Talk:Pan-Romance language

Organization of this talk: Topic index
Hi all! As we have already written a lot, and dealt different questions, I think that it can be useful to split the talk in different sections, one for each question that we are trying to answer. I have gone trough all our talk and identified different topics. I will now create a section for each one and, at the beginning, include a list of interventions which have already dealt with that topic. I will leave at the top the already existing sections which deal different topics. These sections are "Questions for consideration (typing out loud)" and "Remark". But I recommend future readers to jump to the new sections, and then follow the indications to previous relevant fragments.

Topic index:
 * Are zonal constructed languages defined by their use?
 * Is there a distinction between pan-Romance languages and Romance zonal constructed languages? Is there a distinction with other Romance-based constructed languages?
 * Can a pan-Romance language be qualified as a standard language?
 * Is there a difference between pan-Romance and pan-Latin?
 * How do pan-Romance languages handle their source languages?

If you there are other topics you would like to discuss, please create a new section at the end of the page, and add its title to the previous topic index in this section. Thanks! --Jorcaiba (talk) 13:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Questions for consideration (typing out loud)

 * What constitues a Romance language? Esperanto is heavily influenced by Classical languages as well as the Germanic and Slavic. We can initiate a history of pan-Romance language construction which takes this into account? Or does this surpass the remit of this article?
 * Early Latinate languages, like Latino sine Flexione and slightly later Interlingua, were perhaps were not aimed at pan-Romance communication, but rather the creation of an international, academic, and scientific means of communication. This means that the languages of Neolatino (1947) and Internacional (Campos Lima - 1948) were more recognizably Romance, yet, the emphasis was still on internationality, academia and science. Then, if the aim of a language project is 'intercommunication' on a zonal/regional scale (that of Latin America and Latin Europe and other Latin regions around the world), such as Interlingua Romanica, can we say this among the first pan-Romance languages? (More research needed here and there were other Romconlangs of the 90s to take into consideration).


 * Hi, Cavallèro! I have tried to include your suggestions creating a new section on Romanoids:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Pan-Romance_language#Relationship_with_Romanoid_constructed_languages
 * Are you missing anything else? Thanks! --Jorcaiba (talk) 11:32, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Remark
First of all, my compliments for this interesting article, which I really enjoyed reading! Please allow me to make a few comments.

One thing that IMO would deserve attention is the question how Pan-Romance languages handle their source languages. For example, is a language based directly on Latin, on the modern languages only or is it a mix of both? How does it deal with the differences between Romanian and the rest? Are smaller languages (Occitan, Sardinian, Rhaeto-Romance etc.) considered as well?

Another thing that requires elaboration is the question of IALs for global use like Interlingua etc. versus Pan-Romance languages. Language creators are not always clear about their precise goals. True as the text about Interlingua may be, I know there are also people who promote it as a Pan-Romance language. An interesting case is also Lingua Franca Nova, which is entirely based on Romance languages, but uses a pidgin-like grammar.

One language that is not mentioned in the article at all is Romanid from 1956, which also calls itself a Pan-Romance language.

Cheers, &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  23:35, 10 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi, Jan! I have tried to include your suggestions about Interlingua, LFN, Romanid, etc. creating a new section on Romanoids:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Pan-Romance_language#Relationship_with_Romanoid_constructed_languages
 * I must still include your other suggestion, about source languages. Are you missing anything else? Thanks! --Jorcaiba (talk) 11:35, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Nothing that I can think of right now. I do have a bit of an issue with the demarcation line between Pan-Romance languages, zonal constructed languages and Romance-based IALs, though. This sort of distinctions should be based on literature. Who said, for example, that to qualify as a Pan-Romance language, it must have grammatical gender, nominal agreement etc.? And where does the term "Romanoid" come from? A sentence like "Romanoids can be considered Romance schematic or controlled (but not naturalistic) a posteriori constructed languages" definitely requires a source, and besides, it seems to be based on a misinterpretation of "schematic" and "naturalistic": schematicism is not merely a matter of simplification, it refers to a hyper-regularized word building method that follows internal rules instead of the source languages. It is nowhere said that a naturalistic language cannot be simplified.
 * Let's compare the situation to the Pan-Slavic languages, a subject I'm more familiar with. "Pan-Slavic language" and "zonal constructed language for Slavs" are essentially synonymous, except perhaps that the former might evoke a political connotation. Furthermore, there's no such thing as "Slavoid" languages, nor is there a significant distinction between languages based on Proto-Slavic or Old Church Slavonic and languages based on the modern Slavic languages. The only distinction that has been made in the literature is between languages that basically follow Slavic grammar and languages that don't.
 * It is, however, important to realize that "zonal" and "Pan-" refer to the purpose of the language, whereas "Romance" and "Romanoid" refer to the origin of the material. It is important to keep those two things apart. Purpose is the intended usage as stated by the author, possibly also how it is used in reality. Here we have Interlingua, LSF and LFN, which are primarily intended for global use, and Romanova, Romanid and the various Neolatinos, which obviously are for zonal use. "Zonal" means in this case: intended to be used by speakers of one particular language family and to be understood by them without prior learning, which, again, does not preclude simplification. It doesn't even rule out the possibility of Interlingua being used as a Romance zonal constructed language, even though it has English as one of its main control languages.
 * If we base our subdivision on the origin of the material, then we could qualify Pan-Romance as language whose word stock is based on the entire Romance language family, including or excluding Latin. Following this principle, it would include Lingua Franca Nova and perhaps also Interlingua, but exclude Latino Sine Flexione, for example. Further subdivision is unusual, although it's theoretically thinkable to apply the distinction between hyperschematic and hyposchematic languages (introduced by Kuznetsov in 1976) to this category as well, which would result in hypernaturalistic and hyponaturalistic languages, the former following the source language in every aspect.
 * In any case, I don't think it is justified to exclude languages like Romanova, Romanid and Latino Moderne from the qualifier "Pan-Romance". Instead, I would rather say that some Pan-Romance languages are more radical in mimicking the Romance languages, whereas others tend to be more independent in terms of grammar.
 * As for the issue of Pan-Romance being one language or not, here's a suggestion: call them "language projects" instead of "languages". In the case of Interslavic, some historical projects are clearly variations of the same language, which cannot reasonably be said of some other projects. Cheers, &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  23:11, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Hello, Jan. Thanks for all your attention. You address several basic questions.


 * One question you address is: what is a pan-Romance language? The Wikipedia pages Pan-Germanic language and Pan-Slavic language define their study object as a zonal constructed language designed for communication amongst speakers of Germanic/Slavic languages. So we could apply that definition to Romance as well, and that is probably the easiest way to get our article accepted by the reviewers of Wikipedia.


 * I must say that none of those two other pages offer bibliographical references of that terminology nor that definition. These may not be stablished yet, as I haven’t found “pan-Germanic” or “pan-Slavic” in several lexicons of linguistics I’ve searched in. Trying in the major general English dictionaries, I have found “pan-Germanic/pan-German”, but it has to do with political unification. That is also one of the meanings of “pan-Slavic”, but in this case there is another broader meaning related to all Slavs. In the University of Oxford’s dictionary it’s ‘Of, relating to, or involving all Slavs or Slavonic-speaking peoples’. In Merriam-Webster’s dictionary the definition of “pan-Slavism” (which is explicitly related to “pan-Slavist” and “pan-Slavic”) is ‘a political and cultural movement originally emphasizing the cultural ties between the Slavic peoples but later associated with Russian expansionism’.


 * This does suggest that a “pan-Slavic language” (and by extension a “pan-Germanic language”) is not defined by it’s structural characteristics but by the audience it’s intended for. So Slovio, in spite of its many un-Slavic traits, can be considered a pan-Slavic language. As a matter of fact, Anna-Maria Meyer, in “Wiederbelebung einer Utopie” (a book which is the result of her Doctorate and is probably the most extensive study done on zonal auxiliary languages), does mention the term “panslaviche Sprachen” as a type of “zonale Plansprachen” (page 42), group in which she classifies Slovio. She also mentions the parallel term “pangermanischen Sprachen”.


 * If whe now apply this to our article, it seems that we should consider any language intended for communication amongst speakers of different Romance languages, for example Romanova (despite lacking verbal personal inflexion, which is found in all 6 major Romance languages). BUT there is a problem: the parallel term for “pan-Slavic” and “pan-Germanic” is not “pan-Romance” but “pan-Latin”. In the general English dictionaries you only find “pan-Latin”, defined as ‘Encompassing or involving all speakers of Romance languages, or all people of Latin American origin; of, relating to, or characteristic of pan-Latinism’ (Oxford).


 * Whereas “Latin” or “Neolatin” refer to peoples, “Romance” refers to their language(s). This distinction is also done in Romance languages themselves. And it suggests that zonal auxiliary languages intended for the Neolatin world (which, accordingly, Wikipedia also calls “Romance-speaking world”, not “Romance world”) should maybe be dealt in an article called “Pan-Latin language”. According to this, it was a mistake to state, as the article does now, that “Pan-Romance languages are parallel to pan-Slavic languages and pan-Germanic languages”.


 * So should this article be renamed? Or deleted? I think not, because it deals with a specific object of study: a group of codified linguistic varieties (language projects, as you suggest) which synthesize the variation of the Romance languages and are representative of these as a whole.


 * The coherence of this object of study is determined by the fact that these linguistic varieties are so similar to each other that they can be considered variations of a same language. In addition to that, their developers are generally aware of each other, are in contact and even collaborate. Those working in the 40s even knew about Stefan George’s Lingua Romana (1889) and considered it a precedent.


 * This object of study seems relevant as multiple authors, in different times and places, have developed variants of this language, which shows that it’s an existing phenomenon. In addition to that, several of the developers are prominent personalities, specially Stefan George, but also Hans Ørberg, Campos Lima and André Schild in their own domains.


 * These pan-Romance languages could be dealt with in a section of an article on pan-Latin languages, maybe defined as “hypernaturalistic” projects, as you propose. But not all pan-Romance languages are intended as zonal auxiliary language. Some are intended as IALs or even artistic languages. In addition to that, not all of them are conceived as constructed languages. Romance Neolatino is conceived as a standard language. All this suggests that they need a specific article. What are your thoughts?


 * Another question you address is: what is a Romanoid language? The suffix “-oid” means ‘something resembling a (specified) object or having a (specified) quality’, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. But it’s true that it should be applied to “Romance”, not “Roman”. In any case, the term (be it “Romanoid”, “Romanceoid” or even “Latinoid”) can be avoided by talking of “languages that resemble Romance to a lesser extent”, adding that there are many degrees of resemblance, including naturalistic, controlled and even schematic projects. Esperanto “to some degree represents” a Romance interlanguage, said Rebeca Posner (The Romance Languages). It can also be added that the border between the group of languages dealt with currently in this article and “languages that resemble Romance to a lesser extent” is very fine. For example, in Romanova nominal agreement is optional.


 * In any case, I don’t think that any language that resembles Romance in some degree can be qualified as a pan-Romance language. The prefix “pan-“ means ‘All-inclusive, especially in relation to the whole of a continent, racial group, religion, etc.’ (Oxford). According to Merriam-Webster, it means ‘all, completely’, ‘whole, general’. In any case, “pan-Romance vocabulary” includes, according to Klein et al. (EuroComRom - Die sieben Siebe), those words which are used nowadays by all Romance languages or most of them. Accordingly, a pan-Romance language needs to be representative of Romance as a whole, both in vocabulary as in grammar. And this includes nominal agreement (with at least two genders, which are general nowadays) and verbal personal inflexion. So I do think it is justified to exclude languages like Romanid and Romanova (which lacks verbal personal inflexion) from the qualifier "pan-Romance". They can be dealt with in an article on pan-Latin languages. The distinction, I guess, is parallel to the one that the literature does between languages that basically follow Slavic grammar and languages that don't, which you mentioned.


 * What do you suggest? Thanks again, Jorcaiba (talk) 15:15, 12 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I understand your point, but I can only advise you to follow the sources. And if there are no sources that deal specifically with Pan-Romance languages, I'd go for the logical parallel with Pan-Germanic, Pan-Slavic, Pan-African etc. As far as I know, these qualifications merely relate to the target audience, not to the question whether they include every single element of their source languages. Several Pan-Slavic languages have been created in the past that are not "Pan-Slavic" according to your idea of "Pan-Romance", some of them even carrying the name "Pan-Slavic language". Even Slovio explicitly calls itself Pan-Slavic (the case of Slovio is a bit more complex, because it is also presented as a global IAL and a language for Slavic emigrants; see my article "The Slovio Myth" for details). I don't know the details about historical projects with names like "Pan-Roman", "Inter-Roman" etc., but I guess the situation is pretty much the same there.
 * Mind, our personal opinions are totally irrelevant, it's the sources that count. It is not ours to decide whether a project deserves the qualification "Pan-Romance" or to discard it when it doesn't follow certain criteria, especially if those criteria are nowhere written in stone. All we can do as Wikipedians is to describe what authoritative sources say about the subject. And of course, we can spice it up with some material taken from primary sources, but the basic framework should be backed up by objective, preferably scientific resources.
 * That's why I think this article should give an overview of all constructed languages that are specifically directed at speakers of the Romance language family, including languages that do not explicitly call themselves "zonal", but are still entirely Romance-based and could easily function as zonal languages. Logically speaking: if Interlingua Romanica—which uses the same dictionary as Interlingua and is too similar to it even to be called a dialect—is a Pan-Romance language, then Interlingua itself is a (potential) Pan-Romance language as well.
 * I can't really help you with the Pan-Romance versus Pan-Latin issue. I am not a native speaker of English and "Pan-Latin" sounds weird to me (for me, Latin can mean two things: the ancient language, and a representative of the tribe that stood at the cradle of the later Roman Empire). I wouldn't use dictionary definitions as sources here. Pragmatically speaking, I would start the article with: "A Pan-Romance or Pan-Latin constructed language is ..."
 * There is little point in distinguishing between more and less constructed language either. The sentence "not all of them are conceived as constructed languages" is kind of a contradictio in terminis: a constructed language does not have to be invented from scratch the fact that it was "conceived" is enough. Interslavic is quite rigid in following Slavic grammar, including some of its irregularities, but given the fact that there are about 15 Slavic standard languages nowadays, a supranational language can no longer be considered a proposed standard for a group of dialects. Of course, Interslavic, Neolatino and even Interlingua rather belong to a category I call "semi-constructed languages", but that does not change the fact that they match the criteria for a constructed language.
 * At last, I strongly advise against creating separate articles for Pan-Romance and Pan-Latin languages. The differences can easily be discussed in one article. Cheers, &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  02:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Hello again, Jan. Thanks a lot for your feedback. While you were writing, I was going through the interlinguistic bibliography that I have. And I have come to the conclusion that it’s not necessary to distinguish between pan-Romance (based on structure) and pan-Latin (based on function) languages nor create two separate articles because, according to the specialized literature, ‘pan-Romance/Slavic/Germanic language’ and ‘zonal constructed language’ are concepts defined by structure, not function.


 * Before going into the question, just one thing more: When I say that not all pan-Romance languages are conceived as constructed languages I mean that they are not all thought or understood so. In addition to that, we must not forget that regular standard languages can have developers and birth dates too. In any case, your term “semi-constructed language” can be useful. Have you presented it in some published work? Ok, so let’s go:


 * Blanke (Internationale Plansprachen: Eine Einführung, 1985) speaks of ‘zonal languages’, and defines them on the basis of their structure, not their intended use: according to him (p. 153), they are languages which arise by choosing or mixing linguistic elements in a language group (meaning, a language family). About their use he only says that their authors often have ‘nationalistic goals’. After that, he speaks of ‘Germanic projects’ (like Tutonish) and ‘Slavic zonal languages’ (like Neuslavische Sprache), and he refers of one of the later as ‘interslavic constructed language’. He doesn’t mention Romance zonal languages. He uses no pan- terminology here.


 * It’s important to note that, for Blanke, ‘zonal languages’ are a type of modified modern ethnic languages. Next to modified ethnic languages, the other group of a posteriori constructed languages are ‘selection languages’ (“Auswahlsprachen”), which he defines as being built with ‘elements from different –generally European- languages’ (from different families). And it’s in this second group where he places languages like Anglo-Franca (subclassified as “Kompromißsprache”), Interlingua (naturalistic) and Esperanto (autonomous). This is the classification used in the German Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plansprache), though here they misclassify present-day Interslavic as naturalistic, when it should be considered a modified modern ethnic language (according to Blanke’s definitions).


 * Schubert (Interlinguistics – its aims, its achievements, and its place in language science, 1989) doesn’t use the term ‘zonal language’, even though the refers to Blanke (1985) who had used it. Schubert, when arguing that there is a continuum between artificial and natural languages, mentions as half-way steps “projects of unified ethnic languages for regional or international use, such as pan-Slavic or pan-Germanic languages” (p. 9-10). Later on, he gives ‘pan-Slavic’ as an example of “a compromise language for a certain family of ethnic languages”. So he defines ‘pan-Slavic’ and ‘pan-Germanic’ languages depending on their structure (they unify ethnic languages, they are a compromise of ethnic languages), not depending on their use or community (they can be intended for regional or international communication). He doesn’t mention ‘pan-Romance’ languages.


 * So both Blanke and Schubert pay attention to structure (not use) when defining ‘zonal constructed languages’ and ‘pan-Slavic languages’, respectively. But while Blanke’s concept is broader (combination or mixture of elements from different Slavic languages), Schubert’s concept is more specific (unification or compromise of ethnic languages). That explains why he uses the pan- terminology.


 * Sakaguchi doesn’t seem to use the term ‘zonal (constructed) languages’ in her 483-page book (Interlinguistik: Gegenstand, Ziele, Aufaben, Methoden, 1998, p. 51-52). I only find relevant information in a section where she presents the different goals or reasons to construct languages. As representative of languages created with the intention to unify multiple peoples (not only linguistically, but also in a cultural, political and religious sense), she presents some (“einiger”, so not all) ‘language projects with a common Slavic basis’ (“gemeinslawischer Grundlage”). This description attends to structure and not use. Later on, she describes them as ‘languages with a pan-Slavic basis’, which shows that by ‘pan-Slavic’ she means with common Slavic linguistic elements. She presents several projects, but only describes the structure of one of them (Ruski jezik, 1666): it’s ‘a naturalistic synthesis of Slavic languages’ (Russian, Croatian and Church Slavonic [as well as Polish, according to Meyer 2016: 293]) with 55 to 60% of words common to all Slavic languages, a ‘sort of a reconstruct of proto-Slavic’. She alternates the terms “gemeinslawische Sprache” and “panslawische Sprachen”, which she both uses several times.


 * Sakaguchi, as Blanke and Schubert, pays attention to structure, not use, when defining “gemeinslawische Sprachen”. Her concept (common Slavic basis) is not broad like Blanke’s idea of ‘zonal constructed language’, but specific like Schubert’s idea of ‘pan-Slavic’ (unification or compromise of ethnic languages). She also uses the pan- terminology, but not exactly with the same meaning as Schubert. The three ideas can be integrated in this way: in the broader group of Slavic zonal languages (constructed with elements from different Slavic languages), pan-Slavic languages are a subgroup (these are a compromise of the Slavic languages or are based on their commonalities).


 * Meyer (Wiederbelebung einer Utopie, 2014) does speak of ‘zonal constructed languages’. But she defines them (p. 49) attending to function, not structure. They are intended for the communication of a certain group of peoples (“Volksgruppe”), not the whole world. ‘Slavic constructed languages’, she says, are zonal constructed languages. It must be noted that Slavic constructed languages from the 17th to the 19th centuries were not intended as an auxiliary language, but as a unified language (p. 86). So for Meyer, zonal languages are not necessarily auxiliary.


 * There is two problems in her conception and classification. On the one side, Slovio is intended not only as an auxiliary language for Slavs but for the whole world, as she says (p. 169). So it’s a Slavic constructed language but doesn’t fit in Meyer’s definition of zonal constructed language, which is based on function. On the other side, after defining ‘Slavic constructed languages’, she adds that generally they are created to serve for communication amongst all Slavs but in the Internet-age some are created for the joy of creation (conlanging). These conlangs don’t fit either in her definition of zonal constructed languages.


 * Slovio, the Slavic conlags and the rest of Slavic constructed languages do fit the Blanke’s definition of zonal constructed languages, which is based on structure. As a matter of fact, also Meyer attends to structure when she defines ‘Slavic constructed languages’ in the beginning of her work (p. 12) as languages which have been consciously constructed ‘on the basis of different Slavic ethnic languages through their mixture and structural reduction’.


 * This definition is also problematic, because it requires “structural reduction”. And she later discusses a language that is ‘hardly less complex than the Slavic ethnic languages’ (p. 123), and another one which has not been simplified [it “does not reduce the structures”, in Meyer’s words in 2016, p. 294]. So we understand that structural reduction is actually not mandatory in Slavic constructed languages. In addition to that, she also says that, according to slavicist Tilman Berger, it’s interesting to study how “the authors of Slavic constructed languages imagine the common ground of Slavic languages and what a ‘typical’ Slavic language looks like” (2016: 290) [this is only possible if the languages avoid reductions or simplifications].


 * In her article on 2012 (Slavische Plansprachen auf dem Weg ins 21. Jahrhundert), after dealing with the Slavic conlangs, she says that ‘in any case, the elements used [in Slavic constructed languages] come mainly or only from Slavic languages’ (p. 1). So, clearly, this group of languages is defined by structure.


 * With regard to the pan- terminology, in Meyer’s 355-page book (2014) there are 3 occurrences of the term ‘pan-Slavic languages’. When classifying the different goals to construct languages, in the group of languages created to unify peoples she includes ‘the Slavic languages’ (p. 42) [she actually means some of them, as we have seen, because conlangs have other goals]. It’s here where, in brackets, she adds that they are sometimes called ‘pan-Slavic languages’. Shortly after, she speaks once of 'pan-Slavic' and 'pan-Germanic' languages, in plural. Finally, she mentions that Slovio is qualified by its developers as a “panslavische Sprache”.


 * When qualifying specific languages, she also uses ‘pan-Germanic’ twice (Altutonish, p. 50; Pan-Arisch, which she says is not a pan-Germanic language project as it’s meant for global communication, p. 51), and she uses ‘pan-Romance’ once (to qualify Romanova, p. 51). She does not speak of ‘pan-Romance’ languages in plural, even though she briefly deals with some other zonal constructed languages for the Romance-speaking world (Panroman, Universal/Unial, Neoromani, Panamericano). But the category ‘pan-Romance’ languages as a subtype of zonal constructed languages is implicit, I would say.


 * Nevertheless, Meyer normally speaks of 'Slavic constructed languages' (ca. 116 times). And part of the few occurrences of ‘pan-Slavic’ and ‘pan-Germanic’ are found when she deals with political movements (Slovio, part of a movement qualified as ‘aggressive’, p. 256; Altutonish, p. 50). So I get the impression that she tries to avoid these pan- terms. And in her summary article of 2016 (Slavic constructed languages in the internet age) she doesn’t use once pan- terms to refer to languages.


 * In any case, Meyer’s concept of ‘Slavic constructed language’ is broad, very similar to that of Blanke’s ‘zonal constructed language’. It can include, as a subgroup, Schubert’s and Sakaguchi’s ‘pan-Slavic languages’. And even if these are defined by structure, it’s true that they are typically intended for communication in a language family, which is what Meyer focuses on and refers to sometimes with ‘pan-Slavic’. But it’s clear that pan-Slavic languages are not defined by function. The same goes for pan-Romance languages, where some are intended as global international auxiliary languages (notably, Campo Lima’s International) or artistic languages (notably, George’s Lingua Romana).


 * For partially Romance-based constructed languages, which include elements from other language families, the literature does offer a term. Blanke speaks of “Latinide Plansprachen” in his German text (Interlinguistische Beiträge, 2006: 42). He defines them as independent languages with a ‘mostly Latinid’ vocabulary. He includes in this category from Volapük and Esperanto (subclassified as autonomous languages) until Interlingua (naturalistic). But he explicitly excludes modernizations or simplifications of languages. So Latino Sine Flexione is not considered a “Latinide”. It must be noted that another type of modified ethnic languages, according to his 1985 classification, are zonal constructed languages.


 * Blanke (1985: 157) also mentions that Carlevaro (2/1980) refers to the naturalistic constructed languages based on the mostly romance international vocabulary with the term “neolatiniden”. In Blanke’s classification, the naturalistic languages are a subgroup of the ‘selection languages’ (“Auswahlsprachen”), which he defines as being built with ‘elements from different –generally European- languages’ (from different families). These naturalistic languages, according to Blanke, show bigger similarities with each other than the modifications of Latin, to the point that ‘they appear like dialects of a language’ (p. 160). According to Monnerot-Dumaine, ‘the naturalistic projects, at least the Romance projects, are very close to each other’ (Précis d’Interlinguistique Générale et Spéciale, 1960: 141).


 * According to all this, the literature makes a distinction between ‘Neolatinid’ (naturalistic languages like Interlingua based on mostly romance international vocabulary), ‘Latinid’ (a broader concept, including also languages like Esperanto that are not naturalistic) and ‘pan-Romance’ (modifications of the Romance languages that are a compromise of the Romance languages or are based on their commonalities). The question that remains is how to call the Slavic/Romance constructed languages that are not pan-Slavic/Romance, that is, are not representative of the family as a whole. But maybe there is no need for such a term. And maybe even “Latinid” and “Neolatinid” are not necessary in the article: “lesser Romance-based constructed languages” should do.


 * So, if nobody comes up with specialized bibliography that contradicts the authors that I’ve checked, I think that the article as it is now follows the path of published science. One thing that should be corrected is the use of ‘zonal constructed language’, which is not = to auxiliary language for romanophones/slavophones/germanophones.


 * It's great to have this exchange with you! Cheers, --Jorcaiba (talk) 03:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Contested deletion
This page should not be speedy deleted as an unambiguous copyright infringement, because the mentioned PDF was written by the same author that wrote the majority of this article. --RayZa (talk) 14:21, 11 October 2019 (UTC) Also, the other copyright infringement is unclear to me, as it was given as a quote. Maybe the format of the quote could be improved, otherwise the example illustrating the language has to be removed I suppose. --RayZa (talk) 16:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi! I have written most of this article and I'm conscious that it must still be improved. But, taking in consideration that I have almost no experience editing here, I think that we have done quite well. I imagined that submitting the article for review is a process where the reviewer detects problems and the editors solve them. I could never imagine that every single detail of this article had to be perfect before submitting it for review. Wikipedia articles (many of which are far from perfect) are constantly being improved, so I thought this could also be the case with this article.


 * In any case, the problems detected are minor and can be easily solved if we are given some time. The few fragments that I have reused (which I had written myself somewhere else, so I'm not violating any copyright, as far as I know) can be reformulated. They are a really a small part of this long article, which we have spend many hours creating. As I said, I myself have very little experience editing in Wikipedia, so I beg for some patience. Thank you very much. Jorcaiba (talk) 17:57, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * There's no reason to worry. The speedy deletion text writes clearly that this criterion "applies only in unequivocal cases, where there is no free-content material on the page worth saving", which is clearly not applicable here. That said, it is true that copying text from other sources is not allowed, even if you wrote those sources yourself. I would suggest redoing the fragments in question entirely, not just by changing some words or phrases.
 * The fact that the Romanova quote has been marked as a copyright infringement is clearly a mistake. There is of course nothing wrong with using a fragment from the website of the language as a text sample, provided that the source is mentioned. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  21:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Hello again, Jan. I have reformulated those bits, in some cases changing the text a lot. And I've added extra bibliography. Do you think I can delete that speedy deletion notice? It does say that "If this draft does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself." And I'm not the creator of the page. Thanks for your help :) Jorcaiba (talk) 22:37, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I have deleted it myself. Frankly, speedy deletion was never an option in the first place. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  23:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Are zonal constructed languages defined by their use?
This topic has been (partially) discussed in previous sections. See in Questions for consideration (typing out loud):
 * Cavallèro’s 2nd. point (16 Juny 2018): “Early Latinate languages...”.
 * Jorcaiba’s reply (11 October 2019): “Hi, Cavallèro! I have tried...”.

See in Remark:
 * IJzeren Jan’s 1st. intervention (10 October 2019): “Another thing that requires...”
 * Jorcaiba’s 1st. intervention (11 October 2019): “Hi, Jan! I have tried...”.
 * IJzeren Jan’s 2nd. intervention (11 October 2019), 2 fragments:
 * 1) "Pan-Slavic language" and "zonal constructed language for Slavs" are essentially synonymous, except perhaps that the former might evoke a political connotation.
 * 2) Paragraph “It is, however, important...”.
 * Jorcaiba’s 2nd. intervention (12 October 2019), 3 fragments:
 * 1) “One question you address…” until “…6 major Romance languages”.
 * 2) Paragraph “These pan-Romance languages could…”.
 * IJzeren Jan’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019), 2 fragments:
 * 1) “I understand your point...”. 3 sentences.
 * 2) Paragraph “That's why I think...”.
 * Jorcaiba’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019):
 * 1) Paragraph “Hello again, Jan. Thanks…”.
 * 2) Paragraph “Blanke (Internationale Plansprachen…” + 8 more paragraphs.
 * 3) Paragraph “In her article on 2012 (Slavische…” + 4 more paragraphs.
 * 4) Paragraph “According to all this…” + next paragraph.

Continue the talk on this topic here:

Hi! I have summarized and developed the previous discussions on this topic:

Zonal constructed languages are defined attending to their use by Meyer (Wiederbelebung einer Utopie, 2014): they are intended for the communication of a certain group of peoples (“Volksgruppe”), not the whole world (p. 49). But this includes projects to unify the language group (diluting its regional standard languages) and projects to complement the regional standard languages of the group with an auxiliary language. The English Wikipedia also defines ‘zonal constructed languages’ based on use (with no bibliographical references) but considers them a subgroup of the international auxiliary languages, which is contradictory with older Slavic projects of the first subtype.

On the contrary, Blanke (Internationale Plansprachen: Eine Einführung, 1985) defines ‘zonal constructed languages’ attending to their structure, not use: they are languages which arise by choosing or mixing linguistic elements in a language group (meaning languages of one same family) (p. 153). And he includes examples of projects that mix mainly two ethnic languages only, a project based on a subgroup (northern Germanic) and a project based on the commonalities of the whole family.

I don’t know how Wikipedia deals with contradictions in scientific bibliography. I guess it follows the general trend. But I think that this is not a well stablished concept or terminology. Schubert (Interlinguistics – its aims, its achievements, and its place in language science, 1989: 9-10), when dealing with pan-Slavic or pan-Germanic languages, doesn’t mention their relationship with zonal languages, even though the refers to Blanke (1985), who had defined them. Sakaguchi doesn’t speak of zonal languges either when dealing with pan-Slavic constructed languages (Interlinguistik: Gegenstand, Ziele, Aufaben, Methoden, 1998, p. 51-52). And in a popular science work like that of Adams (From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages, 2011), there is no explicit reference to zonal languages even though there is a section dedicated to “[international auxiliary] Languages for a part of the world”, like Tutonisch. In addition to that, few Wikipedias have an article on zonal constructed languages, and these don’t include the German or French ones.

I would stick to Blanke’s definition. According to Meyer, Blanke is ‘one of the leading heads of German interlinguistics’ (p. 19), and his 1985 work is a “Standardwerk” (p. 61). As a matter of fact, her work is explicitly (p. 19, 86) based on his 2016 definition of ‘constructed language’. And when Meyer presents the term ‘zonal constructed languages’, she refers to Blanke (1985: 154). But she doesn’t comment on their different conceptions of the term, or why the definition should be changed. In any case, even Meyer attends to structure when she defines ‘Slavic constructed languages’ at the beginning of her work (p. 12) as languages which have been consciously constructed ‘on the basis of different Slavic ethnic languages through their mixture and structural reduction’. Meyer’s concept of ‘Slavic constructed language’ is broad, very similar to that of Blanke’s ‘zonal constructed language’.

Blanke’s definition has the advantage of not excluding languages which are intended as global IALs (also) and those created for artistic reasons. It includes languages which are a synthesis of all the family (pan-Slavic or inter-Slavic languages, as the bibliography calls them; for further on this, see following section Is there a distinction between pan-Romance languages and Romance zonal constructed languages?) and others which are less representative of the group. It includes languages based on all the languages of the family or on a subgroup of them. They are all Romance/Slavic/Germanic zonal constructed languages.

Are interlingua (IALA) and Esperanto, which contain many Romance/Latin elements, zonal languages? No. It must be noted that, in Blanke’s classification, zonal constructed languages are a type of modified ethnic languages, which is a type of a posteriori constructed languages. Interlingua and Esperanto are classified in another group of a posteriori constructed languages: ‘selection languages’ (“Auswahlsprachen”), which he defines as being built with ‘elements from different –generally European- languages’ (from different families). He subclassifies these in “Kompromißsprachen” (like Anglo-Franca), naturalistic (like Interlingua, which is not only based on Romance languages but also on English and, to a lesser extent, German and Russian), autonomous (or schematic, like Esperanto) and “Integrationssprachen” (like Novial, which tries to unify several different older constructed languages).

This is the classification used in the German Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plansprache), though here they misclassify present-day Interslavic as naturalistic, when it should be considered a modified modern ethnic language (according to Blanke’s definitions).

So: Are zonal constructed languages defined by their use? No.--Jorcaiba (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there a distinction between pan-Romance languages and Romance zonal constructed languages? Is there a distinction with other Romance-based constructed languages?
This topic has been (partially) discussed in previous sections. See in Questions for consideration (typing out loud):
 * Cavallèro’s 1st. point (16 Juny 2018): “What constitues a Romance language?...”.
 * Jorcaiba’s reply (11 October 2019): “Hi, Cavallèro! I have tried...”.

See in Remark:
 * Most of IJzeren Jan’s 2nd. intervention (11 October 2019): “Nothing that I can”.
 * Jorcaiba’s 2nd. intervention (12 October 2019), 2 fragments:
 * 1) 3 paragraphs, starting with “So should this article…”.
 * 2) 2 Paragraphs, starting with “Another question you address…”.
 * IJzeren Jan’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019): “Several Pan-Slavic languages have been created...” + next paragraph.
 * Jorcaiba’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019):
 * 1) Paragraph “This definition is also problematic…” + next paragraph.
 * 2) Paragraph “In any case, Meyer’s…” + 3 more paragraphs.

Continue the talk on this topic here:

Hi! I have summarized and developed the previous discussions on this topic:

The category ‘Pan-Slavic languages’ is found in the scientific literature on interlinguistics. Sakaguchi (Interlinguistik: Gegenstand, Ziele, Aufaben, Methoden, 1998, p. 51-52) deals with ‘pan-Slavic languages’: ‘language projects with a common Slavic basis’ (“gemeinslawischer Grundlage”). She presents several projects, but only describes the structure of one of them (Ruski jezik, 1666): it’s ‘a naturalistic synthesis of Slavic languages’ (Russian, Croatian and Church Slavonic [as well as Polish, according to Meyer 2016: 293]) with 55 to 60% of words common to all Slavic languages, a ‘sort of a reconstruct of proto-Slavic’. She doesn’t equal them to ‘zonal (constructed) languages’ nor mentions this concept/term. She is here interested in languages created with the intention to unify multiple peoples.

Similarly, Schubert (Interlinguistics – its aims, its achievements, and its place in language science, 1989) says that ‘pan-Slavic’ and ‘pan-Germanic languages’ unify ethnic languages, they are a compromise of ethnic languages. And he doesn’t equal them to zonal constructed languages, a concept/term that he doesn’t mention but knows because he refers to Blanke (1985).

The concept of ‘pan-Slavic language’ found in these authors can be associated to that of ‘Interslavic language’ found in Blanke. This author (Internationale Plansprachen: Eine Einführung, 1985: 154) defines ‘zonal constructed languages’ attending to their use, not structure: they are languages which arise by choosing or mixing linguistic elements in a language group (meaning, a language family) (p. 153). As Germanic examples he offers a project (Tutonish) based on English with other –mainly German– elements; and another project (Euronord) based on northern Germanic vocabulary. Amongst his Slavic examples, he offers a project (Neuslavische Sprache) based on Slovenian with many Russian elements; and another project (Mežduslavjanski jezik) based on ‘the most important common characteristics of the Slavic languages in Grammar and Vocabulary’. From all these 4 examples, he only qualifies as a ‘Interslavic constructed language’ the last one, which means that not all Slavic zonal constructed languages are Interslavic.

So the specialized literature makes a distinction between pan-/Slavic or Interslavic languages and the rest of Slavic zonal constructed languages, and this distinction is based on structure, not use. So a project can be intended for communication amongst all romanophones and, even so, not be a pan-Romance language if its structure is not suitable. It’s the case, for example, of Romanova, I would say, as it lacks verbal personal inflexion, which is found in all 6 major Romance languages (Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, Romanian).

But the existing specialized literature has not yet specified –as far as I now– which Romance zonal languages are pan-Romance and which not, nor has it listed the structural requirements for a constructed language to be considered pan-Romance. This necessity has been rightly pointed out by IJzeren Jan. So what can we do here in the Wikipedia? Well, The Romance linguistics literature stablishes what is “pan-Romance vocabulary”. According to Klein et al. (EuroComRom - Die sieben Siebe), it includes those words which are used nowadays by all Romance languages or most of them. In addition to that, the specialized literature offer lists of linguistic traits which are typical for Romance languages. For example, Bossong (Die romanischen Sprachen: Eine vergleichende Einführung, 2008), gives a list of 13 ‘criteria’. This can be a good orientation for including (or not) languages in our article. And the article can even specify how many and which criteria does each project comply.

Finally, the article can even include a section on Romance-based languages that resemble Romance (as a whole) to a lesser extent; all the way down to projects which modify only one Romance language. It can also be added that the border between all these languages and pan-Romance languages is very fine. This is nothing strange in linguistics.

In any case, we are dealing with projects wich, according to Blanke’s definition, are not based on languages other than Romance/Neolatin languages. This already excludes ‘Neolatinid languages’ (naturalistic languages like Interlingua based on international vocabulary –which is mostly Romance– but are based on non Romance languages too) and ‘Latinid languages’ (a broader concept, even including languages like Esperanto that are not naturalistic). The term “neolatiniden” is used with that sense by Carlevaro (2/1980, reported by Blanke 1985: 157). The term “Latinide Plansprachen” is used by Blanke (Interlinguistische Beiträge, 2006: 42), who explicitly excludes modernizations or simplifications of languages (so Latino Sine Flexione is not considered a “Latinide”).

So: Is there a distinction between pan-Romance languages and Romance zonal constructed languages? Is there a distinction with other Romance-based constructed languages? Yes, based on structure. --Jorcaiba (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Can a pan-Romance language be qualified as a standard language?
This topic has been (partially) discussed in previous sections. See in Remark:
 * IJzeren Jan’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019): Paragraph “There is little point...”.
 * Jorcaiba’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019): Paragraph “Before going into the question…”.

Continue the talk on this topic here:

Hi! I have summarized and developed the previous discussions on this topic:

Pan-Romance language can be seen both as a constructed language and as a standard language. This is not strange, as:
 * Several authors, for example Schubert (Interlinguistics – its aims, its achievements, and its place in language science, 1989: 9), have stated that there is a continuum between “artificial” and “natural” languages.
 * Zonal constructed languages are, in Blanke’s classification, a type of modified ethnic languages, which he distinguishes from other a posteriori constructed languages (like Interlingua, Esperanto, etc.) built with ‘elements from different –generally European- languages’ (from different families).
 * The 28 stages that Blanke identifies in the way of constructed languages from being a project to their real use correspond, in their majority, to the stages of the development of an ethnic language into a standardized and codified national language, according to Stölting (2011: 169, reported by Meyer 2014: 278).
 * Regular standard languages can have individual developers (Fabra is the father of Catalan, for example) and birth dates too (when the orthography was published or agreed on, for example).

But have pan-Romance/Slavic/Germanic languages actually been considered standard languages in the specialized literature? Blanke (Internationale Plansprachen: Eine Einführung, 1985: 160) says that a posteriori naturalistic languages like Interlingua that are based on international vocabulary –which is mostly Latin/Romance– but also on non Romance languages (‘Neolatinid languages’, as Carlevaro calls them) are ‘a kind of “Hochromanisch”’ (highlighted in the original German text), expression with which we can understand ‘a kind of standard language for Romance as a whole’, as it’s based on the word ‘Hochdeutsch’, the German standard language. Here, Blanke is certainly qualifying Neolatinid and not pan-Romance languages, but it must be noted that he precedes the qualificative with ‘a kind of’, which can be explained by the difference between Neolatinid and Romance. In any case, he conceives a “Hochromanisch”.

Lewaszkiewicz (Z dziejów idei wspólnego języka słowiańskiego, 1977: 46, reported by Meyer 2014: 86) refuses to consider as constructed languages the Slavic projects that, from the 17th to the 19th century tried to unify the Slavic language family in one language. He calls them ‘common Slavic languages’ (Polisch “wspólne języki słowiańskie” or “języki ogólnosłowiańskie”). The developers of some of those projects considered as their model the old Greek koine, in which multiple dialects blended, and explicitly rejected the way in which the German or the Italian standard languages had developed, on the basis of one single dialect. That is, they prefered a compositional standard language (made up with elements from multiples varieties, like in Rumansh, Nynorsk Norwegian, Basque, etc.).

We can conclude that some pan-Slavic languages have been developed as a standard language, and they have also been considered as such in the specialized bibliography. Nevertheless, it seems that it’s more frequent to consider them constructed languages. So our article includes both options and warns that the later is majoritary. It could also include the consideration as ‘semi-constructed languages’, if IJzeren Jan confirms that he has published the work were he proposes this category.

So: Can a pan-Romance language be qualified as a standard language? Yes. --Jorcaiba (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there a difference between pan-Romance and pan-Latin?
This topic has been (partially) discussed in previous sections. See in Remark:
 * 1 fragment of Jorcaiba’s 2nd. intervention (12 October 2019): “BUT there is a problem…” + next parapraph.
 * IJzeren Jan’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019), 2 fragments:
 * 1) Paragraph “I can't really help you...”.
 * 2) Paragraph “At last, I strongly advise...”.
 * Jorcaiba’s 3rd. intervention (14 October 2019): Paragraph “Hello again, Jan. Thanks…”.

Continue the talk on this topic here:

Hi! I have summarized and developed the previous discussions on this topic:

Whereas ‘Romance’ refers to language, ‘Latin’ refers to the peoples that speak Romance. This distinction is observed both in English and in the Romance languages themselves. Only ‘neo-Latin’ refers to both ideas and is, therefore, a better parallel of ‘Slavic’ and ‘Germanic’. In any case, we have for example “pan-Romance vocabulary”, in Klein et al. (EuroComRom - Die sieben Siebe); and in the general English dictionaries you find “pan-Latin” defined as ‘Encompassing or involving all speakers of Romance languages, or all people of Latin American origin; of, relating to, or characteristic of pan-Latinism’ (Oxford). Language vs. Community.

That, in theory, could allow to distinguish between ‘pan-Romance languages’ and ‘pan-Latin languages’, the later being those languages which are aimed at communication in the whole Neolatin world (which, accordingly, Wikipedia also calls “Romance-speaking world”, not “Romance world”), independently of their structure, pan-Romance or not. But in the specialized bibliography I haven’t found (yet) the expression ‘pan-Latin languages’.

Next to ‘pan-Slavic’ and ‘pan-Germanic’ languages, the specialized bibliography speaks of ‘pan-Romance’ languages, even if seldom.

So: Is there a difference between pan-Romance and pan-Latin? Yes, but it hasn't been applied to distinguish between ‘pan-Romance languages’ (based on structure) and ‘pan-Latin languages’ (based on intended use) --Jorcaiba (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

How do pan-Romance languages handle their source languages?
This topic has been (partially) discussed in previous sections. See in Remark:
 * IJzeren Jan’s 1st. intervention (10 October 2019): “One thing that IMO...”.
 * Jorcaiba’s 1st. intervention (11 October 2019): “I must still include...”.

Continue the talk on this topic here: