Welcome to ~ Benokömö ini

VOLAPOKE

There’s a comprehensive list of Volapük links here (and here) which includes a bi-directional dictionary and courses for revised Volapük by Ralph Midgley, a good overview of the language by Ed Robertson, a history of the language by Don Harlow, and the Vükiped (Wikipedia), in which you can find the names of countries.

· VERY QUICK INTRODUCTION

Volapük (literally: “world’s language”) was created by Johann Martin Schleyer in 1879/80. It was the first major constructed IAL (international auxiliary language, or auxlang), pre-dating Esperanto in publication, and at its zenith near the end of the 19^th century it had an estimated quarter of a million speakers. It was successfully revised in 1930 by Arie de Jong.

On this blog-like page, I set the language out as I’ve found it, and give my thoughts and opinions along the way. Let me make it clear that what follows is a personal exposition and interpretation of the language, so should not be taken as definitive. Furthermore, even though it might look like it, I’m not seriously advocating any changes to the accepted revised version of the language; there’ll probably never be an auxlang that satisfies all the people all the time, and I understand that for a given one to operate, most of the speakers must give it a little slack.

· PHONOLOGY AND PRONUNCIATION

There are nineteen consonants, as shown in this table with their IPA/X-SAMPA values:

b	b	n	n
c	tS, dZ	p	p
d	d	r	r
f	f	s	s, z
g	g	t	t
h	h	v	v
j	S, Z	(w)	w
k	k	x	ks, gz
l	l	y	j
m	m	z	ts, dz

Every English website you go to gives you a different take on the vowels of Volapük! I think this uncertainty stems from the fact that they’re “European” in nature, and so are difficult to “translate into English.”

There are eight of them, namely: a ä e i o ö u ü (i.e. the German set; alt + 132,148,129 for the diereses). I see them as having “long” and “short” versions (roughly corresponding to their stressed and unstressed instances respectively), which I now set out (again, in X-SAMPA for received pronunciation). Note that in their official forms they only have one version each, and that [a\] = centralised [a]/[A].

Vowel	a	ä	e	i	o	ö	u	ü
Official	a\	E	e	i	O, o	2, 9	u	y
Long	A:	E@	eI	i:, I@	O:, @U	3:	u:, U@	y:
Short/Alternative	{, V	E	E	I	Q	@	U	y

I use the first long o by default, and second one before other vowels and at the end of words. I try to avoid using the short e (for the sake of distinguishing it from ä), and I never use the short u, as it’s very similar to my first long o.

When two or more vowels follow each other, they’re sounded separately, maybe with a little slurring. When some vowels are followed by a y, you get a diphthong; for example, the pronoun oy (one) is pronounced [OI].

The primary stress falls on the last syllable (not including those in marked suffixes), and every-other preceding syllable takes a secondary stress; in other words, the pattern is: …-ó)(o-ó)-(o-ó)-(o-Ó). This is a sensible approach, but I think it would be greatly improved if the case endings were de-stressed like the marked suffixes, because as things stand, when you move a word from the nominative into another case (or vice versa), the whole pattern shifts, e.g. /%vOl.a\.“pyk/ (Volapük) becomes /vOl.%a\.pyk.“i/ (Volapüki).

The letters are “named” in the following way: vowels as themselves, consonants as themselves + e. The alphabet is thus recited: a ä be ce de e fe …

Bonus: Graphs showing the letter-frequencies [1] [2] [3]

· NOUNS

Every noun in Volapük has a stem, which starts and ends with a consonant. The language is non-isolating, meaning that the major noun roles are indicated by endings or particles, not by their positions in the sentence. In particular, six cases are thus indicated (the first by elimination), and any plurality is indicated by then adding an s (just like in English) giving the following simple paradigm (studan = student):

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	studan	studans
Accusative	studani	studanis
Genitive	studana	studanas
Dative	studane	studanes
Predicative	studanu	studanus
Vocative	o studan!	o studans!

Here’s a dense sentence showing the main five cases in use (note the German speech marks – the default, but not compulsory, choice for Volapük):

“The student^A gave the teacher^D the dog’s^C dinner^B, Dave.^E”

„Studan^A ägivom fidedi^B doga^C tidane^D, o Dave!^E“

Genitives always follow the nouns they modify (cf. the situation with adjectives). Because of the explicit case markings, the above sentence, if divided into (i) subject, (ii) verb, (iii) direct object & possessor, (iv) indirect object, and (v) person addressed, can be rearranged into any of the 16 possible orderings with absolutely no change in meaning. In practise, though, people usually go SVO in Volapük.

Analogously to the English choice of a possessive adjective or the preposition “of” (the Queen of England, England’s Queen), Volapük offers the choice of either using the genitive or the preposition de (from, of) to express the genitive idea (thus Jireg de Linglän, Jireg Lingläna). My preference is to use the genitive with Volapük words, and de with non-Volapük words if the el (see next section) is absent.

Unlike the English genitive, the Volapük one can only ever modify, never can’t stand alone. I once suggested that the article il be introduced to give us a stand-alone genitive, but I doubt it ever will. See the pronouns section for more info.

The partitive case (e.g. “of the books” in the sentence “I’ve read three of the books”) can be formed in three ways: with the genitive, with de, or with se (out of). I tend to use se, so as not to create a false sense of possession, though I’m mindful of the possibility of creating a false sense of motion!

Point of information: for a place of origin, the preposition di is used, not de.

The dative and the predicative are used specifically to complete transitive verbs: the former when there’s an indirect object, the latter when there’s an additional direct object. It’s important to recognise when these parts of speech occur. The predicative case is exceedingly rare, and is not used at all by most users of the language. An example sentence where you could use it is: “they elected him president” – “him” is the direct object (in –i), and “president” is the complement (in –u). Alternatively, you could say “they elected him to the presidency” (ädavälons omi preside) which avoids a predicate.

· ARTICLES, ADJECTIVES, AND ADVERBS

No definite or indefinite articles are used in Volapük, which I believe is the case for over half the world’s natural languages. There is, however, an article el for non-Volapük words and in general anything that can’t take case or number endings. El precedes its words and takes any affixes for them on their behalf (so they needn’t be modified in any way themselves). If the word is male or female, el takes a gender prefix – hi or ji respectively – giving hiel and jiel. (Note that they don’t read as Mr and Ms, which are söl and läd resp.) These three articles are very common in real-world Volapük texts.

The adjectives of Volapük end with the suffix –ik (with the exception of a few special ones, such as the demonstratives), and their natural position is after their nouns. When in this natural position, they’re invariant, but when they’re moved (to the front, or into a predicate) they must agree with their noun – that is, they must adopt any number or case (accusative, dative, predicative) endings it may have. This rule is an ingenious way to avoid unnecessary agreement whilst at the same time allowing variable word order. There is, however, one (unlikely) situation where it becomes problematic: when the subject noun directly follows another noun, e.g.

“The old man rides the horse” à “the horse the old man rides”

„Jevodi bäldik man monitom.“

In this Yoda-style phrase, the adjective bäldik (old, elderly) follows jevod (horse) but also precedes and agrees with man, so we cannot say with certainty which of the two nouns it modifies. But changing the rules of the language to prevent rare ambiguities like this would be excessively drastic; the common sense solution is to rearrange the words should such a problem arise.

When there’s more than one adjective, they form an orderly list, where any separation by commas or e(d) (and) is optional. A neat word that’s worth mentioning here is the alternative “and” ä(d), which extends the range of a modifying word, as shown in the example below.

“Very dark and very dry bread.”

„Bod vemo dagik e vemo sägik“ (6 words) or „bod vemo dagik ä sägik.“ (5 words)

Comparative and superlative adjectives are formed by the addition of the suffixes –um and –ün respectively. The preposition for unequal comparisons is ka (than), the one for equal comparisons is äs (as), and for the superlative you can use se (out of), de (of, from), or the genitive. Clause comparisons of the form “the more/less… the more/less…” can be made with the prepositions plü (the more) and läs (the less).

The two principle determiners are at (this) and et (that). Others include it (—self & own, as in “I myself prefer my own idea”), ot (the same), and ut (the one(s), what, which): a nice little alphabetical group. The biggest secret in Volapük is that ut, in its adjectival role, is effectively a definite article! Though it could in principle be used freely as such, it is only actually used in a few specific situations, e.g. in sentences like “I know what you saw” (nolob uti, keli älogol).

Adjectives that aren’t linked to any nouns are considered nouns themselves (e.g. “the blues beat the reds”), and in this role they take noun endings, such as –an if they represent people.

Adverbs are formed from other words by the addition of the suffix –o, and can modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. For adverbs, they always go in front; for verbs, they can go on either side; and for adjectives with nouns, they’re placed in between the two, which is a very sound way of distinguishing them from verb-modifiers.

Adverbs of motion “to(wards)” and “(away) from” can be created by means of the suffixes –io and –ao respectively. For example, from the word us (there) can be derived usao (thence, from there) and usio (thither, to there). These adverbs are morphologically related to the prepositions of motion, which are described later.

Most adverbs end with –iko and are straightforward adverbs-from-adjectives; others have the –o suffixed directly onto the root. These latter generally have special meanings, e.g. adelo (today), samo (for example).

Here are some common and important adverbs. Like the common conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections given later, in order for them to be short, many of them are irregularly formed, or primitive (i.e. their outer letters don’t signify anything).

Always	ai	Maybe	ba	Also	i(d)	Here	is	Never	neföro	Not yet	no nog
Now	nu	*More	plu	Then	täno	There	us	Very	vemo	Already	ya

*The adjectives of extent pluik (more) and nepluik (less) are derived from this root.

The last thing I want to talk about in this section is the issue of the location of adjectives. It seems arbitrary, but I think there’s a subtle difference between the choices. When they precede their nouns, the listener/reader holds them in his head, and then, when the noun arrives, he quickly “assembles” it in his mind. When they follow their nouns, the listener starts with the basic noun in his mind, and as they adjectives come in, he modifies it accordingly. If there are lots of adjectives, then in the former regime the danger is that because there are so many, the listener will have to run over them a second time after the noun has come, to make sure he’s taken them all into account. In the latter regime, because the noun is built up in an ongoing manner, this problem doesn’t arise. For this reason, it’s arguably better to put adjectives after nouns – and this from a native English speaker!

• PRONOUNS

Here’s a table of the principle subject pronouns:

I	ob	We	obs
You (sing.)	ol	You (pl.)	ols
He	om	They (masc.)	oms
She	of	They (fem.)	ofs
It (neut.)	on	They (mixed/neut.)	ons
One	oy	-	-
It (abs.)	os	-	-

The plurals are simply the singulars with the familiar s suffix, and the masculine, feminine, and neutral third-person ones are unforgettable once you realise where they came from. The unpluralisability of os isn’t accidental: it’s a very abstract pronoun that’s used to talk about das-clauses (i.e. sentences), clock times, and the weather, which are singular by nature.

The reflexive pronoun – for the third person(s) only – is ok (as in “he shot himself”), and the reciprocal pronoun is od (as in “they loathe each other”). Interestingly, because the reflexive will always have a subject associated with it, meaning it could (hypothetically) always be given in the singular, and because the reciprocal will always be plural, it would’ve been possible to have them as the same word! But this would’ve been a bit confusing, so things are fine as they are.

I like the idea of having exclusive and inclusive first-person plural pronouns, and so too it seems did de Jong, who introduced a latter – ogs (you and I/we) – as part of his celebrated revision (the singular version, og, meant “you or I”). It never caught on, however, so the two forms are still both represented by obs.

There is a polite second-person pronoun, or(s), which is only ever used in poetic contexts.

The relative pronoun (that, which, who) is kel. Relative clauses should be bounded by comma(s).

Besides the genitive, personal possessive adjectives can be formed by adding –ik to the relevant pronoun, so “our” = obas or obsik, etc. You can use either, though I mostly use the genitive form. Because adjectives can act as nouns, these possessive adjectives can also be used as personal possessive pronouns, so “ours” = obsik(s), etc. There’s no way to form possessive pronouns from nouns, so instead you must use the genitive with a pronoun, e.g. “I want the man’s” = „vilob oni(s) mana.“

All of these pronouns – including kel – display the case and number of what they represent. Case endings are suffixed before the number ending, giving “us” = obis, “them” (mixed) = onis, etc. The advantage in doing it this way round is that plurality can be unspecified – i.e. the s be put in brackets – in a non-ugly way; witness the superiority of vödi(s) (word(s)) over the Esperanto equivalent “vorto(j)n.”

Here are some useful substantival and indefinite pronouns:

bos	Something	nos	Nothing	*al	Each (thing)	*seim	Anything
ek	Someone, anyone	nek	No one	alan	Each (person)	seiman	Anyone
*ans, *öm(s)	Some (things)	*som(s)	Such a thing(s)	*val	All (things)	*sem(s)	Certain thing(s)
anans, öman(s)	Some (people)	soman(s)	Such a person(s)	valans	All (people)	seman(s)	Certain person(s)

*These roots are also used as adjectives, sometimes with and sometimes without the –ik ending. NB, al also means “every.”

Suffixing os to a demonstrative adjective creates a similarly-abstract pronoun, e.g. etos = that.

Exclamatory pronouns are formed by combining ki with a subject pronoun, so “what a goal!” = „zeil kion!“ And the exclamatory “how” is vio, so “how good!” = „vio gudik!“ Be careful not confuse these words with the interrogative words described later.

• VERBS

There’s been a lot of talk of the complexity and long-windedness of Volapük verbs. This must surely be in reference to classical Volapük, because the system in the revised version is perfectly reasonable and straightforward! Judge for yourself, bearing in mind the amount of information that needs to be communicated in any verb system.

Like the nouns, the verbs have a stem, which is itself either the abstract noun that describes the process of the verb, or the physical noun for the object or thing that the verb is about. To form the infinitive, you add the suffix –ön, and to form a participle, you add –öl. By way of example, distuk = destruction; distukön = to destroy; and distuköl = destroying (present active).

Verbs conjugate according to subject, tense, passivity, and mood. To conjugate a verb, you start by working out the person and number of the subject(s), and suffixing the relevant pronoun to the stem. For example, binön = “to be,” so “I am” = bin + ob = binob, etc. All the pronouns you need for this bit are in the first table in the previous section.

Next, you do the tense. There are eight of them in Volapük, and they’re indicated by the addition of a single-vowel prefix. Here they are, with examples from “to wait”:

Future in past	ö-	I was to wait, I was to be waiting
Future perfect in past	ü-	I was to have waited, I was to have been waiting
Pluperfect	i-	I had waited, I’d been waiting
Past	ä-	I waited, I was waiting
Present perfect	e-	I have waited, I’ve been waiting
Present	(a-)	I wait, I’m waiting
Future	o-	I will wait, I will be waiting
Future perfect	u-	I will have waited, I will have been waiting

Thus far, the verb is still active; to make it passive, add the prefix p– (making sure, for the present tense, to have added the otherwise optional a–). The agent for the passive (if there is one) follows the preposition fa (by), thus: “I’m hunting a goose” = „yagob gani“ and “I’m being hunted by a goose!” = „payagob fa gan!“ I once wondered if it would’ve been better to use accusative personal pronouns instead of a prefix to denote passivity (i.e. to affix an –i to the verb instead of the p–). The advantage would be that you couldn’t get confused between passive conjugations and verbs whose stems start with a p, but the disadvantage would be their possibly being mistaken for accusative nouns.

It’s worth saying at this point that participles and infinitives can occupy any tense and be active or passive, so when you form a participle, make sure it represents what you want it to represent.

The last major thing to deal with is the mood. There are six of them, and they’re indicated by additional suffixes (additional to the subject ones already on the stem, that is), namely:

Indicative
Conditional	-öv
Imperative	-öd
Optative	-ös
Interrogative	--li
Subjunctive	--la

The imperative and the optative are command forms, with the former being strong and the latter mild, even half-hearted. Remember that, like the other moods, they always include a subject: the person(s) to whom the command is intended. They will always contain at least three syllables, which is a drawback in my view because certain commands should be snappy one-syllable words (duck, stop, run, etc). The good news is that interjections can be used instead (see later), so many of them can effectively be reduced to two syllables.

The interrogative simply creates yes/no questions (like the English “do” and the Latin “-ne”). The marked subjunctive in Volapük is reserved for very far-fetched notions, and isn’t normally used for realistic and/or sensible stuff. The main conjunctions that introduce (un-marked) subjunctive clauses are if and ven.

To negate a verb, put the particle no in front of it.

The preposition ad is used before infinitives to convey “for” or “in order to,” like in “they play to win” („pledons ad gaenön“). Similarly, adas is used for adjective-to-infinitive constructions, such as “atoms are too small to be seen” („taums binons tu smaliks, adas palogön“).

That’s about the size of it as far as verb conjugation and usage goes. Not exactly the most complicated thing you’ve ever read, I dare say! I’ll now wrap this section up with some further stuff on verbs.

You can create modified versions of existing verbs with affixes, such as ge- (re-) and fi- (to completion). See the section on word formation for more.

“Let us …” is conveyed by the imperative in the first person plural (–obsös and –obsöd), e.g. „lärnobsös Volapüki“ = “let’s learn Volapük.”

“There is/are X” = dabinon(s) X.

The verb sötön (be duty bound) is used for “should/ought to” statements. And “could” is the conditional future tense of kanön (be able). A further “-ould” verb that I’d approve of would be an additional alternative to the conditional (–öv) e.g. „vudön“ which currently does not exist.

If a verb ending is added to an adjective, it creates an intransitive verb meaning “to become the adjective,” e.g. jönikofs = vedofs jönik(an)is = “they (some women) become beautiful.” Useful transitive verbs meaning “to make (something) an adjective” are formed in exactly the same way, but with –ük– instead of –ik-. For example, “she makes herself beautiful” = jönükof oki.

• QUESTIONS

To convert a statement into a question, add the suffix –li to the verb, or if there’s no verb, to something else. This suffix is marked (i.e. the hyphen stays) and unstressed. (It was used as a free particle as well in classical Volapük, like the Esperanto word ĉu, but such usage is now prohibited.)

More sophisticated questions can be formed with interrogative words. These are based on the root ki, and the simplest ones are the adverb kio (what?) and the pronouns kis (what? cf. os) and kim, kif, kin (who? which one?) which you can see include the gender of what’s being asking about if it’s known. Those pronouns can also be converted into adjectives, for when the noun is known. Further along, we have kitimo (when?), kiöpo (where? cf. -öp), and kikodo (why?). Questions of “how” are asked with the adverb lio. Here are some examples:

Suemol-li atosi? = Do you understand this?

Kio binon-li in bok? = What’s in the box?

Kin(s) äfidon(s)-li biskutis? = Who ate the biscuits?

Köl kinik binon-li herem ola? = What colour is your hair?

Pen oba binon-li kiöpo? = Where’s my pen?

Lio hitik binos-li us? = How hot is it there (weather)?

Kisi cedol-li? = What do you think/opine?

The ki– words are made interrogative by the nearby –li suffix; they behave as indefinites in its absence. They were inherently interrogative in Schleyer’s original, and I’m not sure that should’ve been changed, because the –li feels redundant and the indefinite phrases can be formed in other ways.

· WORD FORMATION

There’s a sizeable (arguably excessive) group of affixes in Volapük that can be used to create new words, principally nouns, from existing ones. At least one has cropped up on this page already: studan (student), which was formed by combining stud (study; studön = to study) with the suffix –an. Familiarity with (or at least access to) these affixes is important for both reading and writing Volapük. Here’s a table of all the ones I’ve seen (grey = not so important), which doesn’t include the “obvious ones” that are presented elsewhere on this page, such as ik and s.

NB, there are some “pseudo-affixes” which, instead of modifying roots, mark families of new roots. These include –än (country, land), –in (chemical element), –op (continent), –ul (month), –üd (compass direction). Note that the presence of one of these pseudo-affixes doesn’t necessarily make the word a member of that family (e.g. räptul = reptile, not a month).

bai-	In agreement/accordance with	Bonded group of them (cf. –ef)	-ad
be-	Lets indirect objects become direct	Highest, most senior person	-al
da-	Enhancement of meaning	Abstract noun of process (-tion, -ence)	-am
dä-	Fragmentation	professional, do’er of thing (-er, cf.-ian)	-an
dei-	Until death/for life	Amount (-worth, -ful)	-at
do-	To fall until coming to rest	Academic discipline	-av
du-	Through (motion, space)	Recipient, sufferer (cf. –an)	-äb
fäi-	Sealed, closed, fastened (cf. mai-)	Makes it more general	-äd
fea-	Convert	Mental quality	-äl
fi-	Finished, completed	Makes it more abstract	-ät
ge-	Reciprocation*	Makes it more particular	-ed
hi-	Male	Group of them (cf. –ad)	-ef
ho-	De-sexed male	Maker (cf. –iel)	-el
ji-	Female	Collection, set	-em
jo-	De-sexed female	Makes it more physical	-et
ke-	Unity, camaraderie (fellow …)	Mechanical performer of human task(s)	-ian
lai-	Continuation of action	Inclination, propensity for	-iäl
läx-	Ex-**	Container, vessel	-iär
le-	Opposite of diminutive	Creates a different but related word	-id
lu-	Inferior, less, disjointed	Manufacturing device (cf. –el)	-iel
lü-	In-law (step- = lu-)	Diminutive (cf. le-)	-il
mai-	Opened (cf. fäi-)	Doctrine, philosophy (-ism)	-im
mi-	Mis-, mal-	Less prominent type	-od
näi-	Side-, off-	More prominent type	-ot
ne-	The opposite (de-)	-ability	-ov
nü-	Into (for the preposition ini)	Abstract noun of quality (-ness, -ity)	-öf
sä-	Reversal, undoing	Device, tool, equipment	-öm
si-	Outer-space related, heavenly	Place	-öp
vi-	Vice-	Transitive verb of “to make”	-ük
		Endearment, animal young	-ül
		Musical piece	-üm
		Period of time	-üp

*For the “re- of repetition,” the preposition dönu (again) is prefixed.

**This don’t look right; xe- would’ve been better.

Quite a few non-prefixes, particularly prepositions, can be used as prefixes, e.g. lio (how?), mo (away), nen (without), ok (self), se (out of). -Ok is a bad one, because it starts with a vowel and so can make a present-tense verb look like it’s in the future tense. An alternative should be created for it, e.g. „hok“, like the nü- for ini.

Here are some examples of the differences between some potentially-confusing derivations. Vögodan = a voter: vögodanef = the electorate; vögodanad = a voting bloc. Kod = a cause: kodam = causation, the act of causing; kodav = etiology, the study of causes; kodät = causality; kodim = determinism. Reidön = to read: reided = reading material, as something to read; reidet = reading material, as physical paper with ink on it. Pän = a painting: pänod = a sketch, an impression; pänot = a grand painting, e.g. a masterpiece.

Volapük also bears compound nouns, with the structure {modifying noun + an ending}{base noun}. Here’s an enumeration of the possible versions of “monkey-scissors”: lepajim, lepojim, lepijim. The first uses the genitive ending, and means “monkey’s scissors” or “scissors for monkeys to use”; the second uses the adverbial ending, and means “monkey-like scissors”; and the third uses the accusative ending, and means “scissors to be used on monkeys.”

• CONJUNCTIONS, PREPOSITIONS, AND INTERJECTIONS

The more common of these are irregular roots, but the rest have regular endings.

Here are some common conjunctions:

But	ab	Because	bi	That	das	So that	dat	While	du
And	e(d)*	If	if	So/therefore	so	Nor	ni	Or	u(d)

Derived ones end with the suffix –ä. Some of them can be used as correlative conjunctions, namely:

E…e… = “both…and…”, u…u… = “either…or…”, ni…ni… = “neither…nor…”, & noe…abi… = “not only…but (also)…”

Nouns take the nominative case after prepositions. Here are some common ones:

To	lü	Before/prior to	bü	From, of	de	By	fa	In	in
Into	ini	With*	ko	By means of	me	For	pro	On	su

*This signifies accompaniment, not an instrument, so be careful not to confuse it with me.

Derived ones end with –ü, e.g. kodü (because of).

Consider in and ini; the former is static, whereas the latter is dynamic – it describes a transition between the verb’s location and the prepositional location. The rule is that prepositions of transitions to (onto, to under, etc.) are formed by adding the suffix –i, and those of transitions from (off, from under, etc.) by adding –a. These are of course also the accusative and genitive endings (hence their origins), and it should be noted that there’s no danger of confusion with accusative and genitive nouns, because the irregular prepositions are irregular anyway, and the regular ones will end in –üi and –üa, as opposed to –[cons.]i and –[cons.]a. NB, the prepositions meaning towards and away from are lüodü (“in the direction of”) and mo respectively.

Here are some interjections: adyö! (bye), glidis! (hello – lit. “greetings”), he! (hey!), si! (yes). Others are derived by means of –ö, e.g. danö! (thanks) and fümö! (of course, sure). Many interjections are interpreted as commands, e.g. stopö! (stop!) and yufö! (help!), and are perhaps preferable to formal imperatives.

A remark on glidis, the most famous word in the language. It’s the accusative plural of the word glid (a greeting), so literally means “greetings” (cf. “saluton” in Esperanto). When you say glidis! the idea is that you’re omitting the “obvious” words from a sentence like “I send you greetings.” But this – the expressing of a sentence in a single word – is textbook interjecting, so it would perfectly acceptable (and perhaps preferable) to say glidö! instead.

• NUMBERS

Here are the building-block numbers (it’s a base-10 number system, as one would expect):

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

100

1000

10^6

10^12

10^6N

…

ser*

bal

tel

kil

fol

lul

mäl

vel

jöl

zül

deg

tum

mil

balion

telion

N-ion

…

*This is only a numeral; the adjective that means “not any” is nonik.

To form a multiple of a power of 10, you prefix the multiplying factor to the front of it, so 20 = teldeg, 300 = kiltum, etc.

To form a combination of them, you line them up, biggest first, so 12 = deg tel, 456 = foltum luldeg mäl, etc.

Decimals are given in what amounts to “standard form,” using the following:

10^–1	10^–2	10^–3	10^–4	10^–5	10^–6	10^–6N	…
dim	zim	mim	dimim	zimim	balyim	N-yim	…

Some examples: 0.08 = jölzim, 5.5 = lul e luldim.

Those are the cardinal numbers. The ordinals are formed by adding the suffix –id, and the denominators of fractions by the suffix –dil. (NB, there’s a special word for a half, laf.)

For multiplication, the unusual suffix –na is used, so “five times” = lulna, etc.

Numbers are handled like normal attributive adjectives (note that this means that ½ = teldil bal, not bal teldil, and so on).

FINÖ!

Last edited: June 09

I’m grateful to Ralph Midgley for the corrections he gave me early on.

If you have any comments or suggestions, you can get in touch with me by email.