Nitobe Centre for language democracy
Language questions
Languages in the EU - Planned languages
Among those planned languages that have users in Europe, Esperanto is the one that is most in use. The planned languages Ido and Interlingua merit consideration beside Esperanto. Here we present a comparative perspective based on up-to-date, verifiable facts. The presentation refers to interlinguistic criteria that relate to the strength of the respective planned languages: how many people use it, how many journals are there, etc.
1. Structure |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agglutinative(*), with predominantly Romance roots and affixes, and with a very flexible system of word formation. (*) The words consist of meaningful parts, where every part have a constant meaning. (E.g. the parts "kant" (song), "ist" (in this case: someone who does something as a profession), "in" (feminine suffix), "o" (noun ending) together form "kant-ist-in-o" = female singer.) | A planned language based on Esperanto, with special modifications to the system that put it closer to the Romance languages. | Interlingua is the result of many years of study by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), a group of professional linguists. Interlingua has 4 source languages: English, French, Italian, and Spanish/Portuguese. A word that is common to 3 or 4 of these languages is a word of Interlingua. | ||
2. Worldwide community |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| Estimates vary from 30 000 to 2 000 000. The number of advanced speakers of Esperanto is perhaps no more than 100 000. The Universal Esperanto Association in its Yearbook for 2005 gives addresses of representatives in 95 countries. | Estimates vary from 100 to 200. The Union for the International Language Ido mentions representatives in 23 countries. | Perhaps 100 to 200. However the number of those able to read Interlingua is likely very high since Interlingua is a sort of lexical average of the large Romance languages. The World Union for Interlingua claims representatives in 27 countries, but the number of correspondants in the "Adressario de Interlingua" has continued to fall from 395 in 30 countries in 1964 to 36 in 19 countries in 1998. | ||
3. Teaching |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| Textbooks of Esperanto were in 2001 to be found in 50 languages at the Universala Esperanto-Asocio. Esperanto courses can be found in 100 countries. | In 1997 Ido textbooks existed in 10 languages. | In 2002, Interlingua textbooks were to be found in 21 languages. Interlingua courses exist in Brazil, Denmark, Sweden, and USA. | ||
4. Literature |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| The book catalogue of Universala Esperanto-Asocio places 5209 books at the buyer's disposal. Biblioteko Hodler at the Universala Esperanto-Asocio contains about 20 000 books; Internacia Esperanto-Muzeo in Vienna has about 25 000 books. Most of these are translations from ethnic languages. About 170 original novels, 290 short story collections, 400 collections of poems, and about 80 plays, have been published. 200-250 new books are published in Esperanto every year. | Regarding the book culture in general, the catalogue of 1997 presents 95 book titles, of which 38 were published after 1945. | The book publishing in general between 1991 and 2002 shows an annual rate of 10-12 new titles, mostly non-fiction and teaching materials. In the belletristic field one can find translations of Andersen, Dante, Goldoni, Pirandello, Shakespeare, Strindberg, Cxehxov, Tucholsky, and a part of the Bible (a list that is almost complete). | ||
5. Number of periodicals |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| Between 350 and 400 periodicals are published in Esperanto. | In Ido the journal Progreso and three bulletins are published. | In Interlingua the journal Panorama and six bulletins are published. | ||
6. Domains of usage |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| The domains of Esperanto use, greatly diversified in the age of the Internet, are the everyday, the literary and the specialist literature, not only in speech and writing but also by regular radio broadcasts from about 30 stations in all (Warsaw and Beijing broadcast daily). In contrast to the situation in other planned languages, speakers of Esperanto have at their disposal films, video tapes, a whole range of audio cassettes with material from conferences, lectures, artistic presentations, recitals, language courses, etc., as well as CDs, that feature music, computer programs and much more. Esperanto rock music, theatre, and comics give room for popular culture especially for young people. The PEN chapter for Esperanto literature is a general acknowledgement of the achievements of Esperanto literature. | Regarding the domains of use, Ido remains limited to spoken usage and (mainly) writing about everyday, journalistic, and cultural subjects. There are in Ido some audio cassettes and CDs. | Regarding the domains of use, Interlingua remains limited to spoken usage and (mainly) writing about everyday, journalistic, and cultural subjects, with special emphasis on political news items. There are in Interlingua some isolated audio cassettes and CDs. | ||
7. Specialist language |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| Esperanto has been used for non-fiction from 1900 onwards and has a sizeable specialist literature among planned languages. The book catalogue of 2001 presents 226 scientific-technological books from 24 branches and 97 specialist dictionaries for 35 branches. | There are no specialist works and specialist dictionaries in Ido. | Interlingua has been used in medical contexts: the Second International Congress of Cardiology in 1954 had proceedings with abstracts in Interlingua; the same applied to 9 other medical congresses in 1954-1961. The book catalogue of 2002 mentions texts in the branches of demography, jurisprudence, history, medicine, economics, philosophy, theology, and religion, but no specialist dictionaries. | ||
8. Meetings |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| The biggest annual conference in Esperanto, that of the Universala Esperanto-Asocio, has between 1000 and 3000 participants; besides that there are between 300 and 400 conferences every year in about 30 countries. | Every second or third year there is a world congress for Ido, with 20-40 participants. | Every second year there is a world congress for Interlingua, usually with 50-100 participants. | ||
9. Sociological aspects |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| The users of Esperanto consider themselves to be a community that cultivates the idea of humanistic universalism, often called the "interna ideo" and clearly presented in the original literature. There are already many studies published on the sociology and history of the Esperanto community. Families, in which Esperanto has the role of home language, have nurtured native speakers of the languge for a long time; currently there are about 1000 such speakers. | The users of Ido sees in it a technical instrument, not a community building or an instrument of literary self-expression; the lack of growth of the Ido literature is linked to this fact; but the Idists conceptualize their history in opposition to the history of the Esperantists. Families, in which Ido were to play the role of home language, seem to have never existed. | The users of Interlingua sees in it a technical instrument, not a community building or an instrument of literary self-expression; the lack of growth of the original literature is linked to this fact. Families, in which Interlingua were to play the role of home langue, seem to have never existed. No rigorous sociological or historiographical studies have been published about Interlingua. Social differentiation of the users of Interlingua has never been an object of attention for researchers. | ||
10. Linguistic normativism |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| Normative reference works on the grammar and lexicon of Esperanto are updated regularly; the Akademio de Esperanto garantees the stability of those norms. | Normative reference works on the grammar and lexicon of Ido, comparatively old, remain valid; the Ido-Akademio that once were is at present defunct. | The old reference works on the grammar and lexicon of Interlingua remain valid. The Commision Linguistic of UMI (Union Mundial de Interlingua), established in 1995, helps authors of books in Interlingua and helps privat individuals that have linguistic problems. | ||
11. More information |
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| Esperanto | Ido | Interlingua | ||
| www.esperanto.net | http://ido.li | www.interlingua.com | ||
Sources
- Blanke, Detlev (2006): Vom Entwurf zur Sprache.
- http://www.uea.org/katalogo
- http://esperanto.net/literaturo/
- http://www.interlingua.com
- http://www.idolinguo.de
