Conlangs: Interlingua

Over the past week or so we've had a look at Esperanto as well as Ido, a constructed language that came from Esperanto reformists. Today we're rounding off with the last of the the three most popular conlangs, Interlingua.

Interlingua takes its name from the Latin words inter and lingua, effectively meaning "intermediary language". Unsurprisingly, in Interlingua, these words also mean exactly the same thing. Interlingua is younger than Esperanto and Ido, having been created between 1937 and 1951. The language has a similar number of speakers to Ido, having never really garnered as much support as the significantly more popular Esperanto.

Europe, home to the languages used to create Interlingua.

The vocabulary of Interlingua is based principally on a set of control languages which include the EFIGS languages (English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish), as well as Portuguese and Russian. However, as long as an international usage can be shown within these seven languages, vocabulary can also be taken from any language. As a result, Interlingua also features vocabulary from Japanese and Arabic, for example.

What makes Interlingua different from Esperanto and Ido is the way that it adds words to its vocabulary. As we have already said, it can borrow almost any word that is understood internationally. On top of that, Interlingua retains the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of any words it adds to its vocabulary, unlike Esperanto and Ido, which prefer to change the word's spelling to conform to their rules. However, if loanwords feature a diacritic that does not affect pronunciation, they are removed.

Due to the aforementioned conventions, Interlingua is considered a naturalistic auxiliary language, as it takes vocabulary and loanwords much like naturally-occurring languages and, as a result of this, is the world's most widely-spoken language of this type.

The main criticism of Interlingua is its purpose as a Eurocentric auxiliary language. Due to its reliance on its control languages, it is fairly easy to learn amongst speakers of those languages. Interlingua is generally considered to be more expressive as it maintains elements from its control languages, in comparison to Esperanto which is more restrictive in its construction.

So while Interlingua is far from being as popular as Esperanto, it's not particularly fair to compare the two due to their different functions and constructions.

Debunking Language Stereotypes: Spanish

In the last of our series on debunking the language stereotypes of EFIGS languages, we're covering Spanish.

A while ago we explained why Spaniards lisp, but there's more to Spanish than just that. Just like the stereotypes behind Italian and French, the Spanish language does not feature the phoneme for the letter "i" as in English. This means native Spanish speakers often struggle with the pronunciation of words such as bit, fit, hit and the rude one that rhymes with those words.

The Spanish countryside near Medellín, Extremadura.

Spanish, much like French and Italian, features a silent "h". The language does, however, feature an approximate sound which is used for the letter "j", /x/. It sounds a lot more like clearing your throat, which will often come across when native Spanish speakers attempt to say English words beginning with "h".

In certain dialects of Spanish, the sound for the letter "y" can also pose problems. There is no perfect approximation since the phoneme for the letter "y" as in the English word "yes" is /j/. Spanish has both /ʝ/, which sounds more like a blend between a "y" and a "j" sound, as well as /ʎ/, which sounds more more like an English letter "y".

There are also only five vowel sounds in Spanish. English, depending on how you count vowels and whether you speak American English or British English, can feature nearly twenty vowel phonemes. Imagine how difficult it would be to have to learn almost 15 new vowel sounds in order to speak a new language!

Debunking Language Stereotypes: French

Having unravelled the nonsense behind stereotypes in the English language, we now direct our attention to other languages across Europe. Having so many cultures and languages in such close proximity always leads to stereotypes, and occasionally even tension. Europe does have a rich history in conflict, after all.

We've done "E" (referring to English, not the drug) in EFIGS, so we thought it would make sense to continue with the next letter in the series, "F".

We thought we'd be understated for once
and just show some French baguettes
instead of a mustachioed man in a beret and
striped shirt holding them whilst smoking.

We all know the stereotypes when it comes to the French people. What interests us are the stereotypes connected to the French language. In our experience, the most noticeable and the most frequently impersonated is "ze" as a replacement for "the". This is a common stereotype and, unfortunately for native French speakers, bears true. French does not have the phonemes /θ/ or /ð/, which represent the sound of the letters "th" in words such as mathematics and weather respectively. As a result, French speakers tend to approximate the sound with the phoneme /z/, which in English is used for the letter "z" in words such as zoo.

The French language also does not feature the phoneme /r/ which in is used for the letter "r" in American English. Due to the non-rhotic nature of many accents in British English, it isn't always used for "r" in the UK. The French use the phoneme /ʁ/ for the letter "r" and as a result are unfamiliar with the letter's English pronunciation.

It should also be noted that the use of the definite article (le, la, les) in French is far more common than use of the is in English. As a result, French speakers may occasionally unnecessarily add the to sentences, in the same way that native English speakers will tend to omit the definite article when they speak French. Nobody's perfect, after all.

Valentine's Day: The Origins of "Love"

The singletons among us are not going to like today's post as it's all about love, or lurve as the late Barry White would call it.

The English word love came from the Proto-Germanic lubo which shares its roots with German word liebe. The amour in French, amore in Italian and amor in both Spanish and Portuguese all came from either amorem or amor in Latin.

If you don't have someone to share the day with,
it just means all the more chocolate for you!

The English word amorous, of course, has its roots in the identically spelled old French word that later became amoureux, which itself came from the late Latin amorosum. If you are feeling a little amorous, perhaps you should check out the world's sexiest accents to get your motor running.

Many of the words for love in the past have shared connotations with emotional love as well as the more primal and entertaining carnal love. Sex, however, initially came from the Latin sexus which literally meant "the state of being either male or female". Given that the word intercourse isn't particularly sexy, it tends to be dropped from sexual intercourse and shortened to leave us with just sex.

If you are lonely this Valentine's Day, it may be worth noting that some time ago we actually showed you how register and the formality of language can help you find love, at least in the carnal sense. Happy Valentine's Day!

How Polytheism Shaped Our Week

Back in the day, there was a god for everything. Greeks and Romans had gods for every occasion, including a god for every day of the week. The same rings true for Norse and Viking religion. Obviously, monotheistic religions did not. However, we do already know that religion helped spread the use of certain languages.

Thanks to this multitude of gods we have our days of the week. This is true of most Indo-European languages. Most of these gods corresponded to things witnessed in the sky, namely planets and stars, and from this, we have our week.

We'll start the old-fashioned way, with Sunday.

The Sun

Sunday

It doesn't take a genius to work out that Sunday was named after, you've guessed it, the Sun. The biggest and brightest thing in our sky lends its name to what is now part of the weekend and for Christians, a holy day.

The day was initially dies Sōlis in Latin, but for Romance languages such as French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, it was changed to the Lord's day, which is dies Dominica in Latin.

In German and English however, it remained the day of the sun: Sonntag in German and Sunday in English.

Monday

You can't really honour the Sun without honouring the Moon. From our little world it's the second biggest thing in the sky, and though not responsible for the night, is often semantically related to it since we rarely can see it during the day when the Sun is out. Or in the UK, when the moon isn't.

Mōnandæg was the Old English for it and German still keeps Montag. Romance languages follow the Latin root of dies Lūnae with examples such as lundi (French), lunedì (Italian) and lunes (Spanish). Portuguese by this point has grown weary of the gods and instead just counts the days, segunda-feira being the word for Monday.

Tuesday

In Latin it was dies Martis, and we're talking about Mars, the god of war, which probably should have been reserved for "hump day". The Germanic roots of the day come from the god Týr, the god of law, justice and the sky.

The French have mardi, made famous by mardi gras in English-speaking cultures, especially in New Orleans. The Spanish have martes, the Italians use martedì, and the Portuguese just call it terça-feira, with terça meaning third.

Wednesday

Definitely the hardest day of the week to spell in English. We've even overheard people saying "wed nes day" when writing it out. The day is named after Woden in English, but the Germans opted for something far more efficient by calling it Mittwoch, which literally means midweek.

The Latin is dies Mercuriī, so of course French, Italian and Spanish followed suit and kept their days honouring the god Mercury. Portuguese, however, counts Wednesday as "Day Four".

Tor's Fight with the Giants,
by M.E. Winge, 1872

Thursday

Named in English after Thor, the god, not the comic book character (though the character is also a god). It's literally Thor's day and in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, this tradition is still honoured. Just imagine a Geordie saying Thursday...

It's Jupiter who we should be praying to if we're following the Greco-Roman way of thinking. The Latin dies Jovis shaped the words used in most Romance languages, with the obvious exception of Portuguese.

Friday

The day isn't named after the ever-fantastic and witty Stephen Fry, though we think it should be. It's named after either the goddess Freya from Norse mythology or Frige, an Anglo-Saxon goddess, though little is known about the latter.

 

The Romans opted to name their day after a goddess as well. Venus formed the basis of the Latin dies Veneris and, as you can guess, Portuguese just had to be different.

Saturn Cutting off Cupid's Wings with a Scythe
by Ivan Akimov, 1802

Saturday

There's a nice little overlap to bring us back full-circle to where we almost started. Saturday in English and the Romance languages honours the god Saturn in the final day of the week... even Portuguese! Clearly Saturn is the best god and planet if everyone can agree on honouring him with the best day of the week. God we love Saturdays!

We also mentioned that Portuguese liked to count the days between Monday and Friday, just like anyone who works in an office. It's not the only language that does this. Ecclesiastical Latin did, which is where Portuguese got the idea. Arabic also does it.

September 26 - European Day of Languages

We like obscure holidays at The Lingua File, and there are few more important to us than the European Day of Languages. In an ideal world every day would be a day of languages... or a Saturday, but sadly, this is not the case.

The purpose of this holiday is to promote the linguistic diversity of Europe and to encourage people to recognize and learn new languages. We think that's a great idea. Politicians got something right!

Despite the linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe, the continent itself is home to only 3% of the world's languages. That definitely takes it out of the running to be the most multilingual continent. However, we can say that Europe does well in terms of cultural diversity. In comparison with North America, the cultural diversity of Europe is pretty astonishing.

This is the linguistic diversity of Europe. It's definitely better than that of Antarctica...

In North America, it's fairly uncommon to get on a train in one place and end up in a different country, let alone somewhere they speak a different language. However, in Europe you can hop on a train in Portugal in the morning, travel through Spain, and end your travels in France (assuming that the Spanish train system hasn't let you down) all in one very long day! Just in that one day, you would have had the opportunity to speak Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, and French. If you continued your journey through Europe, this linguistic diversity would go on and on and on.

There's much more to European languages than just EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German and Spanish). Europe is home to a multitude of languages (over 200!), many of which you've probably never heard of. So enjoy your European Day of Languages, and take some time to investigate the linguistic diversity that Europe offers as a continent. Make sure you use it as an excuse to eat some good food and drink some fantastic booze too!

Cheers! Živjeli! Kippis! На здравје! Saúde! Iechyd da! 

That's just a small sample of European languages... English, Bosnian, Finnish, Macedonian, Portuguese and Welsh!

Latinisation: Do As The Romans Do?

For most speakers of European languages, use of the Latin alphabet is second nature. We sing the song, practice writing the letters and see it almost everywhere. For those in other parts of the world, the symbols that form the written basis of most of our languages have just as much meaning linguistically as a Rorschack test.

Random pattern or best-selling novel? Freud would say "genitals".

The Latin alphabet is everywhere. The widespread coverage of European languages and especially EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish) has helped to promote the use of the alphabet across the world.

Why don't Greek footballers have their names in Greek on their shirts?

"What do you mean I can't have Παπαδόπουλος on the back!?"

The internet, technology, and the relatively small number of characters have facilitated the spread of the Latin alphabet, especially through English and its lack of diacritics (loanwords excluded).

An early Chinese keyboard. Operated by a team of ten giants.

A-to-Z works on the World Wide Web and fits nicely onto a numerical keypad for writing texts. As we start to type more and write less the system we use will become more important. Will there be only one? The answer is as easy as ABC... sorry.