UNI (language)
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UNI was a constructed language designed by Elisabeth Wainscott in 1973 as an international auxiliary language. The language seems to have never gained any sizable following and is almost entirely forgotten as of 2007.
[edit] Linguistic properties
The A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, and Z and are always written in all upper-case letters.
Every noun in UNI is three characters long and made plural by appending the noun with "I". More descriptive words are made by compounding words together with a hyphen ("-") separating them.
Verbs are made by prefixing a noun with "A" (there are many exceptions to this rule, however). The future tense is denoted by sufixing a "M" after the "A" and the past tense by a "T" after the "A".
The prefix "BA" when applied to a noun represent a larger version of it and "BE" represents a smaller version. The prefix "O" creates a word meaning the opposite of its root.
The numbers are ZE, UN, TO, TI, KA, SI, SA, ET, PO, NI. Higher numbers are made by writing out each individual place of the number; so, ten would be UNZE and a hundred would be UNZEZE. The names of the months are the number prepended with the letter I (January = IUN, February = ITO, etc.).
[edit] References
- UNI The New International language Elisabeth Wainscott, 1974 LCCN 73-94393
- UNI The New International Language Supplement - English Language edition Elisabeth Wainscott, 1974
- Profile of the language UNI Journal of Planned Languages Rick K. Harrison, 1993
