Community
It is not certain how many people have an active knowledge of Interlingua. As noted above, Interlingua is the most widely spoken naturalistic auxiliary language.
Interlingua's greatest advantage is that it is the most widely understood international auxiliary language by virtue of its naturalistic (as opposed to schematic) grammar and vocabulary, allowing those familiar with a Romance language, and educated speakers of English, to read and understand it without prior study.
Interlingua has active speakers on all continents, especially in South America and in Eastern and Northern Europe, most notably Scandinavia; also in Russia and Ukraine. In Africa, Interlingua has official representation in the Republic of the Congo. There are copious Interlingua web pages, including editions of Wikipedia and Wiktionary, and a number of periodicals, including Panorama in Interlingua from the Union Mundial pro Interlingua (UMI) and magazines of the national societies allied with it. There are several active mailing lists, and Interlingua is also in use in certain Usenet newsgroups, particularly in the europa.* hierarchy. Interlingua is presented on CDs, radio, and television. In recent years, samples of Interlingua have also been seen in music and anime.
Interlingua is taught in many high schools and universities, sometimes as a means of teaching other languages quickly, presenting interlinguistics, or introducing the international vocabulary. The University of Granada in Spain, for example, offers an Interlingua course in collaboration with the Centro de Formación Continua.
Every two years, the UMI organizes an international conference in a different country. In the year between, the Scandinavian Interlingua societies co-organize a conference in Sweden. National organizations such as the Union Brazilian pro Interlingua also organize regular conferences.
Read more about this topic: Interlingua
Famous quotes containing the word community:
“Stories of law violations are weighed on a different set of scales in the Black mind than in the white. Petty crimes embarrass the community and many people wistfully wonder why Negroes don’t rob more banks, embezzle more funds and employ graft in the unions.... This ... appeals particularly to one who is unable to compete legally with his fellow citizens.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values.”
—Michael Lewis (late 20th century)
“He thought that, because the community represents millions of people, therefore it must be millions of times more important than the individual, forgetting that the community is an abstraction from the many, and is not the many themselves.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)