Interlingue (), 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. The vocabulary is based on pre-existing words from various languages and a derivational system which uses recognized prefixes and suffixes.
Many of Interlingue's derived word forms reflect those common to certain Western European languages, primarily the Romance languages, along with some Germanic vocabulary. Many of its words are formed using de Wahl's rule, a set of rules for regular conversion of all but six verb infinitives into derived words including from Latin double-stem verbs (e.g. to see and its derivative ). The result is a naturalistic and regular language that is easy to understand at first sight for individuals acquainted with certain Western European languages. Readability and simplified grammar, along with the regular appearance of the magazine , made Occidental popular in Europe during the years before World War II despite efforts by the Nazis to suppress international auxiliary languages.
Occidental survived the war, but the community had been out of touch with the language's creator since 1939. A Baltic German naval officer and teacher from Estonia, de Wahl refused to leave his Tallinn home for Germany, even after his house was destroyed in the 1943 air raids on the city forcing him to take refuge in a psychiatric hospital. Since most of his mail had been intercepted, he died in 1948 largely unaware of developments in the language. The name change to took place the following year for two reasons: (1) to demonstrate to the Soviet Union the language's neutrality, and (2) the expectation of a possible union or closer collaboration with the community around Interlingua, a competing naturalistic project under development. Many users were lost following the latter's appearance in 1951, beginning a period of decline until the advent of the Internet.
History and activity
Beginnings
Edgar de Wahl announced the creation of Occidental in 1922 with the first issue of the magazine , published in Tallinn, Estonia under the name . Occidental was a product of years of personal experimentation under the name Auli (auxiliary language), which he used from 1906 to 1921 and which later on gained the nickname proto-Occidental. De Wahl, originally a proponent of Volapük and then Esperanto, began creating Occidental after the failed vote to reform Esperanto in 1894.
De Wahl corresponded with other language creators, among them the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano (creator of Latino sine flexione), from whom he gained an appreciation for its selection of international vocabulary, and Waldemar Rosenberger, the creator of Idiom Neutral.
Upon its announcement in 1922, Occidental was nearly complete. De Wahl had not intended to announce the language for a few years, but decided to accelerate its release after hearing that the League of Nations (LON) had begun an inquiry into the question of an international language. The first known publication in Occidental, a booklet entitled Transcendent Algebra by Jacob Linzbach, appeared shortly before debuted.
Occidental began gathering followers due to its readability, despite a complete lack of grammars and dictionaries. Two years later in 1924, de Wahl wrote that he was corresponding with about 30 people "in good Occidental" despite the lack of learning material, and users of other languages began to join Occidental. The first dictionary, the , a collection of Occidental root words and their equivalents in eight languages, was published the following year.
was also a forum for various other planned languages, while still mainly written in Occidental. The name was changed to in 1927 as it began to officially promote Occidental in lieu of other languages, and that January the magazine's editorial and administrative office was moved to the Vienna neighborhood of Mauer, now part of Liesing. Much of the early success for Occidental in this period came from the office's new central location, along with the efforts of Engelbert Pigal, also from Austria, whose article (The Work of Edgar de Wahl) led to interest in Occidental from users of Ido. Use in France began in 1928, and by the beginning of the next decade the Occidental community was established in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Switzerland.
Vienna period and World War II
The Vienna period was also marked by financial stability. With the help of two major backers, Hanns Hörbiger, also from Vienna, and G.A. Moore from London, thrived despite the economic crisis. After the two died in 1931, was again forced to rely on revenue from subscriptions and republications.
The growing movement began campaigning more assertively for Occidental in the early 1930s, leveraging its at-sight readability by contacting organizations such as companies, embassies, printing houses and the LON with letters entirely in Occidental that were often understood and answered. Recordings of spoken Occidental on gramophone records for distribution were first made in this period.
The years from 1935 to 1939 were particularly active for and a second edition of the journal was published. Originally entitled , it was soon renamed , focusing on items of more internal interest such as linguistic issues, reports of Occidental in the news, and financial updates. In early 1936, not counting the 110 issues of and other journals and bulletins, a total of 80 publications existed in and about Occidental.
But the years before World War II posed difficulties for Occidental and other planned languages. They were banned in Germany, AustriaCosmoglotta B, 1945, p. 12. Translation öf the last pre-war Occidental postcard from Austria sent to Switzerland in December 1938: "My sadness from not being able to continue my interlinguistic work continues and has made me almost melancholic. Please do not send me mail in Occidental." and Czechoslovakia, forced to disband,Cosmoglotta B, 1944, p. 109. Translation: "The reality is that Occidental, like the other international languages, is prohibited in Germany, that the Occidental societies have been disbanded there (also in Czechoslovakia and Austria) even before the war, and that only regime change in those countries will make Occidental propagation a possibility again. and kept under surveillance by the Gestapo, which also destroyed instructional materials. The prohibition of auxiliary languages in Germany was particularly damaging as this was where most Occidentalists lived at the time. The inability to accept payment for subscriptions was a financial blow that continued after the war along with Germany's division into zones of influence, not all of which allowed payments.
De Wahl, in Tallinn, was unable to communicate with the Occidental Union in Switzerland from 1939 to October 1947, first due to the war and thereafter the interception of mail between Switzerland and the Soviet Union. Unaware of this, de Wahl was bewildered at the lack of response to his continued letters; even a large collection of poetry translated into Occidental was never delivered. The only letter of his received in Switzerland came in 1947, asking the Occidental Union why it had not answered any of his. Meanwhile, de Wahl's house and his entire library had been destroyed during the bombardment of Tallinn. De Wahl himself was incarcerated for a time after refusing to leave Estonia for Germany, and later took refuge in a psychiatric hospital where he lived out his life.
The outbreak of war in 1939 put a halt to publications of both s through 1940, but in 1941 began publication once again and continued until 1950. An edition of either A or B was published every month between January 1937 and September 1939, and then (after the initial shock of the war) every month from September 1941 to June 1951. During the war, only those in neutral Switzerland and Sweden were able to fully devote themselves to the language, carrying on activities semi-officially.
During the war, Occidentalists noticed that the language was often permitted to be sent by telegram within and outside of Switzerland (especially to and from Sweden) even without official recognition, surmising that censors were able to understand it and may have thought them to be written in Spanish or Romansch (a small yet official Romance language in Switzerland). This allowed some communication to take place between the Occidentalists in Switzerland and Sweden. The other centres of Occidental activity in Europe did not fare as well, with the stocks of study materials in Vienna and Tallinn having been destroyed in bombings and numerous Occidentalists sent to concentration camps in Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Contacts were reestablished shortly after the war by those who remained, with letters from countries such as France, Czechoslovakia, Finland and Great Britain reaching . Writers said they were ready to begin activities anew for the language. had subscribers in 58 cities in Switzerland a few months before the end of World War II in Europe, and A began publication again in 1946.
Language standardization During the war many Occidentalists took to standardizing the language. De Wahl had created Occidental with a number of unchangeable features, but believed that its following of the "laws of life" gave it a firm enough base that it could follow a "natural evolution" with a flexibility that would "allow time and practice to take care of modifications that would prove to be necessary". As a result, some words had more than one permissible form, which could not be resolved by decree alone, thus leaving the ultimate decision to the community by including both possible forms in the first Occidental dictionaries.Cosmoglotta B, 1945, p. 3: Translation: "For some hundreds of international words there are two forms between which it is not easy to know which one is better. E. de Wahl wisely wrote both in the first dictionaries, with the intention to let practice make the decision." One example concerned the verb (to write) and a possible other form , as both created internationally recognizable derivations: and from , or and from . De Wahl expressed a preference for , finding to be somewhat heavy, but commented that the latter was certainly permissible and that Occidental might take on a similar evolution to natural languages in which both forms come into common use, with the longer form having a heavier and formal character and the shorter form a lighter and more everyday tone (such as English story vs. history).
Orthography was another area in which several possibilities existed, namely etymologic orthography (, ), historic orthography (, ), or simplified orthography (, ). The simplified orthography eventually became the standard by 1939. With questions still remaining about the official form of some words and a lack of general material destined for the general public, much time during World War II was spent on language standardization and course creation, and due to the continuing war, in August 1943 the decision was made to create an interim academy to officialize this process.Cosmoglotta B, 1943, p. 85: English translation: "Because the president and secretary of the Academy are located in countries in a state of war, the leading Occidentalists of the neutral countries, Switzerland and Sweden, believe it necessary to set up an INTERIM ACADEMY which will function until the other will be able to resume its work. The decisions of this interim academy will be conditional, i.e.: must be validated by the regular Academy after the war, and due to that it will deliver to it all documents justifying its decisions, with detailed reasons."