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First published in 2006. Novial (NOV - new, International Auxiliary Language)is one of the easiest constructed languages, partly because it highly resembles English. The multilingual dictionary of 1930, Novial-Lexike, may be in itself a sufficient guide to learn Novial. The reader will find : (1) an introduction showing the urgent need for such a language, (2) the history of the movement with criticism of earlier proposed artificial languages, (3) a detailed grammar, in which, chapter by chapter. the reasons are given that have led to precisely those and to no other forms , (4) the scientific principles of word selection, and (5) some specimens intended to show the use of the language for different purposes and in different styles.
List of contents
Abbreviations, Preface, Novial Lexike
About the author
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen, a Danish linguist, specializing in English grammar. Steven Mithen referred to him as "one of the greatest language scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." Otto Jespersen was born in Randers, Jutland. As a kid, he was attracted by the work of Danish philologist Rasmus Rask, and he taught himself Icelandic, Italian, and Spanish using Rask's grammar. He enrolled in the University of Copenhagen in 1877 at the age of 17, originally studying law but also learning languages. In 1881, he changed his entire concentration to languages, and in 1887, he received his master's degree in French, with English and Latin as secondary languages. In June 1886, Jespersen joined the International Phonetic Association, which was then known as The Phonetic Teachers' Association. In fact, in a letter to Paul Passy, Jespersen proposed the notion of constructing a phonetic alphabet that could be utilized by all languages. From 1887 to 1888, he visited England, Germany, and France, where he met linguists like as Henry Sweet and Paul Passy and attended lectures at universities such as Oxford. On the recommendation of his professor Vilhelm Thomsen, he returned to Copenhagen in August 1888 to begin work on his PhD dissertation on the English case system. He successfully defended his dissertation in 1891.
