Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!gatech!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!wilbaden
From: wilbaden@netcom.com (W.Baden)
Subject: Re: internet languages (English rules?) Eng./Int.
Message-ID: <wilbadenDMs89E.D2v@netcom.com>
Followup-To: sci.lang
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <4bk4cv$mdk@globe.indirect.com> <4dg95k$rb0@ruulch.let.ruu.nl> <4dh99t$2fe@infohub.engr.sgi.com> <HINSENK.96Jan17142725@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA> <4dkjd0$n2c@infohub.engr.sgi.com> <4dnsb6$3op@oravannahka.Helsinki.FI> <4dpk49$nem@cc.tut.fi> <4e4jne$cl9@oden.abc.se> <HINSENK.96Jan26142830@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA> <4ehnrj$puh@oden.abc.se> <HINSENK.96Jan31084611@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA> <4frum8$6en@oden.abc.se>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 20:15:14 GMT
Lines: 41
Sender: wilbaden@netcom9.netcom.com

43 years ago as a college student interested in the
international auxiliary language movement, I visited the midtown
Manhattan office of A. Gode, and after a pleasant conversation,
bought a copy of the recently published Interlingua-English
dictionary.

After burying myself in it for a short while -- 4 to 6 weeks --
I began speaking Interlingua fluently.  That is, fluently in my
own perception: there was no one to correct my grammar or
vocabulary.

Wildly enthusiastic about a language I could read without study,
and "speak fluently" after a very short time, I began
proselyting, speaking it and showing the few written examples I
had to anyone I thought would be able to understand.

Spanish speakers said it sounded like Italian; Italian speakers
said it sounded like Spanish.  Spanish readers said it looked
like Italian; Italian readers said it looked like Spanish.

I then began speaking it at the week-end social events.  (My
friends connived with me.)  When asked, I explained that I was a
WWII refugee from Ruritania, and I was speaking Ruritanian.  I
identified Ruritania as the west-most province of Roumania,
nearest the Italian peninsula, and therefore most like Italian.

This sounded so reasonable that my bluff was never called.

The description of Interlingua as Proto-Anglo-Romance is
enlightening -- Romance vocabulary with English grammar. It
explains how I could learn it so fast.

It also reminds me of Pidgin English -- English diction with
Chinese syntax.

"Use it or lose it."  I'm no longer fluent in Interlingua.  It's
a pity that Peano and Gode didn't do their stuff before Volap"uk.
--
Guido Paleotauro.


