Interlingua

Interlingua is a constructed language designed for international communication. It is based on words and structures shared by Western European languages, particularly Latin and its descendants: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and also English, which contains many words of Latin origin.

The difference between Interlingua and other constructed languages, such as Esperanto, lies in vocabulary formation. Interlingua's words were not invented for the language; rather, they were extracted from common international words already present in major languages. For this reason, a speaker of a Romance language or someone with good English knowledge can understand much written Interlingua without formal study—a phenomenon known as "comprehension without learning."

History and IALA

Interlingua was published by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), a linguistic research organization based in the United States that worked from the early twentieth century. The organization spent many years examining earlier auxiliary language projects, such as Esperanto, Ido, Latino sine flexione, and Occidental. This work resulted in a dictionary with a concise grammar, published around the 1940s. Alexander Gode was the principal figure in the later stages of the work.

Grammar

Interlingua grammar is notably simple compared to natural languages. Verbs do not change form according to person or number; a single form is used for all subjects. Nouns do not have grammatical gender. The plural is formed by adding -s or -es. Spelling and pronunciation follow Latin patterns, making words readily recognizable.

Use

Interlingua was chiefly used for writing abstracts of scientific articles, medical journals, and academic conferences in the twentieth century. There are also community organizations and publications that support it. Today, its use is limited to small groups working online and at conferences, and the number of speakers is considerably smaller than that of Esperanto.