As the world becomes ever more global, the need to be multilingual becomes more and more evident.  Many people around the world speak English, but it’s not fair for just one language to be predominant over the others.  If English speakers want to be able to communicate with others, what language should we learn?   It can be tough to choose between the many prominent languages in the world. 

One solution that has been proposed to this dilemma is that people in different countries could be encouraged to learn the same international auxiliary language, or IAL.  IALs are languages used between people from different nations who do not share the same native language.  The most popular such languages are Esperanto, Novial, and Interlingua.

At the end of the 19^th century, the Polish professor Ludvic Zamenhof created Esperanto using a combination of words and structures from the Latin, Romance, and Germanic languages.  Today Esperanto is used by small study groups all over the world, mostly in cities in Europe and East Asia.  The general comprehensibility of Esperanto is helped by the usage of many “international” words such as “radio” that are used in many languages.  For example, a Russian speaker who has never studied Esperanto can understand approximately 40% of the content of a letter written in that language, despite there being very few words of Slavic origin in the Esperanto vocabulary. 

Another interesting feature of the language is that it is phonetic.  Each of the letters makes only one sound, and all Esperanto words are pronounced exactly as spelled, with  no silent letters or exceptions.

Novial is a different IAL, based mainly on Germanic and Romance languages.  Devised by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, Novial was first introduced in 1928 in Jespersen’s book, An International Language and later updated in his dictionary, Novial Lexike.  While, it is not as common as other international languages, Novial carries an added benefit to native English speakers, as its grammar is based on that of English.            

Interlingua uses vocabulary from the widest range of languages, making it very easy to learn.  Similar to Esperanto, Interlingua is instantly understandable to hundreds of millions of people due to the combination of simple grammar and vocabulary.  Spoken to some degree on all continents, Interlingua is most common in South America and Eastern and Northern Europe.  It even has its own Wikipedia edition. 

International Auxiliary Languages can be learned through the internet, schools, and associations.  The Esperanto League for North America is the most reliable and best source for Esperanto materials for US residents.  Through the ELNA, you can participate in a free basic correspondence course and benefit from the organization’s widespread catalogue of poetry, fiction, texts, audio CDs and more.  Interlingua is taught in some high schools and universities, for example, the University of Granada in Spain.  Because it contains vocabulary from so many “real” languages, Interlingua is sometimes used as a means of teaching languages quickly. 

Whether you choose to study a common language such as Esperanto or Interlingua, or the lesser-used Novial, all IALs can be beneficial.  Especially for world travelers, auxiliary languages can be used to connect, bond, and correspond with dozens of people all over the world without needing to learn multiple languages. 

Below is a comparison of Esperanto and Interlingua to English.

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