![WahlWappen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/WahlWappen.jpg)
Edgar Alexei Robert von Wahl or de Wahl (23 August 1867 – 9 March 1948) was a
Baltic German
Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
teacher, mathematician and linguist. He is most famous for being the creator of
Interlingue
Interlingue (; ISO 639 ''ie'', ''ile''), originally Occidental (), is an international auxiliary language created in 1922 and renamed in 1949. Its creator, Edgar de Wahl, sought to achieve maximal grammatical regularity and natural character. ...
(known as Occidental throughout his life), a naturalistic
constructed language
A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction ...
based on the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, which was initially published in 1922.
De Wahl was born in
Olwiopol (according to some sources in
Bohopil, a town nearby),
Kherson Governorate
The Kherson Governorate (1802–1922; russian: Херсонская губерния, translit.: ''Khersonskaya guberniya''; uk, Херсонська губернія, translit=Khersonska huberniia), was an administrative territorial unit (als ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(now part of
Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast
Pervomaisk ( uk, Первомайськ, , ; russian: Первомайск) is a landlocked city in Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukraine and the administrative center of the Pervomaisk Raion. It is located on the Southern Bug river which bisects the city. Pe ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
). The family spent several years in Ukraine, since de Wahl's father worked there as a railway engineer. After that the family stayed for several years in
Tallinn
Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...
and then moved to
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. Wahl studied there and then began service in the
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from ...
. Beginning in 1894, de Wahl worked as a teacher in Tallinn.
De Wahl first became an adherent of
Volapük
Volapük (; , "Language of the World", or lit. "World Speak") is a constructed language created between 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Catholic priest in Baden, Germany, who believed that God had told him in a dream to create an ...
after being introduced to the language by
Waldemar Rosenberger
Waldemar Rosenberger, (, Vladimir Karlovich Rozenberger, 1848–1918) from Saint Petersburg, Russia, became director of the International Volapük Academy in 1892. Under his leadership, the Academy began to experiment more with the Volapük langu ...
(a colleague of de Wahl's father), and began composing a lexicon for marine terminology. A few months later in 1888 he discovered a brochure on the language Esperanto in a bookshop and became a strong supporter of the new language. One of the first users of
Esperanto, he advised
L. L. Zamenhof on some points of
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
and vocabulary. After several years he abandoned Esperanto after the failed
vote to reform the language in 1894 (de Wahl was one of the few that voted for a completely new reform), and in the following decades he worked on the problem of the ideal form of an
international auxiliary language.
In 1922 de Wahl published a "key" to a new language, ''Occidental'', and the first number of a periodical entitled ''Kosmoglott'' (later ''Cosmoglotta''), written in that language. In following years, de Wahl participated in discussions about Occidental, and allowed the language to develop gradually as a result of the recommendations of its users. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
started in 1939, he had only intermittent contacts with the Occidentalist movement, which had become centred in
Switzerland. He became a member of the Committee of Linguistic Advisors, part of the
International Auxiliary Language Association
The International Auxiliary Language Association, Inc. (IALA) was an American organisation founded in 1924 to "promote widespread study, discussion and publicity of all questions involved in the establishment of an auxiliary language, together wi ...
, which would present
Interlingua
Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is t ...
in 1951.
The last years of de Wahl's life were spent in a
psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociat ...
in Tallinn, Estonia, which he was sent to in 1944. His home in Tallinn had been destroyed in aerial bombardments in 1943, and he had been incarcerated for a time after the arrival of Nazi troops in the city for refusing to
move to Germany as an ethnic German, and thereafter saved by his friends who argued for his mental instability and need to relocate to the hospital. With his home destroyed, he remained in the psychiatric hospital after the war and died there in 1948. Shortly afterwards, in 1949, the name of Occidental was changed to Interlingue. Later, in 1951,
Interlingua
Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is t ...
was unveiled, attracting many prominent users of the now-named Interlingue including
Ric Berger
Richard "Ric" Berger (1894–1984) was a Swiss professor of design, decoration, and art history. He is best known for his numerous newspaper articles about historical monuments, mainly in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, including his ow ...
and
André Schild.
See also
*
De Wahl's rule
De Wahl's rule is a rule of word formation, developed by Baltic German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and applied in the constructed language Interlingue, which was also his creation.
The rule served for the formation of certain changed ...
Publications
*Edgar von Wahl. Flexion und Begriffsspaltung. – Linguist 1896, nr 10.
*Edgar von Wahl. Ausnahmen. – Linguist 1897, nr 3.
*Edgar de Wahl.
diom neutral reformed – Progres 1906, nr 6.
*Julian Prorók. Ketzereien: Keimzellen einer Philosophie. Tartu, Leipzig 1906.
*Edgar de Wahl. AULI = Auxiliari lingue International. – Discussiones 1909, nr 1-2.
*Edgar de Wahl. L leges de derivation en verbes. – Lingua Internationale 1911, nr 1.
*Edgar von Wahl. Kaiserlicher Estländischer See-Yacht-Club: historische Übersicht 1888-1913. Tallinn 1913.
*Edgar de Wahl. Qual instructiones da nos li historie de lingue universal. – Kosmoglott 1922, nr 1, pp 6–8.
*Edgar de Wahl. Radicarium directiv del lingue international (occidental): in 8 lingues. Tallinn 1925.
*Edgar de Wahl. Interlinguistic reminiscenties. – Cosmoglotta 1927, nr 41, pp 54–64.
*Edgar de Wahl. Occidental: gemeinverständliche europäische Kultursprache für internationalen Verkehr: Begründung, Grammatik, Wortbildung, vergleichende textproben. Tallinn, Viin 1928.
*Edgar de Wahl, Otto Jespersen. Discussiones inter E. de Wahl e O. Jespersen. Chapelle 1935.
*Edgar de Wahl. Spiritu de interlingue. Cheseaux/Lausanne, 1953.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wahl, Edgar De
1867 births
1948 deaths
People from Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast
People from Yelisavetgradsky Uyezd
Baltic-German people
Linguists from Estonia
Estonian scholars
Constructed language creators
Interlingue
Interlingue speakers