Románico

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Románico is a constructed language conceived as a cross-blend of Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua, combining the grammatical regularity of the first two with the more Romance lexicon of the last. 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.
  • No declension of nouns or pronouns.
  • 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.

Contents

[edit] Phonology

Románico’s phonology features the same vowel and consonant sounds of Esperanto, but its stress rule, being more naturalistic, is also more complicated. Generally, all words stress the penultimate syllable, except for infinitives, which stress the last. There are, however, a fair number of words that stress the third-to-the-last syllable, which are marked by acute accents (ex. áquilo “eagle”). Still, when these words are augmented by suffixes, the stress falls on the penultimate syllable as usual. Ex.: fotógrafo "a photographing", fotografisto "a photographer". (On the official site, latent irregular stress is marked by a grave accent: fotògrafisto.)

[edit] Alphabet and Pronunciation

a b c d e f g ĝ h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Most of the vowels and consonants sound like their IPA equivalents, except:

  • c [ʦ]
  • ĝ [ʤ] (can be substituted by j for non-Unicode users)
  • 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]
* In early posted versions of the language, these sounds were transcribed by a single letter capped by a diacritic mark (any mark would do), eg. č, ǩ, and š. While convenient, perhaps, this method has since been replaced by the less Slavic-looking digraph method.

And the following diphthongs:

  • ia [ja]
  • ie [je]
  • ii [ji]
  • io [jo]
  • iu [ju]
  • ua [wa]
  • ue [we]
  • ui [wi]
  • uo [wo]
  • uu [wu]
  • au [aw]
  • eu [ew]

[edit] 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:

[edit] Affixes

- root: parl; reĝ; bel
-o noun: parlo a speaking; reĝo king; belo (a) beauty
-s plural: parlos acts of speaking; reĝos kings; belos beauties
-a adjective: parla spoken, verbal; reĝa kingly, royal; bela beautiful
-e adverb: parle by speech; reĝe royally, as a king; bele beautifully
-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

There is also a generic ending -en that can (when used with adverbs of time or the particles has, van, volde, or fay) be used to express any tense or mood: mi parlen “I’m speaking”; mi here parlen “I spoke yesterday”; mi has parlen “I spoke”; mi van parlen “I will speak”; mi volde parlen “I would speak”; fay parlen! “speak!” Particles are also used to indicate habitual and progressive action.

[edit] Pronouns

The basic pronouns in Románico are mi “I”, ti “thou”, vi “you”, ili “he”, eli “she”, oli “it”, nos “we”, vos “you all”, los “they”, and oni “one”, “they”. The reflexive (“-self”) is si, as in eli viden 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”.

Unlike any of the major auxiliary languages, Románico features a gender-neutral pronoun — hi — used only to refer to human beings: Esque la postalisto has konsignen la pako? Sik, hi has konsignen oli 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, olos, hos.

Románico pronouns
Person Pronoun Possessive (+a)
Singular Plural Singular Plural
1st mi I nos we mia my nosa our
2nd informal ti thou vos you all tia thy vosa your
formal vi you via your
3rd male ili he ilos los they ilia his ilosa losa their
female eli she elos elia her elosa
neuter oli it olos olia its olosa
indefinite hi s/he hos hia his/hers hosa
reflexive si -self si themselves sia his/her/its sia their

[edit] Word order

The normal word order in Románico is subject-verb-object, as in Louis has kolpen Ludwik “Louis hit Ludwik”. Inverting the word order also inverts the subject and object (Ludwik has kolpen Louis “Ludwik hit Louis”), unless the preposition je is used to mark the object (Je Ludwik has kolpen Louis “Louis hit Ludwik”) or a question word to represent the subject (Qua has kolpen Ludwik? “Who hit Ludwik?”) or object (Qua Louis has kolpen? “Who did Louis hit?”).

[edit] Sample Phrases

Saluto! Hello!
Esque vi poten parlar Románico? Do you speak Románico?
Quante kosten equistos? How much are these?
Volde placen ad mi komprar equista. I’d like to buy this one.
Graticio! Thank you!
Quo? Mi jam has pagen por equista! What? I already paid for this!
Vi has ne donen ad mi quitifatesto. You didn’t give me a receipt.
Se vi van ne liberifen mi, mia paeso van invasen via paeso! If you don’t let me go, my country will invade your country!
Il partitanos di linguaĝo konstruktita varien precise quale nos álteros. Es sapios et stultos, sobrios et disipemos, solitarios et trupemos, kortesos et nekortesos, puritanos et debochemos, diliĝentos et pigros, toleremos et meskinos, et cetero. Quomo tipo los exposen certa tendencios. Exemple, los omna es di granda intelekto. Il partitano di linguaĝo konstruktita poten esar stúpida sopre certa kosos, mas li deben habar la baza kapabilicio mentana qua es necesitata por diventar partitano di linguaĝo konstruktita; li ne poten esar idioto en la strikta senco psikometriana. Proponents of constructed languages vary just like the rest of us. There are the wise and the foolish, the sober and the dissipated, the solitary and the gregarious, the courteous and the rude, the puritanical and the licentious, the industrious and the lazy, the tolerant and the petty, and so on. As a type they exhibit certain tendencies. For example, they are all of high intelligence. The proponent of a constructed language may be stupid about certain things, but he must have the basic mental capacity that is required to become a proponent of a constructed language; he cannot be an idiot in the strict psychometric sense.
D-ro Zaslavskiy, aut: Quale mi has aprensen cesar destranquilesar et amar Rusenso Dr. Zaslavsky, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Russian
La Rusana linguaĝo es diventinta universala linguaĝo … La serio di linguaĝos kursen tra la épokos. Latinenso has es la linguaĝo di la mundo antiqua, Francenso di la mundo feudana, Anglenso di kapitalismo. Rusenso es la universala linguaĝo di socialismo. Francenso es la linguaĝo ornamentizita di kortanos et Anglenso la jargono di komerciistos. Los has es la linguaĝos di la klasos gubernanta et di snoba intelektosos. La Anglana linguaĝo has korupten pópulos en extranĝera paesos. Rusenso es la unésima universala linguaĝo di internacionezismo. Nula poten nominiĝar si erudito se hi ne sapen Rusenso. 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.
Selektaĝo de “La magna linguaĝo di nosa époko” da David Zaslavskiy
Literaturana jurnalo, Moskvá, n-ro 1, 1 Januario 1949		 Selection from “The great language of our era” by David Zaslavsky
Literaturnaja gazeta, Moscow, no. 1, January 1, 1949

[edit] External links

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