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Zonal auxiliary languages, or zonal constructed languages, are
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 made to facilitate communication between speakers of a certain group of closely-related languages. They form a subgroup of the
international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
s but are intended to serve a limited linguistic or geographic area, rather than the whole world like
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
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 ...
. Although most zonal auxiliary languages are based on European language families, they should not be confused with "Euroclones", a somewhat derogatory term for languages intended for global use but based (almost) exclusively on European material. Since universal acceptance is not the goal for zonal auxiliary languages, the traditional claims of neutrality and universalism, typical for IALs, do not apply. Although they may share the same internationalist commitments of the latter, zonal auxiliary languages have also been proposed as a defense against the effects of the growing hegemony of English on other cultures or as a means to promote a sense of ethnicity or community in a manner similar to revitalized languages, such as
Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
and Cornish. Related concepts are
koiné language In linguistics, a koiné language, koiné dialect, or simply koiné (Ancient Greek κοινή, "common anguage) is a standard or common language or dialect that has arisen as a result of the contact, mixing, and often simplification of two o ...
, a dialect that naturally emerges as a means of communication among speakers of divergent dialects of a language, and
Dachsprache In sociolinguistics, an abstand language is a language variety or cluster of varieties with significant linguistic distance from all others, while an ausbau language is a standard variety, possibly with related dependent varieties. Heinz Kloss ...
, a dialect that serves as a standard language for other, sometimes mutually unintelligible, dialects. The difference is that a zonal language is typically a mixture of several natural languages and is aimed to serve as an auxiliary for the speakers of different but related languages of the same family. Most zonal constructed languages were developed 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, but some were created later. Most older zonal constructed languages are now known only to specialists. A modern example 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 ...
, which has become the most successful example of all zonal constructed languages.


Pan-Slavic languages

Most numerous among the zonal auxiliary languages are, by far,
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 ...
s. The oldest known example is Ruski jezik (1665) by the Croatian priest
Juraj Križanić Juraj Križanić (c. 1618 – 12 September 1683), also known as Jurij Križanič or Yuriy Krizhanich (russian: Юрий Крижанич), was a Croatian Catholic missionary who is often regarded as the earliest recorded pan-Slavist. His ideal, of ...
, who is often regarded as the first recorded
Pan-Slavist Pan-Slavism, a movement which crystallized in the mid-19th century, is the political ideology concerned with the advancement of integrity and unity for the Slavic people. Its main impact occurred in the Balkans, where non-Slavic empires had rul ...
. Other notable examples of early Pan-Slavic language projects are Universalis Lingua Slavica by Ján Herkeľ (1826), ''Uzajemni Pravopis Slavjanski'' by the Slovene
Matija Majar Matija Majar, also spelled Majer (7 February 1809 – 31 July 1892), pseudonym Ziljski, was a Carinthian Slovene Roman Catholic priest and political activist, best known as the creator of the idea of a United Slovenia. Biography Majar was born ...
(1865), ''Neuslawisch'' by the Czech Ignac Hošek (1907) and Slavina by the Czech Josef Konečný (1912). Until the beginning of the 20th century, all projects were characterized by a heavily naturalistic grammar, based directly or indirectly on
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
. Their authors were motivated by the belief that all Slavic languages were dialects of one single Slavic language rather than separate languages. They deplored the fact that these dialects had diverged beyond mutual comprehensibility, and the language they envisioned was intended to reverse this process. Their long-term objective was that it would replace the individual Slavic languages. Naturalistic projects have been created later as well. Notable examples are Mežduslavjanski jezik, an unpublished project from the years 1954–1958 by a team of Czech interlinguists; Slovianski, a collaborative project started in 2006; and Novosloviensky, based on Old Church Slavonic and published in 2010 by the Czech Vojtěch Merunka. In 2011, Slovianski and Novosloviensky merged into one common project under the name
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 ...
(''Medžuslovjansky''), also incorporating material from older naturalistic projects. Most naturalistic projects are so similar that they can easily be considered versions of the same language. During the 20th century, however, a few schematic projects have emerged as well, such as Slovanština (Edmund Kolkop, 1912), Neposlava (Vsevolod Cheshikhin, 1915), ''Slavski jezik'' (Bohumil Holý, 1920) and Slovio (Mark Hučko, 1999). These projects aim at radical simplification of the grammar, often combining Slavic vocabulary with
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 ...
grammar.


Pan-Germanic languages

Languages for Pan-Germanic use have been created as well. Examples include
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, ...
, a Pan-Germanic project by Elias Molee (1902), which was intended to be an auxiliary language at first but to eventually supplant all other
Germanic language 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, E ...
s; Euronord, an effort by A.J. Pilgrim (1965); and Folkspraak, a heterogeneous project consisting of various dialects, started in 1995.


Pan-Romance languages

Many international auxiliary languages intended for global use consist exclusively or predominantly of
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/or
Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...
material, like
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 ...
, Neolatino by
André Schild André Schild (1910 – 13 July 1981): born in Fontainemelon or Cernier in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel. He was a linguist and former administrator of the Universal Esperanto Association (''Universala Esperanto Asocio'') in Geneva, and the directo ...
(1947), Internacional by João Evangelista Campos Lima (1948),
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 ...
(IALA)
Latino Moderne
by David Th. Stark (1996) and Lingua Franca Nova, which makes it hard to distinguish them from Pan-Romance languages. Some languages, however, have been presented explicitly as languages for use among (or with) Romance speakers, for example
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 ...

Romanova
by David Crandall and Robert W. Hubert (2000)
Interlingua Romanica
by Richard Sorfleet and Josu Lavin (2001)
Romance Neolatino
by a group of linguists led by Jordi Cassany Bates (2012) an
Latino Interromanico
by Raymund Zacharias and Thiago Sanctus (2017).


Other zonal constructed languages

Apart from these Indo-European examples, there have also been attempts on other language families: * Efatese (19th century), an artificially mixed language based on the languages of
Efate Island Efate (french: Éfaté) is an island in the Pacific Ocean which is part of the Shefa Province in Vanuatu. It is also known as Île Vate. Geography It is the most populous (approx. 66,000) island in Vanuatu. Efate's land area of makes it Vanua ...
in
Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of ...
. *
Palawa kani Palawa kani is a constructed language created by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre as a composite Tasmanian languages, Tasmanian language, based on reconstructed vocabulary from the limited accounts of the various languages once spoken by the eas ...
(1992) by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. It is constructed from the vocabulary registered from the Tasmanian languages before their extinction. It is intended as an indigenous language for the descendants of the Aboriginal
Tasmanians ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
. * Budinos (2000s), a language designed to be for communication between Fenno-Ugric cultures Some linguists, such as Alan Reed Libert, also list languages for use by speakers of unrelated languages in a particular geographical area among the zonal languages. For example: *
Guosa Guosa is a constructed interlanguage originally created by Alex Igbineweka in 1965. It was designed to be a combination of the indigenous languages of Nigeria and to serve as a lingua franca to West Africa. Linguistic Properties Source Langu ...
(intended as a common language for Nigeria) *
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 ...
(intended as 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 ...
for Africa)


See also

*
Dialect leveling Dialect levelling or leveling (in American English) is the process of an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of features between two or more dialects. Typically, this comes about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain d ...
*
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 ...


References


Literature

* *


External links


A list of constructed Slavic languages
{{Constructed languages International auxiliary languages