Worldlang
Encyclopedia
A worldlang is a type of international auxiliary language
(or auxlang) that derives its roots, phonology
, and possibly grammar
from different language families in order to avoid perceived Europe
an bias (Eurocentrism
). Traditional auxlangs tend to favor Euro-American languages and culture: Otto Jespersen
admitted, "But I cannot object to my formula [the greatest facility to the greatest number] being taken to refer only to Europeans and those inhabitants of the other continents who are either of European extraction or whose culture is based on European civilization."
, but seldom of a-posteriori ones. Yet there are instances of the worldlang viewpoint in the twentieth century:
"And then, these languages are not international after all. A really international language ought to be as acceptable to speakers of Arabic
, Chinese
or Japanese
as to a European."
"Not one of these semi-constructed languages so much as considers the claims of Asia
or Africa
in spite of the millions of enlightened races speaking Russian, Chinese
, Japanese
, and Arabic
. They are not ‘Interlanguages’ at all, but inter-European–and very partial at that."
"Unlike its predecessors, designed exclusively, and admittedly, to meet the taste of Western Europe and the English-speaking peoples, Interglossa is for a world in which China
, Japan
, and eventually the peoples of Africa, will march in step with the U.S.S.R. and with western civilization."
(Interglossa combined dead lexical sources (Greek and Latin) with "Asian" or creole-like grammar. A major revision of Interglossa is now called Glosa
.)
R. S. Jaque's Olingo (1944) included roots from Chinese, Japanese
, Arabic, and several other non-Indo-European languages. It was generally Esperantic
.
"Frater based on Latin and Greek roots of international currency is designed with due regard to needs of the Chinese, Japanese
and other non-Aryan speech-communities. ... It is easy to learn whatever the mother tongue of the beginner may be."
"In connection with the constructed languages, some of the constructors avow that they are inspired by the principal of neutrality or all-inclusiveness, granting representation to all or most of the earth's languages..."
Mario Pei
tweaked a suggestion by the Rev. Theodore E. Leidenfrost that linguists "construct a Universal Grammar (and, presumably, vocabulary) on the basis of ten "representative" languages": Iraqi Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindustani, Hungarian, Indonesian, Kpelle, Russian, Spanish, and Swahili. Pei suggested changing Kpelle to Hausa and adding Japanese
and either Tamil or Telegu.
Loglan's
lexical base includes Chinese, Japanese
, and Hindi, though the grammar is essentially a priori. Its offshoot Lojban
adds Arabic to this.
Another, more distant, offshoot of Loglan is Ceqli, which has a theoretically open list of source languages.
Luis Sainz Lopez-Negrete's Lusane (1974) had a vocabulary "taken from more than a hundred of the more common languages spoken in the world," but because he did not list sources, the claim is difficult to verify.
Toki Pona
is sometimes considered a worldlang despite the fact that it is not intended as an auxiliary language, because its phonology, morphology, and grammar are similar to those espoused by some worldlangers in projects such as Neo Patwa and Pandunia.
does not lead to uniformity. Some worldlangs, such as Ardano, draw from as many sources as possible, while others temper this by morphological (e.g., Ceqli and Sasxsek) or lexical (Neo Patwa) constraints. At the other end of the spectrum, Sambahsa-Mundialect is based on Indo-European, rather like Modern Indo-European
, but has roots from other sprachbund
s such as Arabic and Sinitic. Lingwa de Planeta (or Lidepla) restricts its primary sources to the ten or twelve most populous languages.
Intentions also vary. While most worldlangs, like most auxlangs, are meant for general use, Neo Patwa is intended solely as a contact language, and its root vocabulary and grammar are somewhat limited as a result. (This is similar to the disagreement between Jespersen, who apparently did not believe in the literary use of auxiliaries, and Dr. Zamenhof
, whose translations were mostly literary.)
anticipated some common criticisms and responses:
Pei (or rather Alexander Gode
) also anticipated the clash between western projects such as Interlingua
and worldlangs, using an argument similar to the one just mentioned: the western languages have considerable unity, based largely on the spread of Latin, French, Spanish, German, and English, whereas even Chinese and Japanese, despite much borrowing, have mutually incomprehensible vocabularies. A traditional, western auxlang can be somewhat immediately intelligible to its target audience; a worldlang typically will not be. Thus Gode took an Interlingua
text that people knowing a western language could easily understand and substituted Asian words, resulting in a text few could understand at first glance.
International auxiliary language
An international auxiliary language or interlanguage is a language meant for communication between people from different nations who do not share a common native language...
(or auxlang) that derives its roots, phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, and possibly grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
from different language families in order to avoid perceived Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an bias (Eurocentrism
Eurocentrism
Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture...
). Traditional auxlangs tend to favor Euro-American languages and culture: Otto Jespersen
Otto Jespersen
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen or Otto Jespersen was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language.He was born in Randers in northern Jutland and attended Copenhagen University, earning degrees in English, French, and Latin...
admitted, "But I cannot object to my formula [the greatest facility to the greatest number] being taken to refer only to Europeans and those inhabitants of the other continents who are either of European extraction or whose culture is based on European civilization."
History
Global neutrality was sometimes a claim of a-priori systemsA priori (languages)
An a priori language is any constructed language whose vocabulary is not based on existing languages, unlike a posteriori constructed languages. Examples of a priori languages include Ro, Solresol, Mirad, Klingon, and Na'vi...
, but seldom of a-posteriori ones. Yet there are instances of the worldlang viewpoint in the twentieth century:
"And then, these languages are not international after all. A really international language ought to be as acceptable to speakers of Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
or Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
as to a European."
"Not one of these semi-constructed languages so much as considers the claims of Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
or Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
in spite of the millions of enlightened races speaking Russian, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. They are not ‘Interlanguages’ at all, but inter-European–and very partial at that."
"Unlike its predecessors, designed exclusively, and admittedly, to meet the taste of Western Europe and the English-speaking peoples, Interglossa is for a world in which China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and eventually the peoples of Africa, will march in step with the U.S.S.R. and with western civilization."
(Interglossa combined dead lexical sources (Greek and Latin) with "Asian" or creole-like grammar. A major revision of Interglossa is now called Glosa
Glosa
Glosa is an international auxiliary language based on a previous draft auxiliary called Interglossa. As an isolating language, there are no inflections, so that words always remain in their dictionary form, no matter what function they have in the sentence...
.)
R. S. Jaque's Olingo (1944) included roots from Chinese, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Arabic, and several other non-Indo-European languages. It was generally Esperantic
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
.
"Frater based on Latin and Greek roots of international currency is designed with due regard to needs of the Chinese, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and other non-Aryan speech-communities. ... It is easy to learn whatever the mother tongue of the beginner may be."
"In connection with the constructed languages, some of the constructors avow that they are inspired by the principal of neutrality or all-inclusiveness, granting representation to all or most of the earth's languages..."
Mario Pei
Mario Pei
Mario Andrew Pei was an Italian-American linguist and polyglot, who wrote a number of popular books known for their accessibility to readers who lack a professional background in linguistics.-Life:...
tweaked a suggestion by the Rev. Theodore E. Leidenfrost that linguists "construct a Universal Grammar (and, presumably, vocabulary) on the basis of ten "representative" languages": Iraqi Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindustani, Hungarian, Indonesian, Kpelle, Russian, Spanish, and Swahili. Pei suggested changing Kpelle to Hausa and adding Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and either Tamil or Telegu.
Loglan's
Loglan
Loglan is a constructed language originally designed for linguistic research, particularly for investigating the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis. The language was developed beginning in 1955 by Dr James Cooke Brown with the goal of making a language so different from natural languages that people learning...
lexical base includes Chinese, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and Hindi, though the grammar is essentially a priori. Its offshoot Lojban
Lojban
See also discussed by Arthur Protin, Bob LeChevalier, Carl Burke, Doug Landauer, Guy Steele, Jack Waugh, Jeff Prothero, Jim Carter, and Robert Chassell, as well as , the concepts which "average English speakers won't recognize" because most of them "have no exact English counterpart".Like most...
adds Arabic to this.
Another, more distant, offshoot of Loglan is Ceqli, which has a theoretically open list of source languages.
Luis Sainz Lopez-Negrete's Lusane (1974) had a vocabulary "taken from more than a hundred of the more common languages spoken in the world," but because he did not list sources, the claim is difficult to verify.
Toki Pona
Toki Pona
Toki Pona is a constructed language, first published online in mid-2001. It was designed by translator and linguist Sonja Elen Kisa of Toronto....
is sometimes considered a worldlang despite the fact that it is not intended as an auxiliary language, because its phonology, morphology, and grammar are similar to those espoused by some worldlangers in projects such as Neo Patwa and Pandunia.
Characteristics
Rejection of EurocentrismEurocentrism
Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture...
does not lead to uniformity. Some worldlangs, such as Ardano, draw from as many sources as possible, while others temper this by morphological (e.g., Ceqli and Sasxsek) or lexical (Neo Patwa) constraints. At the other end of the spectrum, Sambahsa-Mundialect is based on Indo-European, rather like Modern Indo-European
Modern Indo-European
Modern Indo-European is a proposed international auxiliary language based on the extinct Proto-Indo-European language, presented by two undergraduate students at Extremadura University, Carlos Quiles and María Teresa Batalla, in 2006...
, but has roots from other sprachbund
Sprachbund
A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
s such as Arabic and Sinitic. Lingwa de Planeta (or Lidepla) restricts its primary sources to the ten or twelve most populous languages.
Intentions also vary. While most worldlangs, like most auxlangs, are meant for general use, Neo Patwa is intended solely as a contact language, and its root vocabulary and grammar are somewhat limited as a result. (This is similar to the disagreement between Jespersen, who apparently did not believe in the literary use of auxiliaries, and Dr. Zamenhof
L. L. Zamenhof
Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was the inventor of Esperanto, the most successful constructed language designed for international communication.-Cultural background:...
, whose translations were mostly literary.)
Criticism
Mario PeiMario Pei
Mario Andrew Pei was an Italian-American linguist and polyglot, who wrote a number of popular books known for their accessibility to readers who lack a professional background in linguistics.-Life:...
anticipated some common criticisms and responses:
The ultimate result [of Interglossa's blend of Western vocabulary and roughly Chinese or pidgin grammar] would be that in trying to please everybody, no one would be pleased. This of course is the old stock argument of those who base their constructed tongues on a mixture of western languages: "Of what avail to try to please the Zulus by giving them six or ten words in the international tongue, which is all their numbers or importance would entitle them to? Let us rather try to make things easy for the majority of civilized people, who are in one fashion or another acquainted with western tongues.
Whether this philosophy of "to them that have shall be given" can continue to hold in a world in which the balance of power seems to be shifting is a difficult question to answer. Perhaps the ideal constructed language ought to be deliberately designed so as to please and flatter nobody, and make concessions to no one's existing language habits.
Pei (or rather Alexander Gode
Alexander Gode
Alexander Gottfried Friedrich Gode-von Aesch or simply Alexander Gode was a German-American linguist, translator and the driving force behind the creation of the auxiliary language Interlingua.-Biography:Born to a German father and a Swiss mother, Gode studied at the University of Vienna and the...
) also anticipated the clash between western projects such as Interlingua
Interlingua
Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
and worldlangs, using an argument similar to the one just mentioned: the western languages have considerable unity, based largely on the spread of Latin, French, Spanish, German, and English, whereas even Chinese and Japanese, despite much borrowing, have mutually incomprehensible vocabularies. A traditional, western auxlang can be somewhat immediately intelligible to its target audience; a worldlang typically will not be. Thus Gode took an Interlingua
Interlingua
Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
text that people knowing a western language could easily understand and substituted Asian words, resulting in a text few could understand at first glance.