Eurolengo
Encyclopedia
Eurolengo is a constructed language
invented by Leslie Jones with the intention of it becoming a common international language, "intended as a practical tool for business and tourism." The vocabulary consists of words borrowed from English
and Spanish
and made to conform to a consistent phonetic and orthographic system. However, Eurolengo "concentrates on the Latin component of English rather than its Anglo-Saxon aspect."
The Eurolengo alphabet is almost the same as the English alphabet, except there is no C
(its phonemes being taken over by either S
or K
), but the Ch digraph
is treated as a letter. Jones avoided the English sounds "th," "ough," "ph;" the Spanish Ll
; the French nasals; and the Dutch guttural "g" and "sch." Eurolengo grammar requires adjectives to precede nouns, "and adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the suffix -lik (or -ik if the adjective already ends in 'l')."
Like most constructed languages, Eurolengo aims to eliminate certain ambiguous or difficult traits many natural languages have. Eurolengo does not do this with the thoroughness of Esperanto
or Lojban
, but allows natural variation, as with Interlingua
or Occidental
. To give two examples: silent E
's are allowed at the end of words; the words for the numbers eleven
and twelve
are not formed in the same way as those for 13 to 19.
Critics find a Spanglish
flavor to the language, and that "reading is only straightforward if the requisite languages (in this case English and Spanish) are already familiar."
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...
invented by Leslie Jones with the intention of it becoming a common international language, "intended as a practical tool for business and tourism." The vocabulary consists of words borrowed from English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and made to conform to a consistent phonetic and orthographic system. However, Eurolengo "concentrates on the Latin component of English rather than its Anglo-Saxon aspect."
The Eurolengo alphabet is almost the same as the English alphabet, except there is no C
C
Ĉ 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...
(its phonemes being taken over by either S
S
S 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...
or K
K
K 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....
), but the Ch digraph
Ch (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...
is treated as a letter. Jones avoided the English sounds "th," "ough," "ph;" the Spanish Ll
Ll
Ll/ll is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages.-In English:In English, ll represents the same sound as single l:...
; the French nasals; and the Dutch guttural "g" and "sch." Eurolengo grammar requires adjectives to precede nouns, "and adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the suffix -lik (or -ik if the adjective already ends in 'l')."
Like most constructed languages, Eurolengo aims to eliminate certain ambiguous or difficult traits many natural languages have. Eurolengo does not do this with the thoroughness of Esperanto
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...
or Lojban
Lojban
See also discussed by Arthur Protin, Bob LeChevalier, Carl Burke, Doug Landauer, Guy Steele, Jack Waugh, Jeff Prothero, Jim Carter, and Robert Chassell, as well as , the concepts which "average English speakers won't recognize" because most of them "have no exact English counterpart".Like most...
, but allows natural variation, as with Interlingua
Interlingua
Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
or Occidental
Occidental language
The language Occidental, later Interlingue, is a planned language created by the Balto-German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and published in 1922....
. To give two examples: silent E
E
E is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:...
's are allowed at the end of words; the words for the numbers eleven
11 (number)
11 is the natural number following 10 and preceding 12.Eleven is the first number which cannot be counted with a human's eight fingers and two thumbs additively. In English, it is the smallest positive integer requiring three syllables and the largest prime number with a single-morpheme name...
and twelve
12 (number)
12 is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13.The word "twelve" is the largest number with a single-morpheme name in English. Etymology suggests that "twelve" arises from the Germanic compound twalif "two-leftover", so a literal translation would yield "two remaining [after having ten...
are not formed in the same way as those for 13 to 19.
Critics find a Spanglish
Spanglish
.Spanglish refers to the blend of Spanish and English, in the speech of people who speak parts of two languages, or whose normal language is different from that of the country where they live. The Hispanic population of the United States and the British population in Argentina use varieties of...
flavor to the language, and that "reading is only straightforward if the requisite languages (in this case English and Spanish) are already familiar."