Eurolengo is a constructed language invented by Leslie Jones[1] with the intention of it becoming a common international language, "intended as a practical tool for business and tourism."[2] The vocabulary consists of words borrowed from English and Spanish[3] and made to conform to a consistent phonetic and orthographic system. However, Eurolengo "concentrates on the Latin component of English rather than its Anglo-Saxon aspect."[4]
The Eurolengo alphabet is almost the same as the English alphabet, except there is no C (its phonemes being taken over by either S or K),[5] but the Ch digraph is treated as a letter. Jones avoided the English sounds "th," "ough," "ph;" the Spanish Ll; the French nasals; and the Dutch guttural "g" and "sch."[6] Eurolengo grammar requires adjectives to precede nouns, "and adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the suffix -lik (or -ik if the adjective already ends in 'l')."[7]
Like most constructed languages, Eurolengo aims to eliminate certain ambiguous or difficult traits many natural languages have. Eurolengo does not do this with the thoroughness of Esperanto or Lojban, but allows natural variation, as with Interlingua or Occidental. To give two examples: silent E's are allowed at the end of words;[8] the words for the numbers eleven and twelve are not formed in the same way as those for 13 to 19.
Critics find a Spanglish flavor to the language, and that "reading is only straightforward if the requisite languages (in this case English and Spanish) are already familiar."[9]