Date 2010 Writing system Latin | Users 25+ (2012) | |
Created by D.Ivanov, A.Lysenko and others Setting and usage International auxiliary language Purpose constructed language
International auxiliary language
Lingwa de planeta (Lidepla) | ||
Lingwa de planeta (also Lidepla, LdP) is a constructed international auxiliary language, whose development began in 2006 in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, by a group of enthusiasts, with Dmitri Ivanov being the project leader. The basic version of the language was published in June 01/ 2010. Lidepla is based on the most widely spoken languages of the world, including Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish , German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian and French .
Contents
Concept
The main idea was to create a harmonious whole on the base of the most widespread and influential national languages of the planet. That results in the Lidepla vocabulary containing a fairly significant amount of non-European words, making Lidepla a worldlang. A general design principle for Lidepla was to have something in common with the native languages of most of the people on Earth.
Project team and use of the language
The project leader is a psychologist, Dmitri Ivanov. He laid the foundation of the language. Linguists A. Vinogradova and E. Ivanova helped a lot during the early period of Lidepla development. In 2007 A. Lysenko joined and became the main linguist of the project.
From the very beginning the project was open and widely discussed in a number of conlanger groups. As of 2014, more than 15 people contributed to the language considerably (that is, worked on vocabulary and grammar, translated and wrote original texts, including songs), not speaking about those who participated in discussions.
At the moment the language is used in real communication, mainly in Internet (facebook, yahoo, Boards.net etc.). About 10-15 people master the language, about 50 can use it in communication. There are a lot of texts translated, including rather spacious texts like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll, and "Sailor Ruterford in Maori captivity" (by Nikolay Chukovsky, son of Korney Chukovsky, translated from Russian), and also some fairy-tales and tales. There are songs written/translated and sung, including an album of professional musician eo:Jonny M, and subtitles made for cartoons and films (like popular Russian film "Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future").
Description of the language
In some sources the date of creation of Lidepla is stated to be 2006. It is important to say, though, that the "basic version" of the language was published only in 2010. The basics of the language is not to be changed after that.
Phonology
There are 17 basic consonants (b, d, g; p, t, k; w, f; s, ʃ; x; d͡ʒ, d͡z; m, n, r, l) and 3 optional ones (v; t͡ʃ; ŋ) in Lidepla.
Distinction of the sounds w — v, d͡ʒ — t͡ʃ is not obligatory, that is they may be pronounced in the same way, as there are no minimal pairs for them. The ŋ sound is the same as in English (in -ing ending).
There are 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) in the language.
Alphabet and pronunciation
The official Lidepla alphabet is based on the Latin script and has 25 letters.
The general rule regarding the stress is: the vowel before the last consonant (or "y") is stressed: máta (mother), família (family), akshám (evening), ruchéy (brook). Lidepla tries to preserve the original sounding of the international words, though, so there are some exceptions, as follows:
Vocabulary
Most Lidepla vocabulary is made up of international words of Latin origin. The part of the most frequent words are of English, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi origin, though. There are not definite endings for different parts of speech, so nearly any word can be easily incorporated (the words are adapted to Lidepla phonology and don't preserve original orthography).
As of 2014, in the Lidepla vocabulary there are about 4,000 entries, meaning about 10,000 individual words. The number is constantly increasing. For a word to be incorporated, the following principles are taken into account:
The whole Lidepla phrases sometimes sound very close to the national languages ones:
" ... While borrowing a word, we usually save its pronunciation, not spelling..."
Grammar
The Lidepla grammar is based on 3 rules.
Rule of belonging to a word class
Every Lidepla word belongs to a word class (noun, verb, adjective, adverb etc.). Derivation takes place by means of affixes and particles:
There are no fixed endings for the word classes, there are preferable, though. Thus most verbs end in "i", but there are some exceptions (jan (to know), shwo (to talk) etc.).
Derivation
By means of affixes and particles new words can be made up, both of the same class and of the other. For example:
Rule of the constant form
The word form never changes. Special particles are used to express the grammatical meanings, for example:
The only two exceptions are:
Principle of necessity
The use of special particle is optional if its meaning is clear from the context. For example:
Rule of direct word order
The word order in a sentence is usually direct, that is subject — predicate — object, attribute goes before the noun, prepositions are before the noun group they refer to.
If the word order is changed, it is shown by the use of special particles, for example "den" (is put before the object), for example: Ela lubi lu. Den lu ela lubi. — She loves him.
Sample text
(Pater Noster, the Lord's prayer)
Nuy Patra kel es pa swarga,
hay Yur nam fa-sante,
hay Yur reging lai,
hay yur vola fulfil
i pa arda i pa swarga.
Dai ba a nu nuy pan fo jivi sedey
e pardoni ba a nu nuy deba,
kom nu pardoni toy-las kel debi a nu.
Bye dukti nu inu temta
e protekti nu fon bada.
Spoken frontal face sample
Due to absence of Lidepla "frontal face" video material one video sequences were dubbed to Lidepla. Translations were checked by Lidepla creators and partly spoken (character Runa). Regarding playlist can be found at Youtube (NoRuLa: Lidepla conlang dubbing project).