Eurolatin

Eurolatin
Eurolatinus (sermo); Eurolatina (lingua)
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|[[ɛu̯rola'ti:nʊs]; [ɛu̯rola'ti:na]]]]
Created by	–
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Eurolatin
Language codes
ISO 639-1	et
ISO 639-2	eut
ISO 639-3	eut

General information

Eurolatin or Eurolatinus is an auxiliary language invented by Llyn as European Lingua Franca. Latin has been one of the most important languages ever spoken in Europe until XVIII century. Many English words have a Latin origin and, through English, many Latin words have spread in modern European languages, such as: habitat, virus, nation, sympathy, idea (of Greek origin), and so forth. Medical terms of European languages are mainly from Latin and Ancient Greek and so are many legal terms. Latin has also influenced German, Celtic languages, and, slightly also Scandinavian languages and Slavic languages. In any way Latin isn't a simple language (even if it is no harder than other modern inflected languages) and its crystallized grammatical norms have closed it off from other evolving European languages: they have prevented it from moving with the times. It is also because of this that Romanic languages have developed. Llyn has thought to "modernizing" Classical Latin with grammatical and lexical features of modern European languages - not only from Romanic languages, but also from Germanic ones - to make it more "usable" and "simple".

Phonology

During the time every country has adapted Latin pronunciation to its official language's sounds, for example the sentence:

• Caesar vincit inimicos - Caesar defeats the enemies

can be pronounced differently:

• ['tʃɛ:sar 'vintʃit ini'mi:kos] in Italy;
• ['si:zɐ 'vɪnsɪt ɪnɪ'mikəs] in UK;
• ['θɛsaɾ 'binsit ini'mikos] in Spain;
• ['tse:zɐ 'vintsit ini'mi:kos] in Germany

and so on. To use Eurolatin in the whole Europe and to be understood and to understand other people it must be established a univocal pronunciation. The pronunciation of Eurolatin is based on the restituta pronunciation of Classical Latin with other sounds taken from Modern or Ancient Greek.

Alphabet

Eurolatin alphabet has got 24 letters:

Letters	Pronunciation	Further informations
a	[a] / [ɑ:]	it can be either short (ă) or long (ā)
b	[b]	-
c	[k]	it is always pronounced as in the English cat even in front of e, i and y
d	[d]	-
e	[ɛ] / [e:]	it can be either short (ĕ) or long (ē)
f	[f]	-
g	[g]	it is always pronunced as in the English get even in front of e, i and y
h	[ ] / [h]	in Old Latin probably it was pronounced as in the English hot, but in Classical Latin it wasn't pronounced at all. In Eurolatin it can be either pronounced or not, it depends on the speaker
i	[ɪ] / [i:] / [j]	it can be either short (ĭ) or long (ī). At the beginning of words, when it is followed by a vowel, or between vowels it is pronounced [j]
k	[k]	it is always pronunced as the letter c, but it is mainly found in foreign words
l	[l]	-
m	[m]	-
n	[n]	-
o	[ɔ] / [o:]	it can be either short (ŏ) or long (ō)
p	[p]	-
q	[kw]	it is always followed by u
r	[r]	trilled just as in Italian
s	[s]	always voiceless
t	[t]	-
u	[ʊ] / [u:] / [w]	it can be either short (ŭ) or long (ū). When it is followed by a vowel it is pronounced as [w]
v	[v]	-
x	[ks]	it is always voiceless, as in the English six
y	[ʏ] / [y:]	it can be either short (y̆) or long (ȳ); it comes tipically in Greek loan words
z	[s]	it comes tipically in Greek loan words and in compounds that use Greek elements, but it is always pronounced as s

The letters j and w occur in foreign words and loan words. They can be pronounced as in the original language or can be pronounced respectively as [j] and [v] / [ʊ]. There are also three digraphs: ch, ph and th.

Consonantal phonemes

Eurolatinus has got the following consonantal phonemes:

Phonemes	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b			t d			k g
Affricate
Nasal	m	(ɱ)		n			(ŋ)
Fricative		f v	θ	s			x	h
Approximant				r		j	w
Lateral approximant				l

Vocalic phonemes

Eurolatinus has got the following vocalic phonemes:

Phonemes	Short		Long
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Closed	ɪ ʏ	ʊ	i: y:	u:
Mid-closed			e:	o:
'Mid-open	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a		ɑ:

Diphthongs and digraphs

Eurolatin has got five diphthongs:

Diphthongs	Pronunciation
ae	[ai̯]
au	[au̯]
ei	[ɛi̯]
eu	[ɛu̯]
oe	[ɔi̯]

Diphthongs formed by i + vowel and u + vowel are not considered true diphthongs, because when i and u precede a vowel are considered approximant consonants. Eurolatin has got three digraphs: ch [x], ph [f], th [θ]. They are found in Greek loan words.

Stress

Stress position is established by observing the quantity of the last but one syllable: If the last but one syllable is long - that is to say, if it has got a long vowel, a diphthong or ends with a consonant - then here falls the stress; otherwise the stress falls on the last but two syllable. Stress can never fall before of the last but two syllable. If a word has got only two syllable, then the stress falls on the last but one syllable apart from its quantity. Some examples:

• lŭpus (wolf) = LŬ-pus;
• iuvĕnis (young) = IU-vĕ-nis (-vĕ- is short);
• amātus (beloved) = a-MĀ-tus (-mā- is long);
• felicissĭmus (happiest) = fe-li-CIS-sĭ-mus (-sĭ- is short).