Vendergood

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Vendergood was a constructed language, the invention of the child prodigy William James Sidis.

Sidis described the language in his second book, entitled Book of Vendergood, which he wrote while still a boy. Apparently, the language was mostly based on Latin and Greek, but also drew on German and French as well as other Romance languages. It distinguished between eight different conjugations: indicative, potential, imperative absolute, subjunctive, imperative, infinitive, and Sidis's grammatical creations: strongeable and optative. Articles were grouped by a gender inflection that one observer described as "more complex than a Japanese verb."

Vendergood employed a base-12 system of numbers, because, as Sidis explained, "The unit in selling things is 12 of those things [dozens] and 12 is the smallest number that has four factors!"

Vendergood	English
eis	one
duet	two
tre	three
quar	four
quin	five
sex	six
sep	seven
oo/oe	eight
non	nine
ecem	ten
elevenos	eleven
dec	twelve
eidec (eis, dec)	thirteen

The few surviving examples of Vendergood follow:

Vendergood	English
Amevo (-)ne the neania?	Do you love the young man?
The toxoteis obscurit.	The bowman obscures.
Quen diseois-nar?	What do you learn? (sing.)
(Euni) disceuo.	I am learning Vendergood.
Obscureuo ecem agrieolai.	I obscure ten farmers.

While Vendergood is said to be simpler than Esperanto, a comparable language, it is rather difficult to pronounce, and inflexible in grammatical exceptions (though one must remember that it is an invented and not a spoken language). Bear in mind, however, its inventor was a seven-year-old.

[edit] References

• Wallace, Amy, The Prodigy: A biography of William James Sidis, America's Greatest Child Prodigy, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. 1986. ISBN 0-525-24404-2