International auxiliary language

An international auxiliary language (sometimes abbreviated as IAL or auxlang) or interlanguage 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 second language.

Languages of dominant societies over the centuries have served as auxiliary languages, sometimes approaching the international level. Latin, Greek and the Mediterranean Lingua Franca were used in the past, and Arabic, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Standard Chinese have been used as such in recent times in many parts of the world.^[1] However, as these languages are associated with the very dominance—cultural, political, and economic—that made them popular, they are often also met with resistance. For this reason, some have turned to the idea of promoting an artificial or constructed language as a possible solution.^[1]

The term "auxiliary" implies that it is intended to be an additional language for the people of the world, rather than to replace their native languages. Often, the term is used to refer to planned or constructed languages proposed specifically to ease international communication, such as Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua. However, it can also refer to the concept of such a language being determined by international consensus, including even a standardized natural language (e.g., International English), and has also been connected to the project of constructing a universal language.

History

The use of an intermediary auxiliary language (also called a "working language", "bridge language", "vehicular language" or "unifying language") to make communication possible between people not sharing a first language, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues,^[2] may be almost as old as language itself. Certainly they have existed since antiquity. Latin and Greek (or Koiné Greek) were the intermediary language of all areas of the Mediterraneum; Akkadian, and then Aramaic, remained the common languages of a large part of Western Asia through several earlier empires.^[3] Such natural languages used for communication between people not sharing the same mother tongue are called lingua francas.

Natural international languages: Lingua francas

Lingua francas have arisen around the globe throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages") but also for diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term originates with one such language, Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a pidgin language used as a trade language in the Mediterranean area from the 11th to the 19th century. Examples of lingua francas remain numerous, and exist on every continent. The most obvious example as of the early 21st century is English. There are many other lingua francas centralized on particular regions, such as Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.^[4]

Constructing languages

Since all natural languages display a number of irregularities in grammar which makes them more difficult to learn, and they are also associated with the national and cultural dominance of the nation that speaks it as its mother tongue, attention began to focus on the idea of creating an artificial or constructed language as a possible solution. The concept of simplifying an existing language to make it an auxiliary language was already in the Encyclopédie of the 18th century, where Joachim Faiguet de Villeneuve, in the article on Langue, wrote a short proposition of a "laconic" or regularized grammar of French.

Some of the philosophical languages of the 17th–18th centuries could be regarded as proto-auxlangs, as they were intended by their creators to serve as bridges among people of different languages as well as to disambiguate and clarify thought. However, most or all of these languages were, as far as can be told from the surviving publications about them, too incomplete and unfinished to serve as auxlangs (or for any other practical purpose). The first fully developed constructed languages we know of, as well as the first constructed languages devised primarily as auxlangs, originated in the 19th century; Solresol by François Sudre (1787–1862), a language based on musical notes, was the first to gain widespread attention although not, apparently, fluent speakers.

Volapük

During the 19th century, a bewildering variety of such constructed international auxiliary languages (IALs) were proposed, so Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau in Histoire de la langue universelle (1903) reviewed 38 projects.

Volapük, first described in an article in 1879 by Johann Martin Schleyer and in book form the following year, was the first to garner a widespread international speaker community. Three major Volapük conventions were held, in 1884, 1887, and 1889; the last of them used Volapük as its working language. André Cherpillod writes of the third Volapük convention,

In August 1889 the third convention was held in Paris. About two hundred people from many countries attended. And, unlike in the first two conventions, people spoke only Volapük. For the first time in the history of mankind, sixteen years before the Boulogne convention, an international convention spoke an international language.^[5]

However, not long after, the Volapük speaker community broke up due to various factors including controversies between Schleyer and other prominent Volapük speakers, and the appearance of newer, easier-to-learn constructed languages, primarily Esperanto.

From Kadem bevünetik volapüka to Academia pro Interlingua

Answering the needs of the first successful artificial language community, the Volapükists established the regulatory body of their language, under the name International Volapük Academy (Kadem bevünetik volapüka) at the second Volapük congress in Munich in August 1887.^[6][7] The Academy was set up to conserve and perfect the auxiliary language Volapük, but soon conflicts arose between conservative Volapükists and those who wanted to reform Volapük to make it a more naturalistic language based on the grammar and vocabulary of major world languages. In 1890 Schleyer himself left the original Academy and created a new Volapük Academy with the same name, from people completely loyal to him, which continues to this day.

Under Waldemar Rosenberger, who became the director in 1892, the original Academy began to make considerable changes in the grammar and vocabulary of Volapük. The vocabulary and the grammatical forms unfamiliar to Western Europeans were completely discarded, so that the changes effectively resulted in the creation of a new language, which was named "Idiom Neutral". 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.

In 1903, the mathematician Giuseppe Peano published his completely new approach to language construction. Inspired by the idea of philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, instead of inventing schematic structures and a priori language, he chose to simplify an existing and once widely used international language, Latin. This simplified Latin, devoid of inflections and declensions, was named Interlingua by Peano but is usually referred to as "Latino sine flexione".

Impressed by Peano's Interlingua, the Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal effectively chose to abandon Idiom Neutral in favor of Peano's Interlingua in 1908, and it elected Peano as its director. The name of the group then was changed to Academia pro Interlingua (where Interlingua stands for Peano's language). The Academia pro Interlingua survived until about 1939. It was partly Peano's Interlingua that inspired the better-known Interlingua presented in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA).

Esperanto

After the emergence of Volapük, a wide variety of other auxiliary languages were devised and proposed in the 1880s–1900s, but none except Esperanto gathered a significant speaker community. Esperanto was developed from about 1878–1887, and finally published in 1887, by L. L. Zamenhof, as a primarily schematic language with word stems randomly borrowed from Romance, West Germanic and Slavic languages. The key to the relative success of Esperanto was probably the highly productive and elastic system of derivational word formation which allowed speakers to derive hundreds of other words by learning one word root. Also, from early on, Esperantists created their own culture, philosophy and spirituality, which made them a movement devoted to the "sacred cause" (see Finvenkismo).

Within a few years this language had thousands of fluent speakers, primarily in eastern Europe. In 1905 its first world convention was held in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Since then world congresses have been held in different countries every year, except during the two World Wars. Esperanto has become "the most outlandishly successful invented language ever" and the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language.^[8]

Esperanto suffered a setback after the 1922 proposal by Iran and several other countries in the League of Nations to have Esperanto taught in member nations' schools failed,^[9][10] and Esperanto speakers were subject to persecution under Hitler's and Stalin's regimes,^[11] but in spite of these factors more people continued to learn Esperanto, and significant literary work (both poetry and novels) began to appear in Esperanto in the period between the World Wars.^[12] Esperanto is still spoken today and has multiple generations of native speakers, although primarily acts as a second language. From among the various constructed language projects, it is Esperanto that has so far come closest to becoming an officially recognized international auxiliary language.

Ido and the Esperantidos

The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language was founded in 1900 by Louis Couturat and others; it tried to get the International Association of Academies to take up the question of an international auxiliary language, study the existing ones and pick one or design a new one. However, the meta-academy declining to do so, the Delegation decided to do the job itself.^[13] Among Esperanto speakers there was a general impression that the Delegation would of course choose Esperanto, as it was the only auxlang with a sizable speaker community at the time; it was felt as a betrayal by many Esperanto speakers when in 1907 the Delegation came up with its own reformed version of Esperanto, Ido.^[14] Ido drew a significant number of speakers away from Esperanto in the short term, but in the longer term most of these either returned to Esperanto or moved on to other new auxlangs. Besides Ido, a great number of simplified Esperantos, called Esperantidos, emerged as concurrent language projects; still, Ido remains today one of the three most widely spoken auxlangs.

Occidental (Interlingue) and Novial

Edgar von Wahl's Occidental (also called "Interlingue") of 1922 was in reaction against the perceived artificiality of some earlier auxlangs, particularly Esperanto. Inspired by Idiom Neutral and Peano's Interlingua, von Wahl created a language whose words, including compound words, would have a high degree of recognizability for those who already know a Romance language. However, this design criterion was in conflict with the ease of coining new compound or derived words on the fly while speaking. Occidental gained a small speaker community in the 1920s and 1930s, and supported several publications, but had almost entirely died out by the 1980s.^[14] More recently Occidental has been revived on the Internet.

In 1928 Ido's major intellectual supporter, the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, abandoned Ido, and published his own planned language, Novial.^[15] It was mostly inspired by Idiom Neutral and Occidental, yet it attempted a derivational formalism and schematism sought by Esperanto and Ido. The notability of its creator helped the growth of this auxiliary language, but soon both Novial and Occidental were abandoned in favour of Interlingua, the first auxiliary language based fully on scientific methodology.

Interlingua

The International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA) was founded in 1924 by Alice Vanderbilt Morris; like the earlier Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language, its mission was to study language problems and the existing auxlangs and proposals for auxlangs, and to negotiate some consensus between the supporters of various auxlangs. However, like the Delegation, it finally decided to create its own auxlang. Interlingua, published in 1951, was primarily the work of Alexander Gode, though he built on preliminary work by earlier IALA linguists including André Martinet, and relied on elements from previous naturalistic auxlang projects, like Peano's Interlingua (Latino sine flexione), Jespersen's Novial, von Walh's Occidental (Interlingue), and the Academy's Idiom Neutral. Like Occidental, Interlingua was designed to have words recognizable at sight by those who already know a Romance language or a language like English with much vocabulary borrowed from Romance languages; to attain this end the IALA accepted a degree of grammatical and orthographic complexity considerably greater than in Esperanto or Occidental, though still less than in any natural language.

The theory underlying Interlingua posits an international vocabulary, a large number of words and affixes that are present in a wide range of languages. This already existing international vocabulary was shaped by social forces, science and technology, to "all corners of the world". The goal of the International Auxiliary Language Association was to accept into Interlingua every widely international word in whatever languages it occurred.^[16] They conducted studies to identify "the most generally international vocabulary possible", while still maintaining the unity of the language.^[17] This scientific approach of generating a language from selected source languages (called control languages) resulted in a vocabulary and grammar that we can call the highest common factor of each major European language.

Interlingua gained a significant speaker community, perhaps roughly the same size as that of Ido (considerably less than the size of Esperanto). Interlingua's success can be explained by the fact that it is the most widely understood international auxiliary language by virtue of its naturalistic (as opposed to schematic) grammar and vocabulary, allowing those familiar with a Romance language, and educated speakers of English, to read and understand it without prior study.^[18] Interlingua has some active speakers currently on all continents, and the language is propagated by the Union Mundial pro Interlingua (UMI), and Interlingua is presented on CDs, radio, and television.^[19]

After the creation of Interlingua, there were no more successful attempts in international language engineering that would attract a significant number of supporters, thus the enthusiasm about constructed languages gradually decreased in the years between 1960–1990.

Internet age

All of the auxlangs with a surviving speaker community seem to have benefited from the advent of the Internet, Esperanto more than most. The CONLANG mailing list was founded in 1991; in its early years discussion focused on international auxiliary languages. As people interested in artistic languages and engineered languages grew to be the majority of the list members, and flame-wars between proponents of particular auxlangs irritated these members, a separate AUXLANG mailing list was created, which has been the primary venue for discussion of auxlangs since then. Besides giving the existing auxlangs with speaker communities a chance to interact rapidly online as well as slowly through postal mail or more rarely in personal meetings, the Internet has also made it easier to publicize new auxlang projects, and a handful of these have gained a small speaker community, including Kotava, Lingua Franca Nova and Toki Pona.^[20]

Zonal constructed languages

Not every international auxiliary language is necessarily intended to be used on a global scale. A special subgroup are languages created to facilitate communication between speakers of a certain group of related languages. The oldest known example is a Pan-Slavic language written in 1665 by the Croatian priest Juraj Križanić. He named this language Ruski ("Russian"), but in reality it was a mixture of the Russian edition of Church Slavonic, his own Southern Chakavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian, and, to a lesser degree, Polish.^[21]

Most zonal constructed languages were created during the period of romantic nationalism at the end of the 19th century; some were created later. Particularly numerous are the Pan-Slavic languages.^[22] However, similar efforts have been made at creating umbrella languages for other language families as well: Tutonish (1902) and Folkspraak (1995) for the Germanic languages, Romanid (1956) for the Romance languages, and Afrihili (1973) for the African continent.

Nowadays, most older zonal constructed languages are known only to specialists. Most notable among modern examples is Interslavic, a project established in 2011 after the merger of several other projects. In 2012 it was reported to have several hundred users.^[23]

Scholarly study

In the early 1900s auxlangs were already becoming a subject of academic study. Louis Couturat et al.^[24] described the controversy in the preface to their book International Language and Science:

The question of a so-called world-language, or better expressed, an international auxiliary language, was during the now past Volapük period, and is still in the present Esperanto movement, so much in the hands of Utopians, fanatics and enthusiasts, that it is difficult to form an unbiased opinion concerning it, although a good idea lies at its basis. (1910, p. v).

For Couturat et al., both Volapukists and Esperantists confounded the linguistic aspect of the question with many side issues, and they considered this a main reason why discussion about the idea of an international auxiliary language has appeared unpractical. Leopold Pfaundler wrote that an IAL was needed for more effective communication among scientists:

All who are occupied with the reading or writing of scientific literature have assuredly very often felt the want of a common scientific language, and regretted the great loss of time and trouble caused by the multiplicity of languages employed in scientific literature.

Writing systems

Several IAL use the Latin script, some of them like LFN also offer an alternative in the Cyrillic script.

Latin script

Several IAL use the Latin script. Several sounds, e.g. /n/, /m/, /t/, /f/ are written with the same letter as in IPA.

Some consonant sounds found in several Latin-script IAL alphabets are not represented by an ISO 646 letter in IPA. Three have a single letter in IPA, one has an widespread alternative taken from ISO 646:

• /ʃ/ (U+0283, IPA 134)
• /ʒ/ (U+0292, IPA 135)
• /ɡ/ (U+0261, IPA 110, single storey g) = g (U+0067, double storey g)

Four are affricates, each represented in IPA by two letters and a combining marker. They are often written decomposed:

• /t͡s/ = /ts/
• /t͡ʃ/ = /tʃ/; Note: Polish distinguishes between them
• /d͡z/ = /dz/
• /d͡ʒ/ = /dʒ/

That means, two sounds, that are one character in IPA and are not ISO 646, also have no common alternative in ISO 646: ʃ, ʒ.

ISO 639-3 code	Alphabet name	Non ISO 646 letters	Diacritics	Multigraphs	Sound, which in IPA is described by ISO 646 letter(s), is described by different letter(s)	Sound, which in IPA is described by non-ISO 646 letter(s), is described by different letter(s)
lfn	Lingua Franca Nova	No	No	No	Yes (c /k/)	Yes (j /ʒ/, x /ʃ/)
rmv	Romanova	No	No	No	Yes (c /k/)	Yes (j /ʃ/)
ina	Interlingua	No	No	Yes (qu /kw/ or /k/)	Yes (c /k/)	No
ido	Ido	No	No	Yes (ch /tʃ/, qu /kw/, sh /ʃ/)	Yes (c /ts/, q /k/, x /ks/ or /ɡz/)	Yes (j /ʒ/, sh /ʃ/)
nov	Novial	No	No	Yes (ch /tʃ/, sh /ʃ/, y /j/)	Yes (q /k/, x /ks/)	Yes (j /ʒ/, sh /ʃ/)
igs	Interglossa	No	No	Yes (ph, th, ch, rh -> /f/, /t/, /k/, /r/)	Yes (c /k/, q /k/, x /ks/, z /ts/)	No
epo	Esperanto	No	Yes (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ)	No	Yes (c /ts/)	No
-	Mundolinco	No	No	No	Yes (c /k/)	No
-	Glosa	No	No	Yes (sc /ʃ/)	Yes (q /kw/, x /ks/)	Yes (c /tʃ/, sc /ʃ/)
-	Sambahsa[25]	No	No	Yes (ch /tʃ/, sh /ʃ/, and more)	Yes (y, as a semi-wovel /j/, x /ks, gz/ and more)	Yes (j /ʒ/, ch /tʃ/, sh /ʃ/, sh /ç/ and more)
-	Idiom neutral	No	No	Yes (sh /ʃ/)	Yes (y /j/)	Yes (c /tʃ/, j /ʒ/, sh /ʃ/)
-	Lingwa de planeta	No	No	Yes (ch /tʃ/, sh /ʃ/)	Yes (x /gs/, z /dz/)	Yes (c in ch /tʃ/, j /dʒ/)
-	Interslavic	No	Yes (č /tʃ/, ń /nj ~ nʲ ~ ɲ/, š /ʃ/, ž /ʒ/ )	dž, but similar to or same as d+ž	Yes (c /ts/, y /i ~ ɪ ~ ɨ/)	Yes (č /tʃ/, š /ʃ/, ž /ʒ/)
-	Uropi	Yes (ʒ /ʒ/)	No	No	No	Yes (c [ʃ])

Classification

The following classification of auxiliary languages was developed by Pierre Janton in 1993:^[26]

• A priori languages are characterized by largely artificial morphemes (not borrowed from natural languages), schematic derivation, simple phonology, grammar and morphology. Some a priori languages are called philosophical languages, referring to their basis in philosophical ideas about thought and language. These include some of the earliest efforts at auxiliary language in the 17th century. Some more specific subcategories:
  • Oligosynthetic or oligoisolating languages have no more than a few hundred morphemes. Most of their vocabulary is made of compound words or set phrases formed from these morphemes. Sona and Toki Pona are well known examples, although Toki Pona's word stock is mostly based on other languages and therefore not a priori.
  • Taxonomic languages form their words using a taxonomic hierarchy, with each phoneme of a word helping specify its position in a semantic hierarchy of some kind; for example, Solresol and Ro.
  • Pasigraphies are purely written languages without a spoken form, or with a spoken form left at the discretion of the reader; many of the 17th–18th century philosophical languages and auxlangs were pasigraphies. This set historically tends to overlap with taxonomic languages, though there is no inherent reason a pasigraphy needs to be taxonomic.
  • Logical languages, for example, Loglan and Lojban, aim to eliminate ambiguity. Both these examples, it should be noted, derive their morphemes from a broad range of natural languages using statistical methods.
• A posteriori languages are based on existing natural languages. Nearly all the auxiliary languages with fluent speakers are in this category.^[27] Most of the a posteriori auxiliary languages borrow their vocabulary primarily or solely from European languages, and base their grammar more or less on European models. (Sometimes these European-based languages are referred to as "euroclones", although this term has negative connotations and is not used in the academic literature.) Interlingua was drawn originally from international scientific vocabulary, in turn based primarily on Greek and Latin roots. Glosa did likewise, with a stronger dependence of Greek roots. Although a posteriori languages have been based on most of the families of European languages, the most successful of these (notably Esperanto,^[28] Ido and Interlingua) have been based largely on Romance elements.
  • Schematic (or "mixed") languages have some a priori qualities. Some have ethnic morphemes but alter them significantly to fit a simplified phonotactic pattern (e.g., Volapük, Toki Pona) or both artificial and natural morphemes (e.g., Perio). Partly schematic languages have partly schematic and partly naturalistic derivation (e.g. Esperanto and Ido). Natural morphemes of languages in this group are rarely altered greatly from their source-language form, but compound and derived words are generally not recognizable at sight by people familiar with the source languages.
  • Naturalistic languages resemble existing natural languages. For example, Occidental, Interlingua, and Lingua Franca Nova were developed so that not only the root words but their compounds and derivations will often be recognizable immediately by large numbers of people. Some naturalistic languages do have a limited number of artificial morphemes or invented grammatical devices (e.g. Novial). (Note that the term "naturalistic" as used in auxiliary language scholarship does not mean the same thing as the homophonous term used in describing artistic languages.^[29])
  • Simplified natural languages reduce the full extent of vocabulary and partially regularize the grammar of a natural language (e.g. Basic English, Special English and Globish).

Comparison of sample texts

Some examples of the best known international auxiliary languages are shown below for comparative purposes. As a reference for comparison, you can find the English and Latin versions of the Lord's Prayer (a text which is regularly used for linguistic comparisons) here:

The Lord's Prayer in English (traditional)	The Lord's Prayer in Latin
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done. on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.	Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo, 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.

Schematic languages

Volapük version	Esperanto version	Ido version	Idiom Neutral version
O Fat obas, kel binol in süls, paisaludomöz nem ola! Kömomöd monargän ola! Jenomöz vil olik, äs in sül, i su tal! Bodi obsik vädeliki givolös obes adelo! E pardolös obes debis obsik, äs id obs aipardobs debeles obas. E no obis nindukolös in tentadi; sod aidalivolös obis de bad. Jenosöd!	Patro Nia, kiu estas en la ĉielo, via nomo estu sanktigita. Venu via regno, plenumiĝu via volo, kiel en la ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero. Nian panon ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ. Kaj pardonu al ni niajn ŝuldojn, kiel ankaŭ ni pardonas al niaj ŝuldantoj. Kaj ne konduku nin en tenton, sed liberigu nin de la malbono. Amen.	Patro nia, qua esas en la cielo, tua nomo santigesez; tua regno advenez; tua volo facesez quale en la cielo, tale anke sur la tero. Donez a ni cadie l'omnadiala pano, e pardonez a ni nia ofensi, quale anke ni pardonas a nia ofensanti, e ne duktez ni aden la tento, ma liberigez ni del malajo. Amen.	Nostr patr kel es in sieli! Ke votr nom es sanktifiked; ke votr regnia veni; ke votr volu es fasied, kuale in siel, tale et su ter. Dona sidiurne a noi nostr pan omnidiurnik; e pardona a noi nostr debti, kuale et noi pardon a nostr debtatori; e no induka noi in tentasion, ma librifika noi da it mal. Amen.

Naturalistic languages

Latino sine flexione version	Occidental version	Novial version	Interlingua version
Patre nostro, qui es in celos, que tuo nomine fi sanctificato; que tuo regno adveni; que tuo voluntate es facto sicut in celo 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 nor, qui es in li cieles, mey tui nómine esser sanctificat, mey tui regnia venir, mey tui vole esser fat, qualmen in li cieles talmen anc sur li terre. Da nos hodie nor pan omnidial, e pardona nor débites, qualmen anc noi pardona nor debitores. E ne inducte nos in tentation, ma libera nos de lu mal. Amen.	Nusen Patre, kel es in siele, mey vun nome bli sanktifika, mey vun regno veni; mey on fa vun volio kom in siele anke sur tere. Dona a nus dissidi li omnidiali pane, e pardona a nus nusen ofensos, kom anke nus pardona a nusen ofensantes, e non dukte nus en tentatione, ma liberisa nus fro malu. 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.

Methods of propagation

As has been pointed out, the issue of an international language is not so much which, but how.^[30] Several approaches exist toward the eventual full expansion and consolidation of an international auxiliary language.

1. Laissez-faire. This approach is taken in the belief that one language will eventually and inevitably "win out" as a world auxiliary language (e.g. International English) without any need for specific action.
2. Institutional sponsorship and grass-roots promotion of language programs. This approach has taken various forms, depending on the language and language type, ranging from government promotion of a particular language to one-on-one encouragement to learn the language to instructional or marketing programs.
3. National legislation. This approach seeks to have individual countries (or even localities) progressively endorse a given language as an official language (or to promote the concept of international legislation).
4. International legislation. This approach involves promotion of the future holding of a binding international convention (perhaps to be under the auspices of such international organizations as the United Nations or Inter-Parliamentary Union) to formally agree upon an official international auxiliary language which would then be taught in all schools around the world, beginning at the primary level. This approach, an official principle of the Baha'i Faith, seeks to put a combination of international opinion, linguistic expertise, and law behind a to-be-selected language and thus expand or consolidate it as a full official world language, to be used in addition to local languages.^[31] This approach could either give more credibility to a natural language already serving this purpose to a certain degree (e.g. if English were chosen) or to give a greatly enhanced chance for a constructed language to take root. For constructed languages particularly, this approach has been seen by various individuals in the IAL movement as holding the most promise of ensuring that promotion of studies in the language would not be met with skepticism at its practicality by its would-be learners.

Pictorial languages

There have been a number of proposals for using pictures, ideograms, diagrams, and other pictorial representations for international communications. Examples range from the original Characteristica Universalis proposed by the philosopher Leibniz, to suggestions for the adoption of Chinese writing, to recent inventions such as Blissymbol.^[32]

Within the scientific community, there is already considerable agreement in the form of the schematics used to represent electronic circuits, chemical symbols, mathematical symbols, and the Energy Systems Language of systems ecology. We can also see the international efforts at regularizing symbols used to regulate traffic, to indicate resources for tourists, and in maps. Some symbols have become nearly universal through their consistent use in computers and on the internet.

Sign languages

An international auxiliary sign language has been developed by deaf people who meet regularly at international forums such as sporting events or in political organisations. Previously referred to as Gestuno^[33] but now more commonly known simply as 'international sign', the language has continued to develop since the first signs were standardised in 1973, and it is now in widespread use. International sign is distinct in many ways from spoken IALs; many signs are iconic and signers tend to insert these signs into the grammar of their own sign language, with an emphasis on visually intuitive gestures and mime. A simple sign language called Plains Indian Sign Language was used by indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Gestuno is not to be confused with the separate and unrelated sign language Signuno, which is essentially a Signed Exact Esperanto. Signuno is not in any significant use, and is based on the Esperanto community rather than based on the international Deaf community.

Criticism

There has been considerable criticism of international auxiliary languages, both in terms of individual proposals, types of proposals, and in more general terms.

Criticisms directed against Esperanto and other early auxiliary languages in the late 19th century included the idea that different races have sufficiently different speech organs that an international language might work locally in Europe, but hardly worldwide, and the prediction that if adopted, such an auxlang would rapidly break up into local dialects.^[34] Advances in linguistics have done away with the first of these, and the limited but significant use of Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua on an international scale, without breakup into unintelligible dialects, has shown that either a rapid break-up into dialects shall not happen too soon in the future, or that there is enough constant 'standardisation' to reduce the diversity of the language. Subsequently, much criticism has been focused either on the artificiality of these auxlangs,^[9] or on the argumentativeness of auxlang proponents and their failure to agree on one auxlang, or even on objective criteria by which to judge auxlangs.^[35] However, probably the most common criticism is that a constructed auxlang is unnecessary because natural languages such as English are already in wide use as auxlangs and work well enough for that purpose.

One criticism already prevalent in the late 19th century, and still sometimes heard today, is that an international language might hasten the extinction of minority languages. One response has been that, even if this happens, the benefits would outweigh the costs;^[34][36] another, that proponents of auxlangs, particularly in the Esperanto movement, are generally also proponents of measures to conserve and promote minority languages and cultures.

Although referred to as international languages, most of these languages have historically been constructed on the basis of Western European languages. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was common for Volapük and Esperanto, and to some extent Ido, to be criticized for not being Western European enough; Occidental and Interlingua were (among other things) responses to this kind of criticism. More recently all these major auxlangs have been criticized for being too European and not global enough.^[37] One response to this criticism has been that doing otherwise in no way makes the language easier for anyone, while drawing away from the sources of much international vocabulary, technical and popular.^[38] Another response, primarily from Esperanto speakers, is that the internationality of a language has more to do with the culture of its speakers than with its linguistic properties. Esperanto itself uses individual words from Indo-European languages, but its grammar is much more similar to Chinese and Greek, (while being flexible enough in grammar and sentence structure to be able to copy the word-order of Japanese, Indonesian and English all about as well as each other) so it's difficult to judge how much of an Indo-European language it even is.^[27] The term "Euroclone" was coined to refer to these languages in contrast to "worldlangs" with global vocabulary sources; the term is sometimes applied only to self-proclaimed "naturalistic" auxlangs such as Occidental and Interlingua, sometimes to all auxlangs with primarily European vocabulary sources, regardless of their grammar, including Esperanto and Lingua Franca Nova.

The response to this argument was made by Alexander Gode^[39] and reiterated by Mario Pei:^[40] A vocabulary selected from a broad variety of languages does not make the language any easier for speakers of any one language. Gode's example compares a paragraph in Interlingua with a paragraph with words from Chinese, Japanese, Malay, and other non-European languages. The first, he argues, should be understood by those familiar with the Romance languages, and not overly difficult for most English speakers:

La sol dice: "io me appella sol. Io es multo brillante. Io me leva al est, e cuando io me leva, il es die. Io reguarda per tu fenestra con mi oculo brillante como le auro, e io te dice quando il es tempore a levar te. E io te dice: 'Pigro, leva te. Io non brilla a fin que tu resta al lecto a dormir, sed que tu lege e que tu te promena.'"

The second, in contrast, should not only be difficult for speakers of European languages, but Malay speakers likely will not understand the Chinese words, Chinese speakers will likely not understand the Japanese words, and Japanese speakers likely will not understand the Malay words:

Mata-hari yu: "Wo-ti nama mata-hari. Wo taihen brillante. Wo leva wo a est, dan toki wo leva wo, ada hari. Wo miru per ni-ti fenestra sama wo-ti mata brillante como kin, dan wo yu ni toki ada tempo a levar ni. Dan wo yu ni: 'Sust, leva ni. Wo non brilla sam-rap ni tomaru a toko a nemuru, sed wo brilla sam-rap ni leva ni, dan que ni suru kam, ni yomu, dan ni aruku.'"

An a priori vocabulary such as that of Spokil or Kotava, or a vocabulary constructed mathematically, such as that of Loglan or Lojban, would likely be as comprehensible.

Gode argues, additionally, that the western languages are the unofficial languages of international science, medicine, and technology, and therefore an IAL based on them provides the best access to that literature. Nevertheless, it must be said that a more neutral vocabulary, perhaps even an a priori one, would be less offensive to some non-Europeans.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, many proposals for auxlangs based on global sources of vocabulary and grammar have been made, but most (like the majority of the European-based auxlangs of earlier decades) remain sketches too incomplete to be speakable, and of the more complete ones, few have gained any speakers. More recently there has been a trend, on the AUXLANG mailing list and on the more recently founded worldlang mailing list, to greater collaboration between various proponents of a more globally based auxlang.

See also

See List of constructed languages#Auxiliary languages for a list of designed international auxiliary languages.

• Interlinguistics
• International Language Review
• Language education
• Language planning
• Lingua franca
• Bahá'í Faith and auxiliary language
• Zonal constructed languages
• Global language system

References

Notes

1. Bodmer, Frederick. The loom of language and Pei, Mario. One language for the world.
2. Viacheslav A. Chirikba, "The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund" in Pieter Muysken, ed., From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics, 2008, p. 31. ISBN 90-272-3100-1
3. Ostler, 2005 pp. 38–40
4. "Languages that Influence the World".
5. Foreword to Konciza Gramatiko de Volapuko, André Cherpillod. Courgenard, 1995.
6. Schmidt, Johann. 1964. Jenotem valemapüka Volapük. Amsterdam: Volapükagased.
7. Schmidt, Johann. 1996. Historio de la universala lingvo Volapuko. Tradukinto: Philippe Combot. Courgenard: La Blanchetière. ISBN 2-906134-30-9
8. Zasky, Jason (2009-07-20), "Discouraging Words", Failure Magazine, But in terms of invented languages, it’s the most outlandishly successful invented language ever. It has thousands of speakers—even native speakers—and that’s a major accomplishment as compared to the 900 or so other languages that have no speakers. – Arika Okrent
9. Le Defi des Langues by Claude Piron, L'Harmattan 1994.
10. The Esperanto Book, Chapter 7: History in Fine by Don Harlow. 1995.
11. Lins, Ulrich. La Danĝera Lingvo. Gerlingen, Germany: Bleicher Eldonejo, 1988.
12. The Esperanto Book, Chapter 9: "The Literary Scene" by Don Harlow. 1995.
13. Otto Jesperson, An International Language. "The Delegation. Ido." 1928.
14. Harlow, Don. The Esperanto Book, chapter 3: "How to Build a Language".
15. Harlow, Donald J (4 July 2006). "Novial". How to Build a Language. Retrieved 12 February 2012.
16. Words appearing in only a few, closely related languages were ignored. See Gode, Alexander, Interlingua: A Dictionary of the International Language [Introduction], 1971 edition. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company.
17. Gode, Alexander, Interlingua: A Dictionary of the International Language [Introduction], 1971 edition. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company (p. xxii).
18. Blandino, Giovanni, "Le problema del linguas international auxiliari", Philosophia del Cognoscentia e del Scientia, Rome, Italy: Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis, Pontificia Universitas Urbaniana, 1989.
19. "Radioemissiones in e re Interlingua," Panorama in Interlingua, Issue 3, 2006.
20. Although Toki Pona was not intended by its creator as an auxlang, it has been used for communication between people of different native languages far more often than most of the thousands of auxlang proposals throughout history.
21. "ИЗ ИСТОРИИ ИНТЕРЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКОЙ МЫСЛИ В РОССИИ". Miresperanto.com. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
22. Jan van Steenbergen. "Constructed Slavic Languages". Steen.free.fr. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
23. G. Iliev, Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet (Plovdiv, 2012), p. 67. HTML version
24. L. Couturat, O. Jespersen, R. Lorenz, W.Ostwalkd and L.Pfaundler. International Language and Science: Considerations on the Introduction of an International Language into Science. 1910.
25. http://sambahsa.pbworks.com/w/page/27811711/Sambahsa%20pronounciation%20in%20English
26. Pierre Janton, Esperanto: Language, Literature, and Community. Translated by Humphrey Tonkin et al. State University of New York Press, 1993. ISBN 0-7914-1254-7.
27. "Essay (hopefully long)", by Don Harlow. AUXLANG mailing list post, 7 January 2006.
28. http://failuremag.com/feature/article/discouraging_words/
29. "Re: "Naturalistic" for auxlangers vs artlangers?" AUXLANG mailing list post by Jörg Rhiemeier, 30 August 2009
30. Mario Pei, One language for the world (1958)
31. See an edited compilation of excerpts from the Bahá'í writings regarding the principle of International or Universal Auxiliary Language: The Greatest Instrument for Promoting Harmony and Civilization: Excerpts from the Bahá'í Writings and Related Sources on the Question of an International Auxiliary Language. Greg Meyjes, ed. Oxford: George Ronald. 2015. ISBN 978-085398-591-4
32. Charles Keisel Bliss, Semantography (Blissymbolics)
33. Rubino, F., Hayhurst, A., and Guejlman, J., Gestuno: International sign language of the deaf.
34. "Esenco kaj Estonteco de la Ideo de Lingvo Internacia", L. L. Zamenhof, 1900. Reprinted in Fundamenta Krestomatio, 1992 [1903].
35. "Farewell to auxiliary languages", by Richard K. Harrison. 1997.
36. "Ĉu Zamenhof Pravis?", Vinko Ošlak, Fonto, februaro 2005.
37. "Types of neutrality, and central concerns for an IAL". AUXLANG mailing list post by Risto Kupsala, 2 December 2005.
38. Alexander Gode, quoted by Mario Pei in One language for the world (1958).
39. Gode, Alexander, et al. Interlingua-English: a dictionary of the international language. Storm Publishers, New York, 1951.
40. Pei, Mario. One Language for the World. N.Y.: Devin-Adair, 1958:

Bibliography

• Bliss, Charles Keisel. Semantography (Blissymbolics). Semantography Press: Sydney, 1965.
• Bodmer, Frederick, and Lancelot Hogben. The Loom of Language. N.Y.: Norton, 1944.
• Couturat, L., Jespersen, O., Lorenz, R., Ostwalkd, W., and Pfaundler, L. International Language and Science: Considerations on the Introduction of an International Language into Science. Constable and Company Limited, London, 1910.
• De Wahl, Edgar. Radicarium directiv del lingue international (Occidental) in 8 lingues. A.-S. "Ühisell" Trükk. Pikk Uul. 42, Tallinn, 1925.
• Drezen, Ernst: Historio de la Mondlingvo ("History of the World Language"). Oosaka: Pirato, 1969 (3d ed.).
• Eco, Umberto, [tra. James Fentress], The Search for the Perfect Language. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
• Gär, Joseph. Deutsch-Occidental Wörterbuch nach dem Kürschners "Sechs-Sprachen-Lexicon", mit kurzer Occidental-Grammatik. Kosmoglott, Reval, Estland, 1925/1928.
• Gode, Alexander, et al. Interlingua-English: a dictionary of the international language. Storm Publishers, New York, 1951.
• Jesperson, Otto. An International Language. (1928)
• Mainzer, Ludwig, Karlsruhe. Linguo international di la Delegitaro (Sistemo Ido), Vollständiges Lehrbuch der Internationalen Sprache (Reform-Esperanto). Otto Nemmich Verlag, Leipzig (Germany), 1909.
• Meyjes, Gregory Paul, ed. (2015). The Greatest Instrument for Promoting Harmony and Civilization: Excerpts from the Bahá'í Writings and Related Sources on the Question of an International Auxiliary Language. Oxford: George Ronald. ISBN 978-085398-591-4.
• Meyjes, Gregory Paul P. (2006). "Language and World Order in Bahá'í Perspective: a New Paradigm Revealed". In Omoniyi, T.; Fishman, J. A. Explorations in the Sociology of Language And Religion. Volume 20 of Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society, and Culture. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 26–41. ISBN 9789027227102.
• Nerrière, Jean-Paul, and Hon, David Globish The World Over. Paris, IGI, 2009
• Pei, Mario. One Language for the World. N.Y.: Devin-Adair, 1958.
• Pham Xuan Thai. Frater (Lingua sistemfrater). The simplest International Language Ever Constructed. TU-HAI Publishing-House, Saigon (Republic of Vietnam), 1957.
• Pigal, E. and the Hauptstelle der Occidental-Union in Mauern bei Wien. Occidental, Die Weltsprache, Einführung samt Lehrkursus, Lesestücken, Häufigkeitswörterverzeichnis u. a., Franckh. Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart, 1930.
• Pirro, Jean. Versuch einer Universalischen Sprache. Guerin und Cie., Bar-Le-Duc (France), 1868.
• Rubino, F., Hayhurst, A., and Guejlman, J. Gestuno: International sign language of the deaf. Carlisle: British Deaf Association, 1975.
• Sudre, François. Langue musicale universelle inventée par François Sudre également inventeur de la téléphonie. G. Flaxland, Editeur, 4, place de la Madeleine, Paris (France), 1866.

External links

• Proposed Guidelines for the Design of an Optimal International Auxiliary Language — An article written by Richard K. Harrison.
• The Function of an International Auxiliary Language — An article written by linguist Edward Sapir discussing the need for prospects of an international language.
• Farewell to auxiliary languages, a criticism of the auxiliary language movement by Richard K. Harrison.
• Thoughts on IAL Success, an essay by Paul O. Bartlett
• OneTongue.org — A project for promoting a world auxiliary language.