| Intal | |
| Creator: | Erich Weferling |
| Created: | 1956 |
| Setting: | international auxiliary language |
| Fam1: | constructed languages |
| Fam2: | int. auxiliary languages |
| Fam3: | Ido, Novial, Neo |
| Posteriori: | a posteriori language, developed as a compromise between Esperanto, Ido, Occidental-Interlingue, Neo and Novial |
| Speakers: | none |
| Iso3: | qiw |
| Iso3comment: | (local use) |
| Glotto: | none |
| Ietf: | art-x-intal |
Intal is an international auxiliary language, published in 1956 by the German linguist Erich Weferling. Its name is an acronym for INTernational Auxiliary Language. Intal was conceived to unite the most important features of existing international auxiliary languages, like Esperanto, Ido, Occidental-Interlingue, Neo, Novial and Interlingua, into a compromise system.
In the year 1956 Erich Weferling published the first version of his system Intal. The final version of Intal was published by Weferling in the year 1978.
Weferling saw his Intal as a compromise among the most important constructed languages, so he deliberately abstained from creating a complete dictionary of Intal. He regarded the existing different constructed languages as dialects of one common international language. He recommended using the vocabulary of the major international auxiliary languages, adapted to the orthography and phonology of Intal.
Weferling wrote most of his material on Intal in the language himself. In the year 1976 Weferling even published his autobiography Artificial languages: Ek le vive de un oldi interlinguistiker (From the life of an old Interlinguist) in Intal.
After Weferling died in 1982, his efforts were nearly forgotten and the authorities of the surviving constructed language organizations showed no readiness to change their system according to Intal or to unify.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | ||
| Upper case | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | Y | Z | |
| Lower case | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | u | v | y | z | |
| IPA phoneme | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
Intal uses the Latin script without special signs. The Intal alphabet has 23 letters, 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and 18 consonants (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, y, z). The consonants q, w and x are only used in proper names and foreign words.
c is pronounced /ʃ/ (like English sh), g always hard (as in German), j as in French, and y and z as in English.
The stress of a word is on the vowel before the last consonant, unless marked by an accent as in idé and tabú.
The definite article in Intal is le. It is used the same for singular and plural and for all genders.The indefinite article in Intal is un. It is used for all genders, but only in singular.
Nouns have no specific ending. The usual euphonic ending is -e like: libre book, table table, but also manu hand and hotel hotel.
Natural gender of living entities can be expressed by -o for male gender and -a for female gender: like kavale horse, kavalo stallion, kavala mare.
The plural is marked by s like table's tables.
The genitive case is expressed by the preposition de and with the definite article it becomes del, like del patro of the father. The dative case which indicates the indirect object is formed by the preposition a or with the definite article al, like al patro to the father.The accusative case which indicates the direct object is identical with the nominative. Only when the word order is changed one can use the particle -em, like Vu-em me danka It is you that I thank.
Adjectives end usually in –i as in Novial: boni good, beli beautiful. The ending -i can be omitted for euphonic reasons. The adjective is not changed according to case, gender or singular/plural. It is placed before the subject.
Adverbs are mostly derived from adjectives by changing the ending to –im. Examples: bonim well, verim truly.
in in, a to, sur on, etc.
e and, o or, si if, ma but, etc.
The basic word order is subject–verb–object.
Ode to Joy by Friedrich Schiller