International linguistic communication puts a steadily growing number of questions on the agenda, not only in Europe, but all over the world, such as:

What aspects are connected with the international communication problem?

These are, among other things, political, economic, linguistic, intercultural, and legal.

The international position of a language is, as a rule, a result of political and economic power structures.

What are the consequences of a hegemonic position occupied by a single or by few languages for global processes in fields such as politics, culture, education, and science?

Languages are of equal value. Do they have equal rights, however? Why are languages “dying out”? What is language imperialism?

What are the chances of optimizing international communication?

English is considered to be a ‘lingua franca’ on our planet. How successfully, effectively and democratically do we communicate by means of English? Who is at an advantage, and who is not? Are there other models, such as the use of a politically neutral language, for example, Latin or a modern international language?

What are international planned languages?

The deliberate development of languages and language planning are well-known phenomena. The creation of a planned language is a special form of language planning. First ideas of a lingua universalis can be attributed to Leibniz and Descartes. The number of attempts to construct an international language has reached 1,000 meanwhile. Only very few of them played a role in practice or are applied today. To what extent have experiences with planned languages thrown new light on linguophilosophical, linguistic, and other problems and questions? Why have some language projects been able to maintain their hold whereas others have not?

What experience has been gained with Esperanto?

Esperanto has become the most successful planned language so far. Its theory and practical application has been well described scientifically. What are the expressive means Esperanto has at its disposal? What are the characteristics of its speech community? What practical role will it be able to play in the future? What can it achieve, how is it developing? What is asserted, what is fact?

Some of these questions are underestimated or answered insufficiently. Prejudices can often be found instead of knowledge.

Do you want to learn more?

Here are some key terms and their dominant understanding within the Society for Interlinguistics:

Interlinguistics is the study of international linguistic communication from all its aspects (including the roles, structures, ways of development and application of ethnic and planned languages as means of international communication).

Planned languages are language systems which have been consciously designed according to definite criteria by individuals or groups of individuals mainly for the purpose of making international communication easier. (The term is being used increasingly for what is also known as ‘artificial language’, ‘international [artificial] auxiliary language’, or ‘universal language’.)

Esperanto has been the most successful case so far of a language project which has managed to effect its transition to a fully-fledged language and which has found a sufficiently diverse and productive speech community.

Esperanto studies (a sub-branch of interlinguistics) investigate the sources, structure, evolution, communicative performance and the speech community of Esperanto, the planned language established by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887.

The activities of the Society for Interlinguistics include:

- publishing a newsletter “Interlinguistische Informationen” (Information on Interlinguistics), which is mainly centred on bibliographical work

- organizing annual scientific conferences and publishing conference papers

- encouraging its members to give lectures and to publish inside and outside the Society and to work together with institutions and colleagues interested in interlinguistic topics.

Interlinguistics bibliography

(The sites of GIL: Ulrich Becker,
revised Helmut Krone)

Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik e. V. (GIL)

(Society for Interlinguistics - GIL)

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Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik e. V.
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