Another blog on international auxiliary languages (among other things) to keep an eye on

Friday, August 22, 2008


I noticed this blog a few days ago called El Fomentador, which has a number of posts on the idea of an international auxiliary language and what he (or she) believes the ideal should be. This post for example gives the following criteria:

  • Easy to learn
  • Able to be translated
  • Wide-ranging in function
  • Standardized
  • Neutral
  • Rational and logical
The author of the blog sees a combination of Spanish and English to be the ideal, but since there is no IAL out there based on this principle he seems to be leaning towards Interlingua:
If I were to be asked, I would say that the last example, Interlingua, would seem to support the idea of a blending of English and Spanish (and Portuguese) that could be used effectively to communicate across the whole of the western-hemisphere in a common language.
But then again Interlingua would conflict with the first criterion:
The grammar should be regular and simple; the meanings of words and compound words must be based on well-defined principles; the spelling should be phonetic; and there should be no difficult sounds.
given that the spelling isn't always phonetic and there are some difficult sounds (scientia for example).

I note that there's no mention of Lingua Franca Nova; perhaps the author would find that language to be closest to the ideal. Or maybe even a creole like Papiamento, which contains a large number of Dutch words as well as Portuguese and Spanish. Perhaps someone should comment below that post asking him to take a look at those two as well.

2 comments:

JimDesu said...

As someone who learns grammar easily but has no memory for vocabulary, I'd jump on the chance to learn a commonly accepted interlingual.

I've thought of this, and sometimes I think that perhaps the best way is not to go for simplicity, but for regularity. Were it to be a common tongue, it would be worth the grammar excercises not to be choked by special cases (pardon the pun) for different classes of words.

JimDesu said...

As someone who learns grammar easily but has no memory for vocabulary, I'd jump on the chance to learn a commonly accepted interlingual.

I've thought of this, and sometimes I think that perhaps the best way is not to go for simplicity, but for regularity. Were it to be a common tongue, it would be worth the grammar excercises not to be choked by special cases (pardon the pun) for different classes of words.

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