>  I hope nobody (especially no beginning Latin student) is confused by the
>  recent postings in the artificial language Interlingua: it's not Latin,
>  not even modern Latin, and Esperanto's not Latin either.  If the
>  anarcho-anachronist Ladonia wants to use our Latin list as its
>  international news service (which would be a hoot), I do hope it does so
>  in real Latin!

I am dismayed that someone takes umbrage at my posting on this list things
about interlingua.  I think its existence is of interest to latinate language
teachers and at the same time, if you understood how interlingua was
developed--as a standardization of the anglo-romance languages (not an
artificial language, like Esperanto), you would understand why we users of
Interlingua are interested in Latin (mostly vocabulary, but also some
points of grammar) and benefit from following discussions in this list.

As for Ladonia, I'm not sure what this refers to. I am not an "anarcho-
anachronist", I don't belong to a place or movement called Ladonia. I think
the poster of this comment is jumping to conclusions on very little
information.  Maybe the other Interlinguan who has posted here, Jay Bowkes,
who is a Latin and romance language teacher who uses Interlingua as an
adjunct in some of his teaching, knows about it, but I don't.

Interlingua was developed by professional linguists as an attempt to
establish a standardized and usable form for the international vocabulary
in the European languages, using the anglo-romance languages as a basis
for the standardization.  The reason Latin is of interest to Interlinguans
is because the basis for the standardization is in the prototype forms from
which the similar variants in the various languages of the base diverge
in their characteristic ways.  Latin, either classic, vulgar ("popular"
if we follow Robert Hall on this), medieval or neolatin is the source
for the preponderance of prototypes in the international vocabulary. One
recurring theme in discussions among Interlinguans is the etymology of
words in Interlingua because it is important to the determination of the
correct prototypes and their understanding. Experts on Latin would be of
considerable help to us in these matters.

Clearly, interlingua is not classical Latin, but it is heavily Latin in
vocabulary and even in its affix system.  It does not have the grammar
of classical Latin but rather is a simplified form of romance, which
developed not from classical Latin but "popular" or vulgar Latin, which
was spoken by the ordinary people and even the elites in their less than
literary moments in Rome and the Roman Empire between about 200 b.c. and 500
a.d..

Thus it just may be that I have a different conception of "Latin" than
the above poster, who has every right to his view. "Latin" can mean many
things. My view of it concerns the Latin heritage in the modern
European languages, and I hope he would be tolerant of those with
somewhat different conceptions than he.

And if I seem to be looking for those among you who might be interested
in Interlingua, that is true. Just as you show anxiety about the loss to
the world of the knowledge of Classical Latin grammar, I have anxiety
about the loss to the world that might result from not realizing that
in Interlingua one has an excellent vehicle for teaching ordinary folks
the Latin etymology of the international vocabulary in the anglo-romance
and other modern languages.  Interlingua is also a useful bridge to
the romance languages and can be used as an intermediate language on
the internet, especially in the latinate world where English may not always
be mutually understood.

Sia tolerante, mi amicos!

Stanley Mulaik