Interlingue, originally known as Occidental, is a constructed international auxiliary language developed by the Estonian naval officer and linguist Edgar de Wahl in 1922. Designed to combine grammatical regularity with a naturalistic vocabulary, Interlingue draws primarily from Romance and Germanic languages, aiming for immediate intelligibility among speakers of Western European tongues. Its derivational system, notably featuring de Wahl's Rule, facilitates the creation of related word forms, enhancing both consistency and ease of learning.
The language gained prominence in the interwar period, particularly through its official publication, Cosmoglotta, and maintained a dedicated following despite the disruptions of World War II. In 1949, to emphasize its neutrality and foster potential collaboration with the emerging Interlingua community, Occidental was renamed Interlingue. Although the introduction of Interlingua in 1951 led to a decline in Interlingue's usage, the advent of the internet in the late 20th century sparked a revival, with renewed interest and activity among language enthusiasts.
Background
De Wahl was first introduced to planned languages through Volapük, an international auxiliary language released in 1879. De Wahl ended up becoming one of the earliest users of Esperanto, which he encountered for the first time in 1888 during his period as a Volapükist and for which he was in the process of composing a dictionary of marine terms. He quickly became a fervent supporter of Esperanto for a number of years in which he collaborated with Zamenhof on some parts of the language's design and translated one of the first works into Esperanto: "Princidino Mary", published in 1889 originally under the name Princino Mary. He remained an Esperantist until 1894 when the vote to reform Esperanto failed; he was one of just two that voted neither for Esperanto unchanged, nor for the reform proposed by Zamenhof, but for a completely new reform. Occidental would not be announced for a full 28 years after de Wahl had abandoned Esperanto, a period in which he spent working with other language creators trying to develop a system that combined naturalism and regularity, a combination that became a frequently referenced selling point in the promotion of Occidental.
De Wahl spent the years after abandoning Esperanto in collaboration with linguists such as Waldemar Rosenberger (Idiom Neutral), Julius Lott (Mundolingue), and Antoni Grabowski (Modern Latin for a time, before returning to Esperanto). The method sought after by these "partisans of naturalism" was the distillation of existing words into their parts to obtain the international roots within them (such as naturalisation to nat-ur-al-is-ation), then used in other words to keep root words to a minimum while maintaining a natural appearance. In de Wahl's opinion, it was always preferable to opt for a productive suffix than to be forced to coin new words from completely new radicals later on. In addition to this, de Wahl's rule developed later allowed for regular derivation from double-stem Latin verbs.
The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language, a body of academics formed to study the problem of an international language and which recommended Esperanto with reforms (leading to the language known as Ido), occurred in 1907 before Occidental was announced. De Wahl thus chose to send a memorandum of principles on which to base an international language, a memorandum which arrived after the committee had already adjourned. The memorandum was only noted in passing by Louis Couturat, who was already familiar with de Wahl and his collaborators.
Beginnings Edgar de Wahl announced the creation of Occidental in 1922 with the first issue of the magazine Cosmoglotta, published in Tallinn, Estonia under the name Kosmoglott. 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. During the development of the language de Wahl explained his approach in a letter to an acquaintance the Baron d'Orczy written in Auli:
De Wahl also corresponded with Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano, creator of Latino sine flexione, gaining an appreciation for its selection of international vocabulary. "I believe the "Vocabulario commune" book by Professor Peano to already be a more valuable and scientific work than the entire scholastic literature of Ido on imaginary things evoked by the "fundamento" of Zamenhof", he wrote.
Upon its announcement in 1922, Occidental was nearly complete. De Wahl had not intended to announce the language for a few years; after hearing that the League of Nations (LON) had begun an inquiry into the question of an international language he decided to accelerate its release and after receiving a favorable reply the year before from Under-Secretary General Nitobe Inazō of the LON which had adopted a resolution on the subject in 1921. The first known publication in Occidental, a booklet entitled Transcendent Algebra by Jacob Linzbach, appeared shortly before Kosmoglott 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. Two Ido societies joined Occidental in the same year, one in Vienna (Austria) called IdoSocieto Progreso (renamed as Societé Cosmoglott Progress) and the Societo Progreso in Brno (Czechoslovakia), which changed its name to Federali (Federation del amicos del lingue international). The first dictionary, the Radicarium Directiv, a collection of Occidental root words and their equivalents in eight languages, was published the following year.
Kosmoglott was also a forum for various other planned languages, while still mainly written in Occidental. Until 1924 the magazine was also affiliated with the Academia pro Interlingua, which promoted Peano's Latino sine flexione. The name was changed to Cosmoglotta 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 Li Ovre de Edgar de Wahl (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, "Cosmoglotta thrived despite the economic crisis. After the two died in 1931, Cosmoglotta 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. Those letters often included the footer Scrit in lingue international "Occidental" ("Written in the international language Occidental"). A large number of numbered "documents":ie:Sviss Association por Occidental were produced at this time as well to introduce the concept of an international language and advocate for Occidental as the answer to Europe's "tower of Babel". 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 Cosmoglotta and a second edition of the journal was published. Originally entitled Cosmoglotta-Informationes, it was soon renamed Cosmoglotta B, 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 Cosmoglotta 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. 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 Cosmoglottas through 1940, but in 1941 Cosmoglotta B began publication once again and continued until 1950. An edition of either Cosmoglotta 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 minor yet official language in Switzerland that at the time lacked a standardized orthography. This allowed some communication to take place between the Occidentalists in Switzerland and Sweden. The other centers 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.