Interlingua is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American 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 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.
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.
Alexander Gottfried Friedrich Gode-von Aesch was a German-born American linguist, translator and the driving force behind the creation of the auxiliary language Interlingua.
The Union Mundial pro Interlingua is a global organization that promotes Interlingua, an international auxiliary language (IAL) published in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). UMI was founded on July 28, 1955, when the first International Interlingua Congress took place in Tours, France. The UMI collaborates with the national Interlingua organizations and has a hand in publishing dictionaries, grammars and tutorials. It is a non-profit organization that now operates out of Bilthoven, Netherlands.
Piet Cleij was a Dutch linguist. He was the former vice-secretary of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua and the chief lexicographer in the Interlingua community.
The Grammatica de Interlingua, written by Karel Wilgenhof, is the first Interlingua grammar written entirely in Interlingua. The Grammatica does not depart in substance from the principles outlined in the 1951 Interlingua Grammar but presents them in condensed form, allowing the author space for copious examples. Originally published in 1973 by the Union Mundial pro Interlingua (UMI), the popular Grammatica makes observations about the practical use of Interlingua as it has evolved over time.
Alix Potet, who obtained her doctorate of sciences in 1990, is professor of informatics at the University of Rennes. Potet is Vice President of the Union Interlinguiste de France (UIF) as well as co-author of the French-language supplement to the manual Interlingua by Ingvar Stenström (1988) and of a French-Interlingua dictionary (1991).
Jeanne Martinet was a French semiotician and a proprietor of a semiotics school. Her husband was the eminent linguist André Martinet (1908–1999). In 1973, in Paris, Martinet published the book Clefs pour la sémiologie, which has been translated into numerous languages. In 1993, she co-authored, with her husband, the volume Mémoires d'un linguiste.
Interlingua, Instrumento Moderne de Communication International by Ingvar Stenström is a popular Interlingua course. As of 2006, it has been translated into Bulgarian, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, and Swedish; translations into Norwegian and Lithuanian are in final preparation, and five additional languages are expected to follow.
Július Tomin was a Slovak high school teacher and author. He was persecuted during the Soviet occupation for promoting Interlingua as a second language.
Jurij Cherednikov is a Ukrainian-American author and software engineer. He was the first representative of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua in Ukraine and co-founder of the Ukrainian Interlingua Society.
The Ukrainian Interlingua Society, works in Ukraine to promote the knowledge and active use of Interlingua, an artificial language. It supports the work of the Russian representative of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua.
Engelbert Pigal was an Austrian engineer. A speaker of Interlingua and two other auxiliary languages, he wrote two cosmological monographs in Interlingua.
Wilhelm Bladin was a noted progressive teacher and author born in Gävle, Sweden. He compiled grammars, manuals, and dictionaries in English, German, French, and Interlingua. He was the second Secretary General of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua for Sweden.
Lingua e Vita is the official magazine of the British Interlingua Society (BIS). Founded in 1965 as an initiative of Brian C. Sexton, Lingua e Vita is a continuation of the earlier organ of the BIS, the Circular Letter.
Events from the year 1955 in France.
André Schild : born in Fontainemelon or Cernier in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel. He was a linguist and former administrator of the Universal Esperanto Association in Geneva, and the director of the Oficie por li lingue international auxiliari Occidental in the 1940s in Basel. He taught at the Benedict School (Bénédict-Schule) in Basel. He published the outline of his Neolatino system in 1947.
Interlingue and Interlingua are constructed international auxiliary languages.
