Interlingue

Not to be confused with Interlingua or Occitan.

Interlingue
Occidental
Interlingue
Created by	Edgar de Wahl
Date	1922
Setting and usage	International auxiliary language
Purpose	constructed language based on Indo-European languages
Early form	Auli
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ie
ISO 639-2	ile
ISO 639-3	ile
Linguist List	ile
Glottolog	inte1260

Interlingue ([interˈliŋɡwe]; ISO 639 language codes ie, ile), known until 1949 as Occidental ([oktsidenˈtaːl]), is a planned international auxiliary language created by Edgar de Wahl, a Baltic German naval officer and teacher from Tallinn, Estonia, and published in 1922. The vocabulary is based on already existing words from various languages and a system of derivation using recognized prefixes and suffixes. Occidental was quite popular in the years up to, during, and shortly after the Second World War, but declined thereafter until the advent of the Internet.

The language is devised so that many of its derived word forms reflect the forms common to a number of Western European languages, primarily those in the Romance family, along with a certain amount of Germanic vocabulary. Many 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. vider to see and its derivative vision). The result is a naturalistic and mostly regular language that is easy to understand at first sight for individuals acquainted with certain Western European languages. This readability and simplified grammar along with the regular appearance of the magazine Cosmoglotta made Occidental popular in Europe during the years up to and shortly following World War II.

In The Esperanto Book, American Esperantist Don Harlow wrote that Occidental had an intentional emphasis on European forms, and that some of its leading followers espoused a Eurocentric philosophy, which may have hindered its spread. Still, the opposite view was also common in the community and Occidental gained adherents in many nations including Asian nations.

Occidental survived World War II, but the community had been out of touch with the language's creator since 1939. De Wahl had refused to leave Tallinn for Germany and, his house destroyed in the 1943 air raids on the city, took refuge in the psychiatric hospital in Seewald. There his correspondences were nearly entirely intercepted until his death in 1948, leaving him largely unaware of the developments in the language since 1939. Occidental changed its name to Interlingue the year after. The language lost a significant number of users following the appearance in 1951 of a competing naturalistic project, Interlingua, which attracted among others the notable Occidentalist Ric Berger. The proposal to change the name from Occidental to Interlingue was twofold: to attempt to demonstrate to the Soviet Union the neutrality of the language, and for a possible union or closer collaboration with Interlingua.

History and activity

The first issue of Kosmoglott (later Cosmoglotta), published in haste after the announcement that the League of Nations was studying the problem of an international language.

Beginnings

The activities of the language and its users can be seen through the magazine Cosmoglotta, which began publication in 1922 in Tallinn, Estonia under the name Kosmoglott. The language that de Wahl announced that year 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. During the development of the language de Wahl explained his approach in a letter to an acquaintance the Baron d'Orczy written in Auli: "My direction in the creation of a universal language seems quite regressive to you...I understand that quite well, because I am starting it right from the other end. I do not begin with the alphabet and the grammar and then have to adopt the vocabulary to it, but just the other way around: I take all international material of words, suffixes, endings, grammatical forms etc., and then I work to organize that material, put it in order, compile, interpolate, extrapolate and sift through it." De Wahl also corresponded frequently with the Italian mathematician and creator of Latino sine flexione Giuseppe Peano and gained an appreciation for its selection of international vocabulary, writing that "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."

Participants at an Occidental gathering in Vienna, 1928: Engelbert Pigal, Karl Janotta, A. Deminger, Hanns Hörbiger, Eugen Moess, Franz Houdek, Johann Robert Hörbiger

Meeting of Occidental (Interlingue) language users in Vienna in 1927.

Upon its announcement in 1922, Occidental was at a stage of near but not total completion. De Wahl had not intended to announce the language for another few years but did so through the publication of Kosmoglott after hearing that the League of Nations had begun an inquiry into the question of an international language and after receiving a favorable reply the year before from Under-Secretary General Nitobe Inazō of the League of Nations which had adopted a resolution on the subject on 15 September 1921. The first known publication in Occidental, a booklet entitled "Transcendent algebra" by Jacob Linzbach, appeared shortly before the first issue of Kosmoglott in 1921.

Occidental began gathering followers despite a complete lack of grammars and dictionaries due to its readability. Two years later in 1924, de Wahl wrote that he was in correspondence with some 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 was published the next year in 1925, the radicarium directiv which was a collection of Occidental root words and their equivalents in 8 languages.

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 in January of the same year the magazine's editorial and administrative office was moved to Vienna, Austria in the region 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 the Ido language. By early 1930, the language was largely based in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, and most recently in France where it began to be used two years before.

Vienna period, World War II and language standardization

PR postcard with Occidental text created in 1928 in Vienna

Besides an advantageous new location in a city closer to the centre of Europe, the Vienna period was also marked by financial stability for the first time. Two notable backers were Hans Hörbiger, also from Vienna, and G.A. Moore from London, from which "Cosmoglotta was able to live without difficulty and gained a circle of readers despite the economic crisis". This did not last long as Hörbiger and Moore both died in 1931, and Cosmoglotta was again forced to rely on revenue from subscriptions, publications and the like.

The growing movement began a more assertive campaign for the language in the early 1930s in which it leveraged its at-sight readability by contacting organizations such as companies, embassies, printing houses and the League of Nations using letters entirely in Occidental that were often understood and responded to, often including the footer Scrit in lingue international "Occidental" ("Written in the international language Occidental"). A large number of numbered "documents" were produced at this time as well to introduce the concept of an international language and advocate Occidental as the answer to Europe's "tower of Babel". Recordings of spoken Occidental on phonograph (gramophone) records for distribution also began to be made in this period.

The years from 1935 to 1939 were particularly active for Cosmoglotta, during which a second edition of the journal was published. Originally entitled Cosmoglotta-Informationes, it soon began using the name Cosmoglotta B and focused 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 any other journals and bulletins, a total of 80 publications existed in and about Occidental.

Meanwhile, the years leading up to the Second World War led to difficulties for Occidental and other planned languages which were made illegal in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, forced to disband, kept under Gestapo surveillance, and had their didactic materials destroyed. The interdiction 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, and a difficulty that continued after the war along with Germany's division into zones of influence, not all of which allowed payments. No communication took place between Edgar de Wahl in Tallinn and the Occidental Union in Switzerland from 1939 to October 1947, first due to the war itself and thereafter from intercepted mail between Switzerland and the Soviet Union. Unaware of this, de Wahl was bewildered at the lack of response to his continued letters and even a large collection of translated poetry into Occidental which were never delivered; the only letter of his received in Switzerland was one that arrived in 1947 asking the Occidental Union "why it never responded to any letters from Tallinn". Meanwhile, de Wahl's house and his entire library had been destroyed during the bombardment of Tallinn and de Wahl himself was incarcerated for a time after refusing to leave Estonia for Germany.

The outbreak of war in 1939 put a halt to publications of both Cosmoglottas extending into 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 wartime period, only those in neutral Switzerland and Sweden were able to fully devote themselves to the language, carrying on activities in a semi-official form.

One of these activities was language standardization. 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 which 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 and 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. One example concerned the verb scrir (to write) and a possible other form scripter, as both created internationally recognizable derivations: scritura and scritor from scrir, or scriptura and scriptor from scripter. De Wahl expressed a preference for scrir, finding scripter 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 and more Latin-like form having a heavier and more formal character and the shorter a lighter and more everyday tone (such as English story vs. history).

Orthography was another area in which several possibilities existed, namely etymologic orthography (adtractiv, obpression), historic orthography (attractiv, oppression), or simplified orthography (atractiv, opression). The first option was hardly if ever used, and simplified orthography eventually became the standard by 1939. Much of the standardization of the language took place in this way through community preference (e.g. both ac and anc were proposed for the word "also" but the community quickly settled on anc), but not all. 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 in August 1943 the decision was made, given the length of the war, to create an interim academy to officialize this process. This process had just about begun not long before the war, and the Swiss Occidentalists, finding themselves isolated from the rest of the continent, opted to concentrate on didactic materials to have prepared by the time the war reached its end. While doing so, they frequently found themselves confronted with the decision between two "theoretically equally good" forms that had remained in popular usage, but whose presence could be confusing to a new learner of the language. During this time, the academy maintained that standardization efforts were based on actual usage, stating that "...the standardization of the language has natural limits. "Standardizing" the language does not mean arbitrarily officializing one of the possible solutions and rejecting the others as indesirable and irritating. One only standardizes solutions that have already been sanctioned through practice."

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 a certain amount of 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 had survived it, particularly from those in France, Czechoslovakia, and Great Britain. Cosmoglotta had subscribers in 58 cities in Switzerland a few months before the end of World War II in Europe, and Cosmoglotta A began publication again in 1946.

IALA, Interlingua, and name change to Interlingue

The International Auxiliary Language Association, founded in 1924 to study and determine the best planned language for international communication, was at first viewed with suspicion by the Occidental community. The co-founder of the IALA Alice Vanderbilt Morris was an Esperantist, as were many of its staff members, and many Occidentalists including Edgar de Wahl himself believed that its leadership under Esperantist William Edward Collinson meant that it had been set up with a staff of professional linguists under a neutral and scientific pretext to bolster a final recommendation for Esperanto. Relations soon improved, however, as it became clear that the IALA intended to be as impartial as possible by familiarizing itself with all existing planned languages. Ric Berger detailed one such visit he made in 1935 to Morris (whose husband was the US ambassador in Brussels) that vastly improved his opinion of the organization:

My personal opinion was not so pessimistic, for, finding myself in Brussels in 1935, I sought out Mrs. Morris and soon obtained an audience with her where my charming host invited me to speak in Occidental. She asked her husband, the American ambassador, to come hear me to confirm what seemed to very much interest them: a language in which all words can be understood without having learned it! ... Mrs. Morris could have used her fortune to simply support Esperanto, which was her right as a convicted Esperantist. But instead of that she...decided to donate her money to a neutral linguistic tribunal to solve the problem scientifically, even if the judgement goes against her convictions.

As a result, opinions in the Occidental community of the IALA and its activities began to improve and reports on its activities in Cosmoglotta became increasingly positive. In 1945, the IALA announced that it planned to create its own language and showed four possible versions under consideration, all of which were naturalistic as opposed to schematic. Occidentalists were by and large pleased that the IALA had decided to create a language so similar in nature to Occidental, seeing it as a credible association that gave weight to their argument that an auxiliary language should proceed from study of natural languages instead of attempting to fit them into an artificial system. Ric Berger was particularly positive in describing the situation as a victory for the natural school ("Li naturalitá esset victoriosi!") and calling IALA's new language "almost the same language" in 1948, though was not without reservations, doubting whether a project with such a similar aspect and structure would be able to "suddenly cause prejudices [against planned languages] to fall and create unity among the partisans of international languages" and fearing that it might simply "disperse the partisans of the natural language with nothing to show for it" after Occidental had created "unity in the naturalistic school" for so long.

While the two languages had a 90% identical vocabulary without orthographic differences taken into account (e.g. with filosofie and philosophia considered the same word), structurally and derivationally they were very different. De Wahl's Rule in Occidental had mostly done away with Latin double stem verbs (verbs such as act: ager, act- or send: mitter, miss-), while Interlingua simply accepted them as part and parcel of a naturalistic system. The control languages (Italian, Spanish and/or Portuguese, French, English) used by Interlingua to form its vocabulary for the most part require an eligible word to be found in three source languages (the "rule of three"), which would conflict with Occidental's Germanic substrate and various other words which would be by definition ineligible in a unified language that retained Interlingua's methodology. Accepting Occidental words such as mann, strax, old and sestra (Interlingua: viro, immediatemente, vetere, soror) into Interlingua could only be done by doing away with the control languages, the very core of Interlingua's methodology for determining its vocabulary. Interlingua also allowed optional irregular verbal conjugations (such as so, son and sia as the first-person singular, third-person plural and subjunctive form of esser, the verb 'to be') that Occidental had never even considered and viewed as incompatible with an easy international auxiliary language.

All of this took place in a time when Occidental, based in Europe, was still recovering from the war. Cosmoglotta continued to report into 1946 on those who had survived the war and who had not, those who were ready to participate again and those who were still out of touch. The magazine was showing financial strain with inflated printing costs after the end of World War II and the inability to collect payments from certain countries, a marked contrast to the well-funded IALA which was based in New York.

Another difficulty for the post-war Occidentalists was political. The beginning of the Cold War created a particularly uncomfortable situation for the Occidental-Union, which now possessed a name that by unfortunate chance coincided with that of an anti-Russian political league, and which the Occidentalists in Switzerland believed to be the reason for the interception of all of de Wahl's letters sent from Tallinn. In early 1948 the Czechoslovak Occidentalists had begun requesting approval for a new name that would allow them to continue their linguistic activities without suspicion, proposing the name Interal (International auxiliari lingue), to which the union responded that the term Interlingue would be more appropriate and that they were free to introduce the language as Interlingue (Occidental), or even remove the mention of Occidental in parentheses if they felt it necessary. Ric Berger began advocating for a change of name from Occidental to Interlingue in 1948. The official vote on the name change to Interlingue took place at the plenum of the Occidental Union in 1949 and was passed with 91% support, making the official name Interlingue, with Interlingue (Occidental) also permitted, valid as of 1 September 1949.

The year 1951 when Interlingua was announced was consequential in weakening Interlingue-Occidental, which until then had been unchallenged in the field of naturalistic planned auxiliary languages. Vĕra Barandovská-Frank's perception of the situation at the time was as follows (translated from Esperanto):

"In the field of naturalistic planned languages Occidental-Interlingue was until then unchallenged (especially after the death of Otto Jespersen, author of Novial), as all new projects were nearly imitations of it. This applied to Interlingua as well, but it carried with it a dictionary of 27 000 words put together by professional linguists that brought great respect, despite in principle only confirming the path that De Wahl had started. The Senate of the Interlingue-Union and the Interlingue-Academie took up the proposals that (1) the Interlingue-Union become a collective member of the IALA and (2) the Interlingue-Union remain favourable to the future activity of the IALA and morally support it. The first proposition was not accepted, but the second was, giving a practical collaboration and support to Interlingua.
André Martinet, the second-last director of the IALA, made similar observations to those of Matejka. He confessed that his preferred variant of Interlingua was the one closer to Interlingue than the one officialized by Gode. In these circumstances the efforts by Ric Berger to move all users of Interlingue en masse to Interlingua de IALA was a shock. His heresy caused doubt and interruptions in Interlingue circles, especially after he became involved in the publication of "Revista de Interlingua". The former idea of a natural fusion of both languages was shown to be unrealistic, with the new language becoming a rival."

Stagnation and revival

Issue 325 of Cosmoglotta for the period January to December 2019.

While the migration of so many users to Interlingua had severely weakened the Interlingue movement, the following drop in activity was gradual and took place over decades. Cosmoglotta B stopped publishing after 1950, and frequency of publication for Cosmoglotta A began to gradually drop: once every second month from 1952, and then once per quarter from 1963. Other bulletins in Interlingue continued to appear during this time such as Cive del Munde (Switzerland), Voce de Praha (Czechoslovakia), Sved Interlinguist (Sweden), International Memorandum (UK), Interlinguistic Novas (France), Jurnale Scolari International (France), Buletine Pedagogic International (Francia), Super li Frontieras (France), Interlingue-Postillon (1958, Germany), Novas de Oriente (1958, Japan), Amicitie european (1959, Switzerland), Teorie e practica (Switzerland-Czechoslovakia, 1967), and Novas in Interlingue (Czechoslovakia, 1971). Barandovská-Frank believed that the ebb in interest in Occidental-Interlingue occurred in concert with the aging of the generation that was first drawn to it from other planned languages (translated from Esperanto):

Most of those interested in Interlingue belonged to the generation that became acquainted in turn with Volapük, Esperanto and Ido, later on finding the most aesthetic (essentially naturalistic) solution in Occidental-Interlingue. Many subsequently moved to IALA's Interlingua, which however did not prove to be much more successful despite the impression its scientific origin made, and those who remained loyal to Occidental-Interlingue did not succeed in imparting their enthusiasm to a new generation.

Activity in Interlingue eventually reached a low during the 1980s and early 1990s, when Cosmoglotta publication ceased for a number of years. This can be seen in the frequency of Cosmoglotta: while issue 269 was published in 1972 after publishing once per season between 1963, issue 289 was not reached until summer 2000 for an average of less than one issue per year. According to Esperantist Don Harlow, "in 1985 Occidental's last periodical, Cosmoglotta, ceased publication, and its editor, Mr. Adrian Pilgrim, is quoted as having described Occidental as a "dead language."" A decade later, a documentary in 1994 by Steve Hawley and Steyger on planned languages introduced Interlingue speaker Donald Gasper as "one of the last remaining speakers of the language Occidental".

As was the case for other planned languages, it was the arrival of the internet that allowed the language to revive. In the year 1999 the first Yahoo! Group in Occidental was founded, and Cosmoglotta had been publishing intermittently again. An Interlingue Wikipedia was approved in 2004. In recent years official meetings between Interlingue speakers have begun taking place again: a meeting in Ulm on 10 January 2013, another in Munich in 2014 with three participants, and a third in Ulm on 16 August 2015 with five.

The most recent edition of the magazine Cosmoglotta is volume 325, for the period January to December 2019.

Language philosophy

Sticker from 1930 created to emphasize readability at first sight: Li lingue quel vu comprende (The language you understand) and Occidental propaga se self (Occidental promotes itself)

Edgar de Wahl was first introduced to planned languages through Volapük by Waldemar Rosenberger, a coworker of de Wahl's father. De Wahl ended up becoming one of the earliest users of the language 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 where he collaborated with Zamenhof on some parts of the design of the language 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. In this vote, de Wahl 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 (such as Rosenberger's Idiom Neutral) and trying to develop a system that combined both naturality and regularity. De Wahl's method for doing so was twofold: through de Wahl's Rule to reduce the number of irregularities in verbal derivation to a minimum, and a large number of affixes to do the same with word roots in addition to giving the resulting forms a natural appearance. The large number of suffixes can be seen through a glimpse of just those used to form nouns referring to a type of person: -er- (molinero - miller), -or- (redactor - editor), -ari- (millionario - millionaire), -on- (spion, spy), -ard (mentard, liar), -astr- (poetastro, lousy poet), -es (franceso, Frenchman), -essa (reyessa, queen). 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.

De Wahl published in 1922 a modification of Otto Jespersen's principle that "the best language is that which is easiest for the greatest number of people", stating that the international language should be easiest for the majority of those who need it (lit. who must apply it), or in other words those that need it in international relations. Along with this came a need for an international language to recognize already international vocabulary regardless of the number of people using it, particularly in specialized areas where for example the term Oenethera biennis (a type of plant) should be implemented and not modified beyond recognition even if the entire world population of botanists, those most often knowing and using the word, did not exceed 10,000. This also implied that words belonging to particular cultures should be imported without modifications, which De Wahl believed brought new ideas of value to European culture that had become "sick" after the First World War. He cited the terms karma, ko-tau (kowtow), geisha, and mahdí in 1924 as examples of those that should not be put in a "vocalic corset" through obligatory endings (e.g. karmo, koŭtoŭo, gejŝo, madho in Esperanto) when imported into the international language: "Such words, still not large in number, have seen a large increase in the past century, and in the future will grow in exorbitant proportion when, through international communication, the ideas of stable Oriental cultures will inundate and influence the sick Europe, which is now losing its equilibrium. And the more mutilated the words are, the more mutilated will be the ideas that they represent." In an article on the future development of language, de Wahl wrote in 1927 that due to European dominance in the sciences and other areas Occidental required a form and derivation recognizable to Europeans, but that it should also be fitted with a grammatical structure capable of taking on more analytical, non-derived forms in the future (such as the equivalents of "bake man" for baker or "wise way" for wisdom) if worldwide linguistic trends began to show a preference for them.

On the subject of schematic regularity versus naturalism in an international language, De Wahl believed that there was a fine balance to be maintained between the two, where too much of the former may be convenient for the early learner but abhorrent for a speaker, and vice versa in the latter case: "Exceptions are not made to make study more difficult for foreigners, but to make speaking shorter and more fluid....It is clear that in this language as the most impersonal, abstract and businesslike one of all, regularity will be greater and more expanded than in all other national and tribal languages and idioms. But it will never be able to attain a total schematism...Also here the real solution will be a harmonization of the two contrary principles. It requires the sensitive penetration of the real necessity in the instinct of the international superpopulation."

While primarily Romance in vocabulary, de Wahl opted for a large Germanic substrate which he felt more expressive for technical and material vocabulary (self, ost for east, svimmar for to swim, moss, etc.), with Romance and Greek vocabulary more appropriate in the derivation of international words (femina for woman to form feminin, can for dog to form canin, etc.) as well as mental, corporal and natural conceptions. Minor Romance languages such as Ladin, Provençal (Occitan) and Catalan along with creoles had a large importance in the development of Occidental for de Wahl, who wrote as far back as 1912 that his language under development was more similar to Provençal than Italian or Spanish. The Swiss magazine Landbote made a similar comment in 1945 in a review of the language, commenting humoristically that "reading through the few examples of Occidental gives us the impression of a half-learned Catalan by a foreigner who doesn't much understand the grammar."

Using internationally recognized prefixes and suffixes did not imply wholesale importing of international words. Just before the beginning of the Second World War de Wahl called criticisms of Occidental as chaotic unfounded, stating that English and French users in particular had a tendency to see Occidental as a mix of the two: "(Occidental's chaotic appearance) is not the fault of Occidental itself, but rather that of its users and especially the French and English, or those that think that the international language should be a mixture of those two languages...that is a fundamental error, especially if these forms present exceptions and irregularities in Occidental's system." Alphonse Matejka wrote in Cosmoglotta that de Wahl "always claimed a minimum of autonomy for his language and bitterly fought against all propositions that intended to augment the naturality of the language only by blindly imitating the Romance languages, or as de Wahl said crudely in one of his letters to me, "by aping French or English"".

Occidental's erring on the side of regularity led to vocabulary that was still recognizable but different from the international norm, such as ínpossibil in place of impossibil (ín + poss + ibil), scientic (scientific, from scient-ie + -ic), and descrition (description, from descri-r + -tion). This is one of the greatest differences between it and Interlingua, which has a vocabulary taken from so-called 'prototypes' (the most recent common ancestor to its source languages) while Interlingue/Occidental focused on active, on the fly derivation. After the standardization of Occidental in 1947 and the name change to Interlingue in 1949 there was a push towards greater and greater naturalistic forms inspired by the IALA's soon-to-be-published Interlingua, particularly by Ric Berger who advocated replacing the optional -i adjectival ending with -e. After advocating for the change in April 1949 he began implementing it the following month in his own writing and most of the content in Cosmoglotta, in addition to other changes such as nostre (our) and vostre (your) instead of nor and vor. The following April he defended the changes, denying that they were a "concession to the IALA" but instead a simple "concession to the general tendency towards greater naturality found today in the interlinguistic movement", calling critics of the changes victims of "long-lasting habits" and an "optical illusion". Whether these experimental changes would have taken root is not known, as Berger left his position as editor of Cosmoglotta soon after and eventually joined Interlingua, while Cosmoglotta returned to publishing in the 1947 standard that continues to this day.

Vocabulary Examples

Though seemingly favourable to the Romance language family, Edgar de Wahl did see Occidental as a Romance language and did not tolerate any kind of nationalism or chauvinism in the choice of words for the language. He stated that the true justice would be "However many special, new, significant words each [culture] has respectively added to the common human culture, that much they receive." Below are examples he provided of source languages and what they are particularly known for around the world (why they are included in Occidental).

Category / Reasoning	Origin	Words
Examples of the non-Romance substrate in the language	Anglo-Germanic	storc, mann, self, yelb, svimmar, helm, svin, moss, segle, ost, west, nord, strax, sparro, fox, spat, spruzzar, scum, stal, stall, stamp, strec, stripp, stropp, strump, stupp, watch, winch, vrec, yufte, rasp, scote, pretti, litti, plug, spad, mis-, milz, mast, stir, bote, steve, tacle, strand
Science and philosophy	Greek	teorema, trigonometrie, teosofie, pleuritis, biologie, astronomie
Life, physics, society, politics, law	Latin	pedale, manuscrit, cap, cordial, influentie, civil, social, comission, comunisme, republica, construction, conductor, privat, stabil
Music and economy	Italian	presto, andante, staccato, maestro, virtuos, violoncello; tratte, bilancie, giro-conto, agio, bankrott
High society, modern army organization	French	politesse, hotel, menú, manchette, jabot, maitresse, couplet, courtoisie, dinear, frac, robe; general, colonel, corporal, sargeant
Navigation	Scandinavian, Dutch, English	log, fregatte, luv, bote, mast, tacle, steve, stir, stropp, kil, reff; top, clamp, brigg, clippes, winch, watch, foc
Sport	English	champion, start, ténnis, hockey, jockey, turf, set, game
Unchained authoritarianism	Russian	tsar, ukas, knut, bolchevic, pogrom
Inquisition, showy chivalric pride	Spanish	autodafé, hidalgo, Don Quijote, toreador, matador, mantille
Technology and industry	Germanic	scruv, muff, vind, spul, falun, flint-glass, warf, staple
Cultural flowerings or names of things, plants and animals of certain lands	Hebrews	sabat, cherub, delta, camel, ámen, elefant, jubilar, mammon, seraf, manna, hosanna, golem, kósher
	Arabs	alcohol, magazin, balsam, arsenale, admirale, tara, café, safran, koran, kadi, minaret, alcove, alcali, alchimie, algebra
	Turks	sultan, fez, pasha, yatagan, bashibuzuk, bashlyk
	Persian	bakshish, bazar, págode, divan, turban, serai, shah, vezir
	Hindus	nirvana, karma, calicó, rum, punch, raja, bayadera, batic
	Malaysians	orang-utan, maki, tabú
	Japanese	geisha, samurai, harakiri, kimono, bushido, micado, riksha
	Chinese	té, mandarine, kotau, silk, bonze, caolin, dshonke
	Mongols	dalai-lama
	American Indians	wigwam, mocassine, cocain, tabac, cigar, chocolate, cacáo, cannibale, colibrí, orcan, hamac, creol
	Black Americans	jazz
	Black Africans	tse-tse, quagga, zebra
	Australians	cangurú, bumerang, moa, barramuda

Symbol

The symbol of Occidental was chosen in 1936 after some deliberation and many other proposed symbols, including stylized letters, a star as in Esperanto and Ido, a setting sun to represent the sun in the west (the Occident), a globe, and more. The tilde, already used by the Occidental-Union, was eventually selected based on five criteria: symbolic character, simplicity, originality, inconfusability, and for being bichromatic (having two colours) as opposed to polychromatic. Beyond the five criteria, the Occidentalists at the time referenced the lack of a fixed meaning for the tilde in the public sphere, and its similarity to a waveform, implying speech.

Alphabet and pronunciation

Interlingue is written with 26 Latin letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z. The letters of the alphabet are pronounced as a, be, ce, de, e, ef, ge, ha, i, jot, ka, el, em, en, o, pe, qu, er, es, te, u, ve, duplic ve, ix, ypsilon, and zet.

Pronunciation

The vowels a, e, i, o, and u have a continental pronunciation and are all sounded. The y (initial and medial) are pronounced as in "yes", ey (final) as in "they", and eu as éh-oo.

The consonants are pronounced as in English, with the following exceptions:

• c when before e and i = [ts]: cive, helice
• g when before e and i = [ʒ], French j, or English s in pleasure: plage, giraffe; but elsewhere c and g are hard as in can, go
• ss = [s] as in pass
• s between vowels = [z]: rose, positiv
• z = [dz]
• zz = [ts]
• ch = [ʃ], English sh: chambre
• j = [ʒ], French j, or English s in pleasure
• t as [t], except when followed by ia, io, iu, or ie and not preceded by an s. Thus the t in nation is pronounced [ts] but in bastion as [t].

Other doubled consonants are pronounced as a single consonant, unless when separated they would be pronounced differently. Ex. grammatica is pronounced as if written gramatica, but occidental and suggestion are pronounced as if written as oc followed by cidental, and sug followed by gestion.

Stress

Words are generally stressed on the vowel before the final consonant: intercalar, parol, forme. Pluralizing a noun does not change the stress: paroles, formes. The endings -bil, -ic, -im, -ul and -um do not change the stress (even when more than one is present in a single word), nor does the adverbial ending -men: rapidmen, duplic, bonissim, singul, possibil, maximum, statisticas. Two vowels together are diphthongized and do not count as two syllables for the purpose of stress: familie, potentie, unless the word is a single consonant or consonant cluster followed by two vowels: die, deo. Compound words are stressed based on the last word in the compound: hodie, substrae. In cases where the accent is irregular, it is indicated by an accent: café, ínpossibil, numeró, númere, felicitá.

The accent mark is also sometimes used to stress a word (In un casu li naves proveni de ún state = In one case the ships originate from one country), or over the particles ú when used as a conjunction, ó when used to mean 'either' (ó A, ó B), and é when used to mean 'both' (é A, é B). e.g. Yo ne save u il es (I don't know where he is), Yo vole trincar e lacte e bir (I want to drink both milk and beer) and O il ne save li loc, o il ne vole venir (Either he does not know the location or he does not want to come) will sometimes be seen written as Yo ne save ú il es, Yo vole trincar é lacte é bir, and Ó il ne save li loc, ó il ne vole venir.

Grammar

Like English, Interlingue has a definite article and an indefinite article. The definite article (the) is li, and the indefinite (a, an) is un. Plural of a noun is made by adding -s after a vowel, or -es after most consonants. To avoid pronunciation and stress changes, words ending in -c, -g, and -m only add an -s: un libre, du libres, un angul, tri angules, li tric, li trics, li plug, li plugs, li album, pluri albums, li tram, du trams.

Personal pronouns

Interlingue has two forms for the personal pronouns: one for the subject form (nominative), and one for the object form (accusative or dative).

		first		second		third (neutral)		third (feminine)		third (masculine)
		Occ	English	Occ	English	Occ	English	Occ	English	Occ	English
Singular	Subject	yo	I	tu	thee	it	it	ella	she	il	he
	Object	me	me	te	thou	it	it	la	her	le	him
	Possessive	mi	my	tui	thy	su	its	su	her	su	his
Plural	Subject	noi	we	vu	you	ili	they	ellas	they	illos	they
	Object	nos	us	vos	you	les	them	las	them	los	them
	Possessive	nor	our	vor	your	lor	their	lor	their	lor	their

The variants illa and ella both exist for third person singular feminine. The pronoun expressing politeness is vu, which behaves like second person plural. The indefinite personal pronoun "one" is on in Occidental. If necessary, one can specify the gender of third person plural by using illos (masculine) or ellas (feminine).

In the object form the pronouns are: me, te, le, la, it, nos, vos, and les (with los and las as specific masculine and feminine forms, respectively). In the oblique case, the pronouns are me, te, il (or le), noi (or nos), voi (or vos), and ili (or les), varying by user and situation outside of the forms me and te. The possessive pronouns are mi, tui, su (his/her/its), nor, vor and lor. They may be pluralized: li mi (mine, singular), li mis (mine, plural), li nor (ours, singular), li nores (ours, plural).

Grammatical endings are used to a certain extent, though to a lesser degree than languages such as Esperanto and Ido where parts of speech are marked with obligatory endings. Only a few parts of speech (such as verb infinitives) in Interlingue have entirely obligatory endings, while many others either have endings the usage of which is optional and sometimes recommended. Some grammatical endings are:

• ar, er, ir: verb infinitive. far (to do), posser (be able), scrir (to write)
• e: the general substantival (noun) ending used obligatorily to differentiate nouns from other parts or speech, for reasons of pronunciation, or optionally for euphony. Examples of obligatory -e endings: capitale (capital, noun) vs. capital (capital, adjective), contenete (content) vs, contenet (contained), sud (south, adjective) vs. sude (south as an independent noun, as in the north and the south). A final -e is recommended in words ending with -s to avoid confusion with the plural (farse, curse, sense), -ir, -er- and -ar endings to avoid confusion with the verb infinitive (dangere, desire, papere), and other such areas where its addition aids in differentiation or pronunciation. Optional -e endings: can or cane (dog), Pentecost or Pentecoste (Pentecost). The -e and other endings are often omitted for poetic or euphonic reasons.
• i: the general adjectival ending, similar to -e in usage. Examples of obligatory -i endings: pigri (lazy), acri (sharp) for ease of pronunciation, verdi (green, adjective) to distinguish from verde (green, noun). Examples of optional -i endings: etern vs. eterni (eternal), imens vs. imensi (immense).
• a: nouns that end in e formed from an -ar verb are often written with the -a ending if one wishes to emphasize the verbal (active) aspect. A me veni un pensa (a thought occurred to me) vs. Penses e paroles (thoughts and words). The a ending also makes nouns feminine: anglese (English person), angleso (Englishman), anglesa (English woman). This does not apply to nouns that on their own indicate the gender (patre, matre).
• o: indicates the masculine gender in the same way a indicates the feminine.

Correlatives

While correlatives were not made to match a pre-determined scheme (such as the correlatives in Esperanto), the majority do match the prefixes and suffixes in the chart below.

	QU- (interrogative/relative)	T- (demonstrative)	ALQU- (undefined)	NEQU- (negative)	-CUNC (indeterminate)	Ø(collective)
-I (persons, standard demonstrative)	qui (who)	ti (this/that)	alqui (someone)	nequi (nobody)	quicunc (whoever)	omni (every, all)
-O (things)	quo (what)	to (that: general standalone demonstrative as in "that is interesting")	alquo (something)	nequo (nothing)	quocunc (whatever)	omno (all)
-EL (both persons and things)	quel (which)	tel (such)	alquel (any)	nequel	quelcunc (whichever)	chascun (each, all)
-AL (quality)	qual (which, what a)	tal (that)	alqual (any kind)	nequal	qualcunc
-AM (way, mode)	quam (as)	tam (so)	alquam (anyhow)	nequam	quamcunc (however)
-ANT (quantity)	quant (how many)	tant (so much)	alquant (somewhat)	nequant	quantcunc
-ANDE (time)	quande (when)	tande (then)	alquande	nequande (never)	quandecunc	sempre (always, ever)
-U (place)	u (where)	ci / ta (here / there)	alcu (somewhere)	necu (nowhere)	ucunc (anywhere)	partú (everywhere)

Alcun (some) and necun (no, none) are respectively the adjectives of alquel and nequel

The -qui series has optional accusative forms ending in -em: quem, alquem, nequem

The -al series is adverbialized with the -men ending: qualmen (how) talmen (that way)

Correlatives can take the plural ending: queles, quales, tis, omnis, etc.

Ci (here) and ta (there) can be affixed to ti and to to indicate proximity or distance: ti libre (this book), ti-ci libre (this book here), ti-ta libre (that book there), tis (these), tis-ci (these here), tis-ta (those there), to-ci (this here), to-ta (that there)

Many derivatives are formed from the correlatives: qualitá from qual + itá, quantitá from quant + -itá, omnipotent from omni + potent

Verbs

Verbs in Interlingue have three endings: -ar, -er, and -ir. Conjugation is carried out with a combination of endings and auxiliary verbs. The verb esser (to be) is exceptional in being written es in the present tense, though the esse form is seen in the imperative.

Simple Verb Tenses

	Form	Interlingue	English	Notes
Infinitive	ar / er / ir	amar / decider / scrir	to love / to decide / to write
Present	a / e / i	yo ama / decide / scri	I love / decide / write
Past	-t	yo amat / decidet / scrit	I loved / decided / wrote	stress thus falls on the last syllable: yo amat
Future	va + inf.	yo va amar / decider / scrir	I will (shall) love / decide / write	va on its own is not a verb (to go = ear or vader)
Conditional	vell + inf.	yo vell amar / decider / scrir	I would love / decide / write	Also used for hearsay: Un acusation secun quel il vell har esset... - An accusation alleging him to have been... (lit. an accusation according to which he would have been...)
Imperative	a! / e! / i!	ama! / decide! / scri!	love! / decide! / write!	Imperative of esser is esse.

Compound Verb Tenses

	Form	Interlingue	English	Notes
Perfect	ha + t	yo ha amat / decidet / scrit	I have loved / decided / written	ha on its own is not a verb (to have = haver)
Pluperfect	hat + t	yo hat amat / decidet / scrit	I had loved / decided / written
Future Perfect	va har + t	yo va har amat / decidet / scrit	I will (shall) have loved / decided / written
Perfect Conditional	vell har + t	yo vell har amat / decidet / scrit	I would have loved / decided / written
Future in the past	vat + inf.	yo vat amar / decider / scrir	I was going to love / to decide / to write
Precative	ples + inf.	ples amar! / decider! / scrir!	please love! / please / write!
Hortative	lass + inf.	lass nos amar! / decider! / scrir!	let's love! / decide! / write!
Optative	mey + inf.	yo mey amar / decider / scrir	May I love / decide / write	Only the same as English may in the optative mood (as in "May his days be long" or "May the Force be with you", not "I may or may not go").
Present participle	-nt	amant / decident / scrient	loving / deciding / writing	-ir verbs become -ient
Gerund (adverbial participle)	-nte	amante / decidente / scriente	(while) loving / deciding / writing	-ir verbs become -iente

The present participle is used to qualify nouns: un cat ama, un amant cat (a cat loves, a loving cat) and is often seen in adjectives such as fatigant (tiring, from fatigar, to tire). The gerund is used to indicate another action or state of being going on at the same time: scriente un missage, yo videt que... (writing a message, I saw that...).

Many further combinations of endings and auxiliary verbs are possible. Some examples:

Yo vell har esset amat = I would have been loved

Hante retornat al dom... = Having returned to the house... (ha + gerund)

Other notes on verbs:

The subjunctive does not exist in Interlingue: yo vole que tu ama (I want you to love). Mey is often used to express it when necessary, however, frequently after que: Yo vole que tu mey amar (I want you to love, lit. I want that you may love).

Hay is a standalone verb that means there is or there are. Hay du homes in li dom (there are two people in the house). As a standalone verb there is no official infinitive but users of the language often conjugate it as if there were (hayat, etc.) Other ways of expressing there is or there are: esser (esset nequó altri a far = there was nothing else to do), exister (it existe du metodes = there are two ways), trovar se (in li cité trova se tri cavalles = there are three horses in the city), etc.

The passive is formed using the verb esser: yo es amat (I am loved). Se makes the verb refer to itself (reflexive form) which often functions as a shorter way to form the passive: li frontieras esset cludet = li frontieras cludet se (the borders were closed).

The progressive tense (-nt) is not used with the same frequency as in English (what are you doing? = quo tu fa?, not quo tu es fant?). It emphasizes the continuity of the verb and is often used in storytelling (noi esset marchant vers li rivere quande... = we were walking towards the river when...)

The verb star (to stand) may be used to emphasize the completion of a verb: li dom sta constructet (the house stands constructed, i.e. it is completely built)

The verb ear (to go) may be used to emphasize the continuity of a verb: li dom ea constructet (the house is being built).

The double negative is permitted, and was even recommended by de Wahl for its internationality and precision. De Wahl gave the following phrase as an example: "Yo ha trovat li libre, quem vu ha dat me, in null loc, quem vu ha indicat me" (lit. I found the book you gave me nowhere you indicated me, thus "I didn't find the book anywhere you told me to look"). In this phrase, not permitting a double negative would result in ambiguity up to the word null, the only indication of a negative in the phrase, recommending Yo ne ha trovat li libre...in null loc. An obligatory double negative was never imposed and later Occidentalists found that they rarely used it, but it remained permitted and is seen from time to time.

The infinitive may also used as a mild or impersonal imperative: ne fumar - no smoking; bon comprender: un crímine es totvez un crímine - let's be clear (lit. understand well): a crime is still a crime.

Adverbs

Interlingue has primary adverbs and derived adverbs. Primary adverbs are not generated from other parts of speech and are thus not formed using any special endings: tre (very), sempre (always), etc.

Derived adverbs are formed by adding the suffix -men to an adjective (rapid = quick, rapidmen = quickly), cognate with French -ment, Italian -mente, and others. The ending -men was inspired by Provençal and spoken French (which does not pronounce the t in -ment) and chosen over -mente to avoid clashing with the noun ending -ment and other nouns in the language derived from the past tense in -t. The ending may be omitted when the meaning is clear: tu deve far it rapid(men) = you must do it quick(ly).

It is possible to group the most common adverbs as below, but the number of adverbs is nearly limitless when all possible derived adverbs are included.

Genre	Common Adverbs
Manner (How?)	qualmen, quam, talmen, tam, alquam, nequam, solmen, apen, tot, totalmen, totmen, ne totmen, totmen ne
Quantity (How much?)	quant, tant, sat, suficent, nequant, alquant, tre, tro, circa, mult, poc, un poc, quelcvez, multvez, sovente, plu, adplu, sempre, sempre plu, sempre plu mult, sempre plu mult ancor, min, plu o min, maxim, admaxim
Location (Where? To / from where?)	u, ci, ta, alcú, necú, partú, ucunc, supra, infra, circum, éxter, extra, intra, ínter, detra, levul, dextri, proxim, lontan.
Time (When?)	quande, unquande, alquande, nequande, quandecunc, alor, tande, ínterim, nu, strax, subitmen, just, justmen, bentost, tost, tard, temporan, solmen, ne ante, sovente, sempre, ne plu, antey, poy, depoy, desde, in ante, ja, ancor, ne ancor, adplu
Affirmation/ Negation / Doubt (Really?)	yes, no, ne, ne plu, si, ya, fórsan, sin dúbite.

Derivation

An example of derivation from the magazine Cosmoglotta.

Flowchart demonstrating derivation of nouns from verbs using de Wahl's rule.

The application of de Wahl's rule to verbs and the usage of numerous suffixes and prefixes was created to resolve irregularities that had plagued creators of language projects before Occidental, who were forced to make the choice between regularity and innatural forms, or irregularity and natural forms. The prevailing view before its application was that natural forms needed to be sacrificed for the sake of regularity, while those that opted for naturality were forced to admit numerous irregularities when doing so (Idiom Neutral for example had a list of 81 verbs with special radicals used when forming derivatives), a paradox summed up by Louis Couturat in 1903 as follows:

In short, one finds oneself confronted by the antinomy that the words that are international are not regular, and the words that are regular are not international; the prevailing opinion [of naturalists such as Julius Lott and Edgar de Wahl] was that regularity should be sacrificed for internationality in the formation of words.

.

The rules created by Edgar de Wahl to resolve this were first described in 1909 in the Discussiones of Peano's Academia pro Interlingua and are as follows:

1. If, after the removal of -r or -er of the infinitive, the root ends in a vowel, the final -t is added. Crear (to create), crea/t-, crea/t/or, crea/t/ion, crea/t/iv, crea/t/ura.
2. If the root ends in consonants d or r, they are changed into s: decid/er (to decide), deci/s-, deci/s/ion deci/s/iv. Adherer (to adhere), adhe/s-, adhe/s/ion
3. In all other cases, with six exceptions, the removal of the ending gives the exact root: duct/er, duct-, duct/ion.

Once these rules were applied, Occidental was left with six exceptions. They are:

1. ced/er, cess- (concession)
2. sed/er, sess- (session)
3. mov/er, mot- (motion)
4. ten/er, tent- (temptation)
5. vert/er, vers- (version)
6. veni/r, vent- (advent)

Suffixes are added either to the verbal root or the present theme of the verb (the infinitive minus -r). An example of the latter is the suffix -ment: move/r, move/ment (not movetment), experi/r, experi/ment (not experitment), and -ntie (English -nce): tolera/r (tolerate), tolera/ntie, existe/r (exist), existe/ntie.

Affixes

The major prefixes and suffixes used in word derivation in Interlingue are added to either the present theme (infinitive minus -r), verbal root (infinitive minus two preceding vowels), or perfect theme (present theme + t or +s for verbs finishing with -d or -r) of verbs, as well as other types of speech. The below is a sample of some of the affixes used.

affix	meaning	affixed to	before affix	after affix	notes
-abil/-ibil	able	verbal root	posser (to be able)	possibil (possible)	-abil for -ar verbs, -ibil for -er and -ir verbs
-ada/-ida	-ade	verbal root	promenar (to stroll)	promenada (a walk, a promenade)	-ada for -ar verbs, -ida for -er and -ir verbs
-ach-	pejorative	verbal root	criticar (criticize)	criticachar (complain, whine)
-ar	general verb	noun, adjective	sicc (dry)	siccar (to dry)	General verb final in most cases for all modern verbs
-ard	pejorative noun suffix	verbal root	furter (steal)	furtard (thief)
bel-	kinship by marriage	noun	fratre (brother)	belfratre (brother-in-law)
des-	cessation	various	infectar (infect) avantage (advantage)	desinfectar (disinfect) desavantage (disadvantage)
dis-	separation, dispersion	various	membre (member) semar (sow, seminate)	dismembrar (dismember) dissemar (disseminate)
-er-	doer of verb	verbal root	lavar (wash)	lavere / lavera / lavero (washer)	-a or -o to specify female or male gender
-ette	diminutive	noun	dom (house)	domette (cottage)
ex-	ex-	noun	presidente (president)	ex-presidente (ex-president)
ho-	this	noun	semane (week)	ho-semane (this week)
-illio	caressive	noun	fratre (brother)	fratrillio (bro)	affixed to male nouns
ín-	in-, un-, etc.	adjective	credibil (believable)	íncredibil (unbelievable)
-innia	caressive	noun	matre (mother)	matrinnia (mom/mommy)	affixed to female nouns
-ion	-ion	perfect theme	crear (create)	creation (creation)
-iv	-ive	perfect theme	exploder (explode)	explosiv (explosive)	perfect theme: explod-er --> explod --> explos
-ment	-ment	present theme	experir (to experience)	experiment (experiment)
mi-	half	noun	fratre (brother)	mifratre (half-brother)
mis-	false (mis-)	various	comprender (understand)	miscomprender (misunderstand)
non-	non-	noun	fumator (smoker)	nonfumator (non-smoker)
-ntie	-nce	present theme	tolerar (tolerate) experir (to experience)	tolerantie (tolerance) experientie (experience)	-ir verbs add an e: ir --> ientie
-or	-er, -or	perfect theme	distribuer (distribute)	distributor (distributor)
-ori	-ory	perfect theme	currer (run)	cursori (cursory)	perfect theme: curr-er --> curr --> curs
per-	through, all the way	verb	forar (pierce)	perforar (perforate)
pre-	before	various	historie (history)	prehistorie (prehistory)
pro-	to the front	verb	ducter (lead)	producter (produce)
re-	re-	verb	venir (come)	revenir (return)
step-	step-	noun	matre (mother)	stepmatre (stepmother)
-ura	-ure	perfect theme	scrir (write)	scritura (scripture)

Ease of learning

As an international auxiliary language, ease of learning through regular derivation and recognizable vocabulary was a key principle in Occidental's creation. The magazine Cosmoglotta often featured letters from new users and former users of other international languages (primarily Esperanto and Ido) attesting to the language's simplicity: letters from new users to demonstrate their quick command of the language, and attestations from experienced auxiliary language users to share their experiences. Because many users of Occidental had encountered the language after gaining experience in others, objective data on learnability of the language is difficult to find. One experiment to ascertain learning time was carried out however in the years 1956 to 1957 in a Swiss Catholic high school (gymnasium) in Disentis on the time required to learn the language. The experiment showed that the students participating in the study, who had previous experience with French, Latin, and Greek, mastered both written and spoken Interlingue after 30 hours of study.

Literature

The main literary texts in Occidental appeared in Cosmoglotta. There were also some works, both original and translated, published in Interlingue. Other texts appeared in the Helvetia magazine but these were less common.

Micri chrestomathie is a compilation of text by Jaroslav Podobský, H. Pášma and Jan Kajš published in 1933.

Example texts

Li material civilisation, li scientie, e mem li arte unifica se plu e plu. Li cultivat europano senti se quasi in hem in omni landes queles have europan civilisation, it es, plu e plu, in li tot munde. Hodie presc omni states guerrea per li sam armes. Sin cessa li medies de intercomunication ameliora se, e in consequentie de to li terra sembla diminuer se. Un Parisano es nu plu proxim a un angleso o a un germano quam il esset ante cent annus a un paisano frances.

Possible pronunciation: [li mateˈrjaːl tsivilizaˈtsjoːn li ˈstsjentsje e ˈmeːm li ˈarte uˈniːfika se ˈpluː e ˈpluː li kultiˈvaːt ewroˈpaːno ˈsenti se ˈkwaːzi in ˈheːm in ˈomni ˈlandes ˌkweːles ˈhaːve ewroˈpaːn tsivilizaˈtsjoːn it ˈes ˈpluː e ˈpluː in li ˈtoːt ˈmunde hoˈdiːe ˈprɛsk ˈomni ˈstaːtes ˈgwɛrea per li ˈsaːm ˈarmes sin ˈtsɛsa li ˈmeːdjes de interkomunikaˈtsjoːn ameˈljoːra se e in konseˈkwentsje de ˈtoː li ˈtɛra ˈsembla dimiˈnweːr se un pariˈzaːno es ˈnuː plu ˈprɔksim a un aŋˈgleːzo o a un ʒerˈmaːno kwam il eˈseːt ˌante ˈtsent ˈanus a un pa.iˈzaːno franˈtseːs]

Translation: "Material civilization, science, and even art unify themselves more and more. The educated European feels himself almost at home in all lands that have European civilization, that is, more and more, in the entire world. Today almost all states war with the same armaments. Without pause the modes of intercommunication improve, and in consequence from that the world seems to decrease. A Parisian is now closer to an Englishman or a German than he was a hundred years before to a French peasant."

Lord's Prayer

Interlingue/Occidental	Interlingua	Latin (traditional)	English (traditional)
Patre nor, qui es in li cieles, mey tui nómine esser sanctificat, mey tui regnia venir, mey tui vole esser fat, qualmen in li cieles talmen anc sur li terre. Da nos hodie nor pan omnidial, e pardona nor débites, qualmen anc noi pardona nor debitores. E ne inducte nos in tentation, ma libera nos de lu mal. Amen.	Patre nostre, qui es in le celos, que tu nomine sia sanctificate; que tu regno veni; que tu voluntate sia facite como in le celo, etiam super le terra. Da nos hodie nostre pan quotidian, e pardona a nos nostre debitas como etiam nos los pardona a nostre debitores. E non induce nos in tentation, sed libera nos del mal. Amen.	Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo, et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.	Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done. on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

1942 New Year's greeting printed in Cosmoglotta B (Switzerland)

Occidental

English

Si noi vell viver ancor in li felici témpor quel precedet li guerre universal, tande anc li present articul vell reflecter li serenitá per quel noi acustomat salutar li comensa de un nov annu. Ma hodie, li pie desir quel noi ordinarimen expresse per un cordial 'Felici nov annu' ha transformat se in sanguant ironie. Noi plu ne posse pronunciar ti paroles sin sentir lor terribil banalitá e absolut vacuitá de sens. Li future es obscurissim e it promesse nos plu mult sufrenties quam radies de espera. Li pace va sequer li guerre quam li die seque li nocte e quam li calma succede al tempeste. Un nov munde va nascer ex li caos e in ti nov munde anc noi interlinguistes va ti-ci vez luder un rol decisiv.

Were we to still be living in the happy time that preceded the world war, then this article would also reflect the serenity by which we used to greet the beginning of a new year. But today, the pious desire that we ordinarily express with a cordial 'Happy new year' has been transformed into bloody irony. We can no longer pronounce these words without feeling their terrible banality and absolute lack of meaning. The future is beyond dark and it promises us more suffering than rays of hope. Peace will follow war, just as the day follows the night and the calm comes after the storm. A new world will be born out of the chaos, and in this new world this time we interlinguists will also play a decisive role.

See also

• List of interlingue-ists and Occidentalists (Interlingue)
• List of journals and bulletins in Occidental (Interlingue)
• Li Europan lingues

External links

• The Official Website of the Interlingue-Union
• The Occidental Language

Grammar and Dictionary

• Grammar of Interlingue in English by Dr. F Haas
• An English-Interlingue Dictionary by Kemp and Pope, also available as a text file.
• Occidental in 10 lessons by A.Z. Ramstedt (pdf) - English translation of original German course
• Interlingue - English online dictionary with translation memories
• Resume de gramatica de Interlingue (Occidental) in Interlingue
• interlingue.narod.ru, information and word lists (vocabularium) in English and Russian.
• Radicarium directiv del Lingue International (Occidental) in 8 lingues (1925) by Edgar von Wahl. Note: uses old spelling.
• Interlingue for Beginners (1966) by Wilfred E. Reeve

Texts

• Cosmoglotta A and Cosmoglotta B at the Austrian National Library
• Helvetia (bulletin for the Swiss Association for Occidental): 1928, 1929 - 1933 (Austrian National Library)
• Scanned Kosmoglott (1922 - 1926) and Cosmoglotta (1927 - 1950) back issues
• Cosmoglotta and Helvetia back issues digitized, with modern orthography
• Cosmoglotta issues from 2000 to 2004
• Books in Occidental / Interlingue at the Austrian National Library