Lingua Franca Nova
Lingua Franca Nova, is an auxiliary language originally built by C. George Boeree of Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania, and developed by many of its users. Its vocabulary is based on the Romance languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan.
| Lingua Franca Nova | |
|---|---|
| Elefen | |
 | |
| Created by | C. George Boeree |
| Date | 1965[1] |
| Setting and usage | International auxiliary language |
| Purpose | |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | lfn |
History
changeBoeree started to create Lingua Franca Nova in 1965,[1][2]His goal was creating an international auxiliary language simple and easy to learn for international communication.[3] He was inspired by two languages:
- the Mediterranean Lingua Franca or "Sabir", a Romance pidgin used by European sailors and merchants as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean Sea from the 11–18th century,
- different creoles such as Papiamento and Haitian Creole.
He took the language vocabulary from French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan.
Lingua Franca Nova first appeared on the internet in 1998.[1] A Yahoo! Group[4] was formed in 2002 by Bjorn Madsen, and reached about 300 members who contributed to the evolution of the language.
In 2005 Stefan Fisahn created a wiki for the language.[5] The wiki moved to Wikia in 2009,[6] then was hosted directly on the official website in 2019.[7]
In 2007, Igor Vasiljevic created a Facebook group, which now has over 600 members.[8]
In 2012 a novel fully translated into Lingua Franca Nova was first published in printed form: La aventuras de Alisia en la pais de mervelias. It is Simon Davies's translation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[9][10]
In 2014 a new official website was created on the "elefen.org" domain. It offers different materials in several languages to learn the language. It also has a wiki and the official dictionary. Some books in Lingua Franca Nova are also available on the official website for reading.
On April 18, 2018, Wikipedia in Lingua Franca Nova, called "Vicipedia", was officially launched.[11]
On May 15, 2020[12] on the Web and on May 10, 2021 in printed form[13][14] the first original novel written in Lingua Franca Nova was published: La xerca per Pahoa,[13] by Vicente Costalago. He published the second original novel in the language, La marcia nonconoseda, in February 2022.[15]
On January 5, 2021, the language's creator, C. George Boeree, died of pancreatic cancer aged 68.[16]
Grammar
changeLFN is a subject-verb-object language. Modifiers generally follow what they modify, as do prepositional phrases and subordinate clauses.
Other than the plural in -s or -es, nouns don't change. A noun's role in a sentence is determined by word order and prepositions. There are 22 prepositions.
Nouns are usually preceded by articles (la or un) or other determiners such as esta (this, these), acel (that, those), alga (some), cada (every, each), multe (many, much), and poca (few, little). Possessive determiners, cardinal numerals, and the adjectives bon and mal (good and bad) also precede the noun; ordinal numerals follow the noun. A variety of pronouns are identical to or derived from determiners.
The personal pronouns don't change:
| person | singular | plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | me | nos |
| 2 | tu | vos |
| 3 | el / lo / on | los |
El is used for people and higher animals; Lo is used for all else. On is used in the same way as in French or "one" in English (in the way that one would be using it if one said this sentence).
Verbs don't change. The verb alone represents the present tense and the infinitive. Other tenses and moods are indicated by preceding particles:
| tense/mood | particle | example | translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| present | - | me vade | I go |
| past | ia | me ia vade | I went |
| future | va | me va vade | I will go |
| conditional | ta | me ta vade | I would go |
Adverbs such as ja (already) and auxiliary verbs such as comensa (begin to) are used to add precision. The active participle ends in -nte and the passive participle in -da. They can be used with es (to be) to form a progressive aspect and a passive voice, respectively.
Adjectives are don't change, and adverbs are not distinguished from adjectives. Adjectives follow nouns and adverbs follow verbs but precede adjectives. The comparative is formed with plu or min, the superlative with la plu or la min.
Questions are formed by adding esce at the beginning of the sentence with or by using one of several "question words", such as cual (what, which), ci (who), do (where), cuando (when), and perce (why).[17] These same words are also used to introduce subordinate clauses, as are words such as si (if), ce (that), car (because), and afin (so that).
Prepositions include a (at, to), de (of, from), ante (before, in front of), pos (after, behind), etc.
Conjunctions include e (and), o (or), and ma (but).
Literature
changeThe main literary works translated into Lingua Franca Nova, are:[18]
- Colinas como elefantes blanca ("Hills Like White Elephants") by Ernest Hemingway
- Demandas de un laboror lejente (Questions from a Worker Who Reads) by Bertolt Brecht
- Frate peti (Little Brother) by Cory Doctorow
- La alia de capeles roja ("The Red-Headed League") by Arthur Conan Doyle
- La aventuras de Alisia en la pais de mervelias (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) by Lewis Carroll
- La cade de la Casa de Usor ("The Fall of the House of Usher") by Edgar Allan Poe
- La jigante egoiste ("The Selfish Giant") by Oscar Wilde
- La prinse peti (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Leteras de la tera (Letters from the Earth) by Mark Twain
- Re Lear (King Lear) by William Shakespeare
- Tra la miror, e lo cual Alisia trova a ultra (Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There) by Lewis Carroll
- Un canta de natal (A Christmas Carol) by Charles Dickens
- Wini-la-Pu (Winnie-the-Pooh) by Alan Alexander Milne
The first original novel published in Lingua Franca Nova was La xerca per Pahoa ["the search for Pahoa"], written by Vicente Costalago;[19] Publishing started in 2020 (internet) and 2021 (book). The second original book published was La marcia nonconoseda, also by the same author.[20]
References
change- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Boeree, C. George. "La evolui de elefen". Vici de Elefen (in Lingua Franca Nova). Retrieved 2020-11-09.
- ↑ Boeree, C. George. "Istoria de elefen". Vici de Elefen (in Lingua Franca Nova). Retrieved 2020-11-10.
- ↑ Bartlett, Paul O. (2005-11-30). "Conlangs and International Auxiliary Languages". Retrieved 2020-11-13.
- ↑ "Lingua Franca Nova (LFN)". Yahoo! Groups. Archived from the original on 2007-01-14.
- ↑ "LinguaFrancaNova" (in Lingua Franca Nova). Archived from the original on 2005-01-21.
- ↑ "Paje xef". Wikia (in Lingua Franca Nova). Archived from the original on 2009-02-19.
- ↑ "xef". Vici de Elefen (in Lingua Franca Nova).
- ↑ "Lingua Franca Nova". Facebook. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
- ↑ Eley, Rachel (2012-05-06). "Alice in Hawaiian and six more languages besides". Lewis Carroll Society of North America (LCSNA). Archived from the original on 2012-06-09. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ Mithridates (2012-03-21). "A book has been translated into Lingua Franca Nova; can be purchased at amazon.com". Page F30. Archived from the original on 2021-01-28. Retrieved 2020-11-13.
- ↑ Task on Phabricator
- ↑ "Revisas vea". Vici de Elefen (in Lingua Franca Nova). Archived from the original on 2020-07-18. Retrieved 2021-09-20.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Vicente (2021-05-10). "Publica". Prexins (in Catalan). Archived from the original on 2021-05-11. Retrieved 2021-09-20.
- ↑ Litteratura in Occidental, in Cosmoglotta 329 (Januar-junio 2022), pag. 2-15
- ↑ "La marcia nonconoseda". Vici de Elefen (in Lingua Franca Nova). Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ↑ "Cornelis George Boeree (1952-2021)" (in Lingua Franca Nova). 2021-01-08. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
- ↑ Moskovsky, Christo; Libert, Alan (2006). "Questions in Natural and Artificial Languages" (PDF). Journal of Universal Language. No. 7. pp. 65–120. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-01.
- ↑ "Leteratur" (in Lingua Franca Nova).
- ↑ "Book". Archived from the original on 2021-08-11. Retrieved 2021-08-16.
- ↑ "La marcia noncoseda". Archived from the original on 2022-03-07. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
Other websites
change
- Official website (in Lingua Franca Nova)
- Dictionary
- Grammar
- Literature (in Lingua Franca Nova)
- Vici de Elefen (in Lingua Franca Nova)
- Lingua Franca Nova on Langoland
- Swadesh list for Lingua Franca Nova