Babm

Babm (pronounced [bɔˈɑːbɔmu]) is an international auxiliary language created by the Japanese philosopher Rikichi [Fuishiki] Okamoto (1885–1963). Okamoto first published the language in his 1962 book, Universal Auxiliary Language Babm, but the language has not caught on even within the constructed language community, and does not have any known current speakers. The language uses the Latin script as a syllabary: each letter marks an entire syllable rather than a single phoneme. To readers used to the Latin script, this creates a rather oddly compacted script with far more consonant letters than vowel letters.

The language has in common with some 17th-century artificial languages an over-riding concern with taxonomy, and providing a universally consistent set of names for chemicals, etc.; the author's "scientific" preoccupation is a contrast to the socio-political mandate of Esperanto, although the 1962 book is certainly not lacking in statements about world peace.