| Moderator: |
Gerhard Bischoff |
| eMail: |
Euyasik (at) gmx (dot) net
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| Author |
R. Harrison |
Besides other websites Richard K. Harrison designed the website "Artificial Language Lab" . The following essay is part of his "Proposed Guidelines for the Design of an Optimal International Auxiliary Language".
Premise for an International Auxiliary Language
When people who speak different languages need to communicate, they often choose to use an "interlingua" or "lingua franca." Some examples: Latin served as Europe’s scholarly interlingua for several centuries. Citizens of Israel, who have many different mother tongues, use deliberately-revived Hebrew as their common language. Malay-Indonesian is the national language and common means of communication in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, even though it is the "native" or "home" language of a minority of their people. Pidgins – simplified versions or mixtures of languages – often arise to bridge the gap between groups of people who need to communicate across a language barrier.
The adoption of an interlingua for the entire world appears to be desirable. Such a language would make it easier for scholars and scientists to gain access to information, and to participate in conferences and journals. A world lingua franca would facilitate commerce and make it easier for businesses to participate in the international marketplace. Diplomats, tourists and others would benefit. The costs of providing translations for items ranging from computer software instruction manuals to movies and novels would be minimized, and the potential market for such items would become global rather than regional.
It is possible that a "natural" language such as English could play the role of auxiliary language to some extent. However, natural languages (and particularly English) have some characteristics which make them difficult to learn: unpredictable spellings, sounds that are difficult for people from different language backgrounds to pronounce, irregularities in the derivations of related words, etc. ( Edward Sapir offers an especially eloquent and convincing argument along these lines.) Many persons of average intelligence do not have the time and/or special talent needed to master English (or some other natural language) as a second tongue. They can learn to "get the gist" of texts and to have simple "how are you" conversations, but cannot expect to gain the ability to confidently express themselves after a moderate amount of study. Also, there are political and cultural objections to granting any natural language the status of world interlingua.
For these reasons the intentional creation of a suitable planned language seems desirable.
In addition to language design criteria, we should also consider means of gathering support for an IAL and persuading significant numbers of people to use such a language. When I wrote the first draft of this essay, I believed that designing an IAL with optimal features would be an important factor in gathering support. However, when you look at the languages that actually are being used for international communication, it becomes clear that the features of a language don’t matter as much as the benefits of knowing the language.
People generally learn a second language for practical reasons such as qualifying for a better job, being able to communicate while traveling in a new area, or having access to information in a particular field of study. Until auxlang designers find ways to provide some practical benefits to potential students, artificial auxiliary languages will continue to be unpopular, regardless of how well or how poorly they are designed.
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