Angos: Difference between revisions
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! | ! | ||
!colspan="2"| | !colspan="2"| Bilabial | ||
!colspan="2" | !colspan="2"| Labio-<br />dental | ||
!colspan="2" | !colspan="2"| Alveolar | ||
!colspan="2" | !colspan="2"| Post-<br />alveolar | ||
!colspan="2" | !colspan="2"| Palatal | ||
!colspan="2" | !colspan="2"| Velar | ||
!colspan="2" | !colspan="2"| Glottal | ||
|- | |- | ||
! | ! Nasal | ||
| | | | || m | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| | | | || n | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| | | | || ŋ''*'' | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|- | |- | ||
! | ! [Plosive | ||
| p || b | |||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| t || d | |||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| k || ɡ | |||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|- | |- | ||
! | ! Affricate | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| tʃ (c) || | |||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|- | |- | ||
! | ! Fricative | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| f || v | |||
| {{IPAlink|s}} || | | {{IPAlink|s}} || | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| h || | |||
|- | |- | ||
! | ! Approximant | ||
| | | | || w | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| | | | || l | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
| | | | || j (y) | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | ||
|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| |
Latest revision as of 21:00, 18 December 2012
Angos (/'aŋ.gos/) is a constructed international auxiliary language created by Benjamin Wood in 2011. It is designed to be phonetically regular with a strict Subject-Verb-Object sentence structure, a reduced phonemic inventory, and small vocabulary base. The main linguistic influences of Angos are English, Mandarin Chinese, Finnish, and Spanish, from which grammar, syntax, and phonotactics are derived. The language's vocabulary is mostly a posteriori, being borrowed from many different languages, including rarer languages such as Basque, Navajo, and Irish Gaelic.[1] The Angos dictionary has been translated into English, Hungarian, and French.
A notable feature of Angos is the absence of verb and adjective roots, instead being represented with part-of-speech markers (like those used in Esperanto). In other words: verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs are derived from nouns. An additional feature is a morphological distinction between natural and man-made nouns. The word angos translates to "man-made language".
As of 2012, there are at least 4 speakers in Hungary, Finland, and the United States. Angos has been listed on Risto Kupsala's list of worldlangs as an 'Active' language.[2]
Phonology and Orthography
Angos is written using the Latin alphabet; the 21 letters are identical to their IPA equivalents unless specified otherwise in parenthesis.
Vowels
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
Close | i | u |
Mid | e/ɛ* | o/ɔ* |
Open | a |
Diphthongs
Vowel Pair | IPA |
---|---|
au (final)*, aw | aʊ |
eu (final), ew | ɛʊ |
ou (final), ow | oʊ |
ai (final), ay | aɪ |
ei (final), ey | ɛɪ |
oi (final), oy | oɪ |
* occurs at the end of the word
Consonants
Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ* | |||||||||||
[Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | ||||||||
Affricate | tʃ (c) | |||||||||||||
Fricative | f | v | Template:IPAlink | h | ||||||||||
Approximant | w | l | j (y) |
* allophone of /n/; occurs before velar plosives
Morphology
Parts of Speech
Like Esperanto, Ido, and other Esperantidos, Angos uses a system of letter classifiers to designate a word's part of speech. Root classifiers (o, a, i, and u) can be further inflected with -s to denote a man-made quality.
Classifier | Part of Speech | Example | Translation | Man-Made | Example | Translation |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
-o | natural noun | nesumo | mouse | -os | nesumos | computer mouse (man-made mouse) |
-a | noun action (verb) | ota | burn | -as | otas | burn (by man-made means) |
-i | noun quality (adjective) | lavi | small | -is | lavis | small (by man-made means) |
-u | noun action quality (adverb) | hilosu | quickly | -us | hilosus | quickly (by man-made means) |
-e | particle (prepositions, conjunctions, correlatives, and other adverbs) | de | to, at | |||
-n | number | ayn | one |
Nouns
Nouns in Angos are static; they do not change for definitiveness, number, or case.
- leisos - a/the house
- le leisos - houses (the particle le signals plurality)
- de leisos - to a/the house (where de signals direction towards something)
Articles (a/an, the) are not present in Angos. Instead, determiners from the correlative table are used to indicate definitiveness.
Pronouns
Following the use of the noun ending -o and the plural particle le, pronouns have the following configuration:
Angos | English |
---|---|
wo | I, me |
to | you |
lo | he/she/it, him/her/it |
le wo | we, us |
le to | you all |
le lo | they, them |
Verbs
Verbs in Angos are ambitransitive; they can act transitively or intransitively depending on the presence of an object or prepositional phrase. Verbs do not conjugate for person, number, tense, aspect, or mood.
- Wo ala. - I eat / I am eating.
- Wo ala tofao. - I eat an apple.
- Wo sona. - I sleep.
- Wo sona lo. - I cause him/her to fall asleep
Reflexivity can be expressed or emphasized with the adverb idu
- Wo idu sona. - I cause myself to fall asleep (I fall asleep).
Because there are no inherent verb roots in Angos, the meaning of a word with the verb ending is dependent on the context of the noun root used. For example, ota, from the root ot- meaning "fire", does not inherently mean "burn". It is instead any action related to the use of "fire" in context.
- Vao ota. - The tree is burning.
- Wo ota momos. - I light the candle. (in this sense, applying fire to something)
A more common verb ba, from b- "grasp", is more fluid-
- Wo ba lo.
- "I grasp it." (physically)
- "I take it."
- "I get it." (physically and mentally)
- "I understand it."
- "I know it."
Grammar and Syntax
Word Order
Angos uses Subject-Verb-Object word order, with direct modifiers preceding what they modify.
- Mao ala nesumo.
- [The] cat eats [the] mouse.
Thus a sentence with modifiers would follow the pattern [subject adjective]-Subject-[adverb]-Verb-[object adjective]-Object.
- Bali mao hilosu ala lavi nesumo.
- [The] big cat quickly eats [the] small mouse.
For modal verbs such as bisaa "can" or desa "want", the secondary verb (if there is one), is placed after the modal.
- Lo bisaa aksala.
- He/She can write.
Descriptors will still precede each of the verbs.
- Lo bisaa hilosu aksala
- He/She can write quickly.
The passive voice in Angos is formed with the particle te, placed immediately in front of the verb.
- Kalimo te aksala dave ipos
- [The] word is written on [the] paper.
- Vindawgos me te tayla ve wo
- [The] window was broken by me.
Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases are formed with a preposition, modifiers of the object, then the object(s) of the preposition.
- Los ine leisos
- It [is] in [the] house
- Mao ala nesumo ine leisos.
- The cat eats the mouse in the house. (describes the position of the action)
For the purposes of literature, prepositional phrases may begin the sentence.
Particles
"Particles" is a catch-all category that includes prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, some adverbs, and other non-classifiable words. All these words end in -e and, if applicable, precede whatever they modify.
The following are selected particles with English translations, showing the variety of parts-of-speech the category encompasses.
Particle | English |
---|---|
se | yes |
sevame | let's (do sth), ought |
hiante | before (temporal) |
tave | there is, there are |
oe | or |
ke | general future particle |
oke | OK, alright |
Angos uses a correlative table to construct determiners, treated morphologically as particles. Correlatives are placed where their morphological counterparts would be. For example, "What do you want" would be written as "You want what".
What | This | That | Some | Any | Few | Many | Every | No | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
X |
kove what, which |
fove this, this thing |
dove that, that thing |
move some, something |
yove any, anything |
fetove few |
valove many |
osove each, everything |
nove no, nothing |
Time |
kue when |
fue now |
due later |
mue sometime |
yue anytime |
fetue seldom |
value many times |
osue always |
nue never |
Place |
koye where |
foye here |
doye there |
moye somewhere |
yoye anywhere |
fetoye few places |
valoye many places |
osoye everywhere |
noye nowhere |
Verb |
kewe do what |
fewe do this |
dewe do that |
mewe do something |
yewe do anything |
fetewe do a few things |
valewe do many things |
osewe do everything |
newe do nothing |
Association |
koce whose |
foce this one's |
doce that one's |
moce someone's |
yoce anyone's |
fetoce few people's |
valoce many people's |
osoce everyone's |
noce no one's |
The X and Association act as noun modifiers.
- Wo desa ba fove dalo
- I want to get this gift.
- Ce fove moce mafteos?
- Is this someone's key?
The Time and Place correlatives act as action modifiers and precede the verb.
- Wo osue selenu hod-hayas
- I always drive carefully.
- Wo foye me gia
- I walked here.
The Verb correlatives are undisclosed or general actions and act like normal verbs.
- To kewe?
- What are you doing?
- Nae dewe
- Don't do that.
Relative Clauses
Unlike some languages, Angos does not use any interrogative correlatives to form a relative clause. Instead, the particle lae is used.
- Na-omo lae wo me via - The man who I saw
- Oyo lae me cea - The place where it happened
- Leisos lae (lis) vindawgos tayli - The house whose (its) windows are broken
Compounding
Angos employs heavy use of endocentric compounding, in which the head of the compound modifies the following root. Compounds are formed by root junction, with a dash (-) separating each root. The root at the end of the compound is the focus, and is the one that inflects for part-of-speech.
Compound words may have as many roots necessary to form the idea, though the majority of compounds are between 2 and 3 roots in length.
Examples:
- tesem-leisos
- dog house
With the root tesem (dog) + leis (shelter) + artificial noun ending os. House is the focus of the compound, and dog describes the purpose or quality of the following root. In this context, it is a man-made shelter for a dog.
- yel-hay-oyos
- airport
yel (sky) + hay (vessel) + oy place + os. Air describes vessel (airplane), and air vessel describes the place.
If two compounded roots break a phonological rule, an unmarked reduced vowel sound /ɛ/ may be placed between the roots. Thus yel-hay (airplane) in the previous example would be rendered phonetically as /'jɛl(ɛ)'haj/, as the consonant l must be succeeded by a vowel or semivowel.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary base of Angos draws from many different languages across many language families. The chosen roots reflect linguistic constraints (such as tones) and current linguistic dominance. There are approximately 1,200 roots that, when inflected, allow for up to 9,600 semantically independent words. This is not including the tens of thousands of possible compound words or the semantically flexible nature of the language.
Indo-European (45%)
- Latin (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese)
- Germanic (German, English, Dutch, Swedish)
- Greek
- Indo-Iranian (Persian, Hindi/Urdu)
- Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech)
- Armenian
- Celtic (Irish Gaelic, Welsh)
Altaic (13%)
- Japanese
- Korean
- Turkic (Turkish, Azerbaijani)
Finno-Ugric (12%)
Semitic (9%)
Austronesian (5%)
- Tagalog
- Malay
- Indonesian
- Polynesian (Hawaiian, Maori)
Native American Languages (4%)
Sino-Tibetan (4%)
Bantu (4%)
Other (4%)
Sample
Has-ku-bavelo ye Yango (The North Wind and the Sun)
Angos
Has-ku-bavelo me aolaa, lo sefe makti. Yango me sukoba, tave makto mwe kulameo. |
English
The North Wind boasted of great strength. The Sun argued that there was great power in gentleness. |