interlingua

[ in-ter-ling-gwuh ]

noun

1. an interlanguage.
2. (initial capital letter) an artificial language developed between 1924 and 1951, based primarily upon the Romance languages, and intended mainly as a common international language for scientists.

interlingua

/ ˌɪntəˈlɪŋɡwə /

noun

1. usually capital an artificial language based on words common to English and the Romance languages
2. any artificial language used to represent the meaning of natural languages, as for purposes of machine translation

Word History and Origins

Origin of interlingua¹

1920–25; < Italian. See inter-, lingua

Word History and Origins

Origin of interlingua¹

C20: from Italian, from inter- + lingua language

Example Sentences

So he has adopted a kind of baseball interlingua.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Why not, say, Nov-Esperanto, or Ido, or Interlingua?"

From Project Gutenberg

“That’s a highly inflected version of early Interlingua, Captain,” Mannion said.

From Project Gutenberg

“Try translating into old Interlingua, adding their sound changes, and then feeding their own rise-and-fall routine to it,” I said.

From Project Gutenberg

And they were canny enough to use an old form of Interlingua; somewhere they’d met men before.

From Project Gutenberg