My view of International Auxiliary Languages

I had discovered Esperanto when I was about 10 years old and was intrigued that someone had actually invented a language and it seemed a good idea that a language should be invented to help mankind. At ten I had no idea there was such a thing as the Esperanto movement or even if anyone actually used the language. Rather, it inspired me to try to do the same!

So during my teens I poured out one IAL after another. To begin with they were modifications of Esperanto, but gradually they took on more distinctive characters, usually influenced by whichever natural language I had been studying at the time. All this came to a halt by the time I was an undergraduate.

Many years later, when I joined the Conlang list, I also joined the Auxlang list. My time on the latter led me more and more to the conclusion that any successful IAL was more likely to be a development of a natural language.

While subscribed to Auxlang, I became (and still remain) very disenchanted with the bigotry and bitterness of IAL politics; the crunch time came when different schools of "revived Novial" traded insults amongst one another! I left Auxlang and have no intention of ever returning nor of getting involved with the politics or promotion of any IAL (though I am happy to discuss IALs with sane people purely as constructed languages per se).