, x, and z do not occur. The five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are pronounced roughly as in Spanish. Vowels which appear next to each other are pronounced separately, not as a diphthong. The consonants have the same values as in English, except that c is pronounced like English ch in church, g is always like the g in gate, and j is pronounced as the s in measure. The combination sh is pronounced like English sh.

The stress falls on the vowel that precedes the last consonant. If no vowel precedes the last consonant (e.g. viaway) the stress is on the first vowel. In a few cases the vowel at the end of a word is stressed; these vowels are marked with an acute accent (e.g. idéidea). Such accents are the only diacritics used in writing Neutral words.

Nouns and adjectives

Unlike Esperanto and Ido, nouns can end in any letter. There is no inflection for case. The plural is formed by adding the letter i at the end of the word.

Adjectives can also end in any letter. They normally appear after the nouns they modify and do not agree in number with their nouns, e.g. kaset grandbig box, kaseti grandbig boxes.

Comparison of adjectives (and adverbs) is with plu ... ka (more ... than), tale ... kuale (as ... as) and leplu (most, -est).

Verbs

Verbs are conjugated as follows. Examples are shown for the verb amarto love in the active voice; the endings do not change for person or number, except in the imperative.

Infinitive: amarto love
Present: mi amI love
Imperfect: mi amavI loved, I was loving
Future: mi ameroI shall love
Present perfect: mi av amedI have loved
Pluperfect: mi avav amedI had loved
Future perfect: mi avero amedI shall have loved
Conditional: mi amerioI would love
Past conditional: mi averio amedI would have loved
Imperative second person singular: ama!Love!
Imperative second person plural: amate!Love!
Imperative first person plural: amam!Let's love!
Active participle: amantloving
Passive participle: amedloved

The passive voice is formed with the verb esarto be and the passive participle: mi es amedI am loved, mi averio esed amedI would have been loved, etc.

There is no inflection for a subjunctive or volitive. In expressions of desire etc., the present tense is used e.g. mi volu ke il amI want him to love; ila demandav ke vo lekt itshe asked you to read it.

Other parts of speech

There is no definite or indefinite article. Adverbs can be formed from adjectives by adding e. Some prepositions are formed from other words by adding u e.g. relativurelative to from relativrelative (adj.).

Sample texts

Aparati deb esar adresed a shef de stasion Peterburg e deb esar asekured per vo e per votr kont; if aparati u partii de ili esero ruined u perded in voyaj, vo deb mitar nemediate otri, plasu aparati e partii ruined u perded.

The apparatus must be addressed to the chief of the St. Petersburg station and must be insured by you and by your account; if the apparatus or parts of them are ruined or lost in the voyage, you must send others immediately in place of the apparatus and parts ruined or lost.

Publikasion de idiom neutral interesero votr filio, kel kolekt postmarki, kause ist idiom es lingu praktikal pro korespondad ko kolektatori in otr landi.

The publication of Idiom Neutral will interest your son, who collects postage stamps, because this idiom is a practical language for correspondence with collectors in other countries.

Related Research Articles

Giuseppe Peano Italian mathematician and glottologist

Giuseppe Peano was an Italian mathematician and glottologist. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much notation. The standard axiomatization of the natural numbers is named the Peano axioms in his honor. As part of this effort, he made key contributions to the modern rigorous and systematic treatment of the method of mathematical induction. He spent most of his career teaching mathematics at the University of Turin. He also wrote an international auxiliary language, Latino sine flexione, which is a simplified version of Classical Latin. Most of his books and papers are in Latino sine flexione, others are in Italian.

Interlingua International auxiliary language created by IALA

Interlingua is an Italic international auxiliary language (IAL), developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs, and is the most widely used naturalistic IAL – in other words, those IALs whose vocabulary, grammar and other characteristics are derived from natural languages, rather than being centrally planned. Interlingua was developed to combine a simple, mostly regular grammar with a vocabulary common to the widest possible range of western European languages, making it unusually easy to learn, at least for those whose native languages were sources of Interlingua's vocabulary and grammar. Conversely, it is used as a rapid introduction to many natural languages.

Interlingue International auxiliary language created 1922

Interlingue, formerly Occidental, is an international auxiliary language published in 1922. Its creator, Edgar de Wahl, devised it to achieve a maximum of both grammatical regularity and natural character. The vocabulary is based on pre-existing words from various languages and a derivational system using recognized prefixes and suffixes.

Volapük Constructed international auxiliary language

Volapük is a constructed language created between 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany, who believed that God had told him in a dream to create an international language. Volapük conventions took place in 1884 (Friedrichshafen), 1887 (Munich) and 1889 (Paris). The first two conventions used German, and the last conference used only Volapük. In 1889, there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals in or about Volapük, and 316 textbooks in 25 languages; at that time the language claimed nearly a million adherents. Volapük was largely displaced between late 19th and early 20th century by Esperanto.

An international auxiliary language is a language meant for communication between people from different nations who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a foreign language. It usually takes words from widely spoken languages.

This article deals with the grammar of the Finnish language. For the ways in which the spoken language differs from the written language, see Colloquial Finnish. Unlike the languages spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Swedish and Norwegian, which are North Germanic languages, Finnish is a Uralic language. Typologically, Finnish is agglutinative, and is somewhat unique among the languages of Europe in having vowel harmony.

Latino sine flexione Latin-based international auxiliary language

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 (1858–1932) 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.

English verbs verbs in the English language

Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed periphrastically, using constructions with auxiliary verbs.

The term irregularities or exceptions in Interlingua refers to deviations from the logical rules in a few grammatical constructions in the international auxiliary language Interlingua. These oddities are a part of the standard grammar. These special cases have crept into the language as a result of the effort to keep it naturalistic. Most of these irregularities also exist in Interlingua's source languages; English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and to a lesser extent German and Russian. This feature of the language makes Interlingua more familiar to the speakers of source languages. And at the same time, it makes the language more difficult for others.

Academia pro Interlingua

The Academia pro Interlingua was an organization dedicated to the promotion of international auxiliary languages, and is associated in particular with Prof. Giuseppe Peano's language Latino sine flexione.

Neo language Artificially constructed language

Neo is an international auxiliary language created by Arturo Alfandari, a Belgian diplomat of Italian descent. It combines features of Esperanto, Ido, Novial, and Volapük. The root base of Neo is closely related to French, with some influence from English.

This article is an informal outline of the grammar of Interlingua, an international auxiliary language first publicized by IALA. It follows the usage of the original grammar text, which is accepted today but regarded as conservative.

Mondial is an international auxiliary language created by the Swedish school principal Helge Heimer, in the 1940s. It received favourable reviews from several academic linguists but achieved little practical success. Grammars and dictionaries were published in Swedish, French, English, Italian, and German.

Esperanto and Novial are two different constructed international auxiliary languages. Their main difference is that while Esperanto is a schematic language, with an unvarying grammar, Novial is a naturalistic language, whose grammar and vocabulary varies to try to retain a "natural" sound. Demographically, Esperanto has thousands of times more speakers than Novial.

Uropi International auxiliary language for Europe.

Uropi is a constructed language which was created by Joël Landais, a French English teacher. Uropi is a synthesis of European languages, explicitly based on the common Indo-European roots and aims at being used as an international auxiliary language for Europe and thus contributing to building a European identity. Besides, given the spread of Indo-European languages outside Europe, it could be an international language for the world.

The International Academy of Volapük was a ruling body established at the second Volapük congress in Munich in August 1887 with the goal of preserving and improving Volapük.

Volapükologist

A volapükologist is a person whose scientific interest is Volapük or who learns the language for hobby reasons.

Intal is an international auxiliary language, published in 1956 by the German linguist Erich Weferling. Its name is an acronym for INTernational Auxiliary Language. Intal was conceived to unite the most important features of existing international auxiliary languages, like Esperanto, Ido, Occidental-Interlingue, Neo, Novial and Interlingua, into a compromise system.

Langue nouvelle is a grammatical sketch for a proposed artificial international auxiliary language presented in 1765 by Joachim Faiguet de Villeneuve, a French economist, in the ninth volume of Diderot's encyclopedia. It is likely that it influenced Volapük, Esperanto, and other language projects of the 19th century.

The conjugation of Sardinian verbs are mainly divided according to infinitives into -are, -ere, and -ire verbs in north-central dialects for regular verbs, similar to the tripartite systems of Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian. In southern dialects, these infinitives above change to -ai, -i, and -iri, respectively. Irregular verbs also exist as well. Many Sardinian conjugated forms were similar and conservative phonologically to Classical Latin, although the number of tenses were greatly reduced and the remaining tenses rely on periphrasis.

References

  1. Handbook of Reform-Neutral (1912) at archive.org