Lingwa de planeta
Lingwa de planeta is a constructed international auxiliary language based on the most widely spoken languages of the world, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
The main idea of Lidepla is a harmonious whole on the base of the most widespread and influential national languages. The intention is also for it to have something in common with the native languages of most of the people. With the various source languages from across the globe, it is one of the a posteriori languages.
Development of the language began in 2006 in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, by a group of enthusiasts, with Dmitri Ivanov being the project leader. The basic version of the language was published in June 2010.
Alphabet and pronunciation
The official Lidepla alphabet is based on the Latin script and contains the following 25 letters, and their upper case equivalents:Letter | a | b | ch | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z |
IPA phonemes | ~ | k͡s~ɡ͡z | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Name | a | be | che | de | e | ef | ge | ha | i | ja | ka | el | em | en | o | pe | er | es | te | u | ve | wa | iks | ye | ze |
The letter q is not used, and c occurs only in the digraph “ch”. The letter y represents the same vowel as “i”, but is never stressed. The following digraphs and letters are pronounced as follows, with examples:
- ch – /t͡ʃ/ as in “cheese”: chay — tea
- -ng, at the end of a word – /ŋ/ as in fang: feng — wind
- sh – /ʃ/ as in “shoes”: shi — ten
- j – /d͡ʒ/ as in “Jack”: jan — to know
- z – /d͡z/: zun — to go in for
- x – /ks/ as in “extra”: examen — exam
Some learning material uses /h/ for the letter h. The grammar allows that pronunciation, but gives /x/ as ch in German Fach as the primary.
For more details on the phonology, see the section Phonology below.
Stress
The general rule regarding the stress is:- the vowel before the last consonant is stressed: máta, família, akshám, ruchéy
- some endings are never stressed
- the doubled vowel is always stressed
Description and grammar
The Lidepla grammar is based on 3 rules: the rule of the constant form, the rule of belonging to a word class, and the rule of direct word order.
Rule of the constant form
The word form never changes. Special particles are used to express the grammatical meanings, for example:- me lubi – I love
- li lubi – they love
- yu ve lubi – you will love
- me wud lubi – I would love
- lubi – love!
- the plural of nouns, which is made by adding the suffix -s: kitaba — kitabas, flor — flores, and
- the verb to be, which has its own forms:
- * bi for the indefinite
- * es for the present
- * bin for the past
Rule of belonging to a word class
- lubi – to love
- luba – love
- lubi-she – loving
- lubi-shem – lovingly, with love
Derivation
By means of affixes and particles new words can be made up, both of the same class and of the other. For example:somni – to sleep | somni-she – sleeping |
en-somni – to fall asleep | somni-shem – sleepingly, as if while asleep |
somni-ki – to doze | somnishil – sleepy |
gro-somni – to be dead to the world | somnilok – sleeping place |
ek-somni-ki – to take a nap | somninik – sleepyhead |
Principle of necessity
The use of special particle is optional if its meaning is clear from the context. For example:- Yeri me miti ela – “Yesterday I met her”, and
- Manya me miti ela – “Tomorrow I'll meet her”
- Me vidi mucho kinda – “I see a lot of children”
- Me vidi kindas – “I see children”
Rule of direct word order
The word order in a sentence is usually direct, that is subject — predicate — object, attribute goes before the noun, prepositions are before the noun group they refer to.If the word order is changed, it is shown by the use of special particles. For example, den is put before the object, like this:
- Ela lubi lu – “She loves him”, versus
- Den lu ela lubi, with the same meaning – where the object lu is marked by placing den before it.
Personal pronouns
There is a distinction in third person singular between animate and inanimate: ta is used for humans and animals, and it about things and objects. If the speaker wishes to distinguish gender, there is also third person singular ela and lu.
Just as in English, second person plural and singular are both the same word: yu. Lidepla also has an indefinite personal pronoun: oni.
Possessive forms
The short form of the possessive pronouns looks like this:The third person singular suy is universal and can be used as the possessive form for both ta, it, ela and lu – for ela and lu there's also the forms elay and luy.
The suffix -ney is used to form adjectives from nouns. Therefore, it is also possible to form longer possessive pronouns with the base form and the suffix -ney: mi-ney, yu-ney, etc.
Verbs
Verb roots never change in Lidepla. Tense are formed by particles, or by suffixes.Vocabulary
Most Lidepla vocabulary is made up of international words of Latin origin. The most frequent words, though, are of English, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi origin. There are not definite endings for different parts of speech, so nearly any word can be easily incorporated. The words are adapted to Lidepla phonology and do not preserve original orthography – the pronunciation is preserved in first hand, not the spelling.As of 2014, the Lidepla vocabulary had about 4,000 entries, meaning about 10,000 individual words, with an increasing number. For a word to be incorporated, the following principles are taken into account:
- short words without consonant clusters are preferred
- the word has to be widespread and/or phonetically familiar for speakers of at least a few different national languages. For example, the word darba, of Arabic origin, is close to Russian "удар" and Chinese "打".
Similarity examples
- Brata snova dumi om to is similar to its equivalent in Russian
- Ta bu yao shwo to Chinese Tā bù yào shuō
- Way yu go bak? to English Why do you go back? or Why are you going back?
- Me jan ke mata pri pi chay to Hindi, and
- Pa sabah me safari is similar to Arabic
Phonology
Distinction of the sounds w — v, d͡ʒ — t͡ʃ is not obligatory, that is they may be pronounced in the same way, as there are no minimal pairs for them. The ŋ sound is the same as in English.
There are 5 vowels in the language.
Development and use
The project is led by the psychologist Dmitri Ivanov. He laid the foundation of the language, using mainly the ideas of Otto Jespersen on the Novial language, and also the facts of Creole language development and structure, while linguists A. Vinogradova and E. Ivanova helped a lot during the early period of development. In 2007 A. Lysenko joined and became the main linguist of the project.From the very beginning the project was open and widely discussed in a number of conlanger groups. As of 2014, more than 15 people contributed to the language considerably, not speaking about those who participated in discussions.
The basic version of the language was published on June 1, 2010. In some sources, the date of creation of Lidepla is stated to be 2006. It is thus important to clarify that the "basic version" of the language – that is, the version after which the basics of the language is not to be changed – was not published until 2010.
At the moment the language is used mainly on the Internet, when it comes to direct communication. About 10–15 people have mastered the language, and about 50 can use it in communication. A lot of texts have been translated, including rather spacious texts like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and Sailor Ruterford in Maori captivity by :ru:Николай Чуковский|Nikolay Chukovsky, and also some tales. There are songs both written and translated, including an album by musician :eo:Jonny M|Jonny M, and subtitles made for cartoons and movies.
Sample text
in Lingwa de planeta:Lingwa de planeta | English |
Nuy Patra kel es pa swarga, hay Yur nam fa-sante, hay Yur reging lai, hay Yur vola fulfil i pa arda i pa swarga. Dai ba a nu nuy pan fo jivi sedey e pardoni ba a nu nuy deba, kom nu pardoni toy-las kel debi a nu. Bye dukti nu inu temta e protekti nu fon bada. | Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil. |
Literature
- http://ifapcom.ru/files/Documents/multiling_eng.pdf#page=112
Mass media