Arturo Alfandari

Arturo Alfandari (8 June 1888 – 1 May 1969) was a Belgian diplomat, known as the creator of the language Neo.

Life

Originally from Italy, in the First World War he served as a cipher officer for the Italian High Command. After the war he settled in Belgium where he worked as an exporter before eventually becoming a diplomat for the Belgian state.^[1]

Apart from Neo, he spoke seven languages.

Neo

His proposal for the international auxiliary language, Neo, was developed in the 1930s and first presented in 1961.

Like many other constructed languages of the time, Alfandari's own was based on Esperanto. However, he took some steps further - he reduced the use initial and final syllables, and built-in vocabulary. Root words were made as short as possible thus emphasizing rhythm and articulation, but sometimes at the expense of recognizability.

Alfandari's language has been described as "the natural and inevitable further development of Esperanto" (P. Rasquin) and as "a radical and satisfying way for a reform of Esperanto, which could have been accepted by Esperantists even as a simplification of their language." (A. Lavagnini).

His first two Neo books solely numbered 1,304 pages - the reason he put so much effort in it is ˝Whether you are Flemish or Walloon, white or black, Americans or Russians, you all want peace. To make an attempt to understand and support each other.˝

But despite his best efforts, Neo had the same fate as the most of such other language projects - it did not survive its creator.

References