Interlingua (;
ISO 639 language codes
ia,
ina) is an
international auxiliary language (IAL), developed between 1937 and 1951 by the
International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the top most widely used IALs (along with
Esperanto and
Ido), and is the most widely used naturalistic IAL: in other words, its vocabulary, grammar and other characteristics are derived from natural languages. Interlingua was developed to combine a simple, mostly regular grammar with a vocabulary common to the widest possible range of languages, making it unusually easy to learn, at least for those whose native languages were sources of Interlingua's
vocabulary and grammar. Conversely, it is used as a rapid introduction to many natural languages. Interlingua literature maintains that (written) Interlingua is comprehensible to the hundreds of millions of people who speak a
Romance language, though it is actively spoken by only a few hundred.