Ahhh, the old debate yet again. Out of the three, Esperanto was created first. It was rough but ready in 1887. They have worked on it ever since, even created an academy to regulate it. I use Esperanto, it has the most materials available and the largest worldwide base. Books and websites are published in it to this day. It is not a perfect language but it is solid and established, and there is a certain logic to it. I have spoken Esperanto since 2005.

Ido is "reformed" Esperanto. In about 1907 some people who used Esperanto believed they could make it better. They changed the spellings and word endings...and if you know about this stuff, these are very superficial changes. And they claim that it is absolutely "better". Basically, some French speakers of Esperanto made it look a little bit more like French and Spanish and split off from the Esperanto movement, and they claim it is better. I can read it and sort of understand it more or less. Comparing it to Esperanto, it is like Dutch vs German, or Spanish vs Portuguese. 100 years later, Esperanto and Ido speakers argue about the virtues of their languages. I learned Esperanto because it's the only one I ever heard of in this category until I started.

Interlingua was researched for many years until it appeared in the 50s or early 60s. It sounds a bit more like Italian, and I rather like it. I think it is designed a bit better than Ido, but to this day I'm still most comfortable with Esperanto. I can more or less understand it, and it seems designed a bit better than Ido.

In this category of artificial languages, I only need Esperanto. Esperanto is marginalized as it is, and all the other artificial languages are fringe projects. Ido defines itself by hating Esperanto and trying to attract Esperanto speakers to switch. Interlingua is not so combative, and is designed better, and has a few more speakers, but did not quite make it. Other than Esperanto and my native English, I know German, French, and some Japanese, and for me that is plenty.

Why did they create Ido and Interlingua? There are several schools of thought in artificial languages. A priori means that the inventor makes the elements from scratch, totally new. Invents new words and roots. A posteori means creating an artificial language with pre-existing natural elements. In Esperanto, most of the word roots are a posteori, taken from Latin, Greek, and German. However, some special words and the suffixes are new and different. Ido is Esperanto with more Spanish word endings and intonation, Interlingua is more like Italian with fewer artificial elements. Esperanto is slightly more a priori on an a posteori base. Ido and Interlingua are artificial languages, but designed to look and sound more natural, so that a native speaker of Italian or Spanish or French could read them without translation. Esperanto is slightly harder but with a much bigger speaker base and support system. Go figure.

erinja:You have to go through some levels of Interlingua-only menus to find the free Interlingua course on the website, which is a poor way to promote your language.

I agree. You're right. System which serves Interlingua.com domain automatically should serve browser client's default language. Four to five mouse clicks to find the door will destroy motivation to follow-up. Two navigation ways I found out:

- www.interlingua.com
- Navigation (bar)
- Libros e litteratura
- Dictionarios e cursos
- Anglese

- www.interlingua.com
- Contacta nos | Info national | Cerca | (right upper corner)
- anglese flag
- Film: Hallo, hallo - nos presenta interlingua (in English) | Materials in English (bottom line)

robbkvasnak:I think I will stick with Esperanto to satiate my "international language" cravings.

I'm not interested in language politics. In my life I have crossed national borders that often I really don't care of that 'international language politics' bla bla bla. I'm free will European citizen free to travel and work at every location in EU. So why to care of 'nations border line separators' and archaic 'international language' discussions. If it works onsite. Go ahead. If it doesn't work onsite. Try different.

robbkvasnak:Ido might be good when translating fiction into Esperanto from another language - as a sort of "dialect" of Esperanto - like when people speak in the dialect of an ethnic language, a sort of non-mainstream dialect.

Because every language has same intention. Every language has same value, isn't? No necessary to 'downgrade' other theirs languages.

robbkvasnak:Interlingua/Interlingue/Latino sine flexione (etc.) could be useful when trying to reflect in translation texts from a "long lost language" into Esperanto to represent a form of "pra-esperanto" - like inscriptions on a pottery shard or the inscriptions on a sunken temple.

What are you talking about? Interlingua holds modern forms of Latin found inside modern Latin derived languages like romanic languages. Interlingua no way is "pra-" whatever or "revival-" whatever. Interlingua represents minimalistic extract of worldwide used vocabulary and grammar. That way conlang community of Interlingua needs more less efforts to exchange ideas with non-Interlingua folks than it needs the same to do the conlang community of Esperanto to non-Esperanto folks.

robbkvasnak:But I agree with non-latinate "mother-tongue-lings" that Interlingua is def NOT easy to understand at a glance - and I speak pretty good French, Spanish, and Portuguese and can mumble my way through Italian (and I took 4 years of Latin sometime during the last century when I was in elementary school).

Inside Interlingua I like to regain Zamenhof's assumptions of what root words could be most widely understood. So regarding selection of root words Interlingua certifies lot of Zamenhof's assumptions. But regarding grammar Interlingua denies most of Zamenhof's assumptions. That doesn't set any rating. Zamenhof's ideas of grammar are brilliant but they are not most widely 'self-explanatory'.

robbkvasnak:One more thought: if you want a real living language that is sort of Interlingua-like, try Papiamento: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papiamento - and then book a flight to Aruba or Curacao to practice - maybe with some rum drink in the left hand and the Papiamento phrase book in the right.

Thanks a lot. Thats very interesting.

I agree. Being abroad drunken slightly could be useful to master foreign language. Often someones is capable of more then someones is conscious of.

dameda:In this category of artificial languages, I only need Esperanto. Esperanto is marginalized as it is, and all the other artificial languages are fringe projects. Ido defines itself by hating Esperanto and trying to attract Esperanto speakers to switch. Interlingua is not so combative, and is designed better, and has a few more speakers, but did not quite make it. Other than Esperanto and my native English, I know German, French, and some Japanese, and for me that is plenty.

Regarding field of foreign languages I only focus on English, Esperanto and Interlingua.

dameda: Ido and Interlingua are artificial languages, but designed to look and sound more natural, so that a native speaker of Italian or Spanish or French could read them without translation. Esperanto is slightly harder but with a much bigger speaker base and support system. Go figure.

Casually at work I have to use English to instruct colleagues from Asia. Because Interlingua is based on English grammar principles without non-sense gender markers Interlingua helps me to bring English into state it is used at ESL type communication. Combined with special field knowledge it serves my personal needs that way. Em, Esperanto did help me to dive into Interlingua. Reverse Interlingua helps me to use Esperanto more naturalistic. I.e. I somewhat felt in love with Romanic noun-adjective order which is different to that one used in German (adjective-noun order). Furthermore Interlingua helps me to put of agglutinative ambitions of my mother tongue German to use in non-agglutinative English language. These are values I see with learning English, Esperanto and Interlingua.

RiotNrrd:

pdenisowski:Take a look at the Union Mundial pro Interlingua.

I think the reason I went the Esperanto route instead of the Interlingua route is because Lernu is a very welcoming site for beginners.

I tell you, from where I sit, the Interlingua site is not.

Well, I started learning both Esperanto and Interlingua before there were such things as the Internet, web sites, email, personal computers, printers, etc. In fact, the picture on my Interlingua page is actually a scan of the cover of the first Interlingua textbook I used back in the 1980s. A couple of the vocabulary lists also come from 1980s-era textbooks.

That said, I do think localized versions of the UMI's website would be a good idea.

Amike,

Paul

There is a free 15 lesson online course with audio at the UMI website :

http://www.interlingua.com/an/curso

They have native language versions in English, Danish, Spanish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese and Turkish.

Note too that a searchable version of the Interlingua-English dictionary is available at the UMI site :

http://www.interlingua.com/ied/cerca

Amike,

Paul

Ferdinand Cesarano:First of all, I have a difficult time believing that any educated and literate English-speaker cannot make his/her way through an Interlingua text.

Your statement does fit quite nicely with a line of mine that perhaps you missed, and which I will quote again here:

RiotNrrd:Interlingua is maybe not quite as intuitively obvious to all non-speakers as its speakers think it is.

Ferdinand Cesarano:In addition, well-read people have a tremendous familiarity with Romance/Latin vocabulary. So, even those English-speakers who took German at school should have very little trouble with an Interlingua text.

I'm a German who took (had to take) English at school, aditionally Latin and Greek, and of course I speak Esperanto.
But as I've never learnt a Romance language for me Interlingua is in no way easier to understand than any other Romance planned or ethnic language (I have to read French and Italian articles at work), so depending of the text 70-90%.
In my point of view Interlingua could be interesting for the active use, while for passive understanding it is useful only for those people who don't need it.

Dear spreecamper, I certainly didn't mean to down grade anything. I was just pointing out how Ido and Interlingua could be used.
Yes, you belong to the EU. I don't. I do not have the right to settle in any country other than the USA - that is not my choice. The stork decided that for me. I wish that I had that freedom. I am trying to acquire a better understanding of Kreyol (the language of Haiti) which is widely used here in SE Florida.
Expressions like "what are you talking about" are indeed colloquial but rather rude. That is one of the problems of using an ethnic language in international communication. It is hard for the non-native speaker to hit just the right chord when using colloquialisms. I understand that your first language is not English and I excuse you for the rude tone, though I must add that upon first reading it I was a little hurt.
Furthermore, I was just trying to be cute about the rum drink. I wasn't implying that one get drunk in order to enjoy Papiamento. I guess that the idea of a fancy rum drink is a phantasy that people in my area use when thinking of a quick get-away to the Caribbean. In fact, I visited St. Martin and found Papiamento very nice and colorful as a language. I even bought a dictionary. It is also amazing how easy it is for me to understand especially compared to Interlingua, which is more difficult.
Smile! Laugh! Love! And be happy.

robbkvasnak:Expressions like "what are you talking about" are indeed colloquial but rather rude. That is one of the problems of using an ethnic language in international communication. It is hard for the non-native speaker to hit just the right chord when using colloquialisms. I understand that your first language is not English and I excuse you for the rude tone, though I must add that upon first reading it I was a little hurt.

Okay. I'm sorry about. But thats the blunt way of communication in Germany where I did grow up. It was not my intention to hurt you.