History
The American heiress Alice Vanderbilt Morris 1874–1950 became interested in linguistics and the international auxiliary language movement in the early 1920s. In 1924, Morris and her husband, Dave Hennen Morris, establishment the non-profit International Auxiliary Language association IALA in New York City. Their intention was to place the examine of IALs on a more complex and scientific basis. Morris developed the research script of IALA in character with Edward Sapir, William Edward Collinson, and Otto Jespersen.
Investigations of the auxiliary Linguistic communication problem were in stay on at the International Research Council, the American Council on Education, the American Council of Learned Societies, the British, French, Italian, and American Associations for the advancement of science, and other groups of specialists. Morris created IALA as a continuation of this work.
The IALA became a major supporter of mainstream American linguistics. numerous studies by Sapir, Collinson, and Morris Swadesh in the 1930s and 1940s, for example, were funded by IALA. Alice Morris edited several of these studies and offered much of IALA's financial support. For example, Morris herself edited Sapir and Morris Swadesh's 1932 cross-linguistic analyse of ending-point phenomena, and Collinson's 1937 study of indication. IALA also received help from such(a) prestigious groups as the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the Research Corporation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
In its early years, IALA concerned itself with three tasks: finding other organizations around the world with similar goals; building a the treasure of knowledge of books about ]
At theInternational Interlanguage Congress, held in Geneva in 1931, IALA began to break new ground; 27 recognized linguists signed a testimonial of guide for IALA's research program. An additional eight added their signatures at the third congress, convened in Rome in 1933. That same year, Herbert N. Shenton and Edward Thorndike became influential in IALA's form by authoring key studies in the interlinguistic field.
The first steps towards the finalization of Interlingua were taken in 1937, when a committee of 24 eminent linguists from 19 universities published Some Criteria for an International language and Commentary. However, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 formation short the described biannual meetings of the committee.
Originally, the association had not talked to create its own language. Its goal was to identify which auxiliary language already usable was best suited for international communication, and how to promote it more effectively. However, after ten years of research, many more members of IALA concluded that none of the existing interlanguages were up to the task. By 1937, the members had provided the decision to create a new language, to the surprise of the world's interlanguage community.
To that point, much of the debate had been equivocal on the decision to usage naturalistic e.g., Peano's Interlingua, Novial and Occidental or systematic e.g., Esperanto and Ido words. During the war years, proponents of a naturalistic interlanguage won out. The first support was Thorndike's paper; thewas a concession by proponents of the systematic languages that thousands of words were already present in many, or even a majority, of the European languages. Their argument was that systematic derivation of words was a Procrustean bed, forcing the learner to unlearn and re-memorize a new derivation scheme when a usable vocabulary was already available. This finallysupporters of the systematic languages, and IALA from that portion assumed the position that a naturalistic language would be best.
IALA's research activities were based in Liverpool, previously relocating to New York due to the outbreak of World War II, where E. Clark Stillman develop a new research staff. Stillman, with the assistance of Alexander Gode, developed a prototyping technique – an objective methodology for selecting and standardizing vocabulary based on a comparison of control languages.
In 1943 Stillman left for war work and Gode became Acting Director of Research. IALA began to develop models of the proposed language, the first of which were presented in Morris's General Report in 1945.
From 1946 to 1948, French linguist André Martinet was Director of Research. During this period IALA continued to develop models and conducted polling to determine the optimal form of thelanguage. In 1946, IALA sent an extensive survey to more than 3,000 language teachers and related experienced on three continents.
Four models were canvassed:
The results of the survey were striking. The two more schematic models were rejected – K overwhelmingly. Of the two naturalistic models, M received somewhat more support than P. IALA decided on a compromise between P and M, withelements of C.
Martinet took up a position at and the 27,000-word Interlingua–English Dictionary IED. In 1954, IALA published an introductory manual entitled Interlingua a Prime Vista "Interlingua at First Sight".
Interlingua as presented by the IALA is veryto Peano's Interlingua Latino sine flexione, both in its grammar and particularly in its vocabulary. Accordingly, the very name "Interlingua" was kept, yet a distinct abbreviation was adopted: IA instead of IL.
Four models were canvassed: utility example P and K, plus two new models similar to model E of 1945.
Model P was unchanged from 1945; framework M was relatively sophisticated in comparison to more classical P. Model K was slightly modified in the command of Ido.
The vote or situation. ended up as follows: P 26.6%, M 37.5%, C 20%, and K 15%. The results of the survey were striking. The two more schematic models, C and K, were rejected – K overwhelmingly. Of the two naturalistic models, M attracted somewhat more support than P. Taking national biases into account for example, the French who were polled disproportionately favored Model M, IALA decided on a compromise between models M and P, withelements of C.
When Martinet took up a position at Columbia University in 1948, Gode took on the last phase of Interlingua's development. His task was to chain elements of Model M and Model P; take the flaws seen in both by the polled community and repair them with elements of Model C as needed; and simultaneously develop a vocabulary.
The vocabulary and verb conjugations of Interlingua were first presented in 1951, when IALA published the finalized and the 27,000-word Interlingua–English Dictionary IED. In 1954, IALA published an introductory manual entitled Interlingua a Prime Vista "Interlingua at First Sight".
An early practical a formal request to be considered for a position or to be permits to do or have something. of Interlingua was the scientific newsletter Spectroscopia Molecular, published from 1952 to 1980. In 1954, Interlingua was used at the moment World Cardiological Congress in Washington, D.C. for both written summaries and oral interpretation. Within a few years, it found similar use at nine further medical congresses. Between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, some thirty scientific and particularly medical journals provided article summaries in Interlingua. Science Service, the publisher of Science Newsletter at the time, published a monthly column in Interlingua from the early 1950s until Gode's death in 1970. In 1967, the International company for Standardization, which normalizes terminology, voted nearly unanimously to adopt Interlingua as the basis for its dictionaries.
The IALA closed its doors in 1953 but was non formally dissolved until 1956 or later. Its role in promoting Interlingua was largely taken on by Science Service, which hired Gode as head of its newly formed Interlingua Division. Hugh E. Blair, Gode'sfriend and colleague, became his assistant. A successor organization, the Interlingua Institute, was founded in 1970 to promote Interlingua in the US and Canada. The new institute supported the work of other linguistic organizations, made considerable scholarly contributions and produced Interlingua summaries for scholarly and medical publications. One of its largest achievements was two immense volumes on phytopathology produced by the American Phytopathological Society in 1976 and 1977.
Interlingua had attracted many former adherents of other international-language projects, notably Occidental and Ido. The former Occidentalist Ric Berger founded The Union Mundial pro Interlingua UMI in 1955, and by the gradual 1950s, interest in Interlingua in Europe had already begun to overtake that in North America. Media coverage at the time, for example, was apparently heaviest in Northern and Eastern Europe. Frequent European coverage has continued to date, joined by media attention in South America in the early 1990s.
Beginning in the 1980s, UMI has held international conferences every two years typical attendance at the earlier meetings was 50 to 100 and launched a publishing programme that eventually produced over 100 volumes. Other Interlingua-language working were published by university presses in Sweden and Italy, and in the 1990s, Brazil and Switzerland. Several Scandinavian schools undertook projects that used Interlingua as a means of teaching the international scientific and intellectual vocabulary.
In 2000, the Interlingua Institute was dissolved amid funding disputes with the UMI; the American Interlingua Society, established the following year, succeeded the institute and responded to new interest emerging in Mexico.
Interlingua was spoken and promoted in the Soviet bloc, despite attempts to suppress the language. In East Germany, government officials confiscated the letters and magazines that the UMI sent to Walter Rädler, the Interlingua object lesson there.
In Czechoslovakia, Július Tomin published his first article on Interlingua in the Slovak magazine Príroda a spoločnosť generation and Society in 1971, after which he received several anonymous threatening letters. He went on to become the Czech Interlingua representative, teach Interlingua in the school system, and publish a series of articles and books.
Interest in Interlingua has expanded from the scientific community to the general public. Individuals, governments, and private companies use Interlingua for learning and instruction, travel, online publishing, and communication across language barriers. Interlingua is promoted internationally by the Union Mundial pro Interlingua. Periodicals and books are produced by many national organizations, such as the Societate American pro Interlingua, the Svenska Sällskapet för Interlingua, and the Union Brazilian pro Interlingua.
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