Arcaicam Esperantom
Encyclopedia
Arcaicam Esperantom is a constructed language
created to act as a fictional 'Old Esperanto
,' in the vein of languages such as Old English
or the use of Latin citations in modern texts. It was created by Manuel Halvelik as part of a range of stylistic variants including Gavaro (a slang), Popido (a patois
) and a scientific vocabulary closer to Greco-Latin roots.
The idea of an "old Esperanto" was proposed by the Hungarian poet Kalman Kalocsay
who in 1931 included a translation of the Funeral Sermon and Prayer
, the first Hungarian text (12th century), with hypothetic forms as if Esperanto were a Romance language deriving from Vulgar Latin
.
Ex: The modern Esperanto verb esti (to be), present tense:
The Arcaicam Esperantom verb estir (to be), present tense:
The other verb tenses behave the same way, as does the conditional mood:
The imperative mood behaves differently to that pattern:
(Note: Ali-, which in modern Esperanto is not actually a correlative despite its use in that fashion by some, becomes in Arkaika Esperanto as altri- a full-fledged correlative.)
Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
created to act as a fictional 'Old Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
,' in the vein of languages such as Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
or the use of Latin citations in modern texts. It was created by Manuel Halvelik as part of a range of stylistic variants including Gavaro (a slang), Popido (a patois
Patois
Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. It can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant...
) and a scientific vocabulary closer to Greco-Latin roots.
The idea of an "old Esperanto" was proposed by the Hungarian poet Kalman Kalocsay
Kálmán Kalocsay
Kálmán Kalocsay , in Hungarian name order Kalocsay Kálmán is one of the foremost figures in the history of Esperanto literature...
who in 1931 included a translation of the Funeral Sermon and Prayer
Funeral Sermon and Prayer
The Funeral Sermon and Prayer is the oldest known and surviving contiguous Hungarian text, written by one scribal hand in the Latin script and dating to 1192-1195...
, the first Hungarian text (12th century), with hypothetic forms as if Esperanto were a Romance language deriving from Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
.
Spelling
- cCĈ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
becomes tz - ĉCĈ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
becomes chCh (digraph)Ch is a digraph in the Roman alphabet and Uyghur. It is treated as a letter of its own in Chamorro, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Igbo, Quechua, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets. In Vietnamese, it also used to be considered a letter for collation purposes but this is no... - fFF is the sixth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The origin of ⟨f⟩ is the Semitic letter vâv that represented a sound like or . Graphically, it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club...
becomes ph - ĝGG is the seventh letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of ⟨c⟩ to distinguish voiced, from voiceless, . The recorded originator of ⟨g⟩ is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school,...
becomes ghGh (digraph)Gh is a digraph found in many languages.-English:In English, ⟨gh⟩ historically represented . In modern English, ⟨gh⟩ is almost always either silent or pronounced... - ĥHH .) is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative . The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts....
becomes qh - jJĴ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
becomes yYY is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound... - ĵJĴ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
becomes jJĴ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic... - kKK is the eleventh letter of the English and basic modern Latin alphabet.-History and usage:In English, the letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive; this sound is also transcribed by in the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA....
becomes qu (before e, i) or cCĈ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
(before other letters) - ŝSS is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
becomes shSh (digraph)Sh is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, a combination of S and H.-English:In English, sh usually represents . The exception is in compound words, where the s and h are not a digraph, but pronounced separately, e.g. hogshead is hogs-head , not *hog-shead... - ŭUU is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details....
becomes ùUU is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details....
(but see below regarding -aŭ adjectives) - vVV is the twenty-second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Letter:The letter V comes from the Semitic letter Waw, as do the modern letters F, U, W, and Y. See F for details....
becomes wWW is the 23rd letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.In other Germanic languages, including German, its pronunciation is similar or identical to that of English V...
- diphthongs:
- aŭ becomes aù (but see below regarding -aŭ adjectives)
- dz becomes zz
- eŭ becomes eù
- ks becomes x
- kv becomes cù
Pronouns
- mi becomes mihi
- vi becomes tu (singular) or wos (plural)
- li becomes lùi
- ŝi becomes eshi
- ĝi becomes eghi
- si becomes sihi
- ni becomes nos
- ili becomes ilùi
- There is a new pronoun egui which is a personal, sex-neutral pronoun. Its intended use is for referring to deities, angels, etc.
Verbs
- The infinitive ends in -ir, rather than in the -i of modern Esperanto. Ex.: fari becomes pharir.
- The verb endings change according to the subject. So it is not necessary to write the subject pronoun, where there is no ambiguity.
Ex: The modern Esperanto verb esti (to be), present tense:
- mi/vi/li/ŝi/ĝi/ni/ili estas
The Arcaicam Esperantom verb estir (to be), present tense:
- (mihi) estams
- (tu) estas
- (lùi/eshi/eghi/egui/sihi) estat
- (nos) estaims
- (wos) estais
- (ilùi) estait
The other verb tenses behave the same way, as does the conditional mood:
- The future-tense conjugation estos becomes estoms, etc.
- The past-tense conjugation estis becomes estims, etc.
- The conditional-mood conjugation estus becomes estums, etc.
The imperative mood behaves differently to that pattern:
- The imperative form estu stays estu for singular subjects, but becomes estuy for plural subjects.
Nouns
| Language | Nominative | Accusative | Dative | Genitive | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | plural | singular | plural | singular | plural | singular | plural | |
| Arcaicam Esperantom | ~om | ~oy | ~on | ~oyn | ~od | ~oyd | ~es | ~eys |
| Esperanto | ~o | ~oj | ~on | ~ojn | al x~o | al x~oj | de ~o | de ~oj |
- -o becomes om (sg. noun, nominative)
- -oj becomes oy (pl. noun, nominative)
- -on stays -on (sg. noun, accusative)
- -ojn becomes -oyn (pl. noun, accusative)
- al x-o, kun x-o becomes x-od (sg. noun, dative – ex.: al domo becomes domod)
- al x-oj, kun x-oj becomes x-oyd (pl. noun, dative – ex.: al domoj becomes domoyd)
- de x-o becomes x-es (sg. noun, genitive – ex.: de domo becomes domes)
- de x-oj becomes x-eys (pl. noun, genitive – ex.: de domoj becomes domeys)
- -e becomes -œ (adverb) (This is a new phoneme, not present in modern Esperanto. It is pronounced like the German öÖ"Ö", or "ö", is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut to denote the front vowels or . In languages without umlaut, the character is also used as a "O with diaeresis" to denote a syllable break, wherein its pronunciation remains an unmodified .- O-Umlaut...
.) - -aŭ becomes -ez (-aŭ-adverb such as baldaŭ, etc.)
- -a becomes -am (sg. adjective, nominative)
- -aj becomes -ay (pl. adjective, nominative)
Nouns
- A noun is always written with a capital letter. Ex: Glawom = (la) glavo.
- The verb infinitive can function as a noun, having the meaning that is carried in modern Esperanto by the root with the suffix -ado. The infinitive functioning as a noun takes, as does any other noun, both a capital letter and a case ending. Ex: Legirom = (la) legado.
Correlatives
- ki- becomes cuy-
- ti- becomes ity-
- i- becomes hey-
- neni- becomes nemy-
- ĉi- becomes chey-
- ali- becomes altri-
(Note: Ali-, which in modern Esperanto is not actually a correlative despite its use in that fashion by some, becomes in Arkaika Esperanto as altri- a full-fledged correlative.)
- -o becomes -om
- -a becomes -am
- -am becomes -ahem
- -e becomes -œ
- -om becomes -ohem
- (-u stays -u)
- (-el stays -el)
- the particle ĉi becomes is- (ĉi tiu = isityu)
Articles
- The definite article la does not exist in Arcaicam Esperantom. If necessary, a specific person or object can be indicated by means of ityu (in modern Esperanto tiu).
- The indefinite article, which modern Esperanto does not have, does exist in Arcaicam Esperantom. The indefinite article is unn (which is the same word for the number 1).
The Lord's Prayer
Patrom nosam, cuyu estu in Chielom, Estu sanctigitam Tuam Nomom. Wenu Tuam Regnom, Plenumighu Tuam Wolom, Cuyel in Chielom, ityel anquez sobrez Terom. Nosid donu hodiez Panon nosan cheyutagan, Ed nosid pardonu nosayn Pecoyn, Cuyel anquez nos ityuyd cuyuy contrez nos pecait pardonaims. Ed nosin ned conducu in Tenton, Sed nosin liberigu ex Malbonom. Amen. |
Version with cognates in standard Esperanto: Patro nia, kiu estas en Ĉielo, Estu sanktigita Via Nomo. Venu Via regno, Plenumiĝu Via volo Kiel en Ĉielo, tiel ankaǔ sur Tero. Al ni donu hodiaŭ panon nian ĉiutagan, Kaj al ni pardonu niajn pekojn Kiel ankaŭ ni tiujn, kiuj kontraŭ ni pekas, pardonas. Kaj nin ne konduku en tenton Sed nin liberigu el malbono. Amen. |
Romeo ed Julieta
- Sed haltu: cuyam Lumom traradiat
- Ityun Phenestron? Yemen orientom,
- Ed Julieta estat memes Sunom!
- Lewizzu, belam Sunom, ed mortigu
- Enwian Lunon, cuyu tristœ palat,
- Char tu, Serwantom eshiam, estas yam
- Plid belam ol eshi memes. Ned estu plud
- Eshiam Serwantom, se eshi tuin enwiat:
- Eshiam westalam Robom estat werdam
- Ed malsanetzam, ed solœ Pholuloy
- Wolontœ eghin portait. Eghin phorjetu.
- Yemen Damom miham; ho, yemen Amom miham!
- Se solœ ityon eshi stziut!
Phrases
- Salutoyn cheyuyd! Cuyel phartais wos? – Hello everyone, how are you?
- Lùi Biawistoqueys wenat. – He comes from Białystok.
- Cuyel nomizzas? – What is your name?
- Nomizzams Petrus – My name is Peter.
- Ityon comprenams bonœ. – I understand that well.
- Tempom phughat. – OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
- Amom cheyon wencat. – VirgilVirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
- Ityel pasat mondes Glorom. – Thomas à KempisThomas à KempisThomas à Kempis was a late Medieval Catholic monk and the probable author of The Imitation of Christ, which is one of the best known Christian books on devotion. His name means, "Thomas of Kempen", his home town and in German he is known as Thomas von Kempen...
- Ritmom estat in Tempom cuyom estat Simetrom in Spatzom. – CiceroCiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
- Wenims, widims, wenquims. – Julius CaesarJulius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....