Interlinguistics

Over the course of three years these studies provide the students with a basic knowledge of general linguistics, interlinguistics, international and intercultural communication with a focus on the linguistics, culture and movement of the internationally dispersed and naturally functioning planned language Esperanto.

[10] The term appears first to have been used in French (interlinguistique) by Jules Meysmans in 1911 in a text concerning international auxiliary languages.

[12] According to this definition, investigations that are useful for optimizing interlinguistic communication are central to the discipline, and the purpose may be to develop a new language intended for international use or for use within a multilingual country or union.

[14] Most publications in the field of interlinguistics are, however, not so constructive, but rather descriptive, comparative, historic, sociolinguistic, or concerned with translation by humans or machines.

The most prosperous were Volapük (1879, Johann Martin Schleyer), Esperanto (1887 Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof), Latino sine flexione (1903, Giuseppe Peano), Ido (1907, Louis Couturat), Occidental-Interlingue (1922, Edgar de Wahl) and Interlingua (1951, IALA and Alexander Gode), with Esperanto being the one gathering the most significant community of active speakers at present.

These were intended for international communication, but have found their field of application elsewhere, namely as an aid for persons who lack an adequate ability of using ordinary language, because of motorical or cognitive handicaps.