Talk:Introducing Interlingua

Sorry yo, but what use is Interlingua anyway?

Reduce EU Budget? What should I do with my degree, then?

Improve communication? Were the Esperanto/Anglic/... experiments not enough?

Should it be THE international language? Don't we have English, already?

And try to get Americans (still more than 60% of internet users) to speak Interlingua, if you can!

And sorry, but it just sounds too... Latin - how about 5.something billion people speaking a non-latin language?

DS


 * I'm no Interlingua supporter, and I probably shouldn't go off-topic like this here, but...


 * Interlingua itself is spoken by very few. The only successful IAL has been Esperanto, with about 1 to 2 million speakers.
 * I have no idea what your degree is, but unless you're a translator I don't see it affecting you greatly...
 * The only "widely" spoken IAL is Esperanto. Its nearest follower, an old offshoot called Ido, has between 500 and 5000 speakers.
 * Yes, an IAL of some sort should be the international language. It would be neutral, fair, and protect minority languages, of which hundreds are expected to perish this century if something isn't done. English is spoken by about 8.5% of the world's population - not quite international.
 * The point of an IAL, to my mind, is that it should be very easy. Even Americans should have no problem learning one like Esperanto :)
 * I doubt the five-billion figure you quoted there very much. But, you have to pick somewhere to take words from, otherwise you just start creating them, which helps no-one. One view is that it's fairer to have Latin-group speakers learning in one year and non-Latin-group speakers learning in two years than for the Latins to do nothing and the non-Latins to learn for ten years.
 * May I suggest you see Esperanto? -- Gabriel Beecham 01:09, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

But why not to learn Interlingua or give an opportunitiy to folks to learn it, at least?


 * Wow... Is this really the comment page for "Introducing Interlingua"?  I'm amazed at the two comments above.  They show a complete lack of understanding of what Interlingua is all about.  The article merely stated that Interlingua is a great option for speakers of one language (such as English) to learn another (such as most Romance languages).  It said nothing about forcing the world to speak this language, or that it should even be employed when Japanese people speak to Chinese people, etc.  Yes, we have an International language (English) and yes, we have a constructed language that its proponents hope will become the main second language of the world (Esperanto).  Interlingua claims to be neither.


 * Instead, the biggest reason I'm learning Interlingua now is that I've always wanted to learn Spanish or Italian and such, and I've in fact tried to learn Spanish, but I gave it up because I just hated the unnecessary verb conjugations, including loads of irregular verbs. Latin is even harder, with noun declension and such.  However, Interlingua is a cinch.  Thus, I've been able to focus on the vocabulary instead of the grammar, and have gotten much farther in it in a much shorter time than I normally would have.  I can also see so many similarities between English words and Romance language words that it borrowed, and which make up half of the English language.  Learning Interlingua helps me not only learn all of the Romance languages (I'm now much better at reading Spanish, for example), but also increases my English vocabulary, because many of these Romance language words are scientific and such.  This is the use that Interlingua was intended for.


 * The fact is, Esperanto is an interesting language, but it won't help you learn Spanish. Nor should it, for its purpose, which is different than Interlingua's.  Gabriel Beecham, above, wrote that we need to protect minority languages instead of trying to extinguish them.  I agree completely.  So that's why I don't understand why you're trying to put down Interlingua, when some people are interested in it.  Although I'm sure that Gabriel doesn't speak for the Esperanto movement, I must say that I thought that Esperanto's ideals were peace and understanding, not fighting amongst ourselves.  Yet Gabriel jumps in and insults a language that has no bearing on his life.  It's like saying "Hungarian shouldn't be the world's official language!  Few people know it and it's not fair to non-Hungarians!"  Well, duh.  But Hungarian is not trying to be the world's language, and neither is Interlingua.  But I do appreciate Interlingua for helping me out, and I do appreciate those who have given their time freely to help me learn it.  To the above commenters, I should also note that I AM an American (and not stupid as a brick, as you might believe), and I'm learning Interlingua (for my own happiness, and my own reasons, not so that I can communicate with you two), and that I have no plans to learn Esperanto, although I might some day.  I'm too busy also with Japanese and Chinese right now. --202.215.70.67 13:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)