Románico
From Freepedia
Románico is an international auxiliary language conceived as a cross-blend of Esperanto and Interlingua, combining the grammatical regularity of the former with the more Romance lexicon of the latter. While it has undergone many orthographical changes since its creation in 1991, its chief features have remained the same:
- Its method of word derivation, which it calls "etymological Romance". This gives the language a consistently Romance look and a formula for introducing new words.
- A simpler grammar than its parent languages, Esperanto and Ido — which is to say that it does away with declining nouns altogether, even in cases of inverted word order. (In such cases it might use the preposition je to mark the direct object.)
- A special definite article used to refer to a noun's entire class, as in servar il hómino "to serve man(kind)".
- A gender-neutral pronoun used only to refer to human beings.
- A verb system that can be rendered both synthetically and analytically.
At the time of this posting, there appears to be only one site on the web dedicated to the language, though another site featuring an all-Románico dictionary is said to be in the works.
Contents |
Phonology
Románico features the same vowel and consonant sounds of Esperanto, but its stress rule is more complicated. Generally, all words stress the penultimate syllable, except for infinitives, which stress the last. There are, however, a fair number of exceptions to this rule, which are indicated by stress marks (ex. áquilo "eagle"). Such words still obey the basic stress rule, however, whenever a suffix that alters the word's number of syllables is added: herédito (he-RE-di-to), hereditar (he-re-di-TAR), hereditanto (he-re-di-TAN-to).
Alphabet and Pronunciation
Most of the vowels and consonants sound like their IPA equivalents, except:
- c /ʦ/
- ĝ /ʤ/
- j /ʒ/
- q /k/ (only appears before u)
- x /ks/ (same sound in all positions, even at the beginning of a word)
- y /j/ (always a consonant)
Románico has three standard digraphs:
- ch /ʧ/
- kh /x/ (rarely used)
- sh /ʃ/
And the following dipthongs:
- ia /ja/
- ie /je/
- ii /ji/
- io /jo/
- iu /ju/
- ua /wa/
- ue /we/
- ui /wi/
- uo /wo/
- uu /wu/
- au /aw/
- eu /ew/
Grammar
Like Esperanto and Ido, Románico is an agglutinative language, i.e., its vocabulary is built from invariable roots by adding affixes or other roots. Some of the more common affixes:
Affixes
| -o | noun: parlo a speaking; reĝo king; belo (a) beauty |
| -a | adjective: marks what is identical with the root — parla spoken, verbal; reĝa kingly, royal; bela beautiful |
| -e | adverb: parle by speech; reĝe royally, as a king; bele beautifully |
| -s | plural: parlos acts of speaking; reĝos kings; belos beauties |
| -ar | verb, infinitive: parlar to speak; reĝesar to be a king; belesar to be beautiful |
| -an | verb, present tense: mi parlan I speak |
| -in | verb, past tense: mi parlin I spoke |
| -un | verb, future tense: mi parlun I will speak |
| -es | verb, imperative: ili parles! let him speak! |
| -eban | verb, conditional: mi parleban I would speak. |
| -ant- | present active: parlanta speaking; parlanto speaker |
| -at- | present passive: parlata being spoken; parlato thing being spoken |
| -int- | past active: parlinta having spoken; parlinto person or thing having spoken |
| -it- | past passive: parlita spoken; parlito thing spoken |
| -unt- | future active: parlunta going to speak; parlunto person about to speak |
| -ut- | future passive: parluta going to be spoken; parluto thing about to be spoken |
The verbal affixes, while normally added synthetically to the root of the verb in question, can also be added to the auxiliary verb far for an analytical rendering of the verb: mi parlin/mi fin parlar "I spoke"; mi parleban/mi feban parlar "I would speak".
Pronouns
The basic pronouns in Románico are mi "I", ti "thou", vi "you", ili "he", eli "she", li "it", nos "we", vos "you all", los "they", and oni "one", "they". The reflexive ("-self") is si, as in eli vidan si en la spékulo "she sees herself in the mirror". The possessive forms of all these are obtained by adding -a, as in mia "my".
Románico is unique among constructed languages in that it features a gender-neutral pronoun — uli — used only to refer to human beings: Esque la postalisto konsignin la pako? Sik, uli konsignin li ye equista matino. "Did the mailcarrier deliver the package? Yes, they delivered it this morning."
For those so inclined, masculine, feminine, and "human" neutral forms of "they" are also available: ilos, elos, ulos.
Word Order
The normal word order in Románico is subject-verb-object, as in Louis kolpin Ludwik "Louis hit Ludwik". Inverting the word order also inverts the subject and object (Ludwik kolpin Louis "Ludwik hit Louis"), unless the preposition je is used to mark the object (Je Ludwik kolpin Louis "Louis hit Ludwik") or a question word to represent the subject (Qua kolpin Ludwik? "Who hit Ludwik?") or object (Qua Louis kolpin? "Who did Louis hit?").
Sample Phrases
| Saluto! | Hello! |
| Esque vi potan parlar Románico? | Do you speak Románico? |
| Quante kostan equistos? | How much are these? |
| Placeban ad mi komprar equista. | I'd like to buy this one. |
| Graticio! | Thank you! |
| Quo? Mi jam pagin por equista! | What? I already paid for this! |
| Vi ne donin ad mi quitifatesto. | You didn't give me a receipt. |
| Se vi ne liberifun mi, mia paeso invasun via paeso! | If you don't let me go, my country will invade your country! |
D-ro Zaslavskiy, aut:
Quale mi aprensin cesar destranquilesar et amar Rusenso La Rusana linguaĝo es diventinta mundana linguaĝo ... La serio di linguaĝos kursan tra la épokos. Latinenso esin la linguaĝo di la mundo antiqua, Francenso di la mundo feudana, Anglenso di kapitalismo. Rusenso es la mundana linguaĝo di socialismo. Francenso es la linguaĝo ornamentizita di kortanos et Anglenso la jargono di komerciistos. Los esin la linguaĝos di la klasos gubernanta et di snoba intelektosos. La Anglana linguaĝo koruptin pópulos en extranĝera paesos. Rusenso es la unésima mundana linguaĝo di internacionanismo. Nula potan nominiĝar si erudito se equila ne sapan Rusenso.
Selektaĝo de "La magna linguaĝo di nosa époko" da David Zaslavskiy |
Dr. Zaslavsky, or:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Russian The Russian language has become a world language ... The succession of languages runs through the ages. Latin was the language of the ancient world, French of the feudal world, English of capitalism. Russian is the world language of Socialism. French is the fancy language of courtiers and English the jargon of traders. They were the tongues of the ruling classes and of snobbish intellectuals. The English language corrupted peoples in foreign lands. Russian is the first world language of internationalism. No one can call himself a scholar if he does not know Russian.
Selection from "The great language of our era" by David Zaslavsky |
External Links
- Blueprints for Babel: Románico - Commentary and grammatical summary of Románico, with glossary and text samples
- Blueprints for Babel: Onomasticon - An etymological onomasticon in Románico not linked to from the Románico page
