Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Ceqli

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Ceqli is an engineered language, based on Loglan by Rex F. May. Ceqli is an attempt to retain the terseness and adaptability of English and Mandarin, while simplifying the phonology and eliminating some awkwardness.

Contents

Pronouns

  • ciba — this thing
  • caba — that thing near you
  • cuba — that thing remote from both of us

    • Adjectives

    Adjectives are indicated by the particle 'sa'.

  • "gra sa dom" — big house
  • "pyu sa hyun" — small dog
  • Go ten gra sa hon. — I have a big book.

    • If no 'sa' is present, the adjective merges with the noun to form a compound word, which is then treated as if it were a root itself. Such compounds have their own meaning, often quite different from the adjective-noun phrase they're derived from.

  • "blu sa fawl" — blue bird
  • "blufawl" — bluebird
  • "cwaq sa cam" — bed room, room for beds, room where beds are sold, etc.
  • "cwaqcam" — bedroom
  • "bawm sa dom" — tree house, house made of trees, house for trees to live in, etc.
  • "bawmdom" — treehouse
  • "zver sa hila" — animal doctor, doctor for animals, doctor who is an animal, etc.
  • "zverhila" — veterinarian
  • "fayr sa cari" — fire stick, stick for fire, stick for burning, etc.
  • "fayrcari" — match

    • Ceqli allows whole phrases to act as adjectives, setting them off with the 'sa'.

    "Go xaw kom pan sa hyun." — "I see the dog that eats bread" or "I see the bread-eating dog"
    "To dorm to dom sa hyun pa kom to hon." — The dog that sleeps in the house ate the book.

    Word shape

    In Ceqli, letters fall into two main categories: leading letters (cwazim) and following letters (falozim). Falozim are the sonorants – vowels A, E, I, O and U, plus L, M, N, Q (pronounced as "ng"), R, W and Y. All other letters – the obstruents – are cwazim. All Ceqli morphemes are in the shape nCnF, that is, one or more cwazim followed by one or more falozim.

    Vocabulary

    Because of the word-shape rule above, Ceqli borrows its words from all languages in the world, starting with the largest, based on whether the words fit the Ceqli word shape. English "green" fits, so the Ceqli word for green is "grin". But "red" does not, so the Mandarin word "hong" is borrowed into Ceqli as "hoq" ("q" makes the "ng" sound). Neither the English nor the Mandarin word for "white" works, so the Russian word is borrowed as "byel". This automatically gives Ceqli a very international vocabulary. In this sentence

    to dorm to dom sa hyun pa kom to hon

    the words are derived thus:

  • "to" is Greek
  • "dorm" is French or Spanish
  • "to" again is Greek
  • "dom" is Russian or Polish
  • "sa" is made up
  • "hyun" is Cantonese
  • "pa" is from English "past"
  • "kom" is from Spanish "comer"
  • "to" again is Greek
  • "hon" is Japanese

    • References

    Ceqli Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA