Interlingue literature

Interlingue literature means books and texts written in Interlingue, also called Occidental, a language made in 1922 by Edgar de Wahl. It includes both original works and translations. Most often, works appeared in the magazine Cosmoglotta.

History

Background

Interlingue (Occidental) began in 1922. Edgar de Wahl created it with words mostly from Western Europe and a bit of English. The language first appeared in the magazine Kosmoglott, later renamed Cosmoglotta. Early writers used different spellings and grammar, because standard rules came later.

Early translations

Jakob Linzbach, an Estonian linguist, wrote Transcendent algebra, mathematical ideography, experiment of a philosophical language (Interlingue: Transcendent algebra, ideografie matematical, experiment de un lingue filosofic), later translated into Interlingue by de Wahl. This was before the language was fully finished.

In 1925, Kaarle Saarinen translated a Finnish poem Hymn into Interlingue. Soon after, poems by Goethe and works by Rabindranath Tagore were translated and published.

1930s translations and originals

Many translated works appeared: poems by Balmont, stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and others.

Original works were also written, like the poetry collection Li Astres del Verne (1935 & 1947) by Jaroslav Podobský, and the short story Krasina by Jan Amos Kajš.

In 1930, Ric Berger published Historiettes in Occidental, a collection of short stories.

Post-1951 and decline

In 1951, the language Interlingua was introduced. Many Interlingue supporters, including Berger, switched to Interlingua. This caused Interlingue to decline. Cosmoglotta continued until 1985, but less often. After that, some called Interlingue a “dead language.” Yet translations kept coming into the 1950s and 1960s.

Revival since 1999

In 1999, a Yahoo! group helped revive Interlingue.

In the 2000s, an Interlingue Wikipedia was created. By 2020, it had over 5,000 articles.

New literature appeared:

In 2011, Robert Winter translated The Charterhouse of Parma into Interlingue.
In 2012, Thomas Schmidt published Li Munde de Sandra in the online magazine Posta Mundi.
Between 2021 and 2024, Vicente Costalago published several works, both original and translated, being the most prolific writer in the language's history: Li sercha in li castelle Dewahl, Li tresor de Fluvglant, Subuqti and poetry and collections from European literature.

Dorlota Burdon also published original stories in Posta Mundi, and she translated The Lunatic by Khalil Gibran.

Notable authors

Important authors in Interlingue literature include:

Jan Amos Kajš
Jaroslav Podobský
Engelbert Pigal
Abram Kofman
A. E. Cortinas
Ilmari Federn
Thomas Schmidt
Vicente Costalago
Dorlota Burdon