Interlingua, << ihn tuhr LIHNG gwuh, >> is an international language developed for scientific and medical writing. Its purpose is to help scientists of many lands communicate with one another. Interlingua is based on root words and grammatical forms that are common to the leading European languages. Most people familiar with one of these languages can understand Interlingua without training. The first Interlingua dictionary appeared in 1951.
For a word to be included in Interlingua, a form of that word must be found in a majority of the languages on which Interlingua is based. These forms must have at least one common meaning. To be part of Interlingua’s grammar, the grammatical feature must be found in all the languages. If the feature is absent from even one language, it is not used in Interlingua.
