Talk:Interlingua/Archive 2

message: I was able to communicate to a Brazillian and person from Rumania with only Interlingua. (However the Rumanian knew Spanish, so I don't know if it was Rumanian or her Spanish that enabled Interlingua to be understood.) They responded in English but I can honestly say you can be be 99% confident that you will be understand by Spanish, Portuguese(Brazillian) and Italian speakers. I still need to see if French and Rumanians can fully understand the language. BTW, Mexican Telenovelas and some Brazillian programs are popular in Rumania and are subtitled but broadcasted in the original languages. Spanish seems to be a popular foreign language in Rumania.--Jondel 00:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems noteworthy, but did you understand them?Cameron Nedland 04:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rumanian and Brazillian

message: I'm dubious about "lassa nos", it strikes me as an anglicism. To me, "Veni, lassa nos edificar un citate" means "Come, permit us to build a city", as if you're saying to someone (God?), "Come over here, and bring the permission form". I would say "Veni, que nos edifica un citate", which appears to mean "Come, that we (will) build a city" as well as "Come, let us build a city", but I'm not sure those two sentences are semantically distinct. I've posted question about this on an Interlingua list.--Chris 15:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. I saw your post from the e-mail groups.. Anyway....'let' seems to ask permission (permit us) as well as invite (Come , you are invited to ..). There is also let of 'And God said let there be light'. 'Let ' seems to mean allow light to exist. Anyway, we'll follow what Stanley Mulaik says or the official interlingua authority... BTW the above is from omniglot (You know don't you?)--Jondel 02:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Lassa nos" vs "Que nos" 

message: I've posted a sub-article on Interlingua grammar, basically a expanded, rewritten version of the Grammar section, and have written a new Grammar section for this article, just a summary.
Comments and edits on the new article are welcome. --Chris 04:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar sub-article 

message: Hi McDutchie, Kwami! There's been quite a bit of debate about whether to describe Ia as Romance-based or not. Thinking about it, I'll just cut that language from the first sentence and let the later characterization ("In appearance...") do the work. In "traditional spelling and irregular morphology", "traditional" is almost a synonym for "irregular", but provides more information, so I favour "traditional spelling and morphology". "Irregular" has a pejorative connotation, so I'd reserve it for really clearcut cases like "era" and "son" (in the Interlingua grammar article).--Chris 13:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Romance vs Anglo-Romance 

message: I don't see tamben in the www.interlingua.com dictionary. I know the usage from Spanish. Is tamben official ? There is a lot of usage at the interlingua wikipedia and I am thinking of replacing this with etiam.  There seems to be other unofficial interlingua words.--Jondel 00:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "tan bien" and "tambien" are pronounced identically in Spanish. -iopq 02:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Official dictionary

message: When I last read this article a couple months ago, it was in bad shape. However, in my opinion, it's very high quality now, maybe good enough to be a featured article in the near future. It's especially nice to have the availability of a sound sample, and its detailed history on development. A table of the sounds may be needed, like this table from the article on Catalan:   or the consonant table in the Esperanto article. On a more controversial note, a link to the Euroclone article might be added, although it's sort of POV. Is there a way we can cite it as a good article?--ikiroid | (talk) 20:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been drafting a new section on Phonology and Orthography (see my personal page), including a modified version of the Eo consonant chart. I'm also hoping do some work on the Rationale section, which still sounds too much like an Interlingua pamphlet, and the History section, which I think should eventually be spun off into a separate article. I've no problem with citing it as a Euroclone, though the Euroclone article is rather POV (from a conlanger perspective).--Chris 04:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can it be nominated to be a [[Wikipedia:Good articles|Good Article]] now? 

message: Couldn't another criticism be that the spelling is more difficult then say, Esperanto?Cameron Nedland 02:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd try to avoid comparisons with Eo (there's a separate article on that topic), but certaining Ia has be criticised for departing from a strictly phonemic orthography.--Chris 05:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms of Language 

message: Just out of curiosity, why cant th and ch have their Greek sounds (θ and x respectively)?Cameron Nedland 14:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Cos  = [t] in all the source languages except English, and Greek-derived <ch> = [k] in all the source languages except German and Russian.--CJGB (Chris) 15:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, alrighty then.  Makes sense now I guess.Cameron Nedland 19:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But by that logic, shouldn't h always be silent?Cameron Nedland 22:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Like spelling, pronunciation in Interlingua is governed by prototype considerations. [h] was present in Latin, so it's officially also there in Interlingua. However, the original authorities on Interlingua make it very clear that there is a considerable latitude when it comes to pronunciation and any 'h' not part of a digraph may thus remain unpronounced. -- Dissident (Talk) 19:25, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool.Cameron Nedland 19:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternate pronunciations 

message: The reason that I removed the sentence mentioning these two constructed languages, is that Folkspraak is simply not finished yet and that the pan-Slavic claim for Slovio is too controversial for its relatively short existence. -- Dissident (Talk) 10:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enuf, I thot that it was a reasonabl claim, so I put it in.Cameron Nedland 13:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Folkspraak and Slovio 

message: It is necessary a lot of work for us to have an Interlingua portal in Wikipedia, much in the same way Esperanto has.
I have found another wiki that contains some information about Interlingua that should be in Wikipedia! Take a look at Wikia. I hope people strive for collecting information like that and create new articles for the Interlingua category.
It is also necessary to have more information about notable persons in the Interlingua history, and add them both to the English and to the Interlingua Wikipedia. For instance, Ezra Clark Stillman has a stub article in English, but a quite good article in Esperanto and no article in the Interlingua wikipedia.
With some effort, we will be able to create a good Interlingua portal here in the English Wikipedia. Are you willing to join the collaborative effort? :) --Antonielly 00:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Towards an Interlingua portal on Wikipedia 

message: I've noticed that a lot of people have been making edits to the article. Some are more helpful than others if we want to see it on the front. Here are some of my thoughts as I read over the article. Some of the changes I'll make myself in the next few days so this is a bit of a checklist, but since I don't know as much about Interlingua as others do it would be good if others could clarify some of the points.
*Introduction: What is an IAL and what do they do? Article moves into talking about the language before it makes clear exactly why it was made.
*the major Western languages - which ones? Western is too general
*"Interlingua's simplicity and international vocabulary make it unusually easy to learn." - need a reference
*Interlingua uses an objective procedure - what about systematic instead of objective?
*People with a good knowledge of a Romance language, or a smattering of a Romance language plus a good knowledge of the international scientific vocabulary can frequently read and understand it at first sight. - maybe add something about the often heard "a prime vista" phrase
*Educated speakers of English also enjoy this easy comprehension. - how educated?
*Words in Interlingua retain their natural form; they are never distorted to fit a pre-existing grammar or set of rules. - are we sure it's never?
*History - some references here would be good.
*as its conference was attended – and its efforts legitimized – by eminent linguists. - Who, and how did this legitimize their efforts?
*Later, Dr. Edward L. Thorndike published a paper about the relative learning speeds of "natural" and "modular" constructed languages. - is this paper available? He died in 1949 so perhaps it's public domain.
*Model P, K, etc. - putting this in a pretty chart might be nice
*Success, decline, resurgence - references are good but need to be rewritten so they appear on the bottom of the page too, looks like there are only three at present when there are actually more
*Media coverage at the time, for example, was apparently heaviest in Northern and Eastern Europe. - apparently? This sentence really needs some backing.
*Interlingua today - an expansion on this would be good. Most of the content in the article is about what the Interlingua movement did, with only a wee bit on what it's doing now. Maybe a photo of some of the gatherings in Sweden could be obtained for the article.
*Community - do we need to mention that a university is prestigious?
*Criticisms - the last paragraph is a bit vague and isn't really about Interlingua anyway.
Mithridates 02:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Getting article to FA status 

message: I'm replacing the poor, abused "Care of Mad Scientists" sample with a quotation from Alexander Gode, for a couple of reasons:
*The Interlingua version is actually a modification of a sample text found in Gode & Blair's Interlingua Grammar. The original version isn't suitable because it's written in an experimental variant of standard Interlingua, but using a modified version seems - well, not dishonest, exactly - but somehow a bit fishy, as if we're trying to edit history.
*The English version is a retranslation of the Interlingua, not de Camp's original text. Again, it's not exactly wrong to do this, but a bit weird.
*The de Camp text, while moderately interesting, doesn't actually say anything about Interlingua, whereas the Gode text actually adds to the article's coverage of the topic.
*I was the editor who introduced the de Camp text originally. While obviously I don't have any proprietary rights over the article, by removing the article I'm less likely to step on anyone's toes than if someone else had added it.
CJGB (Chris) 21:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Sample 

message: Frankly, the introductory paragraph currently reads like an advertisement flyer instead of being a neutral, factual overview of the language that is sufficiently informative as style reasonably allows in the introduction. Instead, it and the rest of the article is rife with fluff about how easy the language is supposed to be, which doesn't even make much sense without context. By what standards and under which conditions? For one thing, not everybody is a native Indo-European language speaker and knowing a Romance language is obviously a major advantage when being confronted with Interlingua text.
It's a shame my attempt to replace some of the fluff with factual info and to tone down the frankly evangelical aspects of the article has been reverted. Worse, however, is that the edit summaries for doing so are completely misplaced. The changes I've made in the first paragraph was reverted with the argument that "ease of learning isn't limited to speakers of the control languages", which as you can see here is not claimed. What IS claimed is that the degree of easiness in understanding and/or learning Interlingua depends on how much Interlingua words are attested to in the languages one knows. A reasonable statement I would think. This edit is even worse: It claims to be toning down the article, while doing the exact opposite. The grammar of Interlingua can only be categorized as simple in comparison with that of Indo-European languages and not with no qualification. Also, to attribute the ease of learning Interlingua to its free word-building is speculative at best and personally strikes me as odd. Finally, anyone who claims Interlingua is free from irregularities (regardless from how one exactly defines an irregularity) has obviously not taken a good look at the grammar.
This article is nowhere near Featured Article status as some have been suggesting and given its current state I will vote against making it thus, if it ever comes to that, and am willing to back it up with arguments. -- Dissident (Talk) 03:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree - it's gotten worse since I wrote that list of things to do back in December two discussions up. I'm not sure people understand that the extra promotion being inserted into the article actually damages it both by making it seem like a flyer and also by bringing it even further away from FA status. Mithridates 04:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a lot of work to do on this article, I agree. Defluffing is the most obvious issue, but another thing is that a lot the pro-Interlingua points put forward don't seem to come from the languages proponents. For example, no Ia-ist I know proposes Ia as the one universal international language a long the lines of finvenka Esperanto. Gode was quite sarcastic about the idea. So there's a lot of develop to do before the article works.CJGB (Chris) 14:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, but Gode himself specifically mentioned knowing such activists. Those were the ones he called "Esperantists". -- Dissident (Talk) 06:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rant about POV 

message: Removed from the article:
:While Panorama sometimes reports on native speakers of Interlingua, their numbers are currently unknown.
This needs some serious supporting evidence before it goes back in. -- Dissident (Talk) 05:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole "native speaker" is very antithetical to the traditional Interlingua ideology, a real case of what Gode called "Esperantism". That being said, I think I remember Panorama reporting on a couple who said they were going to teach their baby Interlingua. If that's as far as it goes, I don't think it's worth mentioning. CJGB (Chris) 15:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Native speaker claim 

message: I think claiming that Interlingua is not a constructed language is the sort of religious mumbo jumbo we can do without here. There's nothing wrong with stating that Interlingua is a constructed language made up of purely a-posteriori elements designed to capture what is common in several languages; however, to make the Platonic claim of Interlingua being an existing reality regardless of its "elaboration" is (POV-)pushing it. The language has enough subjectivities of its own to belie that. Gode himself complicated the matter by in fact defining Interlingua as the existing reality of the commonality between languages and considering the constructed language we know by this name as just one possible elaboration of it. -- Dissident (Talk) 13:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not a constructed language?