page_title: Interlingue
section_title: Vienna period, World War II and language standardization
hierarchical_section_title: Interlingue / History and activity / Vienna period, World War II and language standardization
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Werbekarte für die Plansprache Occidental (Interlingue) English: PR postcard for the constructed language Occidental (Interlingue)
context_page_description: Interlingue, known until 1949 as Occidental, is a planned international auxiliary language created by Edgar de Wahl, a Baltic German naval officer and teacher from Tallinn, Estonia, and published in 1922. The vocabulary is based on already existing words from various languages and a system of derivation using recognized prefixes and suffixes. The language is thereby naturalistic, at the same time as it is constructed to be regular. Occidental was quite popular in the years up to, during, and shortly after the Second World War, but declined thereafter until the advent of the Internet.
  Interlingue is devised so that many of its derived word forms reflect the forms common to a number of Western European languages, primarily those in the Romance family, along with a certain amount of Germanic vocabulary. Many words are formed through application of de Wahl's rule, a set of rules for regular conversion of verb infinitives into derived words including from Latin double-stem verbs. The result is a language easy to understand at first sight for individuals acquainted with several Western European languages.
context_section_description: Besides the new location in a city much closer to the centre of Europe, the Vienna period was also marked by financial stability for the first time due to the support from a number of backers, particularly Hans Hörbiger, also from Vienna, and G.A. Moore from London, from which "Cosmoglotta was able to live without difficulty and gained a circle of readers despite the economic crisis". This did not last long as Hörbiger and Moore both died in 1931, and Cosmoglotta was again forced to rely on revenue from subscriptions, publications and the like.
  The growing Occidental movement began a more assertive campaign for the language in the early 1930s, leveraging its at-sight readability by contacting organizations such as embassies, printing houses and the League of Nations using letters in Occidental that were often understood and responded to (in the organization's own working language), usually including the phrasing below: Scrit in lingue international "Occidental" ("Written in the international language Occidental"). A large number of numbered "documents" were produced at this time as well to introduce the concept of an international language and advocate Occidental as the answer to Europe's "tower of Babel". Recordings of spoken Occidental on phonograph (gramophone) records for distribution also began to be made in this period.
  The years from 1935 to 1939 were particularly active for Cosmoglotta, during which a second edition was produced along with the original Cosmoglotta. Originally entitled Cosmoglotta-Informationes, it soon began using the name Cosmoglotta B and focused on items of more internal interest such as linguistic issues, reports of Occidental in the news, and financial updates. In early 1936, not counting the 110 issues of Cosmoglotta and any other journals and bulletins, a total of 80 publications existed in and about Occidental. 
  At the same time, the years leading up to the Second World War led to difficulties for Occidental and other planned languages which were made illegal in Germany along with Austria and Czechoslovakia, forced to disband, kept under Gestapo surveillance, and had their didactic materials destroyed. The interdiction of auxiliary languages in Germany was particularly damaging as this was where most Occidentalists lived at the time. The inability to accept payment for subscriptions was a financial blow as well, a difficulty that continued after the war when Germany was divided into zones of influence and payments were still not permitted. No communication took place between Edgar de Wahl in Tallinn and the Occidental Union in Switzerland from 1939 to October 1947, first due to the war itself and thereafter from intercepted mail between Switzerland and the Soviet Union, which bewildered de Wahl who had sent multiple letters and even a large collection of translated poetry into Occidental which were never delivered. Meanwhile, de Wahl's house and his entire library had been destroyed during the bombardment of Tallinn and de Wahl himself was incarcerated for a time after refusing to leave Estonia for Germany.
  In 1940 no issues of either Cosmoglotta were produced, but in 1941 Cosmoglotta B began publication once again and continued until 1950. An edition of either Cosmoglotta A or B was published every month between January 1937 and September 1939, and then (after the initial shock of the war) every month from September 1941 to June 1951. During this period only those in neutral Switzerland and Sweden were able to fully devote themselves to the language, carrying on activities in a semi-official form.
  One of these activities was language standardization. De Wahl had created Occidental with a number of unchangeable features, but believed that its following of the "laws of life" gave it a firm enough base that it could follow a "natural evolution" with a flexibility which would "allow time and practice to take care of modifications that would prove to be necessary". As a result, some words had more than one permissible form and could not be resolved by decree alone, thus leaving the ultimate d
caption: PR postcard with Occidental text created in 1928 in Vienna
exif: {}