Florin Sunel wrote:
>
>         Sorry to intrude (and sorry for speaking English) but I think there
> is a need to shed some light on the issue of Interlingua being a name
> already taken. Most of the Internet searches for "Interlingua" return links
> to Interlingua AB, a company in Sweden for translations and courses of
> foreign languages, and links to an automatic translation system.
>         The latter case has to do only with a limited region, including
> Japan, Indonesia and so on. The system used in translation, called Interlingua,
> is originally called Interlinguish, but the Asian countries had to use a
> different name, mostly because of copyright reasons. The ideeas in the system
> are very interesting, so if anyone wants to know more, don't hesitate to
> mail me.
>         The bottom line is that Interlingua, the name of the auxiliary
> language, is the only international name. And, to be honest, I quite like it,
> and I think it's very ilustrative for the universality of the language.
>
> Just my 2 cents...
>
> Amicalmente,
> Florin

Dear Florin,
Your observations are quite correct re Interlingua. I have been told by
older members that we have the copyright of the name. A member and
clever interlinguist, Ric Berger, Switzerland, has once started a legal
process against an intruder and had won. Ric is dead since many years. I
think we in our movement later have been too lazy to watch our rights
and that this is the reason why you can find many "interlinguas" on the
net. To start new processes will cost money. - I don't know more about
the present situation.

I don't know which automatic translation system Interlingua AB uses and
I don't know more about the company either. It can't be easy to create
such a system. Working groups within EU have worked on it for many
years, I've been told. They have experimented with an intermediary
constructed language to translate to and from. But as far as I know
there is nothing yet put in practical use.

Yours,
Jan
--
Jan Armann
Fagelstigen 21; S-904 21 UMEA, Sverige (Sweden)
Tel & Fax +46 (0)90771525; e-mail: [log in to unmask]
ICQ - UIN nr:785745; http://www.algonet.se/~armann