Career
Like Edward Sapir and Otto Jespersen, he collaborated with Alice Vanderbilt Morris to develop the research program of the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). From 1936 to 1939, he was Research Director of IALA. Under Collinson"s guidance, methods of compiling international word material were tested at Liverpool. In 1939 IALA moved from Liverpool to New York and East. Clark Stillman succeeded Collinson as Research Director.
Alexander Gode, editor of the first English-Interlingua dictionary published in 1951, remained in contact with Collinson which had collected much of linguistic material in the University of Liverpool.
Collinson wrote a vulgarization book in Esperanto about linguistics: Louisiana Homa Lingvo ("The Human Language") in 1927. He also was a collaborator of Centro por Esploro kaj Dokumentado and Internacia Scienca Universitato where he gave 7 lectures.
He was the joint author of The German Language (with R Priebsch) first published in 1934. Fifth edition Faber & Faber, 1962.