User:Bpnjohnson/Fauxperanto

From Linguifex
Jump to navigation Jump to search



Fauxperanto
Pending
Pronunciation[[Help:IPA|pending]]
Created byBenJamin P. Johnson,

creator of:

curator of:

Date2023
SettingEuropean Union
{{{7}}}
  • {{{8}}}
    • {{{9}}}
      • {{{10}}}
        • {{{11}}}
          • {{{12}}}
            • Fauxperanto
Language codes
CLCR{{{14}}}
BRCL{{{15}}}

Phonology

Consonants

  Labial Coronal Palatal Dorsal
Stop p · b
p · b
t · d
t · d
  k · g
k · ɡ
Affricate     tc · dj
ʧ · ʤ
 
Fricative f · v
f · v
s · z
s · z
c · j
ʃ · ʒ
h
x
Nasal m
m
n
n
  x
ŋ
Lateral   l
l
   
Tap   r
r
   
Approximant w
w
  y
j
 

Vowels

  Front Back
High i
i ·
u
· u
Mid e
e̞ ·
o
· o̞
Mid a
ä ·

Orthography & Romanization

Rom IPA Description Example
a a Like 〈a〉 in father. vaku ‘cow’
b b Like 〈b〉 in bot. bufu ‘toad’
c ʃ Like 〈sh〉 in shoe. capu ‘sheep’
d d Like 〈d〉 in dog. deka ‘ten’
dj ʤ Like 〈j〉 in joke. djentu ‘person’
e e Like 〈ay〉 in day. megla ‘large’
f f Like 〈f〉 in fool. fuku ‘fire’
g ɡ Like 〈g〉 in get (never as in gel). gatu ‘cat’
h x Like 〈ch〉 in Scottish loch. tahe ‘soon’
i i Like 〈ee〉 in seen. tci ‘this’
j ʒ Like 〈s〉 in usual. muja ‘much’
k k Like 〈c〉 in cat. kindu ‘child’
l l Like 〈l〉 in light. lixgu ‘language’
m m Like 〈m〉 in moon. miru ‘ant’
n n Like 〈n〉 in now. niku ‘grandchild’
o o Like 〈o〉 in nope. nova ‘new’
p p Like 〈p〉 in peel. penta ‘five’
r r Like 〈r〉 in Spanish pero. roda ‘red’
s s Like 〈s〉 in sign. solu ‘sun’
t t Like 〈t〉 in tank. tablu ‘table’
tc ʧ Like 〈ch〉 in cheese. tcelu ‘bird’
u u Like 〈oo〉 in food. vuklu ‘auncle’
v v Like 〈v〉 in voice. vatru ‘parent’
w w Like 〈w〉 in went. wovu ‘egg’
x ŋ Like 〈ng〉 in singer (never as in finger or ginger). blaxka ‘white’
y j Like 〈y〉 in yellow. yela ‘yellow’
z z Like 〈z〉 in zebra. zebru ‘zebra’

Phonotactics

  • All words except for particles must have a C onset.
  • A standard root is C(R)V(S)C-, where R is r, l, y, or w and S is r, l, y, w, m, n, or x.
  • If optional R follows a C onset, C must be an obstruent.
  • If optional S precedes a C coda, C must be an obstruent.
  • All vowels must be separated by a C.
  • x cannot occur word-initially.
  • dl and tl do not occur.
  • Word-initial onsets can be:
    • A single consonant: p, t, k, b, d, g, tc, dj, f, s, c, h, v, z, j, m, n, l, r, w, y (not x).
    • An obstruent followed by a non-nasal sonorant:
      • An obstruent followed by l: pl, kl, bl, gl, fl, sl, cl, vl, zl, jl (not tl, dl, hl)
      • An obstruent followed by r: pr, tr, kr, br, dr, gr, fr, vr (not sr, cr, zr, jr, hr)
      • An obstruent followed by w: tw, kw, dw, gw, sw, hw, vw, zw (not pw, bw, fw, cw, jw)
      • An obstruent followed by y: py, ky, by, gy, fy, hy, vy (not ty, dy, sy, cy, zy, jy)
    • An unvoiced stop preceded by s: sp, st, sk
  • Word-final codas are much more limited, and consonantal codas occur only on inflected nouns and adjectives, finite verbs, and some function words. Codas can be:
    • A single consonant: p, t, k, b, d, g, tc, dj, f, s, c, h, v, z, j, m, n, l, r, w, x, y
    • A stop consonant, affricate, or coronal sibilant preceded by a nasal: mp, nt, xk, mb, nd, xg, ntc, ndj, ns, nz
    • An unvoiced stop preceded by s: sp, st, sk
  • Medial (intervocalic) consonant clusters can be:
    • Any consonant or cluster permitted as an onset.
    • Any consonant or cluster permitted as a coda.
    • An obstruent preceded by l: lp, lt, lk, lb, ld, lg, ltc, ldj, lf, ls, lc, lh, lv, lz, lj
    • An obstruent preceded by r: rp, rt, rk, rb, rd, rg, rtc, rdj, rf, rs, rc, rh, rv, rz, rj

Stress

Stress is patterned after Esperanto and falls on the penultimate syllable, no matter how awkward that may be.

Contrast and Comparison with Esperanto

The main premise behind Fauxperanto is that a future European Union commissioned the language in the early 22nd century. Following the reunification of Ireland, Irish Gaelic was adopted as the sole official language of the country in an effort to remove English as part of an ill-devised decolonization measure. By around 2100, no EU countries still had English as an official language, and the EU, as part of an effort to curb the ever-expanding Balkan language family, which had now reached 26 individual languages, which were all mainly alternative means of spelling Serbo-Croatian (and Croatian, and Serbian, and Montenegrin, and Bosnian), the EU voted to construct a common European language and then enforce it as an official language. Early in the process, Esperanto was considered to fill this role, but various common criticisms of Esperanto led to its rejection.

22nd Century Criticisms of Esperanto

  • Phonotactics: Esperanto’s liberal use of difficult-to-pronounce consonant clusters was found to be problematic for native speakers of some languages.
  • Special Characters: Esperanto uses the characters ⟨ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, and ŭ⟩, none of which are common to any standard keyboard layouts except for Esperanto.
  • Default Masculine Gender: Esperanto nouns are masculine by default, and a suffix must be used to make them feminine. For example, patro ‘father’ plus feminine suffix -inofeminine’ equals patrino ‘mother’.
  • Little phonological “smoothing” of borrowings: Loanwords are ported wholesale into the language and appropriate affixes added.
  • Large number of English borrowings.

Main Differences between Esperanto and Fauxperanto

  • Only standard ASCII characters in orthography.
    • Esperanto uses the non-ASCII characters ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ǔ, but maintains a 1:1 phoneme:grapheme ratio.
    • Eulingo uses no non-ASCII characters, but uses digraphs for the affricates dj and tc.
  • Nouns end in -u.
    • muso::musu ‘mouse’
  • Present tense in -e-.
    • li manĝas::(ru) mandjer ‘he eats’
  • Subject pronouns are rare: Verbs are conjugated with endings that reflect their subject.
    • mi kredas::(mu) kredem ‘I believe’
  • Plural pronouns are actual plurals and not unique lexemes
    • mi, vi, li, ŝi, ĝi:ni, [vi], ili::mu, tu, ru, su:mui, tui, rui, sui
  • Numbers, articles, and other determiners are treated as adjectives (ending in -a) and are declined as such (e.g. accusative in -n and plural in -i).
  • Genitive phrases tend to be adjectival (E.g. Eo. La libro de la infano (‘The child’s book’) Fo. La libro de lla kindu or La libro kinda).
  • Adjectives follow nouns. (E.g. Eo. La nigra hundo (‘The black dog’) Fo. La kanu nera).
  • Nouns are neutral by default, and require suffixes to be made masculine or feminine. (E.g. vatru ‘parent’ → vatrinu ‘mother’, vatrotcu ‘father’)
  • Deixis has a two-way distinction indicated by particles tci (analogous to Eo. ĉi or Fr. -ci) and li (analogous to Eo. default t-stems or Fr. -là).
  • The third person plural maintains animacy distinction: Eo. ili vs. Fo. ruy (plural of he/she), suy (plural of it).
  • No effort is made to avoid synonyms or to limit the size of the lexicon with antonyms using derivations like mal-.