pearl@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Starbuck) (11/16/86)
Hi, I am doing a research paper on Artificial or Universal languages such as Esperanto and others. Can anyone post or mail me references, books, and such describing the various attempts of making artificial universal languages, their history, criteria for becoming one, etc. Thank you. Shade and Sweet Water, Stephen Pearl
tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) (11/18/86)
In article <7066@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> pearl@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Starbuck) writes: > >Hi, > >I am doing a research paper on Artificial or Universal languages such >as Esperanto and others. Can anyone post or mail me references, books, > >and such describing the various attempts of making artificial >universal languages, their history, criteria for becoming one, etc. > > >Thank you. > > Shade and Sweet Water, > Stephen Pearl The most recent work that I know of is _The_Artificial_Language_Movement_, by Andrew Large (Basil Blackwell, 1985). Large makes the interesting point that notwithstanding the sometimes acrimonious feuds between partisans of this or that language project, it is unlikely that the acceptance or rejection of an international auxiliary language (IAL) will depend very heavily upon *linguistic* factors. For example, since the original publication of Esperanto in 1887, a great many flaws or blemishes in the language have been noted. Some are relatively trivial (in my opinion) while others are rooted more deeply in the language. A number of "improved" versions of Esperanto have, not surprisingly, been proposed. Most conspicuous is Ido (literally, "offspring"), apparently the project of a leading French Esperantist (in 1907) named de Beaufront, and the logician Couturat. The linguist Jespersen also came to favor Ido, and eventually to propose an improved language of his own, Novial. Some detail about these projects is given in Large's book. The mathematician Peano's work in Interlingua (*one* of the Interlinguas) is also described. During WWII, Lancelot Hogben published another IAL called "Interglossa". Interglossa's claim to fame was its total lack of inflections and total reliance upon particles and word order to preserve grammatical information. Hogben argued that since the historical record shows most languages evolving in the direction of fewer inflections, this is a more "natural" or "evolved" kind of language. For various reasons, Interglossa was ignored. Recently, it has been revived as Glosa, by R. Ashby and W. Clarke. The vocabulary of Glosa is drawn mainly from Greek , because it is argued that the most internationally recognizable words -- scientific and technical terms -- are already composed mainly from Greek stems. The syntax and morphology, they claim, is more like Chinese. Large argues that, from a linguistic standpoint, one IAL is probably as good as another. Presence or absence of inflections will not have the world beating a path to one's door. Social and political considerations will determine the fate of any IAL. On the other hand, many people argue that the *accessibility* of any IAL needs to be given a great deal of thought, so that even apparently minor linguistic modifications could have major consequences for the suitability of the language. Todd Moody