Constructed Language AYBAY CONLANG (ABCL)
“AyBay ConLang”, (abbreviated as ABCL) is a constructed language (conlang), developed and issued by Dr. Aydin Baykara in 2022.(http//:aydinbaykara.com); (aydbayk.2022@gmail.com)
It is an a priori language, which means that the complete vocabulary has been created entirely new, starting from zero. ABCL is a conlang containing partly the features of philosophical and logical languages. It is less agglutinative, but fairly inflective and derivative too. ABCL is free for everyone except for commercial use.
Living world languages are difficult to learn also because of many irregularities, ambiguities and of grammatical rules of differing complexity. Most of the conlangs aim to be easy learning international auxiliary language (IAL) by avoiding them. Accordingly such a conlang –to be easy and simple- should fulfil the following conditions:
- Introducing logical rules in grammar, which should be however as little as possible.
- High degree of unambiguity. It means that each word has exactly one grammatical interpretation. Their grammatical relation to each other should be exactly defined.
- The vocabulary should be memorized easily. For that, the words shall be classified in predefined, clearly distinguishable classes. It should include ways of connotation-bridges as reminder-hints to already memorized but disremembered words.
- Phonologically, it should be avoided to define a different word by aspiration, shortening, lengthening, and stressing or accenting a phoneme, consonant or vowel.
- For the ease of utterance and fluency the diphthong and double consonants (clustering) in a syllable shall be avoided.
- The words shall be as short as possible for short expressions and for saving printing paper.
ABCL is built up in two levels. The basic one (Level 1) is for normal use (about B2 level of CEFR) and the second level (Level 2) is for the full utilization of all aspects for higher purposes like printed papers and literature.
ABCL tries to achieve these goals by:
- Clearly defined syntax (SVO), fixed order of affixes, simple and reduced number of tenses, moods, aspects if compared with the most of the living languages.
- ABCL defines for Level 1 basic (root) words with one interpretation only. Other words with closer variable meaning will be expressed by addition of suitable adverbial or other particles. For Level 2 such words, if frequently used, may be defined as root word (i.e, to be additionally memorized) too.
- Words are created according to a certain scheme systematically as detailed below (Title: Vocabulary) Thus a learner can easily identify with this scheme which role a word in the sentence play (adverb, noun etc.) without knowing its meaning before. Except verbs (except after conjugation) and adverbs all words end up on a vowel.
- This scheme avoids diphthongs and clusters too, with three exemptions only (the modal prefixes, plural and modal suffixes in combination with passive suffix “n” and antonym suffix _x”)
- ABCL relies up on the Turkish alphabet and orthography and follows the principle “one letter per sound.”
As for example, because the adverbs, adjectives, conjunctives, prepositions and pronouns are the most used words in many languages we have created such words as two and three letter words. This way ABCL needs about half of the characters of English language to express the same content. That means, we could save half of the pages of a book written in English and so on.
Here are some guidelines for easy understanding of the following text: (where “C” indicates consonants and “V” vowels) The sign “*” attached to a “V”(V*) or “C”(C*) indicates that the vowels vary from “a” to “ü” and the consonants from “b” to “z” respectively. The sign “#” is a placeholder for a varying vowel or consonant. The point “.” between syllables of ABCL words is used to indicate an affix. It is just a demo to make the role of the suffixes clearer in this article. It will not be applied in normal usage of the language.
ORTHOGRAPHY
ABCL exploits all eight vowels available in some languages, but without lengthening and lowering them. Besides the common vowels “a, e, i, o, u”, also “ö and ü” (from German for example) and “ı” (ɯ- close back unrounded vowel, which is not common in ABC’s), will be utilized. The letter “ı” is very common in Turkish. It is not difficult in pronunciation at all, even though it seems so for outsiders. Although it doesn’t exist in English ABC, it can be heard very often in daily talks, for example in vocabularies ending with “_tion” like “station”, which would be written in ABCL as “sıteyşın”. The first “ı” may not be distinguished (as in clusters “st”) but the second one is articulated also in English lengthened and stressed. Even though ABCL could abstain theoretically from using it in case of nouns, where we have huge possibility of the word creation without utilization of ”ı” (and others as the consonant “j” for example), in some cases however (like verbs) they are needed for the creation of the sufficient numbers of the words. Close sounds of the vowel “e” (like a-umlaut in German) have been also dismissed.
ABCL uses 20 consonants, however only 18 will be utilized generally. These 18 include also the consonants “ç” and “ş” (English digraphs ch and sh). The “w” has been omitted for sounding very close to “v” and “q” close to “k”. The “j”, itself sounding as in the French word “je”, has been included for marking the questions, numerals and a few adjectives. Besides, this letter may be necessary for the second level of ABCL, if there is a shortage in the creation of CV and VC type ‘two letters’ particles (prepositions/conjunctions and adverbs) in the Level 2.
The last questionable consonant used here seldom (for ordinal numbers only), is “ğ” which sound like “gh” in “though” in English. “X” sounds same as in English and used for negations/ antonyms only, mostly at the end of the word it modifies. Below is the complete table of the spelling pronunciation with other examples.
ALPHABET and PRONUNCIATION
| Letters | Examples in English | IPA | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | as in father | a | ||
| b | as in below | b | ||
| c | as in jungle, jar | ʤ | ||
| ç | as in CHair, CHallange | ʧ | ||
| d | as in dark | d | ||
| e | as in bed | e | ||
| f | as in food | f | ||
| g | as in dog, ago | g | ||
| ğ | as in thouGH | - | ||
| h | as in hallo, has | h | ||
| ı | as in opEN | ɯ | ||
| i | as in meet | i | ||
| j | as in measure | ʒ | ||
| k | as in cop | k | ||
| l | as in length | l, ʎ | ||
| m | as in measure | m | ||
| n | as in nice | n | ||
| o | as in pore | o | ||
| ö | as in sir | ø | ||
| p | as in piece | p | ||
| r | as in rice | r, ɹ | ||
| s | as in sick | s | ||
| ş | as in SHare, SHade | ʃ | ||
| t | as in tip | t | ||
| u | as in today | u | ||
| ü | as in jury, fUture | y | ||
| v | as in village, vertical | v | ||
| y | as in bay, yes | j | ||
| z | as in zero, zodiac | z | ||
| x | as in six | x |
IPA pronunciatios of the letters not existing or different in English are given in brackets.
ABCL as a conlang does not rely on the exact pronunciation of the letters. Words are constructed such a way that it is not sensitive to the diversions such as aspect and accenting. But it is essential to stress the vowels in V, VC, CV, VCV, CVC formations and the second vowel in CVCCV and longer formations.
VOCABULARY, LEXICON, WORD FORMATION/DERIVATION
Words are created according to the following scheme:
Nouns have the scheme CVCCV, verbs CVC, adjectives VCV, the arithmetic numerals (digits 1 to 9) CV, geometric numerals (10, 100, 1000, 10000 …) CVC, adverbs VC, conjunctives and prepositions CV. Pronouns have V and VCV respectively. In case a scheme is used for more than one category (as VCV), certain vowels or consonants are allocated to one class only so that a mix up can be avoided. (e.g. for the adjectives VCV, the first vowels are “a, e o, ö, u, ü”; for the pronouns “i”.) Number of letters for each category is chosen considering the possible combinations in creation of the required number of a lexical category. (e.g. although for nouns (with CVCCV), combinations over 500 000 may be required and can be created theoretically; for the verbs, three letters CVC may cover the required range of about four thousand).
ABCL lexicon (ABCL- English) has been prepared in form of an Excel file, separated in groups of lexical categories: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction and preposition, pronoun. Additionally, tables for derived nouns, derived adjectives, verbs and adverbs indicating the derivation suffixes and many examples have been created. Also tables showing the affixes for inflections, conjugations and declensions have been placed at relevant capitals.
The category “noun” consists of 19 noun classes, each of them placed in a separate Excel page. Further details have been explained under the related title “NOUN” below. Verbs are separated also in classes, similar to nouns, placed under one Excel page, which includes also rules for the derived verbs separately. Similarly, to each other category, an Excel page has been allocated. A word can be searched using the “search” function of Excel in both directions. A direct visual search is also possible, if the correct class of the word can be judged before, while looking in the relevant page and under the corresponding subtitle.
Word formation/creation by the derivation between verb-noun-adjective-adverbs has been done with the help of the suffixes. Suffixes are selected for each logically defined group separately. They have been explained in the following with examples for each type of the syntactic category separately. ABCL has about 3800 root nouns (including 3000 most common nouns of English listed by Britannica Dictionary), 1600 root verbs, 600 adjectives, over 120 adverbs, 120 conjunctions/prepositions and 55 pronouns defined in English translation. With some defined derivations the vocabulary has almost seven thousand words, which is considered sufficient for the daily use of World languages.
As explained below for individual cases the word creation system of ABCL is able to create huge number of the root words additionally. Nevertheless, with the help of the created rules for word derivations, one will be able to find a word which he needs to express himself easily. Thus, we can estimate the vocabulary of ABCL at this stage already about 8000 to 10000 words.
NOUNS of ABCL
BASIC/ROOT NOUNS
“Basic/root nouns” consist principally of five letters (CVCCV). There are however nouns derived from verbs, adjectives and other nouns having five-six-seven letters. They all end on a vowel same as the basic nouns. Adding the sixth and seventh letter was necessary to avoid ambiguities with the root nouns and the double vowels. The root nouns are classified in 19 noun classes, each of them heading a special area of use, such as “body”, “human”, “animals”, plants, “mental”, psychology-spirit”, “social”, “economy”, “daily home”, “health”, “pastime”,” nature and environment”, “science”, “technic”, “construction- transport”, “time”, “measurement”, “military” and “others”. Each of them has its own special initial consonant. Considering “S” is being the mostly utilized initial consonant in many languages, we preferred it for the “heading” BODY and HUMAN, which are mostly mentioned in daily speaking.
This partly philosophical approach of word creation is not favoured by some critics, saying words differing by an end vowel (or consonant) only, could be mixed up easily. This may seem at first sight true but many world languages have similar words, which is not considered as a problem for them. Even so, the grouping and classification of words as done in ABCL have the big advantage of connotation for memorizing or remembering a word.
Nouns are created by the use of an Excel matrix; an example for the main topic “BODY” is shown below.
For this heading, CVCCV is selected as S#N##, whereas S and N being basic consonants for the heading “BODY”. The subtopics are constructed by varying first vocal in lateral line of the matrix from “A” to “Ü” (also 8 vocals=8 columns) (here, for example, for subtitle “Head”, first varying vowel being “İ”, first syllable is “SİN” and for the following subtitle “Upper Body”, it is SON ). Now for each subheading having a fixed CVC (e.g. SİN), the fourth letter (consonant) will be kept, the fifth letter (a vowel) will be varied from “A” to “Ü” (“SİN”C#), building a block with 8 columns. Vertically, at the each column of the matrix the fourth letter (a consonant) will be varied from “B” to “Z” (“SİN”C*”a”… 20 in total). This way for each subtopic 8×20=160 nouns could be created theoretically. For one heading (e.g. “BODY” with the corresponding fixed consonants “SAN”##, “SİN”## etc. as here) we could have 8×160=1280 nouns. Varying “N” in this scheme from “B” to “Z”, we will have 20×1280=25 600 nouns beginning with “S”. And for 20 initial consonants, we could have created 20×25 600=512 000 nouns with this matrix scheme.
As said above, we aim to utilize for the Level 1 about 5000 nouns only, so we can effort dropping combination with difficult pronunciations (for example with the letters “J” or “I” and for the sake of vowel harmony etc. Fully utilization of the matrix might be required for the medical and scientific/technical terms only, if any. The matrix scheme would also allow using of the computer programs for word creation and translation.
The matrix allows further sub-subheading such as of the “Head”, the first column (SİN#e) indicating sense organs like eye, nose, ear (denoted as sine: primary) and further columns right of them, the subparts of first noun at the beginning (denoted as “seconders”). For example: eye (sinye) (first column), then in the same row; iris (sinyi), eyelid (sinyo), pupil (sinyü). Being Excel table, the matrix allows right click explanation for each cell, where we can put the meaning of a word in any language.
ABCL nouns of group S#N##* (BODY) (selected partially as example)
SEN: HEAD
| Sen#e: Primary | Sen#i: Secondary | Sen#o: Secondary..... |
|---|
| SEN#e | SEN#i | SEN#o | SEN#ö | SEN#ü | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| senbe | head | senbi | ... | senbo | ... | senbö | ... | senbü | ... | ||||
| sence | skull | senci | scalp | senco | ... | sencö | chin | sencü | cheekbone | ||||
| sençe | tooth | sençi | foretooth | senço | gum | sençö | canine tooth | sençü | grinder | ||||
| sende | mouth | sendi | lip | sendo | palate | sendö | poach | sendü | tongue | ||||
| senfe | nose | senfi | nostril | senfo | phlegm | senfö | nosal bone | senfü | sinus | ||||
| senge | eye | sengi | eye lid | sengo | eye lash | sengö | iris | sengü | pupil | ||||
| senhe | ear | senhi | earlobe | ... | senho | ... | senhö | middle ear | senhü | inner ear | |||
| ........... | |||||||||||||
| senne | ... | senni | ... | senno | ... | sennö | ... | sennü | ... | ||||
| ........... | |||||||||||||
| sense | eye brow | sensi | ... | senso | ... | sensö | ... | sensü | ... | ||||
| senze | face | senzi | forehead | senzo | ... | senzö | jaw | senzü | cheek |
Prosodics are generally not required. However to avoid the misunderstanding due to close sounds of some vocals the (especially second) syllables must be accentuated.
DERIVED NOUNS
Nouns will be derived from nouns, verbs and adjectives by adding suffixes according to a fixed scheme. They will typically end also on a vowel as the root nouns.
Deverbal Nouns
| ABCL Suffix | ABCL Suffix | Example: ABCL noun | English Suffix | Some English Nouns (Examples) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Level 1) | (Level 2) | (incl. Level 2) | (only nouns in italic translated into ABCL) | ||||
| _şe | _şe | yin.şe, dek.şe | to (infinitive) | to run, to eat | |||
| _aya | _aya | kas.aya | _, _age, _ure | cut, bore, leakage, creature | |||
| _aya | _aya | çol.aya | _/t)ion | protrusion, indication, motion, division, organization, evaporation | |||
| _aya | _aya | her.aya | _ing | building, being, writing, dead, smell, piping | |||
| _aya | _aha | mes.aha | _ence | joy, fun, thought, excellence | |||
| _aya | _aha | hün.aha, tad.aha | _ment | employment, enjoyment, amazement, imprisonment, replacement | |||
| _aya | _ada | tüm.ada | _(t-,s-)ion | relaxation, attention, selection, evaporation, introduction | |||
| _ana | _ama | hün.ama | _er,_ent,_ory,_ak,_ier | employer, student, servant, baker, liar, governor, waitress, signatory, cashier, cleaner | |||
| _ana | _ana | vük.ana | _er | counter, cleaner, recorder, opener, obstacle, scale, viewer (for _scope: as microscope) | |||
| _aya | _aşa | dan.aşa | _ | dress/clothes(ing)/wear/garment | |||
| _asa | _asa | hün.asa | _ee | employee, refugee, trainee | |||
| _aça | _aça | vös.aça | _(e)ry | refinery, bakery, laundry, laboratory, dormitory | |||
| _aça | _aca | dir.aca | _ing, _tion | bedding, station (bus stop), aim/target, passage | |||
| _aka | _aka | yin.aka | _ing (gerund) | running, beginning, rejoicing |
According to the meaning they add to the derived nouns, English suffixes can be grouped in to e.g.: nomina acti, nomina actionis, nomina agentis (acting), nomina patientis (affected), noun loci (place); result/product of act for real and abstract objects, result as process etc. These groups are shown in the second column (Level 2) of the above table.
One can see in the table that there is not a different noun created from the same verbal root by different suffix groups "aya, aha, ada" and "aşa". Even it seems sometimes so as for "expectance via expectancy", the meaning remains almost the same. It means, we can use one suffix only instead of those three. (Seemingly different meanings by different suffixes arises by the root verb, not by the suffix, accordingly no need for such suffix diversity.)
So, in ABCL for the Level 1 we will lessen the suffixes of mentioned group to one suffix "aya" only. Suffixes "ama" and "ana" will be merged to "ana" indicating the subject of the act (independently person or thing) only. Passive subject suffix "asa" remains as it is. Third merged suffix is "aça" including also "aca" which denotes the place. Fourth is "aka", stand for "-ing" and some "-tion" suffixes naming the action itself by the name.
Thus ABCL has finally five derivational suffixes for deverbal nouns as shown in first column. The suffixes of the second column at the table above may be used however for the Level 2 if needed.(Shortened in the lists above and below; complete lists of this group can be seen at my URL: http://aydinbaykara.com)
With the help of those five suffixes and assumed two thousand suitable verbs, it would be possible to create 10 000 new nouns for Level 1 only.
Denominal Nouns
| ABCL Suffix L1 | ABCL Suffix L2 | Examp.: ABCL noun L2 | English Suffix | Some English Nouns (Examples) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| _da(abstr.nouns) | _da | salya.da | _hood,_ness,_ity | motherhood, friendship, military, kingdom | ||
| _da | _ha | senge.ha | spectacles, woodshed, cucumber, Spielzeug(German) | |||
| _da | _ya | salya.ya | -y/-n/-en/-on,-ling,-ette | mummy, doggy, chicken, kitten, maiden, darling, diskette | ||
| _na(people-group) | _ma | pesçe.ma | -ian/-er/-man/-ist | politician, librarian, musician, porter, fireman, artist, dentist, racist, Buddhist, atheist | ||
| _na | _sa | Türkiye.sa | -ish/-ian/-an/-er/-se | Turkish, Algerian, Roman, Chinese (citizen of that country) | ||
| _na | _na | paskö.na | _ish,_ien,_an,(e)r | citizen, villager, republican, English, German (folk) | ||
| _ta(branch-area) | _ta | banya.ta | _logy,_nomy,_graphy | biology, psychology, astronomy, stenography, geography, photography | ||
| - | country name | as in the original language, not in English | ||||
| -meter | thermometer (Suffix replaced by compound words such as "heat gauge") |
For the similar consideration as the deverbal noun derivation above, ABCL will have the suffix "da" for the suffixes of the Level 2 (L2)"da, ha, ya"; the suffix "na" for "na, ma, sa, ra"(all human related) and "ta" for scientific nouns.
Even if rarely, it is possible that one Level 1 suffix covers two nouns with differing meaning (In the table above "motherhood" and "mummy" are both derived from "mother". With one Level 1 (L1) suffix "da" only, we would have an ambiguity. Therefore we need here to go back to Level 2, where we have two different suffixes ("da" and "ya").
If a noun very frequently used, we defined beside derived one also a root noun for it directly in ABCL as e.g. above pesçe.ma (=pesce). Derivation rules, once memorized, can be applied for new cases also but the word will be longer, other way we have to learn the new noun additionally to derived one, which we consider adequate for the Level 2 only.
Noun Derived from Adjective
| ABCL Suffix | Examp.: ABCL noun | English Suffix | Some English Nouns (Examples) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _ka | heha.ka | -y | pinky | |
| _ka;(x)_ka | ebi.ka, ebix.ka | - | beauty, ugliness | |
| _ka | açü.ka, abax.ka | _dom,_hood | freedom, boredom, falsehood | |
| _ka | ehi.ka, atü.ka | _th, _(en)ce | depth, strength, prominence, absence | |
| (x)_ka | avax.ka | _ness | sadness, kindness, darkness, business | |
| _ka | silbi.to.ka | _(al)ity,_ty,_y | sexuality, normality, formality, loyalty, jealousy, victory | |
| (x)_ka | göd.amox.ka(*) | _cy | vacancy, fluency, frequency | |
| (x)_ka | avax.ka | _ness | sadness, kindness, darkness, business | |
| _vunye | şı.vunye, ki.vunye | _gon | polygon, pentagon |
(*)Nouns will not be derived from deverbal adjectives but directly from verbs, so it will be “göd.ayax”
Noun Derived from Adverb
| __sı/si | oye.si | -side | outside |
Compound/Combined Noun Derivations
| adjective.verb | edu.çeni | telephone |
| adjective.verb | edu.biyi | television |
| adjective.verb | edu. bayı | telescope |
| adjective.verb | edux.bayı | microscope |
| adjective.noun | eme vondi | lens/magnifier |
| verb.noun | ene.n. vondi | magnifying glass |
| adjective.noun | şo.bangı | something |
VERBS of ABCL
BASIC/ROOT VERBS
Verbs consist basically of three letters as CVC. They are also classified in schemes similar to the nouns. Fifteen “main headings” (with the first denoting letter of the group following) are “PHYSICAL ACTS -K**”, “AKTIVE ACTIONS –Y, R and G**”, “PEOPLE – S and Ş**”, “SOCIAL RELATION –F and P**”, “MENTAL ACTIVITIES –B and M**”, “HOUSEHOLD, … DAILY LIFE -D**”, “PASTTIME, SPOR, HEALTH -T**”, “UTTARANCE, NONPERSON ACTS-Ç**”, “BUSINESS, PUBLIC -H**”, “TECHNIC / SCIENCE / NATURE-V**”. In PHYSICAL ACTS, “K**” is initial consonant for the heading, ** indicates varying 8 vowels (“a” to “ü”) in the second place and alternating 20 consonants in the third place. This way 4600 verbs can be created theoretically, but for the same reason as for the nouns, only half of them will be taken in to the consideration.
For the Level 1, ABCL has about one thousand six hundreds of them, which seems to be adequate. The main heading could be subdivided in subheading such as KA* for a certain type of “physical acting” and KE* for another where appropriate (not in this example).
As example, some verbs in the category “K-physical acting” are shown below:
| kaf | set up | kef | set down | kıf | kif | fasten | |||||||||||||||
| kah | dig | keh | fill | kıh | kih | excavate | |||||||||||||||
| kak | walk | kek | preserve | kık | kik | fit | |||||||||||||||
| kal | open | kel | close | kıl | kil | shut down | |||||||||||||||
| kam | pull | kem | push | kım | kim | twist | |||||||||||||||
| kan | take | ken | give | kın | take away | kin | bring | ||||||||||||||
| kap | throw/fling | kep | dart | kıp | kip | kick | |||||||||||||||
| kar | hit | ker | crush/bump | kır | bust | kir | catch | ||||||||||||||
| kas | cut | kes | separate | kıs | kis | divide |
Verbs will be flexed for the first level beside tenses also for ergative, causative, imperative, passive, subjunctive and negative. Suffixes for further tenses and moods have been defined also for Level 2 such as inferential, optative, subjunctive conditional etc. additionally. Those moods of the second level can be replaced in the first level by the prepositions as in English.
Verbs are transitive, intransitive and also both even though identical in writing (and speaking as in English). A transitive verb in one language may be intransitive in another language. Because English includes many such verbs, for the translation from English to ABCL, ABCL needed two different verbs for each type of the meaning in order to overcome the ambiguity.
Thus, the ergative mood has been introduced with the suffix “_t” after the intransitive verb to make it “transitive”. Accordingly, a verb defined in ABCL lexicon is intrinsically intransitive, if it is not clearly transitive by its own inherent sense. Therefore the lexicon does not contain transitive verbs which can be flexed with the suffix “_t” from the intransitive verb except those used very frequently. With other words, if one search the lexicon for the ABCL translation of an English verb, the counterpart verb will be