Talk:Interlingua

[Untitled]
Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:


 * Archive 1 (13 Apr 2001 to 20 Nov 2005)
 * Talk:Interlingua/Archive 2

It was time to archive the old discussion. --Chris 16:03, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The page has been archived again, for all discussions up to mid March. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation Needed!
There has been some confusion regarding Interlingua and machine translation. The idea that one could use a naturalistic constructed language as a way to represent semantics more directly and serve as a go-between in translating from one language to another is very exciting to me personally, which is why I also click through and read a bit when I see links to articles about "Interlingua" being used in machine translation. However, I've never seen an article that actually talked about using Interlingua in this way. An "interlingua" is the term used for any such intermediary language. Such a language usually winds up looking nothing like a natural language and is usually populated with English glosses.

For this reason I am removing the bit about Interlingua being used to translate "Asian" languages from the main article, along with those two articles at the end. They are in fact completely unrelated to Interlingua.

--Cliff Jones, M.A. (Linguistics) (talk) 01:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Interlingua = simplified Italian
For me Interlingua is just a simplified Italian language with English grammar and some extra French words! - Zanzibar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.0.134.105 (talk) 16:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it's looks more like Spanish mainly because of its more traditional spelling and plurals ending with s. Tsf (talk) 17:54, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

French more spoken in Canada than in Morrocco?
I am surprised that on the map that's shown in this article, Canada (excluding Québec) is shown as having more speakers of French than, for example, Morrocco. Having lived in both countries and travelling between the two regularly, I have the feeling there are more speakers of French in Morrocco than, say, in Alberta. However, I may be wrong as I do not have any data to confirm this impression. I invite anyone who does know how to get that data to update the map should it be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Niccoben (talk • contribs) 01:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I know an American woman who spent her early formative years in Morocco and can confirm that her mother tongue was indeed French. Judging by this instance, I would say that Morocco at least as as many speakers of French as Canada does percentage-wise and surely more than those outside of Francophone Canada. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.229.111.74 (talk) 06:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I’ve removed the map. See below for French in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. --Babelfisch (talk) 03:05, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Most Widely Spoken?
I am an intermediate Esperanto speaker, and as such I was interested in the popularity of Interlingua versus Esperanto. I did notice, however, that at the beginning of both articles, they claim to be the most widely spoken "international auxilary language" in the world. Maybe there are some nuances in the specific wording that I'm missing, but it sounds to me like a contradiction, folks. Any help? -ExNoctem 04:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC) [update: I've pasted this same thread to the Esperanto talk page]


 * There is no discrepancy. Esperanto is the most spoken logical auxiliary language (if I'm permitted to use that term) and Interlingua is the most spoken natural-seeming auxiliary language. It's similar to saying, ABC is the fastest 100cc motorbike and DEF is the fastest 200cc bike in the world.


 * Both Esperanto and Interlingua just happen to belong to different categories and both of them are leaders in their own right.


 * Posted on 15 August 2010, 17:55 Un Alien

Naturalistic
From the opening lines: "[Interlingua] is the most widely used naturalistic auxiliary language." My changing this to "... the most widely used purely naturalistic..." has been contested; but aren't more widely used languages like Esperanto and Ido partially naturalistic in that many words resemble those in national languages? --Kwekubo 01:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Given that no-one has expressed any contrary opinions I'll go ahead and reinsert "purely". --Kwekubo 15:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

This use of the word "naturalistic" doesn't conform to modern conlang standards. Naturalism refers to a language that attempts to mirror, as nearly as possible, the depth and complexity of a natural language, including its irregularities, ambiguities and peculiarities. By definition, almost all IALs are not naturalistic, and this includes Interlingua, which is nowhere close to being naturalistic. It's my opinion that references to Interlingua being naturalistic should be removed. 67.58.142.175 (talk) 08:29, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Then how do you describe the biggest difference between Interlingua and Esperanto? "Naturalistic" describes in a single convenient word the problems some people had with Esperanto, why Ido and Novial were invented, and the biggest reason some people prefer Interlingua and others Esperanto. The Esperanto-Interlingua article has an example of Esperanto's aggluntative vs Interlingua's source-based language nature; Eo derives seven words from "sano" (health) while Ia uses seven different Latinate words. The correlatives are similar: Eo forms them from a table of prefixes and suffixes; Ia uses Latinate words that have no predictable relationship to each other, they're just "the traditional words". This is what "naturalistic" sums up nicely: both Ia and Eo borrow words and derive them, but Ia prefers to borrow words (naturalistic) and Eo prefers to derive them (non-naturalistic). If you take away the word naturalistic for this, what better word is there? Sluggoster (talk)

History section migrated into its own article
I've gone ahead and migrated the history section into History of Interlingua. I've also gone ahead and attempted to remove some of the more detailed portions of the section in order to make it summary-style, although I believe it should really be rewritten. I'll try to do some more work with it, but this is just a heads-up for any regulars of the page who are interested. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:30, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Redirection of Romanica to Interlingua
I was just looking for a language called "Romanica" and was redirected to Interlingua. Is Romanica another name or an older form? If so, I think it should be mentioned in the article somewhere... — N-true 14:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * After a cursory Google search, it seems to me that Romanica is a separate language, so I cannot understand why it redirects here. Maybe someone with some Interlingua experience could help here? -ExNoctem 03:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * See Articles for deletion/Romanica language and Articles for deletion/Romanica --Rumping 19:32, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * If anyone cares, 'Romanica' created by the basque interlinguist Josu Lavin, is a conlang that interestingly has exactly the same vocabulary as interlingua, but slightly different grammar and spelling. It only has a few speakers, and Josu Lavin now seems to have taken down the websites promoting the language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laurentio313 (talk • contribs) 01:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * NOTE: There were two discussions being held of the same vein on this discussion page (one is called Romanica, the other Interlingua = Romanica?). I have deleted the comments held under Romanica and pasted/appended them to this discussion (Interlingua = Romanica?). They can be seen here below (one by User:EncycloPetey the other by User:Almafeta) -- Cavallèro Talk  18:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The link Romanica language redirects here, but there is no explanation for this in the article. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Reading over the history, for that page, it appears that Romanica was a derivative of Interlingua that used a different grammar (much more romantic, with Romantic-style inflection in verbs and nouns/adjectives) but mostly the same vocabulary. The AfD for Romanica ruled that it would be appropriate for Romanica language to be redirected to the Interlingua page as one of the derivatives of Interlingua, but that change/note was never added to the Interlingua article.  Almafeta (talk) 19:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a community of Romanica speakers, albeit small, on the web. There are also a couple or several sites. Personally, I think Romanica should not be redirected to Interlingua. It should probably be included on the list of developed constructed auxiliary languages. It is true that Josu Lavin has moved away from Romanica and has returned to Interlingua, however, he has made an impact through his creation of Romanica and it should be recognised in this enclyclopedia. -- Cavallèro Talk  18:03, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * NOTE: I have changed this discussion section title from 'Romanica = Interlingua?' to 'Redirection of Romanica to Interlingua'. -- Cavallèro Talk  15:51, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Reverted Deletion
70.112.188.37(talk) removed the following text:

The largest number of Interlingua words are of Latin origin and have entered Interlingua through the Romance languages. Greek and Germanic languages provide the second and third amount of words, with a minority of the vocabulary originating in Slavic and non-Western languages.

with the notation

(rm misleading passage - the origins of Interlingua words are incidental and here make the language appear much less international than it is - also, minor details should appear later in an article)

I have reverted this, on the thesis that the origins of words in any language, but particularly in a constructed language are extremely relevant to an article on that language. We certainly wouldn't want the article on the English language, for example, to have the section on word origins removed, and most people already know something about the origins of words in English. Why, then, would we want to remove references to the origins of words in a constructed language, about which most people would know nothing?

Remember, it's not our job to make the language "appear" more or less anything. Wikipedia's job is to report verifiable information.

* Septegram * Talk * Contributions * 14:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Modern Language
Yes get rid of all the idioms of language and create a new one, such as newspeak (-1984). -PatPeter 18:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Interlingua is an excellent language, I have seen Esperanto, and have decided thta I actually know way more interlingua, and I havent even studied it I just have a small (microscopic) understanding of spanish. it is a glorios language that i am going to try an learn. Esperanto is difficult. newspeak looks pretty good though, I like the idea. though it was desgined to look evil, it actually seems pretty good, no more cunfusion, shorter english classes, less missunderstanding, though peotry will be missing ( I hate the stuff anyways) but music will deisappear. but progress has sacrifice. (Masterxak 06:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC))
 * Don't say Esperanto is difficult when you haven't learned it yet. The vocabulary in Interlingua might be easier to recognize for you, but there's also grammar. In my opinion the Esperanto grammar is easier than Interlingua, but this is just my opinion. But even compared with Interlingua, Esperanto cannot be called "difficult". ;) — N-true 11:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say the grammar is so difficult; if anything it's simpler than Esperanto's. The complicated part of Interlingua is the morphology - word formation and so on. But that's also the key to it's high degree of recognisability.66.183.165.57 00:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I never said the grammar would be difficult. After all, morphology is a part of a language's grammar. — N-true 00:49, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * With my native knowledge of English and a fair vocabulary (but epic failure in grammar and structure) in French, and microscopic familiarity with the distorted Spanish in Cebuano, I'd have to say that my comprehension of Interlingua is greater than my comprehension of Esperanto. And that is all I can produce as fact.  And that, as sure as gravity, 'aint going into any encyclopedia article. --Talionis (Shout me · Stalk me) 06:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Community
So, where is this elusive "community"? I've been interested in learning Interlingua for some time now, but I haven't found anywhere to learn it. I like Lingua Franca Nova, and they have their own wikipedia, but I'm interested in learning Interlingua, too. It's quite widely known, and it's not half as ugly as Esperanto, since I want to teach at least one conlang to my kid. Contact me if you know. InnocentOdion 15:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Here it is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/interlng/ You'll need to register through your regular email address to post though, as on Yahoo Groups I think it's just a mirror and doesn't accept postings through a regular Yahoo account. Mithridates 16:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks a million for the website. I've signed up.  However, are there any more? And is there a better place to learn it than interlingua.com? That site isso in need of revamp.  I'd love a website with a layout like lingua-franca-nova.net or lernu.net.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by InnocentOdion (talk • contribs) 11:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Subjunctive?
The article says there is no subjunctive, but the sia in the Lord's Prayer clearly is one. That's a contradiction. — Chameleon 00:35, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It's the only one. But yes, someone should clarify that.05:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Phonology
I saw that the Phonology graph for the consonants didn't have an ŋ in it. Was this left out on purpose, or should it be added? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.165.156 (talk) 23:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I suppose it was left out on purpose, because while the [ŋ] might be pronounced in Interlingua, it's not phonemic, so a word like lingua is phonemically /ˈlinɡua/ and only phonetically [ˈliŋɡua]. The table lists only the phonemes of the language. — N-true (talk) 00:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Vocabulary
English eye and German Auge are not descended from Latin oculus at all, contrary to what was stated in the article. On the other hand, the Romance words (ojo, occhio, olho, etc) do descend from Latin oculus (by way of Vulgar Latin oclu). Seeing that the Germanic and Romance languages are related, one might say (informally) that eye and Auge were "cousins" of oculus - but never its descendants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.199.51 (talk) 05:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Spelling irregularities
I'm a huge supporter of Interlingua - in fact, I'm on the executive of one of the national organizations - but I would never deny that there are some spelling irregularities, if by irregularities we mean departures from one-symbol:one-phoneme mappings that are not covered by simple rules. For example, girafa 'giraffe' begins with /ʒ/ (or /dʒ/) while girar 'gyrate' begins with /g/. The fact that the Interlingua-English Dictionary needs a pronunciation key for some words is sufficient documentation for this fact. 64.180.222.133 (talk) 18:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you sure the word girafa is pronounced with /ʒ/ or /dʒ/ in the beginning? I'm not an Interlingua speaker, but could it be it's pronounced with a /g/ as in German "Giraffe"? — N-true (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The IED says "girafa (jiráfa) n giraffe". In practice, you could get away with /girafa/ - I doubt anyone would notice. In fact, some people ignore the hard G rule and say /ʒirar/ etc. with no real miscommunication. (Come to think of it, I don't understand why Gode & Co. went for the soft G, when they substituted hard G for Anglo-Romance soft G in so many other cases. But the IED is clear on the question.)64.180.222.133 (talk) 18:25, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Then, since IED has no special pronunciation key for the word acetic, I gather it is pronounced /atsétsik/ per the rules?

Japanese grammar simple?
I have some troube with this sextion: More recently, Interlingua's grammar has been likened to the simple grammars of Japanese and particularly Chinese. Who claims Japanese has simple grammar? It doesn't inflect by person but except for that, I wouldn't say it's any simpler than Western languages, just different. I studied the basics earlier, and it hasn't struck me as a grammatically simple language. Chinese, on the other hand, I understand, 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 22:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Japanese may be not the easier language, but the grammar is quite regular.

As a linguist who has spent time in Japan, I would say that the grammar of Japanese is objectively simpler than the vast majority of the world's languages. It has a very consistent system for marking verbal participants, no case system even in pronouns (which actually behave more like nouns), no subject-verb agreement, minimal tense marking, few (truly) irregular verbs, and a very consistent word order. As a model for constructed languages, its grammar would be close to ideal except for the fact that it is strongly head-last, which makes it more difficult to process (as evidenced by aphasia studies and the tendency of creoles to be head-first).

One can get away with fewer morphemes in Chinese, but I would argue that Japanese grammar is simpler in a way because it is so systematic and consistent.

--Cliff Jones, M.A. (Linguistics) (talk) 01:22, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Lord's Prayer translation(s)
How come the Lord's Prayer in this article is so different from the one in the Interlingua version of this article? Shouldn't they be the same, since (assuming 'Specimen de Interlingua' means what I think it does) they're both in Interlingua? Are they traditional and modern versions?

And another question... does there even need to be be a sample of Interlingua on that page, which is entirely written in Interlingua? I guess there is some use for it, since nobody reading the page would be a native speaker, and so probably wouldn't already know the translation, and would find it useful to compare it with their native language. But then, (tangent on a tangent coming up) most people in "the entire world" do not know the Lord's Prayer. Still, I suppose we won't get much better than 2 billion out of 6 billion with any other sample text. Angelastic (talk) 13:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not particularly different, except for the word order. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 20:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Seeing as most people in "the entire world" do not know the Lord's Prayer, maybe we should have it in English (or whatever language version being viewed) as well? I for one do not know the Lord's Prayer. I mean, not everyone is able to figure out the Interlingua meanings, and there are definitely a lot of people who can't read the Latin well, if at all. It'd be helpful, wouldn't it? Sparkstarthunderhawk (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The Lord's Prayer and the Babel Text are traditional methods for comparing human languages (a much longer one is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but that's too long for a wikipedia article). An english translation should definately be provided.  Almafeta (talk) 13:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Serious neutrality/veracity issues
I deleted this bit: "'the most recent conference (2005), in Sweden, was attended by slightly over 250 people.'", because it is incorrect, as I pointed out several years ago! (I was there myself - there were about 80 people.)

In general I think the article has serious neutrality issues. Some of the information seems downright misleading. For instance:

"'Interlingua is taught in many high schools and universities, sometimes as a means of teaching other languages quickly, presenting interlinguistics, or introducing the international vocabulary.'"

While it's true that the University of Granada have courses in interlinguistics where they study Interlingua, I highly doubt that it has been taught in any highschools since the seventies. Later I'll look for the issue of Panorama that is cited as a course, but I'm reasonably sure.

Also, is it really in accordance with the principles of neutrality etc. to use so many texts written by interlinguists themselves (*in* Interlingua, even) for backing up claims of the success/benefits of Interlingua?

See for instance this paragraph:

"Today, interest in Interlingua has expanded from the scientific community to the general public. Individuals, governments, and private companies use Interlingua for learning and instruction, travel, online publishing, and communication across language barriers.[24][25][26]"

That cites as sources three texts in Interlingua written by two highly esteemed interlinguists.

I'm an Interlingua speaker myself, but I can't stomach this kind of thing in what is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia. Who has been writing this article anyway? Some other Interlingua speakers? --Laurentio313 (talk) 01:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree. I added an NPOV warning. Caroliano (talk) 16:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree too, and I'm an Interlingua fanatic myself.64.180.222.133 (talk) 22:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm... Chris "Ave"? :-) ::--Laurentio313 (talk) 13:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

At the beginning of the "Criticisms and controversies" part is ''While Interlingua is a successful auxiliary language, it has been criticised, often by proponents of other auxiliary languages. This may be partly because both supporters and opponents see Interlingua as a candidate for being the universal, neutral second language for the world to use. '' From my point of view, these words, especially the underlined part, are pretty biased. Could someone please edit it to ensure neutrality? Wyvernoid (talk) 15:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Re-write/edit?
Salute, Laurentia and everyone else. The article has received a lot of excellent contributions by various people, and has been almost totally free of some of the politics found in some articles. There's a basis for a really fine article. That said, I think it needs to be shorter and more neutral. It's an encyclopedia article: we're neither advocating nor attacking the use of Interlingua for any particular purpose; we're just documenting it as an interesting phenomenon. The average person coming here is not likely to have an intense interest in the minutia of Interlingua history or the current state of the Interlingua movement. All that sort of detail can be exported to sub-articles, of which there are already several. What I suggest we emphasise are the highlights: the unique qualities of interlingua, where it fits in the whole auxiliary-language field, what uses it's been put to. Something about half the current length, but the deleted material should be (mostly) re-worked and exported to subsidiary articles.64.180.222.133 (talk) 17:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

NPOV dispute
Adding a new section for a NPOV dispute is recommended in the how-to guide.

Reasons enumerated in Section 14 are sufficient for validating this dispute.

My only contributions (about 700 edits ago) were removed in a matter of days by one person who described the deletions as minor corrections and a rework -- no shadow of the content was reflected in the rework, however. The information, which reflected the views of one of the mid-20th-century directors of the IALA (with whom I enjoyed a brief correspondence) was certainly appropriate to an historical discussion of Interlingua. (I have a record of my interaction with Frank Esterhill -- source material.) Any information that offers a balance to the gushing and glowing pro-Interlingua propaganda in the article is removed. The low status of Interlingua, and conlangs in general, on the world stage is not accepted by the ideologues. This link http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rbk/faids/interlingua.pdf from the NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY demonstrates that a massive amount of Interlingua and IALA history and research is not reflected in the Interlingua article.

Championdante (talk) 00:22, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I looked at your previous edit, and in my opinion it was a good contribution and shouldn't have been removed. But it did require further editing. I'd encourage you to make it again.64.180.222.133 (talk) 18:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

"Eye" in Russian - not "oko"
The French œil, Italian occhio, Spanish ojo, and Portuguese olho appear quite different, but they descend from a historical form oculus. German Auge, Dutch oog and English eye (cf. Russian око)

"Eye" in Russian = "glaz". "Oko" means "eye" in all Slavic languages. The word "око" is used in the Russian literary language as a poetic form. http://www.gramota.ru/slovari/dic/?word=%EE%EA%EE&all=x — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.223.40.46 (talk) 10:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pamerast (talk • contribs) 18:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right! I've changed that part and replaced "око" with oko and "Russian" with "Czech and Polish". — N-true (talk) 18:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Apparently "око" is a poetic form, at least according to Wiktionary. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Not just according to Wiktionary. It certainly exists in Russian, although glaz is much more common in the modern language. If you can read Russian, you can verify it at http://slovari.yandex.ru/ . --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Phonology
dʒ is given as the pronunciation of 'j', but is absent from the chart giving the consonant inventory. 72.75.81.72 (talk) 23:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Lord's Prayer
I realised that many language related articles use the "Lord's Prayer" as an example text. IMHO a more neutral, non religious, text should be used to make the articles more neutral. --helohe (talk)  20:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The IN Declaration of Human Rights is often used. kwami (talk) 11:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * For such a short example such as this one, I feel the Declaration of Human Rights to be too long. Back to the original point, across the field of comparative linguistics, the Lord's Prayer is (along with the Babel Text) the standard of comparing two languages.  For some, it may have religious meaning, but in this case, the article just uses the proper standard.  We could switch to the Babel Text, but I don't feel that would be any more unbiased, because in this case, the use of religion is not bias, but standard practice in this field.  PatrickNiedzielski (talk) 04:58, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It's also a bit of an unusual text in that it's mostly in the subjunctive. However, it's been the well-established example text for a long time and switching to a different language makes it hard to take advantage of the reams of translations of the Lord's Prayer already produced precisely for this purpose.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.49.210.238 (talk) 06:27, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * IMO, it's a horrible choice as a standard (not sure what the "Babel Text" is; should it have a Wikipedia entry?), being so closely tied to a particular subset of religions. I'd be much happier with something more neutral, like the Declaration of Human Rights, or at least the Preamble, which is pretty broadly translated. However, sometimes one has to suck up a de facto standard and deal with it, however awful it may be.
 * YMMV.
 * * Septegram * Talk * Contributions * 21:58, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

My thoughts
I think the section on the IALA could be cut down in size, if not removed entirely, since this article should be really only be about the language Interlingua rather than the organisation. Perhaps a link to the IALA article could take its place. Also, I'm not sure about the references which are being used, a lot of them seem to be from the IALA and other Interlingua groups rather than disinterested third parties, which may be preferable. What does everyone else think?Rtdixon86 (talk) 18:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Ordinarily this sort of thing would be handled by having a brief section here with a main tag at the top. The International Auxiliary Language Association article is currently a stub while the IALA section here is larger, so presumably the rearrangement would involve integrating a good deal of the IALA material from the section here into that article; note that, to satisfy copyright, the edit summary there needs to say that the material comes from here.  (Cf. WP:SPLIT.)  --Pi zero (talk) 00:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Bad Criticism intro
The first para of the section Criticism claims:
 * While Interlingua is a successful auxiliary language, it has been criticised, often by proponents of other auxiliary languages. This may be partly because both supporters and opponents see Interlingua as a candidate for being the universal, neutral second language for the world to use.[6][45]

Which seems like declaring:
 * OK, there's criticism against this language, but that's not to be taken seriously, because the criticism is made by speakers of other auxiliary languages.

That is not WP:NPOV!

A neutral Criticism section should tell us:
 * 1. try to classify criticisms, such as in "naturalness/artificialness", "grammar", "intelligiblity", "learnability" etc.,
 * 2. paragraph per paragraph make a short discourse per criticism classes according to 1., and if available also write the counterarguments.

As it is now, the Criticism section does:
 * para 1. declares that all criticism comes from envious competitors — yadayadayada!,
 * para 2. explains how fantastical it is — no criticism,
 * para 3. (unsourced!) not as international/neutral as claimed, spelling issues - should IMHO be split and sourced
 * para 4. (unsourced!) counterarguments to the previous, and an out-of-the blue praise of the grammar of Interlingua - should IMHO be interspersed with several per-topic criticism paragraphs

And don't forget that the most well-structured language is the easiest to criticise. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 16:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Speaking about the gremlins, why is it that there is an article Criticism of Esperanto but no Criticism of Interlingua? Is Interlingua not noteworthy enough? A superficial googling for "criticism of Esperanto" gives 19 700 hits and a googling for "criticism of Interlingua" gives 5 590 hits, which makes Interlingua noteworthy on the web. But not here? Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 16:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with this. Sourced or not, the opening statement reads like the only criticisms are from other auxiliary language supporters.  The particular statement "as a candidate for being the universal...language" is extremely blatant.  216.96.14.215 (talk) 01:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Number of speakers
The number of speakers are said to be “a few hundred”. How many members do Union Mundial pro Interlingua have? I think the numbers should be roughly the same.

2015-01-09 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Syntax?
I would like some info on the syntax of interlingua, if possible (= sourceable). Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 11:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

In the Socialist bloc
This section is too biased. It empathizes suppression and persecution, some "treatening letters" (from whom? was it anonymous letter? treatening letter without mentioning from whom it is received says nothing about aleged persecution), dispite the mentioned fact that Interlingua was teached in schools there(!), a practice never observed in the West. I suggest this section be rewritten more neutral.--MathFacts (talk) 11:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If that Czech guy was really being persecuted for Interlingua, then he wouldn't be allowed to work in the school system at all (as was no church-goer or other "bad influence" during this period). He certainly wouldn't be holding (state-funded) lessons in it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.58.195.85 (talk) 14:52, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Walter Raédler
The guy's name is Walter Rädler. Please correct. --217.6.251.18 (talk) 11:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Map
I’ve removed the map because it contains several grave errors and is highly misleading. In addition what has been noted above, e.g. French (or any other Romance language) is not “commonly spoken” in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – neither as a first nor as a second language. English has long eclipsed French as a second language taught in schools in those countries, and the proportion of non-native speakers of French is higher in most European countries than it is in those three South-East Asian countries. --Babelfisch (talk) 03:05, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Interlingua at institutions of European Union
Excists at least two reference according matter of Interlingua presentation at European parliament. Its not full clear if that were face-to-face presentation or written recommendation only. There is high presumption that it was done face-to-face like same kind of technical briefing. I only tripped over during browsing interlingua.com/libros.

REF#1: http://www.interlingua.com/libros/god-pet.htm

Gopsill, F. P.: Interlingua, concepto e structura Un presentation de interlingua al Parlamento Europee, Bruxelles, le 29 de septembre 1993. British Interlingua Society, 1993, 24 pp., ill., A5. ISBN 1-898017-05-0.

Contine un excellente exposition del possibilitates de interlingua pro organisationes international.

British Interlingua Society: 1 GBP.

REF#2: http://openlibrary.org/books/OL609788M/Interlingua — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.128.3.22 (talk) 19:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

'educated speakers of English'?
What on -earth- is the part under 'Community' that says '[allowing] educated speakers of English, to read and understand it without prior study' supposed to mean..? The only chance a speaker of English, no matter how educated, is going to be able to read or understand this 'without prior study', unless that education is in the area of European languages, Latin or something of that ilk. =/ If that is what is intended then it really needs to be re-worded as it doesn't read that way, otherwise it ought to be removed. Thoughts one way or the other? =/ -Joey- (talk) 03:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for 'hijacking' your post, Joey, but I don't have an account. I was going to post an almost identical comment. I can read Interlingua fluently and I am an "educated speaker of English", but specifically I have a degree in French and studied Latin to 'A' level. Without at least one of these components then, no matter how broad the remainder of my education, Interlingua would not be more than partially intelligible to me and I would suggest that this would be true for anybody without a good grounding, either through nationality or education, in a romance language, with Latin being the most useful, followed by Italian and French. I would suggest that the Lord's Prayer given as an example would not be recognised as such by a peaker of any germanic or slavonic language unless they had studied Latin for several years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.28.154.126 (talk) 13:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with Joey and our no-account friend (no offense, me, too). I speak Spanish well, and can read Italian, Portuguese, and French a little, and yet it took me a few seconds to recognize the “Lord’s prayer.”  Esperanto and Ido are just as easy (or difficult), so the claim of "most widely understood" is indeed marketing puffery at best. Earlier in the article, a credible source is cited that Interlingua has only 1500 users. With Esperanto claiming 100,000, 2000 of them "native," Interlingua doesn’t have much room for bragging!216.50.37.231 (talk) 07:46, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Latin which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:44, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

claims that have to be contested
Hello,

IA sources claim it was the "most understandable IAL", which I contest.

Coming from Latino sine flexione, IA seems to have - broadly - taken up IL, added some grammar that was discussed in the "Discussiones" of the Academia pro Interlingua and rejected as "strippable", had a much narrower focus of participating linguists than IL, and took over much of the names and terms of Interlingua IL. "Interlingua de Peano", instead of "Interlingua de A.p.I.", seems to be a mis-nomer and false-leading; if at all, "Interlingua de IALA" should be "Interlingua IA de Gode", as Latino sine Flexione was discussed by a number of scientists in the Discussiones de Academia pro Interlingua, so a truly democratic and collaborative approach is documented for IL. Today, the term "Academia pro Interlingua", "Hard-Wired" into IL history, seems to have been grabbed by a "wikia fandom" community for IA.

IA may be more understandable for an Anglophone, and as it came out being almost a plagiarised IL certainly is easily understandable for people familiar with a Romanic language; however, as IL used also the approach of a "Vocabulario Commune" (EDITED by G. Peano), and had a principle to do away with everything deemed unnecessary by other languages (including the article, that IA still kept), I see reason to at least reduce IA's superiority claim to "ONE OF THE best understandable IALs", at least besides Interlingua de A.p.I. / Latino sine Flexione.

The corpus of original publications in IL de A.p.I. is given in the range of 3,000 pages (not counting IL textbooks and translations; as IL textbooks tend to be quite brief, they shouldn't have much of an impact, however). As there is no more A.p.I., IA may have more avid proponents that got it a language code; however, counted down, as IL-A.p.I. was used for scientific publications (normally tagged today as "Latin", "Italian"...) it may very well be that the IL-A.p.I. corpus is more extensive than the IA-IALA corpus. --217.224.148.215 (talk) 13:05, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Question: if IA means Interlingua here, what is IL? A code il is not defined as ISO 639-1. Ruud Harmsen (talk) 18:32, 18 November 2021 (UTC)


 * The abbreviation IA is used for Interlingua of IALA (this article) while IL is used for Interlingua of Peano and ApI, aka Latino sine flexione. –MwGamera (talk) 22:03, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

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"Interlingvo" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Interlingvo. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 22 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 06:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

"Romanica language" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"Romanica" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Romanica. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 22 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 06:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal 22 June 2020
Eligibility of international words in Interlingua → Interlingua – I think that the content in the Eligibility of international words in Interlingua can easily be explained in the context of Interlingua, especially more WP:SUMMARIZED, and the Interlingua is of a reasonable size that the merging of Eligibility of international words in Interlingua will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 08:50, 22 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Fully agreed! And I believe the same thing goes for Free word-building in Interlingua as well. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  10:15, 22 June 2020 (UTC)


 * And now that we're at it, I noticed that History of Interlingua is practically identical to the history section of the main article. A separate history article is totally unneeded and even undesirable, since it makes things a lot harder to maintain. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  10:32, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Outdated citation for the only user-population statistic?
End of 1st paragraph

"...though it is actively spoken by only a few hundred.[1]"

Citation is 24 years old... 69.117.213.159 (talk) 06:49, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Alleged use by ISO

 * In 1967, the International Organization for Standardization, which normalizes terminology, voted to adopt Interlingua as the basis for its dictionaries.

This is an interesting claim, but I can't find any evidence this went anywhere - Google turns up nothing. Gospill's book costs 200 bucks and has only 1 review on Goodreads, so does anyone with access know if he has a citation for this? Maybe it's stuck in dusty old books from the 60s, but this is a "press X to doubt" deal - does the ISO even publish "dictionaries"? What topics were these Interlingua ISO dictionaries on? Given the overstatements elsewhere in the older version of the article, it wouldn't shock me if there was some subcommittee somewhere that passed a resolution saying "Interlingua is cool" and had one 20-page circular in Interlingua, then was forgotten. If this really happened, it's worth more information, hence moving this to the talk page rather than just deleting it, but as is it needs a better reference not from an Interlingua proponent (and, say, the ISO itself). SnowFire (talk) 23:20, 17 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I dug up Gopsill's book. Don't be fooled by the title, an alternate title could well have been "Why Esperanto sucks and I hate it," as one of the theses advanced by Gopsill is that the world would have been happy to embrace the idea of an international language if Esperanto didn't suck and give conlangs a bad name.  Anyway he didn't really give more details, just that the ISO decision proved that Esperanto was wrong because Eugen Wüster was an Esperantist and he was on the ISO and therefore this proved that Esperantists agree it sucks and Interlingua was better.  Best kept out unless we can have a more neutral source described what exactly happened and what the relevance was.  SnowFire (talk) 03:33, 29 November 2023 (UTC)