International auxiliary languageAn international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a foreign language and often a constructed language. The concept is related to but separate from the idea of a lingua franca (or dominant language) that people must use to communicate.
Constructed languageA constructed language (shortened to a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. A constructed language may also be referred to as an artificial, planned or invented language, or (in some cases) a fictional language. Planned languages (or engineered languages/engelangs) are languages that have been purposefully designed; they are the result of deliberate, controlling intervention and are thus of a form of language planning.
InterlinguisticsInterlinguistics, as the science of planned languages, has existed for more than a century as a specific branch of linguistics for the study of various aspects of linguistic communication. Interlinguistics is a discipline formalized by Otto Jespersen in 1931 as the science of interlanguages, i.e. contact languages tailored for international communication. In more recent times, the object of study of interlinguistics was put into relation with language planning, the collection of strategies to deliberately influence the structure and function of a living language.
InterlinguaInterlingua (ɪntərˈlɪŋɡwə; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is the most widely used naturalistic IAL – in other words, those IALs whose vocabulary, grammar, and other characteristics are derived from natural languages, rather than being centrally planned.
InterlingueInterlingue (interˈliŋɡwe; ISO 639 ie, ile), originally Occidental (oktsidenˈtaːl), 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.
Latin scriptThe Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy (Magna Graecia). The Greek alphabet was adopted by the Etruscans, and subsequently their alphabet was adopted by the Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet.
EsperantoEsperanto (ˌɛspəˈrɑːntoʊ or ˌɛspəˈræntoʊ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it is intended to be a universal second language for international communication, or "the international language" (la Lingvo Internacia). Zamenhof first described the language in Dr. Esperanto's International Language (Unua Libro), which he published under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto.
Grammatical numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of singular or plural, both of which are cited by using the hash sign (#) or by the numero signs "No." and "Nos." respectively. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements.