Lingua Franca Nova is an auxiliary constructed language created by Dr. C. George Boeree of Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania. It is based on French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan. The language is phonetically spelled, using 21 letters of either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets. It is often short-handed to the acronym LFN.
The grammar is based on that of Romance creoles. Like most creoles, LFN has a highly simplified grammar system. However, this system does not mean that one is not able to be as expressive in LFN as one could be in any other language.
History
Dr. C. George Boeree started working on LFN in 1965. His goal was to create a simple, creole-like international auxiliary language. He was inspired to do this from a old language called Lingua franca. He used French, Italian, Portugese, Spanish, and Catalan as the basis for his new language. Catalan was used because of its linguistic neutrality, and was often a "tie-breaker" to decide which form of a word to use.
Grammar
Remember that this is merely an overview of the Lingua Franca Nova grammar. The official grammar is located here.
Verbs
The past tense is indicated by the particle ia, and the future tense by the particle va. There are also many auxilary verbs to expand verb usage.
The infinitive form of all LFN verbs is the same as their present tense form with an '-r' at the end. For example: vide, meaning "see/sees", has the infinitive form vider. The infinitive form of a verb can also be used as a noun, much like a gerund in English. For example: Vider es bon means "Seeing is good."
Verbs in their present tense form can also be used as nouns. For example, dansa, as a verb, means "dance/dances", but it can also mean "a dance" when used as a noun. Example: Me ia dansa a la dansa means "I danced at the dance."
The present participle is formed by adding -nte to the verb. For example, come becomes comente, meaning "eating". The past participle is formed by adding 'da' to the verb. For example, come becomes comeda, meaning "eaten".
Nouns
Unlike other international auxiliary languages, such as Esperanto, LFN does not have specific endings for its nouns (in the case of Esperanto, '-o'). To make a noun plural, one must add '-s' if the noun ends in a vowel, or '-es' if the noun ends in a consonant.
Adjectives
Unlike all other Romance languages, LFN's adjectives don't have plural forms (i.e. they don't "agree" with the nouns they describe).
Like verbs, adjectives can be used as nouns. For example, bela means "beautiful", but la bela means "the beautiful (one)". However, bela does not mean "beauty"; belia does.
Adverbs
LFN doesn't have explicit adverbs (as Esperanto does). Instead, any adjective can be used as a adverb when placed near a verb (see below).
Word Order
LFN has a very strict word order. The general word order is:
subject noun phrase - verb phrase (- object noun phrase)
A noun phrase has this order:
(article -) noun (- adjective)
A verb phrase has this order:
(auxiliary -) verb (- adverb)
Additionally, there are prepositional phrases, which have this order:
preposition - noun phrase
Pronunciation
Below are the Lingua Franca Nova letters and the IPA values.
| LFN | IPA
|
| a | a
|
| b | b
|
| c | k
|
| d | d
|
| e | e
|
| f | f
|
| g | g
|
| i | i
|
| j |
|
| l | l
|
| m | m
|
| n | n
|
| o | o
|
| p | p
|
| r | r
|
| s | s
|
| t | t
|
| u | u
|
| v | v
|
| x | ʃ
|
| z | z
|
External links
Last updated: 08-25-2005 00:20:51
