Interlingua is an international auxiliary language (IAL), a modern version of Latin, developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association. It ranks among the top three most widely used IALs (after Esperanto and perhaps 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. 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.