Interlíngua

An interlingua is a notation for representing the content of a text that abstracts away from the characteristics of the language itself and focuses on the meaning (semantics) alone. Interlinguas are typically used as pivot representations in machine translation, allowing the contents of a source text to be generated in many different target languages. Because of the complexities involved, few interlinguas are more than demonstration prototypes, and only one has been used in a commercial MT system. In this article, we define the components of an interlingua and the principal issues faced by designers and builders of interlinguas and interlingua MT systems, illustrating with examples from operational systems and research prototypes. We discuss current efforts to annotate texts with interlingua-based information.

This book is the result of the Lecture Notes produced for the class ‘Introduction to Interlinguistics’ held at the University of Amsterdam during my first mandate as Special Chair holder there (2014-2019). This means that the intended readers are my students, who may come from the Humanities, such as English Studies or Philosophy, as well as from more formally oriented curricula, such as Logic or Artificial Intelligence.

Sylvia Pankhurst was a pioneering figure of socialist feminism who advocated for universal suffrage and against war. Less well-known is her involvement in the movement for an international auxiliary language. In 1927, Pankhurst published a booklet, Delphos. The Future of International Language, where she expressed the growing need for a world auxiliary language and her support for Interlingua. A biographically informed study of Delphos informs us about the modernist, cosmopolitan and democratic vocation of the international auxiliary language movement in the early 20th century. Indeed, Pankhurst’s views on the motivation and principles of an interlanguage-to-come are widely shared by the community, and can be found in her contemporaries as well as predecessors and followers, such as Zamenhof, Couturat, Ogden or Hogben. We present Pankhurst’s support for Interlingua as an example of this scientific humanism that dominated the beginnings of interlinguistics, and relate her language activism to her socialist and pacifist stand.

International Auxiliary Languages (IALs) are languages consciously planned for enabling communication between speakers having different native tongues on an equal footing. They are the most developed area of interlinguistics, the science of languages that are constructed or planned on purpose. The term “auxiliary” refers to the fact that IALs are intended to be used as second languages only. In general, IALs are supported by people who are dissatisfied of the use of national languages – like English or French – in international settings, so they promote the use of a ‘neutral’ tool. For IAL supporters, ‘neutral’ means that they are not bound to any specific ethnicity. The most successful IAL ever is Esperanto, which succeeded to gather a community of practice without substantial interruption, for over a century. Today, IALs live a new Spring thanks to the internet, especially social media and Wikipedia, which give them new visibility to the general public.

Sylvia Pankhurst was a pioneering figure of socialist feminism who advocated for universal suffrage and against war. Less well-known is her involvement in the movement for an international auxiliary language. In 1927, Pankhurst published a booklet, Delphos. The Future of International Language, where she expressed the growing need for a world auxiliary language and her support for Interlingua. A biographically informed study of Delphos shows us the modernist, cosmopolitan and democratic vocation of the international auxiliary language movement in the early 20th century. Pankhurst’s views on the motivation and principles of an interlanguage-to-come were widely shared by the international auxiliary language community. We present her support for Interlingua as an example of the scientific humanism that dominated the beginnings of interlinguistics, and relate her language activism to her socialist and pacifist stand.

De qual lingua vole vos? Le etymologias alternative de un vocabulo hungare 1 Juha A. Janhunen (Universitate de Helsinki) Secundo un historia ben cognoscite, Zoltán Gombocz, le famose linguista hungare, quando on le ha demandate presentar su opinion del etymologia de alcun obscure vocabulo hungare, ha respondite: De qual lingua vole vos? Questo es un situation multo commun in le scientia de etymologia: in multo casos on ha plure explanationes, que sembla possibile, e il non es facile a decider qual alternativa es le correcte. Isto es le caso con le vocabulo hungare úr 'domino, maestro, senior, soverano, deo'. In le presente discurso nos examina le differente alternativas del etymologia del iste vocabulo enigmatic. Ante que nos procede a discuter le alternativas del etymologia externe del vocabulo in question, nos debe examinar le data interne del lingua hungare. Le vocabulo úr ha le thema dependente ura-, e on pote assumer, que le vocal longe in úr /u:r/ es secundari. De plus, le thema Ur(V)-se trova anque in le vocabulo ország 'pais' < vetere hungare †uruszág 'dominio' (TESz 2: 1095, 3: 1035), ubi le vocal o del lingua moderne se representa un developpamento secundari e irregular de u. Le vocal final u in †uru(-szág) es le resultato del reduction de *a. Ergo, le forma original del vocabulo in pre-proto-hungare era *ura : *ura-. 1. Le alternativa finno-ugric: finnese uros etc. Proque le lingua hungare es un lingua del familia finno-ugric, o uralic, il es natural a examinar, esque se trova vocabulos correspondente in le altere linguas finno-ugric. In heroic' (FUV 121, UEWb 1: 545). Non-obstante, le comparation es multo incerte a causa del distantia linguistic e geographic (MSzFE 3: 653-655). Le vocabulo finnese ha un cognate in saami *uras 'rangifero del sexo mascule', ma non in alcun altere lingua non-finnic (SSA 3: 376-377). In effecto, le comparation inter hungare úr e finnese uro-s non pote esser correcte. Il es mesmo possibile, que le vocabulo finnese es derivate del radice *u-, cf. naa-ras 'animal del sexo feminin' (SSA 2: 200-201), koi-ras < *koy-ra-s 'animal del sexo mascule' (SSA 1: 385). De altere parte, *uras pote esser comparate con oras 'porco del sexo mascule' (SSA 2: 270 s.v. oraisa) e ori(h) 'stallon, cavallo del sexo mascule' (SSA 2: 271), ben que le etymologia de iste vocabulos es tamben osbcuro e il ha plure possibilitates de explanation. Finalmente, il non es certe que le correspondentia phonologic inter hungare *ura e finnese *ura-es regular: le historia del vocales del lingua hungare es un territorio mal cognoscite. 2. Le alternativa turkic A: proto-turkic *urug etc. In le curso del tempore on ha comparate hungare úr con plure vocabulos turkic. Alcunes de iste comparationes non necessita un discurso longe. Per exemplo, il es multo improbabile, que úr pote haber un connexion con turkic *ïduk(a) 'inviate per deo' ( mongolic *iduka/n 'shama-nessa'), derivate de *ïd(u)-'inviar' (UEWb 1: 545), ben que le developpamento de *d a r pote explanar se como un chuvashismo. Un connection con turkic *uyur 'potente, nobile' (ibid.) es similemente improbabile, specialmente proque le vocabulo turkic, un participio del aoristo del verbo u-: uy-'poter' (EWbT 510-511), es mal documentate in le linguas turkic e non ha le signification specific del vocabulo hungare. Un altere etymologia deriva hungare úr de turkic (*)urug 'grana, semine' > 'descenden-1 Iste articulo es scripte in interlingua, un lingua auxiliar europee e international. Supra le inter-lingua, vider, per exemplo, www.interlingua.com. Io extende mi gratias a Allan Kiviaho, le administrator del sito del Association Finlandese pro Interlingua, www.interlingua.fi, pro consultation benevole supra questiones grammatical e lexical.

Esta pesquisa envolve a análise da interlíngua referente ao uso real das partículas gramaticais wa e ga na produção de textos escritos pelos alunos de língua japonesa como LE. Elegemos essas partículas, pois observamos em sala de aula, que a maioria dos alunos tinha dificuldades em utilizar corretamente a partícula wa, marcadora de tópico, trocando-a comumente pela partícula ga, de caso nominativo, ou vice-versa. O principal objetivo desta pesquisa é, pois, identificar o uso dessas partículas utilizadas pelos alunos, e verificar as tendências na aprendizagem delas. Além de conhecer as hipóteses sugeridas por eles, concernentes a esse uso, como estratégias de aprendizagem e de comunicação. Para isso, foi adotada a abordagem dos Estudos da Aquisição-Aprendizagem de LE/L2, envolvendo a Análise de Erros. No entanto, diferentemente do que propõe essa abordagem em termos estritos, realizamos a análise tanto de erros quanto de acertos, para podermos compreender melhor o processo de aprendizagem e a competência linguística dos alunos em determinado momento de aprendizagem.

In the present work, we aim to study the context of bilingual Chinese-Portuguese PLNM
students of the class we were assigned in our pedagogical internship from the point of
view of Interlanguage through the analysis of errors contained in the corpus that was
collected. Therefore, the present investigation intends to focus on the results of our
quantitative analysis of errors collected from this corpus. In addition to presenting several
theories as our basis for theoretical assumptions in a chronological order, we also briefly
demonstrate the situation of PLNM in Macau, together with the main characteristics of
the linguistic situation of the city. We found that, after a series of didactic sequences taught
in our pedagogical internship, although the students showed a quite remarkable
performance at the A2 / B1 level, they still needed to improve their expression in the
Portuguese language, especially in written expression. Bearing in mind the main
perspective of interlanguage, we can understand that it is necessary to structure and
systematize the learning process of the students to improve their coherence and linguistic
rigor, with particular regard to the elimination of fossilization of errors of competence and,
at the same time, failures of performance as defined by Chomsky (1965).