The Lusofon Zonal Auxlang employs naturalistic contractions to prevent roboticness and facilitate fluidity of speech by not requiring pronunciation of every article and preposition and instead combining many of them according to Portuguese, Papiamento, and Galego. The contraction tendency follows other trends such as consonant and vowel dropping from some words such as "insetu" (insecto) to reduce the need for excessive force when speaking.

https://lusofon.com/dictionary.html

https://lusofon.com/grammar.html

da   contraction, guinea-bissau, caboverdiano   (pronounced ‘dah’)
en   Contraction of Di+A (Of+The: feminine).
po   Contração de Di+A (De+A feminino).
es   Contracción de Di+A (De+La: femenino).

den   preposition, adjective, contraction, papiamento   (pronounced ‘dehn’)
en   Inside, within; contraction of Di+En (Of+In).
po   Dentro; Contração de Di+En (De+En).
es   Dentro; contracción de Di+En (De+En).

do   contraction, guinea-bissau, caboverdiano   (pronounced ‘doh’)
en   Contraction of Di+O (Of+The masculine).
po   Contração de Di+O (De+O masculino).
es   Contracción de Di+O (De+O masculino).

du   contraction, galego   (pronounced ‘dou’)
en   Of a; from a. A contraction of Di+U.
po   De um; desde um. Uma contração de Di+U.
es   De un; desde un. Una contracción de Di+U.

dua   contraction, galego   (pronounced ‘dou-ah’)
en   Of a; from a. A contraction of Di+Ua.
po   De uma; desde uma. Uma contração de Di+Ua.
es   De una; desde una. Una contracción de Di+Ua.

kua   contraction, galego   (pronounced ‘kwah’)
en   A contraction of With+The (feminine article): Ku+A.
po   Uma contração de Com+A (artigo feminino): Ku+A.
es   Una contracción de Con+La (artículo feminino): Ku+A.

kulu   contraction, papiamento, portuguese   (pronounced ‘kou-lou’)
en   With it (contraction of ku and lu).
po   Com ele (lo) (contração de ku e lu).
es   Con ello (contracción de ku y lu).

kuo   contraction, galego   (pronounced ‘kou-woh’)
en   A contraction of With+The (masculine article): Ku+O.
po   Uma contração de Com+O (artigo masculino): Ku+O.
es   Una contracción de Con+El (artículo masculino): Ku+O.

meya   noun, contraction, papiamento   (pronounced ‘meh-yah’)
en   My daughter (affectionate form of ’dear’); contraction of mea+fiya.
po   Minha filha; Contração de mea+fiya.
es   Mija; Mi hija; Contracción de mea+fiya.

meyu   noun, contraction, papiamento   (pronounced ‘meh-you’)
en   My son (affectionate form of ’dear’); contraction of meu+fiyu.
po   Meu filho; Contração de meu+fiyu.
es   Mijo; Mi hijo; Contracción de meu+fiyu.

na   prepositional-pronoun, feminine, contraction, papiamento, portuguese   (pronounced ‘nah’)
en   Contraction of En+A (In+the: feminine article).
po   Na, Contração de En+A (Em+A: artigo feminino).
es   Contracción de En+A (En+La: artículo femenino).

no   prepositional-pronoun, masculine, contraction, portuguese   (pronounced ‘noh’)
en   A contraction of In+The (masculine article): En+O.
po   Uma contração de Em+O (artigo masculino): En+O.
es   Una contracción de En+El (artículo masculino): En+O.

n'ora   contraction, papiamento   (pronounced ‘n'ohɾa’)
en   In an hour (contraction of en+ua+ora).
po   Em uma hora (contração de en+ua+ora).
es   En una hora (contracción de en+ua+ora).

nu   prepositional-pronoun, contraction, portuguese   (pronounced ‘nou’)
en   In a (masculine) (contraction of en+u).
po   Num (contração de en+u), en um.
es   En un (contracción de en+u).

nua  prepositional-pronoun, contraction, portuguese   (pronounced ‘nou-ah’)
en   In a (feminine) (contraction of en+ua).
po   Numa, en uma (contração de en+ua).
es   En una (contracción de en+ua).

peo   preposition, contraction, portuguese   (pronounced ‘peh-oh’)
en   By the, for the, through the; a contraction of Per+O.
po   Pelo; a contração de Per+O.
es   Por el; una contracción de Per+O.

pra   preposition, contraction, feminine, portuguese   (pronounced ‘pɾah’)
en   To, toward, in a direction. This is the feminine form of ’pro’ used before feminine nouns.
po   Para, a, ao, em direção a. Esta é a forma feminina de ’pro’ usado antes de substantivos femininos.
es   Para, a, hacia, en dirección a. Esta es la forma feminina de ’pro’ usado antes de sustantivos femininos.

pro   preposition, contraction, masculine, portuguese   (pronounced ‘pɾoh’)
en   To, toward, in a direction. This is the masculine form of ’pra’ used before masculine nouns.
po   Para, a, ao, em direção a. Esta é a forma masculina de ’pra’ usado antes de substantivos masculinos.
es   Para, a, hacia, en dirección a. Esta es la forma masculina de ’pra’ usado antes de sustantivos masculinos.

While my last article about the grammar of the proposed worldlang Kikomun concerned noun phrases and pronouns, this one is all about verbs, as it explores various "Verbal Categories", as section 5 of WALS, the World Atlas of Language Structures, is called.

Perfective/Imperfective Aspect (WALS feature 65A)

Most frequent value (12 languages):

• No grammatical marking (#2 – Amharic/am, Bengali/bn, German/de, English/en, Hausa/ha, Indonesian/id, Japanese/ja, Sango/sg, Swahili/sw, Tamil/ta, Thai/th, Vietnamese/vi)

Another frequent value:

• Grammatical marking (#1) – 11 languages (Egyptian Arabic/arz, Mandarin Chinese/cmn, Spanish/es, Persian/fa, French/fr, Hindi/hi, Korean/ko, Russian/ru, Tagalog/tl, Turkish/tr, Yue Chinese/yue – 92% relative frequency)

This feature asks whether languages have a distinct perfective aspect to mark an action as completed – for example, in Mandarin Chinese the particle 了 (le) is used for this purpose. It is a close call, especially since Telugu – the one source language missing from this data set – seems to have a perfective aspect marker too, leading to a perfect split of 12:12 languages. There is, however, no majority for the perfective and according to the principle "when in doubt, leave it out", Kikomun therefore won't have a grammatical marker for this aspect.

(It will, however, have a perfect aspect, as we'll see below – not quite a same, but a bit related.)

The Past Tense (WALS feature 66A)

Most frequent value (15 languages):

• Present, no remoteness distinctions (#1 – am, arz, bn, de, en, es, fa, fr, hi, ja, ko, ru, sw, ta, tr)

Another frequent value:

• No past tense (#4) – 8 languages (cmn, ha, id, sg, th, tl, vi, yue – 53% relative frequency)

The most frequent option is here that languages have a single past tense form that's grammatically marked (i.e. the verb changes its form in some way to express the past). Accordingly, Kikomun will to do the same – as I said earlier, its verbs will likely take a past-tense suffix to do so.

Some languages distinguish a "near" from a "far-away" past or make even more grammatical distinctions about how "remote" a described event already is. However, none of our source languages does this (according to WALS, though one could possibly dispute this in a few cases) and hence neither will Kikomun.

The Future Tense (WALS feature 67A)

Most frequent value (14 languages):

• No inflectional future (#2 – am, cmn, de, en, fa, ha, id, ja, ko, ru, sg, th, vi, yue)

Another frequent value:

• Inflectional future exists (#1) – 9 languages (arz, bn, es, fr, hi, sw, ta, tl, tr – 64% relative frequency)

This feature is not about whether languages have some grammatical way to mark the future, but more specifically about whether they do so in an inflectional way, that is by adding an affix to the verb or by changing the verb itself in some other way. A majority of the source languages does not, and so neither will Kikomun.

This does not rule out, however, that the future is marked grammatically in some way that does not modify the main verb, say by placing an auxiliary particle next to it, like will or shall in English. Indeed the WALS people simply remark that most languages have some way to mark the future, hence they did not investigate this in detail. They also note that using the future tense is more or less required in some languages (e.g. in English, where I eat tomorrow would sound odd), while in others the grammatical marking of the future is optional (in German it's fine to say Ich esse morgen, sticking to the grammatical present to describe future actions).

To keep things both simple and flexible, Kikomun will opt for an optional, non-inflectional future: There will be a helper particle that can be placed next to the verb to explicitly mark it as future (as in English), but its usage will be optional, so one can omit it if it's already clear from some other word (like tomorrow, next year, soon etc.) or from the context that a future act is described.

The Perfect (WALS feature 68A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• No perfect (#4 – arz, cmn, fa, ha, ja, ko, ru, sg, tl, tr)

Another frequent value:

• Other perfect (#3) – 7 languages (am, bn, hi, sw, ta, vi, yue – 70% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "From possessive" (#1, 4 languages) and "From 'finish', 'already'" (#2, 2 languages).

Here we can see that 13 source language have some kind of perfect aspect, which can be used to refer to events that happened earlier but still have relevant effects or consequences (English example: I have prepared dinner – so it's now ready to be eaten). As that is the majority, Kikomun will have a perfect too.

WALS distinguishes three kinds of perfect: those involving some kind of "possessive" construction (like the verb have in English), those using a word whose meaning is close to finish or already, and those expressing the perfect in some other way. As the latter model is most common, Kikomun will adopt it too – most likely the perfect will be expressed, like the future, with an auxiliary particle placed next to the verb.

Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes (WALS feature 69A)

Most frequent value (13 languages):

• Tense-aspect suffixes (#2 – cmn, de, en, es, fr, hi, id, ja, ko, ta, Telugu/te, tr, yue)

Rarer values are "Mixed type" (#4, 4 languages), "No tense-aspect inflection" (#5, 4 languages), and "Tense-aspect prefixes" (#1, 2 languages).

This chapter investigates whether tense and aspect are sometimes expressed using affixes, and if so, whether prefixes, suffixes, or both are used. Suffixes are most common, hence Kikomun will use them too in those cases where inflection is used for these purposes, like when expressing the past tense. This does not rule out, however, that auxiliary particles are used in other cases – like English uses the suffix -ed for the past tense, but the auxiliaries will or shall for the future. Kikomun will likewise use such a combined strategy.

The Morphological Imperative (WALS feature 70A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• Second singular and second plural (#1 – am, arz, es, hi, ru, sw, ta, te, tl, tr)

Another frequent value:

• No second-person imperatives (#5) – 7 languages (cmn, en, id, sg, th, vi, yue – 70% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "Second singular" (#2, 4 languages) and "Second person number-neutral" (#4, 2 languages).

In my last article I had determined that Kikomun will make a tu/vous distinction in the second person (feature 45A): there will be a plural form that's also used in the singular for politeness (like French vous) as well as a singular form that's only used in familiar and intimate contexts (like tu). This feature now resolves that there will also be two different verb forms used to express the imperatives, corresponding to these pronouns – again in contrast to English, where the same forms (like go! or eat!) can be both plural or singular.

The most common option in the source languages – and hence the model we choose – is that these forms are morphologically different from each other, hence the verb itself changes its form, say by taking an affix. (A helper particle placed next to it doesn't count, as that would be a syntactic rather than a morphological change).

WALS notes that even in languages that have different imperative forms for singular and plural, the bare stem or base form of the verb is often used in the singular (with the subject omitted). Indeed, according to my research, that's the case in eight of the ten source languages listed in WALS as having distinct singular and plural imperatives (the exceptions are Arabic and Russian). It is also the usual model in languages that don't have distinct imperative forms, such as English, the Chinese languages, and Indonesian.

The model is thus sufficiently frequent that Kikomun will follow it too. Accordingly, the base form of the verb (also used as infinitive and present) will also be usable as imperative singular (only used in familiar contexts). The plural and polite imperative, on the other hand, will be formed by adding a custom suffix to the verb. (It will likely be a suffix since most source languages that have dedicated imperative plural forms seem to use suffixes to express them, and also following feature 69A above.)

The Prohibitive (WALS feature 71A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• Normal imperative + special negative (#2 – cmn, hi, id, ja, ko, te, th, tl, vi, yue)

Another frequent value:

• Normal imperative + normal negative (#1) – 7 languages (de, en, fa, fr, ru, sg, tr – 70% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "Special imperative + special negative" (#4, 4 languages) and "Special imperative + normal negative" (#3, 2 languages).

This chapter explores how prohibitions (negative imperatives such as Don't go) are expressed. The most simple, though only the second most frequent option is that the normal imperative is combined with the normal way of negating the verb. This is the case in English, though here the auxiliary don't/do not is used instead of simply no or not.

The most frequent option, on the other hand, is that the normal imperative if combined with some special form of negation that's not used in other contexts – for example, Mandarin uses 不要 (bùyào), which literally means 'not want', to form prohibitives, instead of just the usual negation particle 不 (bù).

In this case, though "normal imperative + normal negative" is only the second most common option, it's arguably also the most simple one and hence I'll adopt it for Kikomun, to avoid making things more complicated than they have to be.

Imperative-Hortative Systems (WALS feature 72A)

Most frequent value (15 languages):

• Neither type of system (#4 – am, arz, cmn, de, en, es, fr, hi, id, ja, ko, ru, th, tl, vi)

Rarer values are "Both types of system" (#3, 2 languages), "Maximal system" (#1, 2 languages), and "Minimal system" (#2, 1 language).

Hortatives are much like imperatives, but they don't specifically refer to the person or persons addressed (the second person, grammatically). In English, Sing! is an imperative (addressing the second person singular or plural), while Let's sing! (addressing the first person plural) and Let her sing! (addressing the third person singular) are hortatives. This chapter asks whether languages have dedicated hortative forms that differ from the imperative. For most of our source languages that's not the case, hence Kikomun won't use a distinct hortative form either.

This does not rule out, however, that the hortative can be expressed in some other way that doesn't require a new morphological form – such as in English, which uses let as auxiliary for this purpose. Kikomun will likely do something similar, combining the imperative plural (which will have a dedicated morphological form, as noted above) with a pronoun corresponding to we, he, she, it, they or with a noun to express the hortative of the respective person.

The Optative (WALS feature 73A)

Most frequent value (18 languages):

• Inflectional optative absent (#2 – arz, cmn, de, en, es, fa, fr, ha, hi, id, ja, ko, ru, sw, te, th, tr, vi)

A rarer value is "Inflectional optative present" (#1, 1 language).

Some languages have an optative used to express the speaker's wishes, e.g. May the gods help us! A majority of our source languages do not have a special verb form for this, hence neither will Kikomun.

Situational Possibility (WALS feature 74A)

Most frequent value (16 languages):

• Verbal constructions (#2 – am, arz, cmn, de, en, es, fa, fr, ha, hi, ru, sg, te, th, vi, yue)

Rarer values are "Affixes on verbs" (#1, 6 languages) and "Other kinds of markers" (#3, 1 language).

Situational possibility means that somebody is able and allowed to do something, e.g. The children can swim across the lake (ability) or You may leave now (permission). The most frequent model here is that verbal constructions – i.e., helper verbs like can and may in English – are used to express this, and hence Kikomun will do the same.

The chapter doesn't say anything about whether ability and permission are expressed in the same way or differently. Probably, to combine simplicity with precision, Kikomun will have a verb that can be used for both (like can in English) as well as more precise verbs that are used for just one purpose (like English has may for permission and be able to for ability).

Epistemic Possibility (WALS feature 75A)

Most frequent value (13 languages):

• Verbal constructions (#1 – am, arz, cmn, de, en, es, fr, ha, hi, ru, te, th, vi)

Another frequent value:

• Other (#3) – 7 languages (fa, id, ja, ko, sg, tl, yue – 54% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Affixes on verbs" (#2, 3 languages).

Epistemic possibility refers to a situation that the speaker considers possible, but not certain, as in She may have gone to the bakery. Verbal constructions – like the English auxiliaries may and might – are again the most frequent approach, and hence the one that will be used in Kikomun.

Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking (WALS feature 76A)

Most frequent value (11 languages):

• Overlap for both possibility and necessity (#1 – arz, cmn, de, en, es, fr, ru, te, th, tl, tr)

Another frequent value:

• Overlap for either possibility or necessity (#2) – 10 languages (fa, ha, hi, ja, ko, sg, sw, ta, vi, yue – 91% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "No overlap" (#3, 2 languages).

Overlap for situational and epistemic possibility here means that the same grammatical structure can be used to express that somebody is able or allowed to do something (You may go now) and that something is possibly the case (She may have left already). Likewise, overlap for situational and epistemic necessity means that the same grammatical structure can be used for obligation (You really must go now!) and for something that's certain to be the case (He must have arrived by now).

Most of our source languages allow such an overlap in either one or both of these cases. That it's allowed in both cases, as in English, is the most common option, if by a small margin, and hence the model that Kikomun will follow too.

Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality (WALS feature 77A)

Most frequent value (12 languages):

• No grammatical evidentials (#1 – arz, cmn, en, es, ha, hi, id, ru, sg, sw, th, vi)

Another frequent value:

• Indirect only (#2) – 7 languages (de, fr, ja, ko, ta, tl, yue – 58% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Direct and indirect" (#3, 2 languages).

Markers of evidentiality express the evidence a speaker has for a statement, such as "observed by myself" vs. "read in the newspaper" vs. "hearsay". A majority of our source languages doesn't have special grammatical structures to express such evidentials, and so neither will Kikomun. Instead, as in English and other languages, expressions like reportedly or I've heard that can be used to express this.

Feature 78A is a follow-up to this one, hence I have skipped it, since it's not relevant without grammatical evidentials existing.

Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect (WALS feature 79A)

Most frequent value (12 languages):

• None (#4 – arz, cmn, ha, id, ja, ko, sg, sw, th, tl, vi, yue)

Another frequent value:

• Tense and aspect (#3) – 6 languages (bn, es, fa, fr, hi, ru – 50% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Tense" (#1, 3 languages).

Suppletion essentially means that certain forms (verb forms in this case) are irregular and hence unpredictable, like the past tense of some English verbs (e.g. bought from buy, went from go). A majority of our source languages don't have such irregularities regarding tense or aspect, and hence neither will Kikomun – which is, of course, also what one would expect of an auxlang, which should be largely regular in order to be easy to learn.

The following two features moreover resolve that there won't be any irregularities in the formation of imperatives and hortatives (79B), nor in whether an action happens just once or repeatedly (80A). This too is what one would aspect, and as 17 or more source languages agree regarding these features, there is no need to discussion this in detail.

А а [a~ä]

А́ а́ [ɒ]

Б б [b]

В в [v]

Г г [ɡ]

Гь гь [ɟ~ɡʲ]

Гԝ гԝ [ɡʷ]

Ӷ ӷ [ɣ]

Ӷԝ ӷԝ [ɣʷ]

Д д [d]

Дԝ дԝ [dʷ]

Е е [ɛ]

Е́ е́ [e]

Ж ж [ʐ]

Жь жь [ʒ]

Жԝ жԝ [ʒʷ]

З з [z]

Зь зь [ʑ~zʲ]

Ѕ ѕ [d͡z]

Ѕԝ ѕԝ [d͡zʷ]

И и [i]

Й й [j]

К к [k]

Кь кь [c~kʲ]

Кԝ кԝ [kʷ]

Кӏ кӏ [kʼ]

Кӏь кӏь [cʼ~kʼʲ]

Кӏԝ кӏԝ [kʼʷ]

Л л [l/(ɫ)]

Ль ль [ʎ]

Ԯ ԯ [ɬ]

Ԯь ԯь [ʎ̥˔]

М м [m]

Н н [n]

Нь нь [ɲ]

Ң ң [ŋ]

О о [ɔ]

О́ о́ [o]

П п [p]

Пӏ пӏ [pʼ]

Р р [r]

С с [s]

Сь сь [ɕ~sʲ]

Т т [t]

Тԝ тԝ [tʷ]

Тӏ тӏ [tʼ]

Тӏԝ тӏԝ [tʼʷ]

У у [u]

Ў ў [w]

Ф ф [f]

Х х [x]

Хь хь [ç~xʲ]

Хԝ хԝ [xʷ]

Ҳ ҳ [h]

Ҳԝ ҳԝ [hʷ~ʍ]

Ц ц [t͡s]

Цԝ цԝ [t͡sʷ]

Цӏ цӏ [t͡sʼ]

Цӏԝ цӏԝ [t͡sʼʷ]

Ч ч [ʈ͡ʂ]

Чь чь [t͡ʃ]

Чӏ чӏ [ʈ͡ʂʼ]

Чӏь чӏь [t͡ʃʼ]

Џ џ [ɖ͡ʐ]

Џь џь [d͡ʒ]

Ш ш [ʂ]

Шь шь [ʃ]

Шԝ шԝ [ʃʷ]

Ы ы [ɨ~ə]

Now that I finished my college study, I want to post my suggestion for the number of primary source lexicon for a constructed international language in the global scale. The concepts for words that are less common or restricted to a narrow semantic domain in topics of a scientific field, technical field, professional field, culture, or religion could obtain more loanwords from a greater number of languages. However, the common vocabulary or base vocabulary need to use a few source languages because it will ensure faster learning of basic vocabulary for basic conversation and learning of more advanced vocabulary.

The widespread acceptance of Indonesian language, a standardized Malay language, in Indonesia seems to suggest that languages that receive a long history of non-native influence also tends to have less perceived national biases. However, this case does not affect much on the decision on the number of language source for the basic vocabulary, but more on the language sources that will be selected.

However, the mass support of Indians for official bilingualism in the national level of their country with high language diversity implies that the use of two language sources in the basic vocabulary is enough to satisfy the criteria of neutrality.

From this data, I can presume that a constructed world language could use the vocabulary of two languages for at least 95% of its basic vocabulary. The first language source could be Indonesia since it has significant percentage of vocabulary from influential language families: Austronesian, Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, and the three major European language families through English and Dutch. The second source could be from Swahili to represent East African languages. If there is a need for more language sources, then a third source could be the Uyghur language for representation of central Asian languages. A fourth source could be from the Haitian French Creole language for representation of West African languages and the Taino Native American language.

Hello! I know there is an online version on glosa.org, but in this, they say it is incomplete and many parts are missing. Is it still possible to contact the Glosa Education Center? I dont think so, because they might have changed their adress after more than 20 years. So im really courious. Thx for your answers!

a [a]

aⁿ [ã]

b [b]

c [c~c͡ç]

d [d]

dh [ð]

dl [d͡ɮ]

dz [d͡z]

dzh [d͡ʒ]

e [e/æ]

eⁿ [ẽ]

f [f]

g [ɡ~ɢ]

gw [ɡʷ~ɢʷ]

h [ɦ]

i [i]

iⁿ [ĩ]

j [ɟ~ɟ͡ʝ]

k [k]

kw [kʷ]

l [l]

ll [ɫ]

ly [ʎ]

m [m]

n [n]

ng [ŋ~ɴ]

ny [ɲ]

o [o/ə]

oⁿ [õ]

p [p]

q [q]

qw [qʷ]

r [r]

s [s]

sh [ʃ]

t [t]

th [θ]

tl [t͡ɬ]

ts [t͡s]

tsh [t͡ʃ]

u [u]

uⁿ [ũ]

v [v]

w [w]

x [x~χ]

xw [xʷ~χʷ]

xy [ç]

y [j]

z [z]

zh [ʒ]

ⁿ [◌̃]

diphthongs:

aw [aʊ̯]

ay [aɪ̯]

ew [eʊ̯]

ow [oʊ̯/əʊ̯]

oy [oɪ̯]

uy [uɪ̯]

ayⁿ [ãɪ̯̃]

ewⁿ [ẽʊ̯̃]

oyⁿ [õɪ̯̃]

Consonants:

m [m]

n [n]

ny [ɲ]

ng [ŋ]

p [pʰ]

b [p]

t [tʰ]

d [t]

ch [t͡ʃʰ]

j [t͡ʃ]

k [kʰ]

g [k]

f [f]

v [v]

s [s]

z [z]

sh [ʃ]

zh [ʒ]

h [x]

w [w]

r [r]

y [j]

l [ʟ]

Vowels:

i [i]

ue [y]

u [u]

e [e]

oe [ø]

o [o]

ae [æ]

a [a]

a [a~ä]

ɐ [ɒ]

b [b]

c [t͡s]

ċ [t͡sʼ]

d [d]

đ [ð]

ɖ [ɟ~ɟ͡ʝ]

e [ɛ~æ]

ɘ [e]

ə [ə]

f [f]

g [ɡ~ɢ]

ǥ [ɖ͡ʐ]

ᵹ [ŋ~ɴ]

h [ɦ]

ɥ [t͡ʃ]

ɥ̇ [t͡ʃʼ]

i [i]

j [j]

ɉ [ʒ]

k [k]

k̇ [kʼ]

ᶄ [c~c͡ç]

ᶄ̇ [cʼ~c͡çʼ]

l [l]

ɭ [ʎ]

m [m]

n [n]

ɳ [ɲ]

o [ɔ]

ɵ [o]

p [p]

ṗ [pʼ]

q [q]

q̇ [qʼ]

ƣ [ɣ~ʁ]

r [ɹ~ɾ]

ꞃ [r]

s [s]

ʂ [ʂ]

ᶊ [ʃ]

t [t]

ṫ [tʼ]

ŧ [θ]

u [u]

v [v]

w [w/◌ʷ]

x [x~χ]

ᶍ [ç]

y [ɨ~ɯ]

z [z]

ᶎ [ʐ]

ʒ [d͡z]

⁊ [d͡ʒ]

ꝕ [ʈ͡ʂ]

ꝕ̇ [ʈ͡ʂʼ]

This article continues developing the grammar of the proposed worldlang Kikomun based on the most frequent grammatical features of its source languages, as represented in WALS, the World Atlas of Language Structures. While my last article covered morphology and nominal syntax, this one covers what WALS groups under "Nominal Categories" (section 3) – how gender and plurals are handled, whether there are articles, as well as several questions related to pronouns, demonstratives, and numbers.

Number of Genders (WALS feature 30A)

Most frequent value (8 languages):

• None (#1 – Mandarin Chinese/cmn, Persian/fa, Indonesian/id, Sango/sg, Thai/th, Turkish/tr, Vietnamese/vi, Yue Chinese/yue)

Other frequent values:

• Two (#2) – 7 languages (Amharic/am, Egyptian Arabic/arz, Spanish/es, French/fr, Hausa/ha, Hindi/hi, Tagalog/tl – 88% relative frequency)
• Three (#3) – 4 languages (German/de, English/en, Russian/ru, Tamil/ta – 50% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Five or more" (#5, 1 language).

This feature investigates whether languages express gender in some way. "Gender" is used here in the grammatical way, which includes a possible male/female distinction, but also distinctions such as the different noun classes used in Bantu languages (accordingly, Swahili is the one source languages classified as having "five or more" genders). In some languages (such as Spanish and German), nouns have different genders and adjectives change their form based on the gender of the associated noun. In other languages, gender is only distinguished in pronouns – that's the case in English, which distinguishes he / she / it in the third person singular and is therefore classified as having three genders.

While "no gender" is the single most frequent options, a relative majority of twelve source languages has two or more genders. We well see below (feature 44A) that there is indeed a majority for distinguishing gender in third person singular pronouns, like English does. On the other hand, due to "no gender" being the single most option and to keep the language simple, we can decide here and now that Kikomun will have no grammatical gender in nouns and that therefore adjectives will use the same form regardless of which noun they refer to – in contrast to Spanish, where adjectives referring to male nouns typically end in -o, while those referring to female nouns end in -a.

Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems (WALS feature 31A)

Most frequent value (11 languages):

• Sex-based (#2 – am, arz, de, en, es, fr, ha, hi, ru, ta, tl)

Another frequent value:

• No gender (#1) – 8 languages (cmn, fa, id, sg, th, tr, vi, yue – 73% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Non-sex-based" (#3, 1 language).

Accordingly, Kikomun's gender system will be based on sex – there will at least be pronouns corresponding to he (male people and animals) and she (female ones) as well as one for cases where the actual sex is unknown or unimportant or people don't belong to either gender (nonbinary).

Coding of Nominal Plurality (WALS feature 33A)

Most frequent value (15 languages):

• Plural suffix (#2 – am, cmn, de, en, es, fa, fr, ha, hi, Japanese/ja, Korean/ko, ru, ta, Telugu/te, tr)

Rarer values are "Plural prefix" (#1, 2 languages), "Plural word" (#7, 2 languages), "Mixed morphological plural" (#6, 1 language), "Plural complete reduplication" (#5, 1 language), and "No plural" (#9, 1 language).

Kikomun will therefore use a plural suffix to form the plural of nouns (like -s/-es in English).

Occurrence of Nominal Plurality (WALS feature 34A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• All nouns, always obligatory (#6 – arz, de, en, es, fr, ha, hi, ru, sw, tr)

Rarer values are "All nouns, always optional" (#4, 3 languages), "Only human nouns, optional" (#2, 2 languages), and "All nouns, optional in inanimates" (#5, 1 language).

Hence the plural suffix will be required and used with all nouns when referring to more than one instance, just like in English.

Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns (WALS feature 35A)

Most frequent value (12 languages):

• Person-number stem (#4 – am, arz, de, en, fa, hi, id, sg, sw, te, th, tl)

Rarer values are "Person stem + nominal plural affix" (#8, 4 languages), "Person-number stem + nominal plural affix" (#6, 4 languages), "Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix" (#5, 2 languages), and "Person stem + pronominal plural affix" (#7, 1 language).

The most common option here means that plural pronouns are not regularly derived from singular ones; instead separate independent forms are used in the singular and in the plural (English we is unrelated to I). This is the model Kikomun will follow too.

The Associative Plural (WALS feature 36A)

Most frequent value (8 languages):

• No associative plural (#4 – arz, en, es, fr, hi, ru, th, vi)

Other frequent values:

• Unique periphrastic associative plural (#3) – 7 languages (cmn, de, fa, ha, id, sw, tl – 88% relative frequency)
• Associative same as additive plural (#1) – 4 languages (ja, ko, sg, tr – 50% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Unique affixal associative plural" (#2, 3 languages).

An associative plural is added to a noun X to mean "X and companions/associates/friends/family", i.e. it extends the meaning of the noun to also include people (or things) closely associated with it. If one counts the various options together, a majority of Kikomun's source languages has some kind of associative plural, hence Kikomun will have one too.

Among the various options of how this plural is formed, the most common one is "Unique periphrastic associative plural", also called "Special non-bound associative plural marker" in WALS. It means that the associative plural is distinct from the regular (additive) plural and that it's not an affix (but rather a stand-alone word or something similar). This is the model that Kikomun will follow too.

Definite Articles (WALS feature 37A)

While I normally really on the features as represented in WALS (often with some source languages missing), in the case of this map and the following one (on indefinite articles) it became clear that the decision would be a close call. And because the use or not of articles is quite an essential feature for a language, I preferred not to make that decision based on incomplete data. Hence I manually completed the values for these two features and also rechecked and if necessary corrected the values already listed for source languages. Indeed it turned out that there were several errors in the original data:

• To my knowledge, Indonesian, Swahili, and Vietnamese have neither definite nor indefinite articles, though WALS lists them as having a definite one.
• Likewise, Japanese and Yue Chinese don't have articles, though WALS gives them an indefinite one.
• Amharic is listed in WALS as having an indefinite article, but doesn't actually have one.

So it turns out that the prevalence of articles is seriously overcounted in the original WALS data. Now, with the statistics completed and corrected, what is the result?

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• No definite or indefinite article (#5 – cmn, hi, id, ja, ko, ru, sw, th, vi, yue)

Another frequent value:

• Definite word distinct from demonstrative (#1) – 7 languages (de, en, es, fr, ha, Nigerian Pidgin/pcm, tl – 70% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "No definite, but indefinite article" (#4, 4 languages) and "Definite affix" (#3, 3 languages).

If we count the various options together, we see that 14 source languages don't have a definite article (options 4+5), while 10 have one (options 1+3). Kikomun therefore won't have a definite article either.

If speakers feel the need to express that something is already known or was mentioned before, they can use a demonstrative (like this or that in English) instead. But usually context should be sufficient to get this information across.

Indefinite Articles (WALS feature 38A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• No definite or indefinite article (#5 – cmn, hi, id, ja, ko, ru, sw, th, vi, yue)

Another frequent value:

• Indefinite word same as 'one' (#2) – 9 languages (de, es, fa, fr, pcm, ta, te, tl, tr – 90% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "No indefinite, but definite article" (#4, 3 languages) and "Indefinite word distinct from 'one'" (#1, 2 languages).

Here too, considering these corrected and completed counts, we get a majority against the indefinite article: 13 languages don't use it (options 4+5), while 11 do (options 1+2). While this is a bit tighter than for the previous feature, it's still a majority and arguably it's harder learning how to use something one is not used to than getting used to not using something.

Accordingly, Kikomun won't use any indefinite articles. As I mentioned in my first post, Kikomun will use a set of regular "table words" as known from Esperanto. One of them in Esperanto is iu, which can be used in the singular and plural (iuj) as pronoun or modifier expressing indefiniteness ('a, a certain, some, someone'). Speakers will be able to use Kikomun's equivalent of this word if they want to make it clear that something was not yet mentioned or is not already known. Generally, however, context should be sufficient to get this information across.

The result of these two feature is something of a surprise for me. In my first post I had announced that Kikomun likely would have a definite article, based on a preliminary look at the WALS data. But now with the completed data this turns out not to be the case. Accordingly Kikomun will be more equal to my previous worldlang proposal Lugamun in this regard, as Lugamun didn't use any articles either.

Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns (WALS feature 39A)

Most frequent value (14 languages):

• No inclusive/exclusive (#3 – arz, de, en, es, fa, fr, ha, hi, ja, ko, ru, sg, sw, tr)

Rarer values are "Inclusive/exclusive" (#5, 3 languages) and "'We' the same as 'I'" (#2, 2 languages).

Accordingly, there will be just a single word corresponding to English we (or us), used both in cases where the addressed person or group is included (I, you, and maybe others) and in cases where they are not (I and others, but not you).

Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection (WALS feature 40A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• No person marking (#1 – cmn, ha, hi, id, ja, ko, sg, th, tl, vi)

Another frequent value:

• No inclusive/exclusive (#3) – 8 languages (arz, de, es, fa, fr, ru, sw, tr – 80% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "'We' the same as 'I'" (#2, 1 language).

I had already noticed in an earlier article that Kikomun's verbs will not change based on the person and number of the subject – just like in Esperanto, but in contrast to the distinction between I go and She goes in English. This feature confirms this again, as "No person marking" is the most frequent option.

Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives (WALS feature 41A)

Most frequent value (12 languages):

• Two-way contrast (#2 – arz, cmn, en, fa, id, ru, sw, ta, tr, Urdu/ur, vi, yue)

Rarer values are "Three-way contrast" (#3, 4 languages), "No distance contrast" (#1, 2 languages), and "Four-way contrast" (#4, 1 language).

Accordingly Kikomun will have a two-way contrast between a "near" and a "far" demonstrative, just like English, which has this and that.

Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives (WALS feature 42A)

Most frequent value (12 languages):

• Identical (#1 – arz, cmn, de, en, es, ha, id, ru, sw, tl, ur, yue)

Rarer values are "Different inflection" (#3, 4 languages) and "Different stem" (#2, 2 languages).

Accordingly demonstratives (like this and that) will have the same form regardless of whether they are used standalone (as pronouns – I want this) or next to a noun (I know that man).

Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives (WALS feature 43A)

Most frequent value (9 languages):

• Unrelated (#1 – es, ha, id, ja, ko, sg, th, tl, yue)

Rarer values are "Related by gender markers" (#5, 3 languages), "Related for all demonstratives" (#2, 2 languages), "Related for non-human reference" (#6, 2 languages), and "Related to remote demonstratives" (#3, 2 languages).

Accordingly, third person pronouns (he, she, it, they in English) and demonstratives (this, that in English) will be different and unrelated words.

Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns (WALS feature 44A)

Most frequent values (7 languages):

• 3rd person singular only (#3 – cmn, de, en, fa, fr, ko, ru)
• No gender distinctions (#6 – hi, id, sg, th, tl, tr, vi)

Another frequent value:

• In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person (#1) – 4 languages (am, arz, es, ha – 57% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "3rd person only, but also non-singular" (#2, 2 languages).

There are two most frequent options here that are tied: one is that there's a gender distinction in the third person singular (English: he vs. she), but not in the plural or in other persons. The other, equally common option is that there is no such distinction, so instead the same pronoun is used for both he and she. However, if we count all options together, we can see that a clear majority of source languages has some form of gender distinction in pronouns (some have it also in the first and second person, and some have it also in the third person plural).

Due to this majority, Kikomun will allow making a distinction between he and she in the third person singular too – but not in the first or second person, nor in the third person plural, because there is no majority for those. However, because "No gender distinctions" is nevertheless one of the two most frequent options and in order to make it easy to talk about people whose gender is not known or unimportant or who are nonbinary, Kikomun will also have a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun, corresponding to singular they in English. For convenience and easy of learning, the gendered forms will likely be derived from this gender-neutral base form in a regular fashion.

Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns (WALS feature 45A)

Most frequent value (8 languages):

• Binary politeness distinction (#2 – cmn, de, es, fa, fr, ru, sg, tr)

Other frequent values:

• Pronouns avoided for politeness (#4) – 5 languages (id, ja, ko, th, vi – 62% relative frequency)
• No politeness distinction (#1) – 4 languages (arz, en, ha, sw – 50% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Multiple politeness distinctions" (#3, 3 languages).

While the chapter title just mentions "pronouns", this feature is actually just about the second person pronoun. While it's always you in modern English, many languages distinguish a familiar or informal form from a more polite and formal one. That's the single most common option in our source languages, according to WALS. And if one counts the various options together, a clear majority of 16 source languages makes some kind of politeness distinction – some languages (such as Hindi) even distinguish between three or more politeness levels, while some especially Asian languages (like Japanese and Vietnamese) avoid such pronouns altogether, instead preferring to use titles, names, or kinship terms when addressing someone, especially in formal circumstances.

Since some form of politeness distinction is so common, it's clear that Kikomun should support this too. A number of languages make a binary politeness distinction that is at the same time a singular/plural distinction – they have one pronoun that's used only in the singular in familiar or informal settings, and another one that's always used in the plural, but also in the singular in formal circumstances and as a polite form of address (for example French tu vs. vous, Persian تو (to) vs. شُما (šomâ) Russian ты (ty) vs. вы (vy), Tagalog ka vs. kayo, Turkish sen vs. siz). As this is both a widespread way of making a politeness distinction and effectively the most simple possible way – requiring only two pronouns – it is likely the solution Kikomun will adopt too.

Indefinite Pronouns (WALS feature 46A)

Most frequent value (9 languages):

• Generic-noun-based (#2 – arz, en, fa, fr, ha, id, sg, sw, tr)

Another frequent value:

• Interrogative-based (#1) – 6 languages (ja, ko, ru, ta, th, vi – 67% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "Special" (#3, 3 languages), "Mixed" (#4, 2 languages), and "Existential construction" (#5, 1 language).

This feature is about indefinite pronouns like somebody and something. The most common option is that these are derived from some generic nouns (such as from body and thing in English). In Kikomun, as outlined in my first post, they'll be part of a regular set of "table words", adapting that good idea from Esperanto. I'll take this feature as a hint that the forms used for these table words should preferably be derived from or related to suitable generic nouns, though the details are still to be determined.

Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns (WALS feature 47A)

Most frequent value (15 languages):

• Identical (#1 – am, Bengali/bn, cmn, en, fa, hi, id, ja, ko, ta, te, th, tr, vi, yue)

A rarer value is "Differentiated" (#2, 6 languages).

This means that the same word will be used both as reflexive pronoun (herself in John saw himself in the mirror) and as intensifier (himself in The director himself opened the letter – rather than leaving that task to someone else).

Person Marking on Adpositions (WALS feature 48A)

Most frequent value (15 languages):

• No person marking (#2 – cmn, de, en, es, fr, hi, id, ja, ko, ru, sg, sw, th, tr, vi)

Rarer values are "Pronouns only" (#3, 4 languages) and "No adpositions" (#1, 1 language).

This simply means that, just like verb don't change their form based on the person and number of the subject noun or pronoun in Kikomun, neither will adpositions (prepositions or postpositions). That's by far the most common option in the source languages, though there are a few where adpositions change their form if they are used together with different pronouns.

Comitatives and Instrumentals (WALS feature 52A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• Differentiation (#2 – arz, cmn, hi, ja, ko, sw, ta, te, th, tl)

Another frequent value:

• Identity (#1) – 7 languages (de, en, fa, fr, ha, sg, tr – 70% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Mixed" (#3, 2 languages).

Comitatives express a joint activity (The woman came to town together with her daughter), while instrumentals refer to a tool or instrument (He wrote the letter with a pen). In English, the preposition with can be used to express both, but as the majority of source languages expresses them differently (using different prepositions, say), Kikomun will do the same.

Ordinal Numerals (WALS feature 53A)

Most frequent value (7 languages):

• First, two-th, three-th (#6 – arz, bn, de, ha, hi, ta, tl)

Other frequent values:

• First, second, three-th (#7) – 5 languages (en, es, fr, ru, sw – 71% relative frequency)
• One-th, two-th, three-th (#4) – 4 languages (cmn, ja, ko, yue – 57% relative frequency)
• First/one-th, two-th, three-th (#5) – 4 languages (fa, id, th, tr – 57% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Various" (#8, 1 language).

This asks whether ordinal numerals (first, second, third etc.) are derived from cardinal numerals (one, two, three etc.) or whether unrelated words are used for them. In English, the first two ordinals use unrelated words, while higher ones are derived from the corresponding cardinal in a more or less regular manner. The most frequent option, however, is that only the word for first is unrelated, while all higher ordinals are derived. This is thus the model that Kikomun will support too.

Distributive Numerals (WALS feature 54A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• No distributive numerals (#1 – arz, cmn, en, es, fa, fr, id, th, vi, yue)

Another frequent value:

• Marked by reduplication (#2) – 6 languages (am, bn, ha, hi, sw, ta – 60% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "Marked by suffix" (#4, 3 languages), "Marked by preceding word" (#5, 2 languages), and "Marked by mixed or other strategies" (#7, 1 language).

Distributive numerals are implicit in sentences such as Bill and Tina carried three suitcases each (so, together they carried six suitcases). English has no dedicated form for such numerals, but many other languages have one. Indeed, if we count the various options together, we see that 10 source languages don't have distributive numerals, while 12 languages can express them in some way. Among the languages that have them, reduplication is the most common strategy, and it's accordingly the one that Kikomun will adopt too. Accordingly, Kikomun's equivalent of the above example sentence would literally translate as something like Bill and Tina carried three three suitcases.

Numeral Classifiers (WALS feature 55A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• Absent (#1 – am, arz, de, en, fr, ha, hi, ru, sw, tl)

Another frequent value:

• Obligatory (#3) – 7 languages (bn, cmn, ja, ko, th, vi, yue – 70% relative frequency)

A rarer value is "Optional" (#2, 3 languages).

In some languages, classifiers must always be placed between numerals and nouns, so instead of saying two dogs, one says something like two animal-classifier dogs. However, a relative majority of source languages doesn't require this, and so neither will Kikomun.

Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers (WALS feature 56A)

Most frequent value (10 languages):

• Formally similar, with interrogative (#3 – cmn, hi, id, ja, ta, te, th, tl, vi, yue)

Rarer values are "Formally similar, without interrogative" (#2, 2 languages) and "Formally different" (#1, 2 languages).

Conjunctions join phrases and clauses together, like English and, but for the purposes of this chapter, WALS also accepts joining words with meanings like also, even, another, again as such. Universal quantifiers are expressions with meanings similar to English every, each, all, and any.

The most frequent value in this chapter refers to languages where some universal quantifiers are formed from a combination of conjunctions and interrogative expressions (question words like who or what). WALS doesn't give a specific example of how this actually looks like in any of our source languages, but they note that this feature value is often associated with the use of "interrogative-based indefinite pronouns" in feature map 46A. There, however, we had chosen another option – generic-noun-based pronouns like English somebody or something – as the most frequent option. It might therefore be odd to adopt one solution (generic-noun-based) for indefinite pronouns, but an unrelated one (interrogative and conjunction–based) for universal quantifiers. I therefore decided to run an additional study of the combinations of these two features, presented next.

Cross-combination of 46A and 56A (WALS feature 56E)

The combination of the two features (labeled "E" for "extra") lists all occurring combinations between the values of these features in our source languages. The two values are separated with a slash, and if one of them is unknown (not listed), it is replaced with ???. Feature 56A is relatively badly documented – only the values of 14 source languages are known – therefore question marks after the slash aren't rare. Here are the results:

Most frequent values (4 languages):

• Generic-noun-based/??? (#3 – arz, ha, sg, sw)
• Interrogative-based/Formally similar, with interrogative (#8 – ja, ta, th, vi)

Other frequent values:

• Generic-noun-based/Formally similar, without interrogative (#6) – 2 languages (en, fa – 50% relative frequency)
• Generic-noun-based/Formally different (#4) – 2 languages (fr, tr – 50% relative frequency)
• Special/Formally similar, with interrogative (#12) – 2 languages (hi, yue – 50% relative frequency)
• Interrogative-based/??? (#7) – 2 languages (ko, ru – 50% relative frequency)

Rarer values are "Mixed/Formally similar, with interrogative" (#10, 1 language), "Mixed/???" (#9, 1 language), "Special/???" (#11, 1 language), "Generic-noun-based/Formally similar, with interrogative" (#5, 1 language), "???/Formally similar, with interrogative" (#1, 1 language), and "Existential construction/Formally similar, with interrogative" (#2, 1 language).

This confirms my suspicion that one should not adopt the combination "Generic-noun-based/Formally similar, with interrogative" that would follow from naively choosing the most frequent value of each feature, since that combination is very rare (documented for only one source language, according to WALS). Instead the universal quantifiers will be a regular part of the set of table words in Kikomun, without being particularly related to any conjunctions.

Additionally one must say that feature 56A is quite badly documented – the values for ten source language are missing. Supposedly this feature will typically show up in the literature only if some kind of relationship was found, but not otherwise. It therefore seems entirely possible that, if one were to add all the missing values, "Formally different" (i.e., no relationship between universal quantifiers and conjunctions) would end up being the most frequent option. I'm also not sure how trustworthy the WALS categorization is regarding the existing values. I quickly checked several of the languages where universal quantifiers and conjunctions are supposedly "Formally similar, involving interrogative expression" and wasn't able to find any such similarity. Either the relationships are well hidden, possibly limited to some exotic expressions, or there may be errors in the data set causing this feature value to be overcounted.

Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes (WALS feature 57A)

Most frequent value (13 languages):

• No possessive affixes (#4 – cmn, de, en, es, fa, fr, id, ja, ru, sg, th, vi, yue)

A rarer value is "Possessive suffixes" (#2, 5 languages).

In many languages, including English, the possessive forms of personal pronouns are stand-alone words (my, your, his, her etc.). In others, they are affixes attached to the word they modify. However, as a majority of the source languages doesn't use such affixes, neither will Kikomun. The possessive pronouns will instead be separate words, like in English.

Skipped features

There are a again a few features I have skipped because they add nothing new. Feature 32A explores the details of the gender system but without bringing anything new. Features 49A to 51A were skipped since they confirm that Kikomun won't use different case endings for nouns and pronouns, as was already determined based on feature 28A in my previous post.

a [a~ä]

â [ɒ~ɑ]

ã [æ]

b [b]

c [t͡s]

cʼ [t͡sʼ]

č [t͡ʃ]

čʼ [t͡ʃʼ]

ć [t͡ɕ]

ćʼ [t͡ɕʼ]

d [d]

dˡ [d͡ɮ]

dᶻ [d͡z]

ð [ð]

e [e]

ê [ɛ]

ə [ə]

f [f]

g [ɡ~ɢ]

gʷ [ɡʷ~ɢʷ]

h [ɦ]

i [i]

j [d͡ʒ]

k [k]

kʷ [kʷ]

kʼ [kʼ]

kʷʼ [kʷʼ]

l [l/ɫ]

m [m]

n [n]

ñ [ɲ]

ň [ŋ~ɴ]

o [ɔ]

ô [o]

õ [ɤ~ʊ]

p [p]

pʼ [pʼ]

q [q]

qʷ [qʷ]

qʼ [qʼ]

qʷʼ [qʷʼ]

r [ɹ~ɾ]

ř [r]

s [s]

š [ʃ]

ś [ɕ]

t [t]

tˡ [t͡ɬ]

tʼ [tʼ]

tˡʼ [t͡ɬʼ]

þ [θ]

u [u]

ũ [ɨ~ɯ]

v [v]

w [w]

x [x~χ]

xʷ [xʷ~χʷ]

y [j]

z [z]

ž [ʒ]

ʔ [ʔ]

ʷ [◌ʷ]

ⁿ [◌̃]

A a [a]

Ạ ạ [ə]

B b [b]

C c [t͡s]

C̄ c̄ [t͡ʃ]

Ć ć [t͡ɕ]

D d [d]

Ḏ ḏ [ð]

E e [ɛ]

Ẹ ẹ [e]

Ė ė [æ]

F f [f]

G g [ɡ]

Ḡ ḡ [ɣ]

H h [h]

H̱ ẖ [x]

I i [i]

J j [ʒ]

J̄ j̄ [d͡ʒ]

J́ j́ [d͡ʑ]

K k [k]

L l [l]

M m [m]

N n [n]

N̄ n̄ [ŋ]

Ń ń [ɲ]

O o [ɔ]

Ọ ọ [o]

P p [p]

P̄ p̄ [k͡p]

R r [ɹ]

R̄ r̄ [r]

S s [s]

S̄ s̄ [ʃ]

Ś ś [ɕ]

T t [t]

Ṯ ṯ [θ]

U u [u]

U̇ u̇ [ɯ]

V v [v]

W w [w]

Y y [j]

Z z [z]

Ẕ ẕ [d͡z]

Ź ź [ʑ]

ⁿ [◌̃]

Note: There's no Q or X because they are used in loanwords

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Hi everyone! I'm happy to announce that my a priori oligosynthetic language Dasopya has finally reached a point where I feel comfortable saying it's stable. There may be changes, but they will generally only consist of minor vocabulary changes (e.g. 1-letter differences) or base word additions, with larger changes like word removals or grammar changes only occurring after careful consideration and time. The goal is to allow Dasopya content to be created and learned without fear of changes suddenly making them obsolete.

For those that haven't heard of Dasopya, I've been working on it regularly over the past several months after rebranding from my previous language Taynmoga. The language has about 800 words and has influences from Globasa, Mini-Linga, Toki Pona, and Esperanto. Root words are never modified (even within compounds), and are only 1-2 syllables long. While I have tried my best to address issues with previous a priori oligosynthetic languages, my primary goal is to address what I felt was the biggest running issue, which is a lack of marketing and easy-to-access resources. My hope is that even if Dasopya doesn't become popular, more people will be interested in the concept of a priori and oligosynthetic auxlangs in general.

For those interested, here is the official website, which has all the resources/links including a 5 minute overview: https://www.dasopya.com/

And the official Bluesky account for anyone interested: https://dasopya.bsky.social/