International Auxiliary Language Association
The IALA became a major supporter of mainstream American linguistics, funding, for example, Sapir's cross-linguistic semantic studies of totality (1930) and grading phenomena (1944). Morris herself edited Sapir and Morris Swadesh's 1932 cross-linguistic study of ending-point phenomena, and Collinson's 1937 study of indication. Although the Morrises and their family provided most of IALA's funding, it also received support from such prestigious groups as the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
In its early years, IALA concerned itself with three tasks: finding other organizations around the world with similar goals; building a library of books about languages and interlinguistics; and comparing extant IALs, including Esperanto, Esperanto II, Ido, Latino Sine Flexione, Novial, and Occidental. In pursuit of the last goal, it conducted parallel studies of these languages, with comparative studies of national languages, under the direction of scholars at American and European universities. It also arranged conferences with proponents of these IALs, debating features and goals of their representative languages. With a "concession rule" that required participants to make a certain number of concessions, early debates at IALA sometimes grew from heated to explosive.
At the Second International Interlanguage Congress, held in Geneva in 1931, IALA began to break new ground. Its conference was attended by recognized linguists, 27 of whom signed a testimonial of support for IALA's research program. An additional eight added their signatures at the third congress, convened in Rome in 1933.
Also in 1933, Professor Herbert N. Shenton of Syracuse University organized an intensive study of the problems encountered with interlanguages when used in international conferences. Later that same year, Dr. Edward L. Thorndike published a paper about the relative learning speeds of "natural" and "modular" constructed languages. Both Shenton and Thorndike were major influences on IALA's work from then on.
In 1937, the first steps towards the finalization of Interlingua were taken when a committee of 24 eminent linguists from 19 universities published Some Criteria for an International Language and Commentary. However, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 cut short the intended biannual meetings of the committee.
Read more about this topic: History Of Interlingua
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