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An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common
first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother to ...
. An auxiliary language is primarily a
foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at school ...
and often a
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. ...
. The concept is related to but separate from the idea of a ''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' (or dominant language) that people must use to communicate. The term "auxiliary" implies that it is intended to be an additional language for communication between the people of the world, rather than to replace their native languages. Often, the term is used specifically to refer to planned or constructed languages proposed to ease
international communication International communication (also referred to as the '' study of global communication'' or transnational communication) is the communication practice that occurs across international borders. The need for international communication was due to th ...
, such as
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
, Ido and
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 ...
. It usually takes words from widely spoken languages. However, it can also refer to the concept of such a language being determined by international consensus, including even a standardized natural language (e.g.,
International English International English is the concept of using the English language as a global means of communication similar to an international auxiliary language, and often refers to the movement towards an international standard for the language. Rela ...
), and has also been connected to the project of constructing a
universal language Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea of ...
. Languages of dominant societies over the centuries have served as
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
s that have sometimes approached the international level.
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
,
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
, Persian, Old Tamil and the Mediterranean Lingua Franca were used in the past. In recent times,
Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th ...
,
Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...
,
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
,
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish have been used as such in many parts of the world.Bodmer, Frederick. ''The loom of language'' and Pei, Mario. ''One language for the world.'' However, as lingua francas are traditionally associated with the very dominance—cultural, political, and economic—that made them popular, they are often also met with resistance. For this and other reasons, some have turned to the idea of promoting an artificial or constructed language as a possible solution, by way of an "auxiliary" language, one example of which being
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
.


History

The use of an intermediary auxiliary language (also called a "working language", "bridge language", "vehicular language" or "unifying language") to make communication possible between people not sharing a first language, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues, may be almost as old as language itself. Certainly they have existed since antiquity.
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
and
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
(or
Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
) were the intermediary language of all areas of the Mediterraneum;
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
, and then
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...
, remained the common languages of a large part of
Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes A ...
through several earlier empires. Such natural languages used for communication between people not sharing the same mother tongue are called ''lingua francas''.


''Lingua francas'' (natural international languages)

Lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
s have arisen around the globe throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages") but also for diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term originates with one such language, Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a
pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
language used as a trade language in the Mediterranean area from the 11th to the 19th century. Examples of lingua francas remain numerous, and exist on every continent. The most obvious example as of the early 21st century is
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
. Moreover, a special case of English is that of
Basic English Basic English (British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is an English-based controlled language created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teach ...
, a simplified version of English which shares the same grammar (though simplified) and a reduced vocabulary of only 1,000 words, with the intention that anyone with a basic knowledge of English should be able to understand even quite complex texts.


Constructed languages

Since all natural languages display a number of irregularities in grammar that make them more difficult to learn, and they are also associated with the national and cultural dominance of the nation that speaks it as its mother tongue, attention began to focus on the idea of creating an artificial or constructed language as a possible solution. The concept of simplifying an existing language to make it an auxiliary language was already in the ''
Encyclopédie ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...
'' of the 18th century, where
Joachim Faiguet de Villeneuve Joachim Faiguet de Villeneuve (16 October 1703, Moncontour – 10 November 1781, Néris-les-Bains, Allier) was an 18th-century French economist. Biography First a schoolmaster in Paris and then in the office of Châlons-en-Champagne, Faiguet w ...
, in the article on ''Langue'', wrote a short proposition of a "laconic" or regularized grammar of French. Some of the
philosophical language A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of revising n ...
s of the 17th–18th centuries could be regarded as proto-auxlangs, as they were intended by their creators to serve as bridges among people of different languages as well as to disambiguate and clarify thought. However, most or all of these languages were, as far as can be told from the surviving publications about them, too incomplete and unfinished to serve as auxlangs (or for any other practical purpose). The first fully developed constructed languages we know of, as well as the first constructed languages devised primarily as auxlangs, originated in the 19th century;
Solresol Solresol ( Solfège: Sol- Re-Sol), originally called Langue universelle and then Langue musicale universelle, is a constructed language devised by François Sudre, beginning in 1827. His major book on it, ''Langue Musicale Universelle'', was pub ...
by
François Sudre Jean-François Sudre, also written Sudré (15 August 1787 – 3 October 1862), was a violinist, composer and music teacher who invented a musical language called ''la Langue musicale universelle'' or Solrésol. Sudre was born in Albi in southe ...
, a language based on musical notes, was the first to gain widespread attention although not, apparently, fluent speakers.


Volapük

During the 19th century, a bewildering variety of such constructed international auxiliary languages (IALs) were proposed, so
Louis Couturat Louis Couturat (; 17 January 1868 – 3 August 1914) was a French logician, mathematician, philosopher, and linguist. Couturat was a pioneer of the constructed language Ido. Life and education Born in Ris-Orangis, Essonne, France. In 1887 he ...
and
Léopold Leau Léopold Leau (1868-1943) was a French mathematician, primarily known for his ties to international auxiliary languages. The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language was founded on 7 January 1901 on Leau's initiative. ...
in ''Histoire de la langue universelle'' (1903) reviewed 38 projects.
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 ...
, first described in an article in 1879 by
Johann Martin Schleyer Johann Martin Schleyer (; 18 July 1831 – 16 August 1912) was a German Catholic priest who invented the constructed language Volapük. His official name was "Martin Schleyer"; he added the name "Johann" (in honor of his godfather) unoffic ...
and in book form the following year, was the first to garner a widespread international speaker community. Three major Volapük conventions were held, in 1884, 1887, and 1889; the last of them used Volapük as its working language. André Cherpillod writes of the third Volapük convention, However, not long after, the Volapük speaker community broke up due to various factors including controversies between Schleyer and other prominent Volapük speakers, and the appearance of newer, easier-to-learn
constructed 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. ...
s, primarily
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
.


Idiom Neutral and Latino sine flexione

Answering the needs of the first successful artificial language community, the Volapükists established the regulatory body of their language, under the name
International Volapük Academy The International Academy of Volapük ( vo, Kadem bevünetik volapüka) was a ruling body established at the second Volapük congress in Munich in August 1887 with the goal of preserving and improving Volapük. Its aim was to help the creator of V ...
(''Kadem bevünetik volapüka'') at the second Volapük congress in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
in August 1887. The Academy was set up to conserve and perfect the auxiliary language
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 ...
, but soon conflicts arose between conservative Volapükists and those who wanted to reform Volapük to make it a more naturalistic language based on the grammar and vocabulary of major
world language In sociolinguistics, a world language (sometimes global language, rarely international language) is a language that is geographically widespread and makes it possible for members of different language communities to communicate. The term may also b ...
s. In 1890 Schleyer himself left the original Academy and created a new Volapük Academy with the same name, from people completely loyal to him, which continues to this day. Under Waldemar Rosenberger, who became the director in 1892, the original Academy began to make considerable changes in the grammar and vocabulary of Volapük. The vocabulary and the grammatical forms unfamiliar to Western Europeans were completely discarded, so that the changes effectively resulted in the creation of a new language, which was named "
Idiom Neutral Idiom Neutral is an international auxiliary language, published in 1902 by the International Academy of the Universal Language () under the leadership of Waldemar Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg engineer. History The Academy had its origin a ...
". The name of the Academy was changed to ''Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal'' in 1898 and the circulars of the Academy were written in the new language from that year. In 1903, the mathematician Giuseppe Peano published his completely new approach to language construction. Inspired by the idea of philosopher
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ...
, instead of inventing schematic structures and an ''a priori'' language, he chose to simplify an existing and once widely used international language,
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
. This simplified Latin, devoid of inflections and declensions, was named ''Interlingua'' by Peano but is usually referred to as "
Latino sine flexione Latino sine flexione ("Latin without inflections"), Interlingua de Academia pro Interlingua (IL de ApI) or Peano's Interlingua (abbreviated as IL), is an international auxiliary language compiled by the Academia pro Interlingua under chairmanshi ...
". Impressed by Peano's Interlingua, the ''Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal'' effectively chose to abandon Idiom Neutral in favor of Peano's Interlingua in 1908, and it elected Peano as its director. The name of the group was subsequently changed to '' Academia pro Interlingua'' (where ''Interlingua'' stands for Peano's language). The ''Academia pro Interlingua'' survived until about 1939. It was Peano's Interlingua that partly inspired the better-known
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 ...
presented in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA).


Esperanto

After the emergence of Volapük, a wide variety of other auxiliary languages were devised and proposed in the 1880s–1900s, but none except
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
gathered a significant speaker community. Esperanto was developed from about 1873–1887 (a first version was ready in 1878), and finally published in 1887, by L. L. Zamenhof, as a primarily schematic language; the word-stems are borrowed from Romance, West Germanic and Slavic languages. The key to the relative success of Esperanto was probably the highly productive and elastic system of derivational word formation which allowed speakers to derive hundreds of other words by learning one word root. Moreover, Esperanto is quicker to learn than other languages, usually in a third up to a fifth of the time. From early on, Esperantists created their own culture which helped to form the Esperanto language community. Within a few years this language had thousands of fluent speakers, primarily in eastern Europe. In 1905 its first world convention was held in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Since then world congresses have been held in different countries every year, except during the two World Wars. Esperanto has become "the most outlandishly successful invented language ever" and the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Esperanto is probably among the fifty languages which are most used internationally. In 1922 a proposal by Iran and several other countries in the League of Nations to have Esperanto taught in member nations' schools failed.''Le Défi des Langues'' by Claude Piron, L'Harmattan 1994.''The Esperanto Book''
Chapter 7: History in Fine
by Don Harlow. 1995.
Esperanto speakers were subject to persecution under Stalin's regime. In Germany under Hitler, in Spain under Franco for about a decade, in Portugal under Salazar, in Romania under Ceaușescu, and in half a dozen Eastern European countries during the late forties and part of the fifties, Esperanto activities and the formation of Esperanto associations were forbidden.Lins, Ulrich. La Danĝera Lingvo. Gerlingen, Germany: Bleicher Eldonejo, 1988. In spite of these factors more people continued to learn Esperanto, and significant literary work (both poetry and novels) appeared in Esperanto in the period between the World Wars and after them.''The Esperanto Book''

by Don Harlow. 1995.
Esperanto is spoken today in a growing number of countries and it has multiple generations of native speakers, although it is primarily used as a second language. Of the various constructed language projects, it is Esperanto that has so far come closest to becoming an officially recognized international auxiliary language; China publishes daily news in Esperanto.


Ido and the Esperantidos

The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language was founded in 1900 by
Louis Couturat Louis Couturat (; 17 January 1868 – 3 August 1914) was a French logician, mathematician, philosopher, and linguist. Couturat was a pioneer of the constructed language Ido. Life and education Born in Ris-Orangis, Essonne, France. In 1887 he ...
and others; it tried to get the
International Association of Academies The International Association of Academies (1899–1913) was an academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or h ...
to take up the question of an international auxiliary language, study the existing ones and pick one or design a new one. However, when the meta-academy declined to do so, the Delegation decided to do the job itself.Otto Jesperson, ''An International Language''
"The Delegation. Ido."
1928.
Among Esperanto speakers there was a general impression that the Delegation would of course choose Esperanto, as it was the only auxlang with a sizable speaker community at the time; it was felt as a betrayal by many Esperanto speakers when in 1907 the Delegation came up with its own reformed version of Esperanto, Ido.Harlow, Don. ''The Esperanto Book'', chapter 3
"How to Build a Language"
.
Ido drew a significant number of speakers away from Esperanto in the short term, but in the longer term most of these either returned to Esperanto or moved on to other new auxlangs. Besides Ido, a great number of simplified Esperantos, called Esperantidos, emerged as concurrent language projects; still, Ido remains today one of the three most widely spoken auxlangs.


Interlingue (Occidental)

Edgar de Wahl Edgar Alexei Robert von Wahl or de Wahl (23 August 1867 – 9 March 1948) was a Baltic German teacher, mathematician and linguist. He is most famous for being the creator of Interlingue (known as Occidental throughout his life), a naturalist ...
's Occidental of 1922 was in reaction against the perceived artificiality of some earlier auxlangs, particularly Esperanto. Inspired by
Idiom Neutral Idiom Neutral is an international auxiliary language, published in 1902 by the International Academy of the Universal Language () under the leadership of Waldemar Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg engineer. History The Academy had its origin a ...
and
Latino sine flexione Latino sine flexione ("Latin without inflections"), Interlingua de Academia pro Interlingua (IL de ApI) or Peano's Interlingua (abbreviated as IL), is an international auxiliary language compiled by the Academia pro Interlingua under chairmanshi ...
, de Wahl created a language whose words, including compound words, would have a high degree of recognizability for those who already know a Romance language. However, this design criterion was in conflict with the ease of coining new compound or derived words on the fly while speaking. Occidental was most active from the 1920s to the 1950s, and supported some 80 publications by the 1930s, but had almost entirely died out by the 1980s. Its name was officially changed to Interlingue in 1949. More recently Interlingue has been revived on the Internet.


Novial

In 1928 Ido's major intellectual supporter, the Danish linguist
Otto Jespersen Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language. Steven Mithen described him as "one of the greatest language scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth ce ...
, abandoned Ido, and published his own planned language,
Novial Novial is a constructed international auxiliary language (IAL) for universal human communication between speakers of different native languages. It was devised by Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist who had been involved in the Ido movement tha ...
. It was mostly inspired by Idiom Neutral and Occidental, yet it attempted a derivational formalism and schematism sought by Esperanto and Ido. The notability of its creator helped the growth of this auxiliary language, but a reform of the language was proposed by Jespersen in 1934 and not long after this Europe entered World War II, and its creator died in 1943 before Europe was at peace again.


Interlingua

The International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA) was founded in 1924 by Alice Vanderbilt Morris; like the earlier ''Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language'', its mission was to study language problems and the existing auxlangs and proposals for auxlangs, and to negotiate some consensus between the supporters of various auxlangs. However, like the Delegation, it finally decided to create its own auxlang.
Interlingua 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 ...
, published in 1951, was primarily the work of Alexander Gode, though he built on preliminary work by earlier IALA linguists including
André Martinet André Martinet (; Saint-Alban-des-Villards, 12 April 1908 – Châtenay-Malabry, 16 July 1999) was a French linguist, influential due to his work on structural linguistics. Life and work Martinet passed his ''agrégation'' in English and rece ...
, and relied on elements from previous naturalistic auxlang projects, like Peano's Interlingua (Latino sine flexione), Jespersen's Novial, de Wahl's Interlingue, and the Academy's Idiom Neutral. Like Interlingue, Interlingua was designed to have words recognizable at sight by those who already know a Romance language or a language like English with much vocabulary borrowed from Romance languages; to attain this end the IALA accepted a degree of grammatical and orthographic complexity considerably greater than in Esperanto or Interlingue, though still less than in any natural language. The theory underlying Interlingua posits an ''international vocabulary'', a large number of words and affixes that are present in a wide range of languages. This already existing international vocabulary was shaped by social forces, science and technology, to "all corners of the world". The goal of the International Auxiliary Language Association was to accept into Interlingua every widely international word in whatever languages it occurred. They conducted studies to identify "the most generally international vocabulary possible", while still maintaining the unity of the language. This scientific approach of generating a language from selected source languages (called ''control languages'') resulted in a vocabulary and grammar that can be called the highest common factor of each major European language. Interlingua gained a significant speaker community, perhaps roughly the same size as that of Ido (considerably less than the size of Esperanto). Interlingua's success can be explained by the fact that it is the most widely ''understood'' international auxiliary language by virtue of its naturalistic (as opposed to schematic) grammar and vocabulary, allowing those familiar with a Romance language, and educated speakers of English, to read and understand it without prior study.Blandino, Giovanni, "Le problema del linguas international auxiliari", ''Philosophia del Cognoscentia e del Scientia'', Rome, Italy: Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis, Pontificia Universitas Urbaniana, 1989. Interlingua has some active speakers currently on all continents, and the language is propagated by the
Union Mundial pro Interlingua The Union Mundial pro Interlingua (UMI; World Interlingua Union) is a global organization that promotes Interlingua, an international auxiliary language (IAL) published in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). UMI was fo ...
(UMI), and Interlingua is presented on CDs, radio, and television. After the creation of Interlingua, the enthusiasm for constructed languages gradually decreased in the years between 1960 and 1990.


Internet age

All of the auxlangs with a surviving speaker community seem to have benefited from the advent of the Internet, Esperanto more than most. Th
CONLANG mailing list
was founded in 1991; in its early years discussion focused on international auxiliary languages. As people interested in artistic languages and
engineered language Engineered languages (often abbreviated to engelangs, or, less commonly, engilangs) are constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work. There are at least three subcategories, philosophical ...
s grew to be the majority of the list members, and flame-wars between proponents of particular auxlangs irritated these members, a separat
AUXLANG mailing list
was created in 1997, which has been the primary venue for discussion of auxlangs since then. Besides giving the existing auxlangs with speaker communities a chance to interact rapidly online as well as slowly through postal mail or more rarely in personal meetings, the Internet has also made it easier to publicize new auxlang projects, and a handful of these have gained a small speaker community, including
Kotava Kotava is a proposed international auxiliary language (IAL) that focuses especially on the principle of cultural neutrality. The name means "the language of one and all", and the Kotava community has adopted the slogan "a project humanistic an ...
(published in 1978), Lingua Franca Nova (1998),
Interslavic Interslavic (''Medžuslovjansky'' / ''Меджусловјанскы'') is a pan-Slavic auxiliary language. Its purpose is to facilitate communication between speakers of various Slavic languages, as well as to allow people who do not speak a S ...
(2006), Pandunia (2007), Sambahsa (2007), Lingwa de Planeta (2010), and Globasa (2019).


Zonal auxiliary languages

Not every international auxiliary language is necessarily intended to be used on a global scale. A special subgroup are languages created to facilitate communication between speakers of related languages. The oldest known example is a
Pan-Slavic language A pan-Slavic language is a zonal auxiliary language for communication among the Slavic peoples. There are approximately 400 million speakers of the Slavic languages. In order to communicate with each other, speakers of different Slavic languages ...
written in 1665 by the Croatian priest Juraj Križanić. He named this language Ruski jezik ("Russian language"), although in reality it was a mixture of the Russian edition of
Church Slavonic Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Her ...
, his own Southern Chakavian dialect of
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
, and, to a lesser degree, Polish. Most zonal auxiliary languages were created during the period of
romantic nationalism Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...
at the end of the 19th century; some were created later. Particularly numerous are the Pan-Slavic language projects. However, similar efforts at creating umbrella languages have been made for other language families as well:
Tutonish Tutonish (also called Teutonish, Teutonik, Allteutonish, Altutonish, Alteutonik, Nu Teutonish, Niu Teutonish, or Neuteutonish) is a constructed language created by Elias Molee. He worked on it for several years, and he reformed it multiple times, ...
(1902), Folkspraak (1995) and other
pan-Germanic language A pan-Germanic language is a zonal auxiliary language designed for communication amongst speakers of Germanic languages. Many of them are very similar and overlap in their approach but they are mutually inconsistent in their orthography, phonology, ...
s for the
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
;
Romanid Romanid is a zonal auxiliary language for speakers of Romance languages, intended to be understandable to them without prior study. It was created by the Hungarian language teacher Zoltán Magyar, who published a first version in May 1956 and a s ...
(1956) and several other
pan-Romance language A pan-Romance language or Romance interlanguage is a codified linguistic variety which synthesizes the variation of the Romance languages and is representative of these as a whole. It can be seen as a standard language proposal for the whole l ...
s for the
Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
; and
Afrihili Afrihili (''Ni Afrihili Oluga'' 'the Afrihili language') is a constructed language designed in 1970 by Ghanaian historian K. A. Kumi Attobrah (Kumi Atɔbra) to be used as a lingua franca in all of Africa. The name of the language is a combination ...
(1973) for the
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n continent. Notable among modern examples is
Interslavic Interslavic (''Medžuslovjansky'' / ''Меджусловјанскы'') is a pan-Slavic auxiliary language. Its purpose is to facilitate communication between speakers of various Slavic languages, as well as to allow people who do not speak a S ...
, a project first published in 2006 as Slovianski and then established in its current form in 2011 after the merger of several other projects. In 2012 it was reported to have several hundred users.


Scholarly study

In the early 1900s auxlangs were already becoming a subject of academic study. Louis Couturat et al. described the controversy in the preface to their book ''International Language and Science'': :The question of a so-called world-language, or better expressed, an international auxiliary language, was during the now past
Volapük 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 ...
period, and is still in the present
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
movement, so much in the hands of Utopians, fanatics and enthusiasts, that it is difficult to form an unbiased opinion concerning it, although a good idea lies at its basis. (1910, p. v). Leopold Pfaundler wrote that an IAL was needed for more effective communication among scientists: :All who are occupied with the reading or writing of scientific literature have assuredly very often felt the want of a common scientific language, and regretted the great loss of time and trouble caused by the multiplicity of languages employed in scientific literature. For Couturat et al., Volapükists and Esperantists confounded the linguistic aspect of the question with many side issues, and they considered this a main reason why discussion about the idea of an international auxiliary language has appeared unpractical. Some contemporaries of Couturat, notably
Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sap ...
saw the challenge of an auxiliary language not as much as that of identifying a descriptive linguistic answer (of grammar and vocabulary) to global communicative concerns, but rather as one of promoting the notion of a linguistic platform for lasting international understanding. Though interest among scholars, and linguists in particular, waned greatly throughout the 20th century, such differences of approach persist today. Some scholars and interested laymen make concrete language proposals. By contrast, Mario Pei and others place the broader societal issue first. Yet others argue in favor of a particular language while seeking to establish its social integration.


Writing systems

Whilst most IALs use the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
, some of them, such as LFN, also offer an alternative in the
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking c ...
.


Latin script

The vast majority of IALs use the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
. Several sounds, e.g. /n/, /m/, /t/, /f/ are written with the same letter as in IPA. Some consonant sounds found in several Latin-script IAL alphabets are not represented by an
ISO 646 ISO/IEC 646 is a set of ISO/IEC standards, described as ''Information technology — ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange'' and developed in cooperation with ASCII at least since 1964. Since its first edition in ...
letter in IPA. Three have a single letter in IPA, one has a widespread alternative taken from ISO 646: * /ʃ/ (U+0283, IPA 134) * /ʒ/ (U+0292, IPA 135) * /ɡ/ (U+0261, IPA 110, single storey g) = g (U+0067, double storey g) Four are affricates, each represented in IPA by two letters and a combining marker. They are often written decomposed: * /t͡s/ = /ts/ * /t͡ʃ/ = /tʃ/; Note: Polish distinguishes between them * /d͡z/ = /dz/ * /d͡ʒ/ = /dʒ/ That means that two sounds that are one character in IPA and are not ISO 646, also have no common alternative in ISO 646: ʃ, ʒ.


Classification

The following classification of auxiliary languages was developed by Pierre Janton in 1993: * ''A priori'' languages are characterized by largely artificial
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s (not borrowed from natural languages), schematic
derivation Derivation may refer to: Language * Morphological derivation, a word-formation process * Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars Law * Derivative work, in copyright law * Derivation proceeding, a proc ...
, simple
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
,
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 doma ...
and morphology. Some ''a priori'' languages are called
philosophical language A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of revising n ...
s, referring to their basis in philosophical ideas about thought and language. These include some of the earliest efforts at auxiliary language in the 17th century. Some more specific subcategories: ** Taxonomic languages form their words using a taxonomic hierarchy, with each phoneme of a word helping specify its position in a semantic hierarchy of some kind; for example,
Solresol Solresol ( Solfège: Sol- Re-Sol), originally called Langue universelle and then Langue musicale universelle, is a constructed language devised by François Sudre, beginning in 1827. His major book on it, ''Langue Musicale Universelle'', was pub ...
. ** Pasigraphies are purely written languages without a spoken form, or with a spoken form left at the discretion of the reader; many of the 17th–18th century philosophical languages and auxlangs were pasigraphies. This set historically tends to overlap with taxonomic languages, though there is no inherent reason a pasigraphy needs to be taxonomic. * ''A posteriori'' languages are based on existing natural languages. Nearly all the auxiliary languages with fluent speakers are in this category. Most of the ''a posteriori'' auxiliary languages borrow their vocabulary primarily or solely from European languages, and base their grammar more or less on European models. (Sometimes these European-based languages are referred to as "euroclones", although this term has negative connotations and is not used in the academic literature.)
Interlingua 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 drawn originally from
international scientific vocabulary International scientific vocabulary (ISV) comprises scientific and specialized words whose language of origin may or may not be certain, but which are in current use in several modern languages (that is, translingually, whether in naturalized, lo ...
, in turn based primarily on Greek and Latin roots.
Glosa Glosa is a constructed international auxiliary language based on Interglossa (a previous ''draft of an auxiliary'' published in 1943). The first Glosa dictionary was published 1978. The name of the language comes from the Greek root ''glossa'' m ...
did likewise, with a stronger dependence of Greek roots. Although ''a posteriori'' languages have been based on most of the families of European languages, the most successful of these (notably
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
, Ido and
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 ...
) have been based largely on Romance elements. ** Schematic (or "mixed") languages have some ''a priori'' qualities. Some have ethnic
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s but alter them significantly to fit a simplified phonotactic pattern (e.g.,
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 ...
) or both artificial and natural
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s (e.g., Perio). Partly schematic languages have partly schematic and partly naturalistic derivation (e.g.
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
and Ido). Natural
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s of languages in this group are rarely altered greatly from their source-language form, but compound and derived words are generally not recognizable at sight by people familiar with the source languages. ** Naturalistic languages resemble existing natural languages. For example,
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. ...
,
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 ...
, and Lingua Franca Nova were developed so that not only the root words but their compounds and derivations will often be immediately recognized by large numbers of people. Some naturalistic languages do have a limited number of artificial morphemes or invented grammatical devices (e.g.
Novial Novial is a constructed international auxiliary language (IAL) for universal human communication between speakers of different native languages. It was devised by Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist who had been involved in the Ido movement tha ...
). ** Simplified, or controlled versions of natural languages reduce the full extent of the vocabulary and partially regularize the grammar of a natural language (e.g.
Basic English Basic English (British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is an English-based controlled language created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teach ...
and Special English).


Comparison of sample texts

Some examples of the best known international auxiliary languages are shown below for comparative purposes, using the
Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
(a core Christian prayer, the translated text of which is regularly used for linguistic comparisons). As a reference for comparison, one can find the Latin, English, French, and Spanish versions here:


Natural languages


Schematic languages


Naturalistic languages


Other examples


Methods of propagation

As has been pointed out, the issue of an international language is not so much which, but how. Several approaches exist toward the eventual full expansion and consolidation of an international auxiliary language. # Laissez-faire. This approach is taken in the belief that one language will eventually and inevitably "win out" as a world auxiliary language (e.g. International English) without any need for specific action. # Institutional sponsorship and grass-roots promotion of language programs. This approach has taken various forms, depending on the language and language type, ranging from government promotion of a particular language to one-on-one encouragement to learn the language to instructional or marketing programs. # National legislation. This approach seeks to have individual countries (or even localities) progressively endorse a given language as an official language (or to promote the concept of international legislation). # International legislation. This approach involves promotion of the future holding of a binding international convention (perhaps to be under the auspices of such international organizations as the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
or
Inter-Parliamentary Union The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU; french: Union Interparlementaire, UIP) is an international organization of national parliaments. Its primary purpose is to promote democratic governance, accountability, and cooperation among its members; other ...
) to formally agree upon an official international auxiliary language which would then be taught in all schools around the world, beginning at the primary level. This approach, an official principle of the
Baháʼí Faith The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...
, seeks to put a combination of international opinion, linguistic expertise, and law behind a to-be-selected language and thus expand or consolidate it as a full official
world language In sociolinguistics, a world language (sometimes global language, rarely international language) is a language that is geographically widespread and makes it possible for members of different language communities to communicate. The term may also b ...
, to be used in addition to local languages. This approach could either give more credibility to a natural language already serving this purpose to a certain degree (e.g. if English were chosen) or to give a greatly enhanced chance for a constructed language to take root. For constructed languages particularly, this approach has been seen by various individuals in the IAL movement as holding the most promise of ensuring that promotion of studies in the language would not be met with skepticism at its practicality by its would-be learners.


Pictorial languages

There have been a number of proposals for using pictures,
ideograms An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiari ...
, diagrams, and other pictorial representations for international communications. Examples range from the original
Characteristica Universalis The Latin term ''characteristica universalis'', commonly interpreted as ''universal characteristic'', or ''universal character'' in English, is a universal and formal language imagined by Gottfried Leibniz able to express mathematical, scienti ...
proposed by the philosopher
Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...
in the 17th century, to suggestions for the adoption of
Chinese writing Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly Logogram, logosyllabic; that is, a character gen ...
, to recent inventions such as Blissymbol, first published in 1949. Within the scientific community, there is already considerable agreement in the form of the
schematics A schematic, or schematic diagram, is a designed representation of the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the key information the ...
used to represent
electronic circuits An electronic circuit is composed of individual electronic components, such as resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes, connected by conductive wires or traces through which electric current can flow. It is a type of electrical ...
, chemical symbols, mathematical symbols, and the
Energy Systems Language The Energy Systems Language, also referred to as Energese, Energy Circuit Language, or Generic Systems Symbols, is a modelling language used for composing energy flow diagrams in the field of systems ecology. It was developed by Howard T. Odum ...
of
systems ecology Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, a subset of Earth system science, that takes a holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general syst ...
. We can also see the international efforts at regularizing symbols used to regulate traffic, to indicate resources for tourists, and in
maps A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
. Some symbols have become nearly universal through their consistent use in computers and on the Internet.


Sign languages

An international auxiliary sign language has been developed by
deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...
people who meet regularly at international forums such as sporting events or in political organisations. Previously referred to as Gestuno but now more commonly known simply as ' international sign', the language has continued to develop since the first signs were standardised in 1973, and it is now in widespread use. International sign is distinct in many ways from spoken IALs; many signs are iconic, and signers tend to insert these signs into the grammar of their own sign language, with an emphasis on visually intuitive gestures and mime. A simple sign language called
Plains Indian Sign Language Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Hand Talk, Plains Sign Talk, and First Nation Sign Language, is a trade language, formerly trade pidgin, that was once the lingua franca across what is now central Canada, the central and weste ...
was used by
indigenous peoples of the Americas The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
. Gestuno is not to be confused with the separate and unrelated sign language Signuno, which is essentially a Signed Exact Esperanto. Signuno is not in any significant use, and is based on the Esperanto community rather than based on the international Deaf community.


Criticism

There has been considerable criticism of international auxiliary languages, both in terms of individual proposals, types of proposals, and in more general terms. Much criticism has been focused either on the artificiality of international auxiliary languages, or on the argumentativeness of proponents and their failure to agree on one language, or even on objective criteria by which to judge them."Farewell to auxiliary languages"
, by Richard K. Harrison. 1997.
However, probably the most common criticism is that a constructed auxlang is unnecessary because natural languages such as English are already in wide use as auxlangs and work well enough for that purpose. One criticism already prevalent in the late 19th century, and still sometimes heard today, is that an international language might hasten the
extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the Endling, last individual of the species, although the Functional ext ...
of
minority language A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) ...
s. One response has been that, even if this happens, the benefits would outweigh the costs."Esenco kaj Estonteco de la Ideo de Lingvo Internacia", L. L. Zamenhof, 1900. Reprinted in ''Fundamenta Krestomatio'', 1992
903 __NOTOC__ Year 903 ( CMIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * King Berengar I of Italy proceeds to issue concessions and privileges to the Lo ...
"Ĉu Zamenhof Pravis?", Vinko Ošlak, ''Fonto'', februaro 2005. Although referred to as ''international'' languages, most of these languages have historically been constructed on the basis of Western European languages. Esperanto and other languages such as Interlingua and Ido have been criticized for being too European and not global enough."Types of neutrality, and central concerns for an IAL"
AUXLANG mailing list post by Risto Kupsala, 2 December 2005.
The term "Euroclone" was coined to refer to such languages in contrast to "worldlangs" with global vocabulary sources.


See also

See for a list of designed international auxiliary languages. *
Interlinguistics Interlinguistics, as the science of planned languages, has existed for more than a century as a specific branch of linguistics for the study of various aspects of linguistic communication. Interlinguistics is a discipline formalized by Otto Jesper ...
* '' International Language Review'' *
Language education Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language educatio ...
*
Language planning In sociolinguistics, language planning (also known as language engineering) is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure or acquisition of languages or language varieties within a speech community.Kaplan B., Robert, and Richa ...
*
Lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
* Living Latin *
Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
* Baháʼí Faith and auxiliary language *
Zonal constructed languages Zonal auxiliary languages, or zonal constructed languages, are constructed languages made to facilitate communication between speakers of a certain group of closely-related languages. They form a subgroup of the international auxiliary languages b ...
* Global language system *
Universal language Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea of ...


Notes


References


Footnotes


Bibliography

* Bliss, Charles Keisel. ''Semantography (Blissymbolics).'' Semantography Press: Sydney, 1965. * Bodmer, Frederick, and Lancelot Hogben. ''The Loom of Language.'' N.Y.: Norton, 1944. * Couturat, L., Jespersen, O., Lorenz, R., Ostwalkd, W., and Pfaundler, L. ''International Language and Science: Considerations on the Introduction of an International Language into Science.'' Constable and Company Limited, London, 1910. * De Wahl, Edgar. ''Radicarium directiv del lingue international (Occidental) in 8 lingues.'' A.-S. "Ühisell" Trükk. Pikk Uul. 42, Tallinn, 1925. * Drezen, Ernst: ''Historio de la Mondlingvo'' ("History of the World Language"). Oosaka: Pirato, 1969 (3d ed.). * Eco, Umberto, ra. James Fentress ''The Search for the Perfect Language.'' Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. * Gär, Joseph. ''Deutsch-Occidental Wörterbuch nach dem Kürschners "Sechs-Sprachen-Lexicon", mit kurzer Occidental-Grammatik''. Kosmoglott, Reval, Estland, 1925/1928. * Gode, Alexander, et al. ''Interlingua-English: a dictionary of the international language.'' Storm Publishers, New York, 1951. * Jesperson, Otto.
''An International Language''
(1928) * Mainzer, Ludwig, Karlsruhe. ''Linguo international di la Delegitaro (Sistemo Ido), Vollständiges Lehrbuch der Internationalen Sprache (Reform-Esperanto).'' Otto Nemmich Verlag, Leipzig (Germany), 1909. * * * Nerrière, Jean-Paul, and Hon, David ''Globish The World Over''. Paris, IGI, 2009 * Pei, Mario. ''One Language for the World.'' N.Y.: Devin-Adair, 1958. * Pham Xuan Thai. ''Frater (Lingua sistemfrater). The simplest International Language Ever Constructed.'' TU-HAI Publishing-House, Saigon (Republic of Vietnam), 1957. * Pigal, E. and the Hauptstelle der Occidental-Union in Mauern bei Wien. ''Occidental, Die Weltsprache, Einführung samt Lehrkursus, Lesestücken, Häufigkeitswörterverzeichnis u. a.,'' Franckh. Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart, 1930. * Pirro, Jean. ''Versuch einer Universalischen Sprache.'' Guerin und Cie., Bar-Le-Duc (France), 1868. * Rubino, F., Hayhurst, A., and Guejlman, J. ''Gestuno: International sign language of the deaf.'' Carlisle: British Deaf Association, 1975. * Sudre, François. ''Langue musicale universelle inventée par François Sudre également inventeur de la téléphonie.'' G. Flaxland, Editeur, 4, place de la Madeleine, Paris (France), 1866.


External links



— An article written by Richard K. Harrison.

— An article written by linguist
Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sap ...
discussing the need for prospects of an international language.
Farewell to auxiliary languages
a criticism of the auxiliary language movement by Richard K. Harrison.

an essay by Paul O. Bartlett
OneTongue.com
— A project for promoting a world auxiliary language. {{DEFAULTSORT:International Auxiliary Language Constructed languages Interlinguistics Human communication Communalism Multilingualism Utopian movements