Europic

• Europic
• Europic words
• Europic extragrammatical sets

Europic (natively, Yevropicu /ˌjevroˈpiʃu/), also known as Eulingo (or jocularly as Fauxperanto), is a constructed auxiliary language consisting of mostly Indo-European roots commissioned by the European Central Authority (ECA) near the end of the 21st century. It is mainly isolating and analytic, and contains many specific contrasts to Esperanto, though the two are not entirely dissimilar. The language became widely spoken in the 22nd and 23rd centuries, and many variants emerged after the collapse of the ECA and the language’s loss of official status. It is the direct ancestor of Iropich, later known as Proto-Human, ancestor of Rupesh, the language spoken by most humans on Selagró after the Terran Diaspora.

In-World (Fictional) History

In post-Brexit Europe, English remained an official language only in Ireland and Malta. By the end of the 21st century, English was lingua non grata on mainland Europe. The European Central Authority (ECA) explored various standards and auxiliary languages to try to buffer the influence of English in Europe, including adopting Esperanto as an official language, but various criticisms of the world’s only truly successful auxiliary language led them to reject this option. Eventually it was decided that no extant auxiliary languages were sufficient to promote European unity and culture, and a language was commissioned with a strict set of criteria. The contract was awarded to amateur conlanger and armchair linguist Syd Chrysanthi, who worked on the project for nearly seven years before presenting his final draft to the Deployment Committee: a joyless bunch of bureaucrats who had no real understanding of or appreciation for language.

The resulting language, officially known as Europic (French Europique, German Europisch, Italian Europese, Greek Εὐρωπικά, &c), was adopted as an official language of the ECA in 2097ᴀᴅ. It was eagerly learned, but quickly began to develop dialects reflective of the various Sprachbunds where it was spoken, particularly after the fall of the ECA in the mid-23rd century.

Descendants

Europic remained in use for official purposes for some time, much like Latin two millennia earlier, but by the 23rd Century, a distinct Romance-flavoured branch had formed in southern and western Europe.

Timeline

• Europic (endonym: Yevropicu): A language adopted by the ECA in 2097ᴀᴅ.
• Vulgar European (a.k.a. Colloquial or Late Western Europic) (endonym: Ivropicu (from ~2250ᴀᴅ; official start 2281ᴀᴅ) - a Romance-influenced dialect of Europic emerges in southern and western Europe.
  • Borrowing of some Romance features, e.g. shifting the meaning of la from a demonstrative to a genuine definite article, pronoun-incorporation on verbs recreating “conjugations,” and a number of Common-Romance borrowings (e.g. bona ‘good’ for brana; matru, patru ‘mother, father’ for vatrinu, vatrotcu; fratu ‘brother’ for bratotcu, &c.)
  • Changes to numbers: Numbers begin to follow nouns like adjectives, and shift away from their determiner roles. “Counting numbers” emerge as a distinct set apart from adjectival forms. In 2281ᴀᴅ, the Principality of Rivaria, an oppressive regime in southern Europe, mandated a dozenal number system (along with updated metric, time-keeping, and calendar systems).
  • In writing and for most purposes, Vulgar European is treated as “Colloquial Europic;” that is, it is still written with the same orthography and style as if it were Europic, but with occasional spelling or morphology changes where applicable. It is analogous to Late Latin, or to writing in dialect in English.
  • Phonologically, the most significant feature of this period was a change to the pronunciation of the “Postalveolar Consonants,” which became non-sibilant palatals: ⟨dj⟩ [ʤ → ɟʝ], ⟨j⟩ [ʒ → ʝ], ⟨tc⟩ [ʧ → cç], ⟨c⟩ [ʃ → ç].
  • A liquid dissimilation rule (an areal feature) also becomes apparent in certain words, e.g. drapru ‘cloth’ → draplu, kritri ‘around’ → krikli, sabluklu ‘grain of sand’ → sabruklu. This remains a persistent rule in the grammar of the language through Iropich.
  • Unstressed vowels are often deleted.
  • Initial y, w, and h are sometimes elided, thereby allowing words to begin with vowels.
• Iropich (a.k.a. Proto-Human) (~3000ᴀᴅ, Diaspora Era) - spoken by humans on the arcships. Known by later generations as “Proto-Human,” for although knowledge of Europic and other European languages still existed, as far as the human descendants of the arcships were aware, these were ancestors of all remaining humans in the galaxy.
  • Characterized by several phonological changes:
    • Loss of nearly all unstressed word-final vowels; as a result most words have final stress.
    • Palatalization of consonants before front vowels in many environments, especially word-finally.
    • “Darkening” of consonants before back vowels in certain environments (a blanket term for various sound changes, including n → ŋ, l → ɮ, r → ʀ, t → θ, g → ɣ, and many others.
    • Long vowels emerge through various processes.
    • Umlaut appears in various forms, usually only in stressed root vowels.
• Rupesh (a.k.a. Arxippian) (~3500ᴀᴅ, Post-collisionem) - spoken by descendants of the humans whose arcship crashed on Selagró. But that’s getting a little too close to the novel, which you’re going to have to wait a little longer to read.
  • Simplification of the complex phonology of Iropich.
    • Many “oblique” consonants merge, e.g. ɸ,f → f, β,v → v, ɟ,ɣ → ɣ, ʂ,ɕ → ʃ, ʐ,ʑ → ʒ.
    • Additional forms of umlaut appear.
    • The palatalization and “darkening” in Iropich is no longer productive. Palatalized front consonants are depalatalized. (Actually, they were never really palatalized to begin with, but Iropich was described by an overzealous trainee field linguist who way overcomplicated the language and was responsible for its janky orthography.)
    • Because of… space reasons I won’t give away here… the speakers of Rupesh reinvented their writing system, essentially from scratch, seizing the opportunity to de-jankify the overly-complicated orthography of Iropich, and adding many additional characters to the alphabet.
• NameTBD (a.k.a. Classical PlanetXian) (~4000ᴀᴅ)
• NameTBD2 (a.k.a. Modern PlanetXian) (~4500ᴀᴅ)

Language Goals

In-World (Fictional) Goals

• To create an auxiliary language for the 22nd-century European Union (later signed on by the United Nations and several world governments), partly as a measure to combat the influence of English on traditional European languages.
• While ease of pronunciation is a factor, there is an inherent assumption that anyone speaking another European language should have no trouble with the phonology, and Europic’s phonology is objectively simpler than that of Esperanto.
  • All words begin with a consonant and end with a vowel. No initial vowels are permitted in the phonotactics. This was a conscious choice intended to minimize the need for sandhi when adding affixes to word boundaries.
  • Monosyllabic words are reserved for pronouns, particles, determiners, prepositions, and conjunctions. There is also a small set of monosyllabic verbs.
  • All “basic” roots are composed of a single syllable, plus a vowel ending . Polysyllabic roots are tell-tale borrowings, e.g. palas-u ‘palace’.
• Regular derivation from Latinate languages in order to facilitate word recognition by certain groups is not a goal of this language. There should be no expectation that vocabulary be derived from Latin, Greek, or other common sources, though much of it may be recognizable.
  • Many terms are created ad hoc, a priori, or derived directly from one or more contemporary languages. Others are derived from Proto-Indo-European or sub-families such as Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Italic, or Proto-Celtic. Still more are derived from Proto-Finno-Ugric or other languages, or a combination of any of the above.
  • Many etymologies are clear; others are more opaque. No etymology was provided as part of the commissioning of the language: Any mysterious etymologies likely died with their creator, and any implied etymology is based on the best guesses of later scholars.
  • There is a deliberate “formula” for converting Greek and Latin compounds that are common to most European languages, resulting in words that are often very similar (e.g. de-grade ‘de-grade’ or tra-mete ‘transmit’) but often unrecognizable if one is unfamiliar with the “trick” (e.g. me-tir-acu ‘con-trac-tion’, mi-ke ‘inter-cept’).
• The language should have no inflection, including lack of plurals, verb tenses, and the infamous akuzativon. Plurals and other grammatical features are indicated (often optionally) with particles. Pronouns feature a reduced form of the plural particle.
• The language’s creator, Syd Chrysanthi, (perhaps erroneously) believed that a true auxiliary language should combine vocabulary elements of many different sources, but where Esperanto has disparate-looking words from varying backgrounds (e.g. amo ‘love’, from various Romance languages; baldaŭ ‘soon’, from German; birdo ‘bird’, from English), Europic regularly fuses words of different origins into Frankenwords like lyamu ‘love’ (presumably from Romance am- and Slavic ľubъ- and/or Germanic lub-/leub-), tahi ‘soon’ (possibly from French tôt, Estonian [pe]agi, Lithuanian [grei]tai, with other influences likely), and tcelu ‘bird’ (likely from Latin [au]cella or Italian [uc]cello, but with influence from Slavic ptič-, Germanic fugl- or flugl-, and others). Esperanto has a few examples of this sort of melding as well, such as ŝtono ‘stone’ from English stone and German Stein (/ʃtajn/), but it is not usual. In other instances, he seems to have “split the difference” between similar terms by choosing an ad hoc third option, e.g. bargu ‘beard’, or goltu ‘pain’, the g of each word being a voiced plosive alternative to b and d in Latinate barb- and Germanic bard-, or in Italic dol(or)- and Slavic bol-. (The final t in goltu is likely a nod to the final RC of the Germanic root smart- or hurt-.)
  Another example of third-option generation is kwembe ‘to hang’, taking the Romance root pend- and the Germanic root hang-: p and h are both close to kw (and p often derives from kw in Indo-European languages - compare words for ‘5’ quint- and pent-), and the velar + voiced plosive endings ng and nd are complemented by the only other option in that series:, mb. Finally and famously, the word pumbru ‘room (of a building)’ seems to have been made up of elements of Germanic temr (Zimmer, timber) and Italic camr (camera, chambre): The initial t and k were countered with their complement p; The root vowel u may have been a contrast to temr’s i/e and Italic’s a, or it was possibly just borrowed from Germanic rūm (i.e. room); the final mbr cluster is common to descendants of both Germanic and Italic, and the presence of b may have been further bolstered by, for example, Estonian tuba.
  Unfortunately, Chrysanthi (deliberately) did not publish the etymologies of the Europic lexicon, thinking that it may lead to unnecessary and unproductive debate over how much content from each extant European language was present, so the source of individual words remains mostly speculative.

Real-World Goals

• To avoid the usual pitfalls and criticisms of Esperanto to create a proto-language from which to derive the human languages used in a novel; particularly those spoken on the Arcships and subsequently on Selagró.
• I am not actually a proponent of auxiliary languages, and I am skeptical about their benefits over other natural and constructed languages. However, even though I am not on board with the mission of auxlangs more broadly, I did set out to make this a good one – whatever “good” means in this context (which is debatable and subjective).

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Dorsal
Stop	p · b /p/ · /b/	t · d /t/ · /d/		k · g /k/ · /ɡ/
Affricate			tc · dj /ʧ/ · /ʤ/
Fricative	f · v /f/ · /v/	s · z /s/ · /z/	c · j /ʃ/ · /ʒ/	h /x/
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/		(n) /ŋ/
Lateral		l /l/
Tap/Trill		r /r/
Approximant	w /w/		y /j/

The consonants are common to most European languages, though exact articulation of certain forms may vary from region to region. For example, the palatal sibilants (actually post-alveolars, ideally) are often realized as actual palatals in parts of Eastern Europe, while in the Nordic countries they may be closer to a retroflex. Similarly, the rhotic consonant (r), as in most languages, can have different realizations from region to region and even from town to town.

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i /i/ ·	u · /u/
Mid	e /e/ ·	o · /o/
Low	a /a/ ·

The vowels are rather simplistic: a classic five-vowel system. There is no distinction of vowel length, and no nasalization. There are no diphthongs or syllabic consonants.

Phonotactics

Onsets

All words must have a C onset. A standard root is (s)CVC, (s)CRVC, (s)CVRC, (s)CVCR, or (s)CVSC, where (s) can only be followed by p, t, or k; where R is a glide or liquid (r, l, y, w); and where S is a sonorant (r, l, y, w, m, n). The maximum root is CCVSCR, e.g. vringl‑. The following is a comprehensive list of all licit word-initial onsets:

	+∅	+l	+r	+w	+y	s+
p	p	pl	pr		py	sp
t	t		tr	tw		st
k	k	kl	kr	kw	ky	sk
b	b	bl	br	bw	by
d	d		dr	dw
g	g	gl	gr	gw	gy
tc	tc
dj	dj
f	f	fl	fr		fy
s	s			sw
c	c
h	h			hw	hy
v	v	vl	vr
z	z
j	j¹
m	m			mw	my
n	n			nw	ny
l	l			lw	ly
r	r
w	w					(sw)
y	y

¹ Initial ⟨j⟩ only occurs as an onset for suffixes to convert them into standalone words, e.g. ‑anglu ‘‑Vgon’ → janglu ‘polygon’.

Nuclei

All vowels must be separated by a C; i.e., there are no sequential vowels and no diphthongs.

“Medials” (Word-Internal Consonants)

Medial (intervocalic) consonants can be:

	+∅	+l	l+	+r	r+	+w	+y	N+	N+l	N+r	N+w	s+	c+	s+r	s+l
p	p	pl	lp	pr	rp		py	mp	mpl	mpr		sp
t	t		lt	tr	rt	tw		nt		ntr		st	ct	str
k	k	kl	lk	kr	rk	kw	ky	nk	nkl	nkr	nkw	sk	ck	skr	skl
b	b	bl	lb	br	rb	bw	by	mb	mbl	mbr
d	d		ld	dr	rd	dw		nd		ndr
g	g	gl	lg	gr	rg	gw	gy	ng	ngl	ngr	ngw
tc	tc		ltc		rtc			ntc
dj	dj		ldj		rdj			ndj
f	f	fl	lf	fr	rf		fy
s	s	sl	ls		rs	sw		ns
c	c		lc		rc
h	h	hl	lh	hr	rh	hw	hy
v	v	vl	lv	vr	rv	vw	vy
z	z	zl	lz		rz	zw		nz
j	j		lj		rj
m	m					mw	my					sm
n	n					nw	ny					sn
l	l					lw	ly					(sl)
r	r					rw	ry
w	w				(rw)							(sw)
y	y		(ly)		(ry)			(ny)

Codas

No consonantal codas are permitted in Europic.

Phones & Allophones

For the most part, and by design, most phonemes in the language are identical to their actual phonetic realization. However, as with any language, there is some slight variation.

Allophones (Intra-Dialectal Variation)

• /r/ - [r] → [ɾ] / C[+dnt]___. That is to say, /r/ is tapped ([ɾ]) rather than trilled ([r]) after a dental consonant, which, within the phonotactics of the language, is limited to the clusters /tr/ [tɾ] and /dr/ [dɾ].
• /n/ - [n] → [ŋ] / ___C[+vlr]. This is to say, /n/ is velarized ([ŋ]) before a velar consonant i.e. [ŋɡ], [ŋk]. (This is such a common allophone among European languages that /ŋ/ is included here as a phoneme, though a more scrutinous analysis would probably show that it is not.)

Inter-Dialectal Variation

• In most Southern and Western dialects, the non-sibilant alveolar consonants (/t, d, n, l/) are dental ([t̪, d̪, n̪, l̪]).
• In Northern and Western dialects spoken in Germanic-prominent areas, syllable-initial stop consonants (/p, t, k/) are aspirated ([pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]).
• The rhotic consonant (/r/) has many pronunciations from region to region. It is most commonly trilled or tapped (as above), but in some of the Francophone and Germanic areas, it is commonly more of a uvular trill ([ʀ]) or fricative ([ʁ]). In some areas of north-western Europe, it may even become approximant ([ɹ]) before another consonant.
• Vulgar European - a later dialect of the language spoken after 2250 ᴀᴅ - has both the dental and aspirated consonants as above, and the phonotactics are a bit looser:
  • Onsets are no longer required (some words can start with vowels, e.g. ite ‘go’ from earlier yite)
  • Vowels don’t require a consonant boundary (e.g. dua, tria ‘2, 3’ from earlier duwa, triya)
  • Some diphthongs emerge (mainly /uj/ and /aj/, e.g. mui ‘we’ from mu-ya, mai ‘our’ from ma-ya)
  • Some new consonant clusters emerge, e.g. /str/ vostri ‘eastward’

Compounding Strategies

Ideally, any good auxiliary language should have no compounding strategy beyond combining elements together to form larger words with no changes to said elements. Europic achieves this mostly by means of select hyphenation, which deserves a chapter of its own, the rules of which have changed multiple times over the years.

• Although a grammatical function rather than a phonetic one, I would also include here that the final -u of noun elements becomes -a when followed by another noun element, but in essence it is being converted into an adjective. These types of constructions are usually hyphenated. (La Memetatu has flip-flopped on the issue of hyphenation a number of times over the years. Chrysanthi originally proposed that all complete elements in compounds be hyphenated.) E.g.:
  • kervu ‘deer’ + klagru ‘meat’ → kerva-klagru ‘venison’
  • bratu ‘sibling’ + camu ‘spouse’ → brata-camu ‘brother-in-law’

Stress & Tone

Stress falls on the penultimate syllable of polysyllabic words, or on the only syllable of monosyllabic words. Most monosyllabic prepositions, particles, and conjunctions are not stressed.

Europic is not tonal.

Orthography & Romanization

Rom	IPA	Description	Example	Pronunciation
a	a [ä]	Like A in fAther.	vaka ‘bovine’	/ˈva.ka/
b	b	Like B in Boot.	bufu ‘toad’	/ˈbu.fu/
c	ʃ	Like SH in SHoe.	capu ‘sheep’	/ˈʃa.pu/
d	d	Like D in dog.	deka ‘ten’	/ˈde.ka/
dj	ʤ	Like J in Joke.	djentu ‘person’	/ˈʤen.tu/
e	e [e̞]	Like AY in dAY.	megla ‘large’	/ˈmeg.la/
f	f	Like F in Fool.	fuku ‘fire’	/ˈfu.ku/
g	ɡ	Like G in Get (never as in Gel).	gatu ‘cat’	/ˈɡa.tu/
h	x	Like CH in Scottish loCH.	tahi ‘soon’	/ˈta.xi/
i	i	Like EE in sEEn.	tci-la ‘this’	/ˈʧi.la/
j	ʒ	Like S in uSual.	muja ‘much’	/ˈmu.ʒa/
k	k	Like C in Cat.	kindu ‘child’	/ˈkin.du/
l	l	Like L in Light.	lingwu ‘language’	/ˈliŋ.ɡu/
m	m	Like M in Moon.	miru ‘ant’	/ˈmi.ru/
n	n	Like N in Now.	niku ‘grandchild’	/ˈni.ku/
n	[ŋ]	Before G, like NG in fiNGer. Before K, like NK in thiNKer.	blanka ‘white’	/ˈblaŋ.ka/
o	o [o̞]	Like O in nOpe.	nova ‘new’	/ˈno.va/
p	p	Like P in Peel.	penta ‘five’	/ˈpen.ta/
r	r	Like R in Spanish Rojo.	roda ‘red’	/ˈro.da/
s	s	Like S in Sign.	solu ‘sun’	/ˈso.lu/
t	t	Like T in Tank.	tablu ‘table’	/ˈtab.lu/
tc	ʧ	Like CH in CHeese.	tcelu ‘bird’	/ˈʧce.lu/
u	u	Like OO in fOOd.	vunklu ‘auncle’	/ˈvuŋ.klu/
v	v	Like V in Voice.	vatru ‘parent’	/ˈva.tru/
w	w	Like W in Went.	wovu ‘egg’	/ˈwo.vu/
y	j	Like Y in Yellow.	yite ‘go’	/ˈji.te/
z	z	Like Z in Zebra.	zebru ‘zebra’	/ˈze.bru/

Punctuation and Other Paraphonetic Notation

Punctuation for the most part is unremarkable, and tends to follow the conventions of the linguistic areas in which it is used. (For example, you’ll get a lot more commas from native German speakers, and they tend to use „wonky quotation marks“ ; Francophones tend to leave a space before any punctuation other than commas and periods, and they use their own « wonky quotation marks ».) Chrysanthi never mentioned punctuation in his final draft of the language (with the glaring exception of hyphens, which are covered in a later section), but there are (mostly ignored) standards and guidelines put forth by the Memetatu.

Morphology

It may be worth briefly discussing Chrysanthi’s approach to the putative parts of speech, as it is tied directly to the morphology of the language. Chrysanthi held that there were essentially only four true parts of speech: Nominals, Adjectives, Verbs, and Adverbs. (Some of his writings go a step further, and group nominals and adjectives together as “Noun Elements,” and verbs and adverbs together as “Verb Elements.”) The nominals are made up of nouns, proper nouns, and pronouns, and indeed these all end in ‑u in Europic. In addition to the classical descriptors, the adjective class contains determiners and numbers (and according to Chrysanthi, numbers are a sub-type of determiner). All members of the adjective class end in ‑a. Verbs end in ‑e, and there is nothing particularly interesting about their distribution. Finally the adverb class is a bit of a catch-all for all remaining parts of speech. Deadjectival adverbs end in ‑i, but otherwise there are no specific vowel endings assigned to the adverb class: prepositions, particles, and conjunctions may end in any vowel except for a small group of non-pronominal, non-adjectival correlatives which end in ‑o (namely, ‑mo ‘how’, ‑no ‘when’, and ‑vo ‘where’). And, although he never mentioned them specifically, interjections and exclamations were considered members of the adverb class, almost always ending in ‑e.

Nominals

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns have no distinction for gender, but they are the only substantive which has a requisite plural form. There is an animation distinction in the third person. The first person plural has both inclusive and exclusive forms. The possessive of each pronoun is simply the adjectival form of the pronoun, though unlike most adjectives, the possessives are determiners, which precede the noun (phrase) they modify.

Though recommended usage is to hyphenate the pronouns, this is a little more relaxed in practice than the other compounds, especially for the longer forms, like ma-ta-ya-lu ~ mataya-lu ~ matayalu.

Sing.	Psn	Poss.	Prn.	Plur.	Psn	Poss.	Prn.
mu	1sg.	ma	ma-lu	mu-ya	1pl. excl.	ma-ya	ma-ya-lu
mu-tu	1+2sg.	ma-ta	ma-ta-lu	mu-tu-ya	1pl. incl.	ma-ta-ya	ma-ta-ya-lu
tu	2sg.	ta	ta-lu	tu-ya	2pl.	ta-ya	ta-ya-lu
ru	3sg. anim.	ra	ra-lu	ru-ya	3pl. anim.	ra-ya	ra-ya-lu
su	3sg. inan.	sa	sa-lu	su-ya	3pl. inan.	sa-ya	sa-ya-lu

Possessive Pronouns

The possessive determiners (‘my’, ‘your’, ‘their’, &c) can be converted to pronouns (‘mine’, ‘yours’, ‘theirs’, &c) with the addition of the pronominal suffix -lu, e.g. ta ‘your’, ta-lu ‘yours’.

Indefinite Pronouns

Many of the most common indefinite pronouns can be found as part of the Correlatives. The third person personal pronouns ru and su are frequently compounded to form indefinite pronouns ‘-one’ and ‘-thing’.

Nouns

There is not a lot to be said about nouns. Nouns all take the ending -u.

Plurals and Other Non-Singular Number

Nouns do not have a lexical plural form. Grammatical number can be ignored most of the time, but when it is necessary to indicate plurality, the particle ya can be used. Ya usually comes at the end of the noun phrase, after any (other) adjectives, if present. Ya cannot be used in combination with numbers or other “number words” such as fla ‘few’ or granta ‘many’.

In addition to ya, there are a few useful suffixes which can indicate plurality. For large collections of things, -ombu is often used (e.g. daru ‘tree’ → darombu ‘forest’).

Smaller sets, usually having a pre-defined number or order of objects, can be signified by -evlu (e.g. mandjilu ‘utencil’ → mandjilevlu ‘set of silverware’). This includes groups of people in groups of pre-determined number, such as sports teams, orchestras, boards of directors, and so on.

There is also a sort of dual, -epru, usually used to describe body parts that come in pairs or sets, for when it is important to distinguish, for example ma manku ‘my hand’ from ma mankepru ‘my hands ~ my two hands’. While -epru is generally thought of as a dual, it can also apply to specific sets, especially with anatomical groupings, such as dentepru ‘(set of) teeth’ or kaplepru ‘(head of) hair’.

Another collective suffix, -erdu, usually refers to groups of animals, such as herds, flocks, schools, or any of a thousand other species-specific nonsense collectives of which English is so fond (e.g. vaku ‘cow’ → vakerdu ‘herd of cattle’, tcelu ‘bird’ → tcelerdu ‘flock of birds’), but can also refer to other medium-sized groups of non-specific number (between a jepru and a jombu) such as a fleet of vehicles (veklerdu) or boats (barkerdu), or to groups of people (e.g. djenterdu ‘crowd’).

Forming the Possessive

The possessive of nouns is formed by bluntly converting them to an adjective by replacing the final -u with -a. As with other adjectives (below), possessives follow the noun they modify. Many possessives can also be constructed by using the preposition de. This is optional with most constructions, but necessary where there is an adjective already modifying the possessive noun (as with the crying child, below).

• the family’s house → mezu kyula or mezu de kyulu.
• John’s cat → gatu Djana or gatu de Djanu.
• the crying child’s doll → puklu de kindu plantrenta.

Correlatives

Correlatives are not a proper part of speech, but the term, which came into heavy use with the advent of Esperanto, is useful to describe a set of pronouns, determiners, adjectives, and adverbs made up of pronoun-like elements. They often exist in natural languages in incomplete sets (e.g. where, there, here but when, then, now.) A hallmark of auxiliary languages is that they usually have a complete set of correlatives. (Still, even Esperanto has nun, for example, instead of **tiam-ĉi). Anyway, I thought they made a nice bridge here between the nominals and the adjectives.

Qualitative Correlatives	Interrogative kwa-	Deixis la-	General swa-	Alternative dra-	Equative spa-	Distributive pra-
Determiner -a	kwa ‘what’	la ‘the’	swa ‘some’	dra ‘another’	spa ‘the same’	pra ‘each’
Animate -ru	kwaru ‘who’	laru ‘the one’	swaru ‘someone’	draru ‘someone else’	sparu ‘the same person’	praru ‘each person’
Inanimate -su	kwasu ‘what’	lasu ‘that’	swasu ‘something’	drasu ‘something else’	spasu ‘the same thing’	prasu ‘each thing’
Local -vo	kwavo ‘where’	lavo ‘there’	swavo ‘somewhere’	dravo ‘elsewhere’	spavo ‘the same place’	pravo ‘each place’
Temporal -no	kwano ‘when’	lano ‘then’	swano ‘sometimes’	drano ‘elsewhen’	spano ‘the same time, simultaneously’	prano ‘each time’
Manneral -mo	kwamo ‘how’	lamo ‘thus’	swamo ‘somehow’	dramo ‘another way’	spamo ‘the same way’	pramo ‘each way’
Quantal Determiner -nta	kwanta ‘how much’	lanta ‘this much’	swanta ‘some’	dranta ‘another amount’	spanta ‘the same amount’	pranta ‘each amount of’
Quantal Adverbial -nti	kwanti ‘how (adj.)’	lanti ‘that, so (adj.)’	swanti ‘kind of, sort of’	dranti ‘otherwise (adj.)’	spanti ‘just as (adj.)’	pranti ‘each degree of’
Quantal Pronoun -ntu	kwantu ‘how much of it’	lantu ‘that much of it’	swantu ‘some of it’	drantu ‘another amount of it’	spantu ‘the same amount of it’	prantu ‘each amount’
Quanto-Temporal -ntano	kwantano ‘how long’	lantano ‘this long’	swantano ‘indefinitely’	drantano ‘another amount of time’	spantano ‘the same amount of time’	prantano ‘each length of time’
Causal -yo	kwayo ‘why’	layo ‘therefore’	swayo ‘for some reason’	drayo ‘for some other reason’	spayo ‘for the same reason’	prayo ‘each reason’
Qualitative Determiner -ca	kwaca ‘what kind’	laca ‘that kind of, such’	swaca ‘some kind of’	draca ‘another kind of’	spaca ‘the same kind of’	praca ‘each kind of’

Quantitative Correlatives¹	Negative na-	Paucal fla-	Quantal nwa-	Sufficient tca-	Multal gra-	Universal pa-
Determiner -a	na ‘no’	fla ‘few, little’	nwa ‘some’	tca ‘enough’	gra ‘much, many’	pa ‘all, every’
Animate -ru	naru ‘no one’	flaru ‘few (people)’	nwaru ‘some (people)’	tcaru ‘enough people’	graru ‘many (people)’	paru ‘everyone’
Inanimate -su	nasu ‘nothing’	flasu ‘few things, little’	nwasu ‘some things’	tcasu ‘enough’	grasu ‘many things, much’	pasu ‘everything, all’
Local -vo	navo ‘nowhere	flavo ‘few places’	nwavo ‘some places’	tcavo ‘enough places, commonly enough’	gravo ‘many places’	pavo ‘everywhere’
Temporal -no	nano ‘never’	flano ‘rarely’	nwano ‘occasionally’	tcano ‘often enough’	grano ‘often’	pano ‘always’
Manneral -le	namo ‘no way’	flamo ‘few ways’	nwamo ‘some ways’	tcamo ‘enough ways’	gramo ‘many ways’	pamo ‘every way’
Quantal Determiner -nta	nanta ‘none’	flanta ‘little, few’	nwanta ‘some’	tcanta ‘enough’	granta ‘much, many, a lot of’	panta ‘all’
Quantal Adverbial -nti	nanti ‘un-, not at all’	flanti ‘barely, hardly’	nwanti ‘somewhat, rather’	tcanti ‘sufficiently’	granti ‘very, greatly’	panti ‘completely, entirely’
Quantal Pronoun -ntu	nantu ‘none of it’	flantu ‘a little bit’	nwantu ‘some (of it)’	tcantu ‘enough, enough of it’	grantu ‘a lot’	pantu ‘all of it’
Quanto-Temporal -nta	nantano ‘in no time, instantly’	flantano ‘a short time, for a moment’	nwantano ‘some time, for a bit’	tcantano ‘long enough’	grantano ‘a long time, for a while’	pantano ‘forever, eternally’
Causal -yo	nayo ‘for no reason’	flayo ‘for little reason’	nwayo ‘for some reasons’	tcayo ‘reason enough, for sufficient cause’	grayo ‘for many reasons’	payo ‘for every reason’
Qualitative Determiner -ca	naca ‘no kind of’	flaca ‘few kinds of’	nwaca ‘some kinds of’	tcaca ‘enough kinds of’	graca ‘many kinds of’	paca ‘every kind of’

Modification of Correlatives

Correlatives can be modified in several ways to create a wide range and nuance of vocabulary.

Several particles can be used in conjunction with the correlatives to extend their meaning. They are usually deployed as prefixes.

• du ‘continuous’ Modifies a correlative to describe a continuous, unceasing state, e.g. pano ‘always’ → du-pano ‘constantly’. Contrasts with ku ‘over and over’. (“Will that humming never end?”)
• go ‘future, next’ Modifies a temporal adverb to specify that it occurs in the future, e.g. lano ‘then’ → go-lano ‘then (in the future)’
• ke ‘which’ Converts an interrogative (a “kwa-correlative”) into a relative conjunction, e.g. Su kwavo ste? ‘Where is it?’ → Su ste ke-kwavo tu le mete na su. ‘It is where you put it.’
• ku ‘iterative’ Modifies a correlative to describe repetition, e.g. pano ‘always’ → ku-pano ‘repeated in perpetuity’. Contrasts with du ‘continuously’. (“Will that hammering never end?”)
• la ‘-wise, -like’ Modifies an adverb to create an adjective, e.g. spano ‘at the same time’ → spano-la ‘simultaneous’. (Note that -la is used here as a suffix. It is unrelated to the correlative demonstrative la.)
• le ‘past, yester-’ Modifies a temporal adverb to specify that it occurs in the past, e.g. nano ‘never’ → le-nano ‘never (before)’. (Compare go-nano ‘never (from now on)’.)
• li ‘there’ Converts a deictic (a “la-correlative”) into a distal, e.g. Mu vule na li-lasu ‘I want that one’ (cf. French cette chose vs. cette chose-là.)
• lu ‘thing related to’ This is the nominal form of la, above. In addition to operating on adverbs, it is most commonly used as a suffix for a possessive pronoun to convert it into a substantive (e.g. mu ‘I’ → ma ‘my’ → ma-lu ‘mine’). In the case of the correlatives, this applies mainly to those compounded with -ru or -su, e.g. kwaru ‘who’, lasu ‘that (thing)’, pacaru ‘every kind of person’ → kwara-lu ‘whose’, lasa-lu ‘that thing’s’, pacara-lu ‘every kind of person’s’.
• ni ‘any’ Converts a general (a “swa-correlative”) into an elective, e.g. Swaru ste lavo. ‘Someone is there.’ → Laru sigole pe se ni-swaru! ‘It could be anyone!’
• ru ‘person, one’ Aside from the direct application as above, ru can be added to any adjectival correlative (bzw. determiner), e.g. naca ‘no kind of’ → naca-ru ‘no kind of person’, spanta ‘the same amount’ → spanta-ru ‘just as many people’.
• su ‘thing, object’ Like ru above, -su can be added to any correlative determiner, e.g. nwaca ‘some kinds of’ → nwaca-su ‘some kinds of things’, draca ‘another kind’ → draca-su ‘something different’.
• tci ‘here’ Converts a deictic (a “la-correlative”) into a proximal, e.g. Mu vule na tci-lasu ‘I want this one’ (cf. French celui vs. celui-ci.) Tci can also be used with other correlatives, e.g. tci-panta me-brolalyu ‘all of these correlatives’, tci-nantu se brana ‘none of this is okay’.

In addition to the particles above, the final ‑u of any correlative pronoun can be changed to ‑a to make it possessive, e.g. draru ‘someone else’, nasu ‘nothing’, nwaru ‘some people’ → drara ‘someone else’s’, nasa ‘nothing’s’, nwara ‘some people’s’.

The correlatives are a closed class, which is to say that the grammar of the language prevents any modification to them aside from what can be done with the particles above. (Other closed sets include pronouns and determiners – and there is a lot of overlap between the determiners and the correlatives.) The primary way to modify a member of this class – and the sole “correct” way, at least according to the Memetatu – is by creating compounds with the particles described above.

Some minor modification of the correlatives became possible in Vulgar European; ‑lu was often eliminated and certain correlatives were repurposed as nouns or their forms appended to create nuance and meaning where necessary. The following lexemes are not part of canonical vocabulary, and are not generally acceptable in formal writing in the 22nd century, but language just keeps on existing whether or not you want it to.

• kwamu (kwamo ‘how’ + -u) ‘manner, way’ (synonyms: kwamo-lu, mandru)
• kwanu (kwano ‘when’ + -u) ‘time’ (synonym: tempu)
• kwacu (kwaca ‘what kind’ + -u) ‘kind, sort, type’ (synonyms: kwaca-lu, modu)
• kwayu (kwayo ‘why’ + -u) ‘reason, cause’ (synonyms: kwayo-lu, kwayo-su, kozu)

Disambiguation

Many of the correlatives are fairly straightforward once you understand the pattern; however, there are some terms which may require additional explanation:

• Swa vs. nwa: In English, these both translate to ‘some’, but the swa-correlatives refer to ‘some’ meaning ‘generic’, ‘random’, or ‘unspecified’, while the nwa-correlatives mean ‘some’ as in ‘a few’, ‘a bit’, ‘an average amount’ - somewhere between fla' ‘few’ and gra ‘many’. The general quantal determiner swanta is more or less synonymous with nwa and nwanta, but adds an element of uncertainty.
• The quantitative correlatives - na, fla, nwa, gra, and pa - are synonymous with their quantal determiners - nanta, flanta, nwanta, granta, and panta, respectively. There is no semantic difference between them.
• Fla and poka are synonymous for the most part, but fla is a determiner which precedes the noun, while poka is a generic adjective that follows it.
• As above, gra and muja are synonymous, except that gra is a determiner which precedes the noun, while muja is a generic adjective that follows it.
• The spa-correlatives have a default meaning of ‘same’, but this translation has the specific meaning of ‘exact same, identical, self-same’, whereas the adjective stema translates the sense of ‘same’ meaning a copy that is similar or identical. (Cf. German: spa ‘dasselbe’ vs. stema ‘das Gleiche’.)

Adjectives

All adjectives in Europic take the ending -a. However, unlike Esperanto, adjectives do not decline for case and number, and numerals and determiners are treated as other adjectives. The main difference between determiners and the rest of the adjective class is that determiners always precede the noun they modify, while other adjectives follow it.

Determiners

Determiners include demonstratives and other adjectives which identify or distinguish a referent without describing or modifying it. The primary determiners in most languages are the articles (“the,” “a,” “an,” “some”) but Europic (deliberately) lacks both definite and indefinite articles. Numbers and possessives may also be considered determiners, as can all of the adjectival correlatives. The main determiners are:

dra ‘another’ draca ‘another kind of’ fla ‘little, few’ flaca ‘few kinds of’ gra ‘much, many’ graca ‘many kinds of’ kwa ‘which’ kwanta ‘how much, how many’ kwaca ‘what kind of’ la ‘that’ lanta ‘so much, so many’ laca ‘such’ li-la ‘that’ li-lanta ‘that much, that many’ li-laca ‘that kind of’ na ‘no’ nanta ‘no, none’ naca ‘no kind of’

ni-swa ‘any’ ni-swanta ‘any’ ni-swaca ‘any kind of’ nwa ‘some’ nwaca ‘some kinds of’ pa ‘each, every’ panta ‘all’ paca ‘every kind of’ pra ‘each, every’ spa ‘the same’ spaca ‘the same kind of’ swa ‘some’ swanta ‘some’ swaca ‘some kind of’ tca ‘enough’ tci-la ‘this’ tci-lanta ‘this much, this many’ tci-laca ‘this kind of’

Possessives

Possessive pronouns make up a small subset of determiners. They are formed by applying the adjective ending to the pronoun consonant stem:

mu	I	ma	my
tu	you	ta	your
ru	he, she	ra	his, her
su	it	sa	its
mu-tu	you & I	ma-ta	our
mu-tu-ya	you all & I	ma-ta-ya	our
mu-ya	we	ma-ya	our
tu-ya	yethren	ta-ya	alla’y’all’s’
ru-ya	they	ra-ya	their
su-ya	they, those	sa-ya	their

Numbers

As adjectives, numbers always end in -a. The "teen" numbers are optionally composed as compounds comprised of deka followed by the second number, or in the usual manner of higher numbers. Higher numbers are rendered by reading the numbers in order written. (E.g. 123 = yuna-duwa-triya.) When a number ends in a single 0 (zero), it is read as deka; a final 00 is read as kenta, a final 000 as mila, and so on. (E.g. 890 = voka-nuva-deka, 8900 = voka-nuva-kenta.) Higher numbers beginning with 1 (yuna) may eliminate the word yuna. (E.g. 100 = yuna-kenta or simply kenta, cf. English 100 = one hundred or a hundred.)

	#	1#	2#	#0	#00	#000
0	nula	10 deka	20 duwa-deka	10 deka	100 kenta	1000 mila
1	yuna	11 deka-yuna or yuna-yuna	21 duwa-yuna	10 (yuna-)deka	100 (yuna-)kenta	1000 (yuna-)mila
2	duwa	12 deka-duwa or yuna-duwa	22 duwa-duwa	20 duwa-deka	200 duwa-kenta	2000 duwa-mila
3	triya	13 deka-triya or yuna-triya	23 duwa-triya	30 triya-deka	300 triya-kenta	3000 triya-mila
4	tcera	14 deka-tcera or yuna-tcera	24 duwa-tcera	40 tcera-deka	400 tcera-kenta	4000 tcera-mila
5	penta	15 deka-penta or yuna-penta	25 duwa-penta	50 penta-deka	500 penta-kenta	5000 penta-mila
6	seca	16 deka-seca or yuna-seca	26 duwa-seca	60 seca-deka	600 seca-kenta	6000 seca-mila
7	siba	17 deka-siba or yuna-siba	27 duwa-siba	70 siba-deka	700 siba-kenta	7000 siba-mila
8	voka	18 deka-voka or yuna-voka	28 duwa-voka	80 voka-deka	800 voka-kenta	8000 voka-mila
9	nuva	19 deka-nuva or yuna-nuva	29 duwa-nuva	90 nuva-deka	900 nuva-kenta	9000 nuva-mila

E.g.:

• 703 = siba-nula-triya
• 2916 = duwa-nuva-yuna-seca or duwa-nuva-deka-seca
• 8340 = voka-triya-tcera-deka
• 75600 = siba-penta-seca-kenta
• 90000 = nuva-deka-kenta

There are some nuances, though. Many numbers have multiple forms (such as the “teens” shown above), which freely toggle between digits and multiples without ambiguity, but higher numbers can be more restrictive. For example, 210 must be rendered as duwa-kenta-deka or duwa-yuna-deka, as duwa-deka means 20. (The same is true for the “-10” of all hundreds.) It could also be rendered as duwa-yuna-nula, but using nula as a spoken number outside of very technical language is as awkward as using zero in a compound number in Ancient English, with one exception: The “ones” of the hundreds are usually preceded by kenta, e.g. 108 = kenta-nula-voka or yuna-nula-voka or indeed even yuna-kenta-voka.

Exponents

1. 1 yuna
2. 10 deka
3. 100 kenta
4. 1,000 mila
5. 10,000 deka-mila
6. 100,000 kenta-mila
7. 1,000,000 mega
8. 1,000,000,000 giga
9. 1,000,000,000,000 tera
10. 1,000,000,000,000,000 peta
11. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 heska
12. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 zeta
13. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 yota
14. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 rona
15. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kweta

Modification of Numbers

Numbers are easily expanded with various affixes.

• -a: Cardinal, e.g. yuna ‘1’
• -alu: Fractional (divisions of a whole), e.g. tcera ‘4’ → tceralu ‘quarter, one fourth’
• -angl-: Geometric, e.g. voka ‘8’ → vokanglu ‘octogon’
• -ema: Ordinal, e.g. penta ‘5’ → pentema ‘fifth’
• -i: Adverbial (number of times), e.g. triya ‘3’ → triyi ‘thrice, three times’
• -upl-: Multiple, e.g. duwa ‘2’ → duwupla ‘double’

Duodecimal Number

It should be noted that the original release of Europic used a decimal number system (as did all other languages of Europe at the time). In 2281ᴀᴅ, some thirty years after the fall of the ECA, the Europic-speaking Principality of Rivaria implemented a change to duodecimal (dozenal) number including revisions to the metric and calendar systems. This text deals exclusively with the pre-dozenal numbers; for more information on the dozenal system, see A Grammar of the Vulgar European Language by this author.

Verbs

All “peripheral” verb functions, commonly lumped together under the label of “tense,” are indicated by particles which precede the finite verb, i.e. the verb that is being carried out by the associated pronoun or noun (phrase) subject. Tenses (past, present, future), aspects (perfect, habitual, inceptive, cessative, progressive, &c), moods (subjunctive, conditional), and other verbal particles may combine to create a wide range of nuance.

Tense

• ∅ (unmarked) - present
  • Mu ∅ mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I eat bread.’
• le - past
  • Mu le mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I ate bread’
• go - future
  • Mu go mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I will eat bread.’
• go-le - future-in-the-past
  • Mu go-le mandju-ke na klebru (le-ke ru le re-kweme).
    • ‘I would eat bread (before he returned).’
  • N.B.: When combining le and go, they always take this order.

Aspect

There are eight basic aspects, and they can be compounded with each other, with the tenses, and with the moods. (NB: In compounds, aspects always precede tenses and follow mood and voice particles.) The basic aspects are:

• ∅ (unmarked) - perfective, “do.”
  • Mu ∅ mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I (do) eat bread.’
• gi - inceptive, “start doing”
  • Mu gi mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I start to eat bread.’
  • N.B.: The inceptive can also be expressed with the verb gye~gine ‘to start’, e.g. Mu gine mandju-ke na klebru.
• ha - perfect, “have done”
  • Mu ha mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I have eaten bread.’
• sta - progressive, “to be doing”
  • Mu sta mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I am eating bread.’
  • N.B.: The progressive can also be expressed with a present participle (ending in -ent-), either as an adjective or as a verb, e.g. Mu se mandju-kenta na klebru, or Mu mandju-kente na klebru.
• stu - habitual, “usually do”
  • Mu stu mandju-ke na klebru me melu.
    • ‘I usually eat bread with honey.’
• djo - immediative, “just did”
  • Mu djo mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I just ate bread.’
  • N.B.: When used alone, djo is equivalent to djo-le. In the future, it means ‘about to do’ (see djo-go).
• ku - continuative or iterative, “keep doing”
  • Mu ku mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I keep eating bread.’
• fu - cessative, “stop doing”
  • Mu fu mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I stop eating bread.’
  • N.B.: The cessative can also be expressed with the verb kede ‘to stop, e.g. Mu kede mandju-ke na klebru.

Mood

There are five basic moods, and they can be compounded with the tenses and aspects, but not with other moods. (Mood particles always precede aspect and tense.) The basic moods are:

• ∅ (unmarked) - indicative, “I do”
  • Mu ∅ mandju-ke na klebru.
  • ‘I eat bread.’
• si - subjunctive, “that I do”
  • Mu krede, ke ru si mandju-ke na klebru.
  • ‘I think he eats bread.’
• ba - conditional, “would do”
  • Mu ba mandju-ke na klebru ye su si se tcoklu-plena.
  • ‘I would eat bread if it were full of chocolate.’
  • N.B.: The conditional ba is ostensibly equivalent to the compound si-gole. If it implies an “if-clause” (with the conjunction ye), the if-clause will be in the subjunctive. While there is no semantic difference, there is no subjunctive in the second clause when using si-gole, because the subjunctive is now on the first verb: Mu si-gole mandju-ke na klebru ye su ∅ se tcoklu-plena.
  • N.B.: Unrelated to the conditional or even to verbs, there are two ways to construct the phrase “full of (something).”
    • The first is as seen here: The noun (tcoklu) is prepended to the adjective plena.
    • The second way is to join the adjective to the noun with the preposition me, e.g. plena me tcoklu. In this case, plena may also be structured as a verb:
      • La klebru se tcoklu-plena.
      • La klebru tcoklu-plene.
      • La klebru se plena me tcoklu.
      • La klebru plene me tcoklu.
• The fourth mood is imperative, which has a slightly different construction. Instead of a particle indicating a command, which may waste valuable time in a crisis, the imperative is formed by reversing the verb and the subject pronoun and joining them with a hyphen. This has the additional effect of changing the position of the stress in the verb.
  • Mandju-kè-tu na klebru.
    • ‘Eat bread.’
  • Mandju-ke-mùtu na klebru.
    • ‘Let’s you and I eat bread.’
  • Mandju-ke-mutù-ya na klebru.
    • ‘Let’s all of us eat bread.’
• The final mood is the prohibitive (a.k.a. the negative imperative – “Don’t verb!”) which has a construction similar to the imperative. There are a few ways to form the prohibitive, but the most common is as a regular imperative with the verb ne ‘don’t’ followed by an infinitive. (This is a little bit like the verb peidio in Welsh, or the Chinese prohibitive particle 別.)
  • Ne-tu mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘Don’t eat bread.’

Voice

There are four basic voices:

• ∅ (unmarked) - active, “do”
  • Mu ∅ mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I eat bread.’
• ga - passive, “is done”
  • Klebru ga mandju-ke (pe mu).
    • ‘(The) bread is eaten (by me).’
  • NB: When an agent is specified in a passive phrase (usually with “by” in English), it is introduced by the preposition pe.
• ki - reflexive, “do to oneself/-selves”
  • Mu-ya ki klore.
    • ‘We hear ourselves.’
  • Mu ki vide no luma-grafu.
    • ‘I see myself in the photograph.’
  • Ru ki lave na ra voltu.
    • ‘He washes his (own) face.’
• dri - reciprocal, “do to each other”
  • Mu-ya dri klore.
    • ‘We hear each other.’
  • N.B.: Many European languages conflate the reciprocal (which can only be used with a plural subject) with the reflexive. For instance, French Nous nous entendons or German Wir hören uns could mean either ‘We hear each other’ or ‘We hear ourselves.’

Polarity (Negative & Interrogative)

The final category of verb functions is that of polarity, and while I can say a bunch of important-sounding words about it, it is very simply forming the negative and interrogative. Verbs are negated with the particle ne. Sentences are made interrogative with the particle kwa.

• ∅ (unmarked) - positive, “do”
  • Mu ∅ mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I eat bread.’
• ne - negative, “do not”
  • Mu ne mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I do not eat bread.’
  • NB: Ne always falls closest to the verb, preceded by any other particles..
• kwa - interrogative, “is it that…?”
  • Kwa tu vle mandju-ke na nwa klebru?
    • ‘Do you want to eat some bread?’
  • NB: Kwa is placed at the beginning of a clause, like a conjunction.
• kwa … ne - negative interrogative, “isn’t it that…?”
  • Kwa tu ne vle mandju-ke na ni-nwa klebru?
    • ‘Don’t you want to eat any bread?’

Compound Tenses

Most of the tenses, aspects, moods, voices, and polarities mentioned above can be compounded to create a myriad of senses. Here is a small sample:

• djo-go - immediate future ‘about to do’
  • Mu djo-go mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I am about to eat bread.’
• fu-djo - immediate cessative ‘just stopped doing’
  • Mu fu-djo mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I just stopped eating bread.’
• gaha-go - passive future perfect ‘will have been done’
  • Klebru ga-ha-go mandju-ke (pe mu).
    • ‘(The) bread will have been eaten (by me).’
• go-le - future-in-the-past ‘would do’ (as above)
  • Mu go-le mandju-ke na klebru (le-ke ru le re-kweme).
    • ‘I would eat bread (before he returned).’
• ha-le - pluperfect ‘had done’
  • Mu ha-le mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I had eaten bread.’
• ha-sta - perfect continuative ‘has been doing’
  • Mu ha-sta mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I have been eating bread.’
• si-gole - subjunctive future anterior ‘would do’
  • Mu si-gole mandju-ke na klebru (ye su si se tcoklu-plena).
    • ‘I would eat bread (if it were full of chocolate).’
  • NB: Si-gole is ostensibly interchangeable with ba.
• stu-ku - habitual iterative ‘usually keeps doing’
  • Mu stu-ku mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I usually keep eating bread.’
• stu-le - past habitual ‘used to do’
  • Mu stu-le mandju-ke na klebru.
    • ‘I used to eat bread.’

These are just some common examples; there are dozens of possibilities, and many are redundant or unused, but there is a strict order that must be observed when compounding them.

1. The negative particle (ne) always falls closest to the verb.
2. The tenses come next.
   1. Past follows present when both are used (go-le, never **le-go)
3. Tenses are preceded by aspect, which in turn is preceded by mood.
   1. There is not a set order within the aspects, but there are conventions, e.g. ha-sta is very common, but **sta-ha is never used.
4. The mood particles are mutually exclusive, so they cannot be combined.
5. The voice particles are mutually exclusive, so they cannot be combined with each other (see what I did there?), but they always come before mood, aspect, and tense.
6. The interrogative particle kwa always occurs at the beginning of its clause.

Short-form Verbs

There are several verbs which consist solely of an onset and the verbal ending -e. These are all very frequent or important verbs, and often auxiliary verbs. The verbs ne ‘don’t’ and fye ‘stop’ are the only short-form verbs which do not have a long form. Many short-form verbs later became adverbial particles in Europic’s daughter languages. (E.g. Mu pe nave ‘I can swim’ → Iropich Pê nav-emj [POT swim-1SG].)

be (bate) ‘build’ ble (blive) ‘become’ bre (brute) ‘use’ bye (byuve) ‘live’ ce (calde) ‘should’ de (derte) ‘do, make’ dje (djampe) ‘open’ dre (drave) ‘may’ fe (fere) ‘carry’ fle (fale) ‘be required’ fre (frate) ‘fare’ fye ‘stop’ ge (gane) ‘give’ gle (galte) ‘keep’ gre (grade) ‘step’ gye (gine) ‘start’

he (have) ‘have’ hwe (hwalde) ‘look for’ hye (hite) ‘hit’ ke (kepe) ‘get’ kle (klide) ‘close’ kre (krede) ‘believe’ kwe (kweme) ‘come, bring’ kye (kempe) ‘keep doing’ le (lese) ‘allow’ lwe (lokwe) ‘speak, talk’ lye (lyame) ‘love’ me (mete) ‘put, place’ mwe (move) ‘move’ ne ‘don’t’ pe (pove) ‘can’ ple (platce) ‘like’

pre (prate) ‘understand’ re (rekwe) ‘need, must’ se (heste) ‘be’ ske (sketce) ‘happen’ spe (spete) ‘wait’ ste (stande) ‘there is’ swe (save) ‘know’ tce (tcive) ‘reach’ te (tene) ‘hold’ tre (trente) ‘try’ twe (trewe) ‘trust’ ve (verte) ‘turn’ vle (vule) ‘want’ vre (vrinte) ‘find’ we (verpe) ‘throw’ ye (yite) ‘go, take’

While designed to be flexible as to whether one uses the short or long forms of these verbs, there are some conventions to note:

• The short form is usually used in compounds after a full word, while the long form is used after a prefix.
• The full form is almost always used before any suffixes, e.g. (The most common excpetion to this is de~derte, which frequently makes use of suffixes like -dantu ‘maker’ or -dacu ‘action’.)
• Prefixes of more than one syllable tend to take a short form, e.g. notri-ye ‘to enter’, roju-ge ‘to arm’, vigri-we ‘to throw away’ instead of notri-yite, roju-gane, or vigri-verpe. (In colloquial speech, terms suffixed with -ye are even further simplified: notri-ye ‘to enter’, vigri-ye ‘to leave’, katri-ye ‘to exit’, podi-ye ‘to walk’ → notre, vigre, katre, pode. These would later become standard in Vulgar European.)

NB: Classical calques always use the long forms of verbs even if a short form is available. This may sometimes contradict the above, or create doublets, e.g. trans-it ‘go through’ has a native form of tratri-ye and a calqued form of tra-yite.

Verbs with Adverbial Compounds

Many verbs can be compounded with various adverbs (usually prepositions) in order to create more specific or nuanced terms, or to mirror calques of similar terms derived from classical languages. Consider, for example, the verb verpe ‘to throw’ (equivalent to Latin calques with the root -ject), which can take prepositional prefixes like no ‘in’ (no-verpe = in-ject), mi ‘between’ (mi-verpe = inter-ject), so ‘under’ (so-verpe ‘sub-ject’), pro ‘for’ (pro-verpe = pro-ject), and so on. When these verbs take a direct object, the object must take the preposition na, e.g. so-verpe da ka-trentu na swaru ‘to subject someone to an experiment’. Most of these terms, can also be “inverted” – that is, the preposition can be separated from the verb and replace the na of the direct object: verpe da ka-trentu so swaru. Some other examples:

• da-tire na djenterdu ‘to attract a crowd’ = tire da djenterdu
• no-verpe me storva-blastu na swaru ‘to inject someone with medication’ = verpe me storva-blastu no(tri) swaru
• bo-tenge na swasu ‘to think about something’ = tenge bo swasu

Although we do not usually think of it as a preposition in European languages, na can also be treated as a pronominal adverb, though it cannot be prefixed to a verb, e.g. Tu bo-tenge na kwasu? ‘What are you thinking about?’ → Tu tenge bo kwasu? or Tu bo-tenge kwa-na?

It should be noted that prepositions do not compound with short-form verbs, so, for example, pro-verpe cannot be replaced with **pro-we. This is generally also true for polysyllabic adverbs (mainly those ending in ‑tri), but in practice it is quite common to say, for example datri-ye instead of the more formal datri-yite.

Adverbs

Most adverbs end in -i but this is not as consistent as other parts of speech: This mainly applies to deadjectival adverbs (those derived from adjectives).

Prepositions

Prepositions are considered a sub-type of adverb. All prepositions have a C(C)V structure, but they may end with any vowel. Here are a few old standards.

bi ‘at, by’ bo ‘about’ bro ‘related to’ byu ‘beyond’ da ‘to, towards’ de ‘of’ dji ‘until’ dru ‘across, facing’ du ‘during’ fa ‘made of’ fra ‘from’ go ‘after’

gre ‘throughout’ ka ‘out(side) of’ ko ‘because of’ kri ‘around’ le ‘before’ lo ‘along’ me ‘with’ mi ‘between’ na ‘(accusative)’ no ‘in’ nya ‘without’ pe ‘via, by’

pi ‘above’ pro ‘for’ se ‘since’ so ‘below’ sti ‘instead of’ ti ‘behind’ to ‘against’ tra ‘through’ va ‘in front of’ vi ‘touching’ vigri ‘away from’

Many prepositions can be modified by the suffix -tri to differentiate an active meaning from their default static. This suffix is roughly equivalent to Esperanto’s use of the akuzativo with certain prepositions, or in some cases, the English suffix -ward(s). While it mainly applies to prepositions, -tri can also be affixed to certain nouns, creating an adverb. Some other prepositions can be compounded to create additional meanings or nuance. (NB: When prepositions with -tri are compounded with nouns or verbs, the hyphen before -tri is dropped and placed between the prepositional compound and the following word, e.g. no-tri + yite → notri-yite ‘to enter’.) Here are some of the most common prepositional compounds:

bi-tri ‘up to’ da-tri ‘toward’ di-tri ‘apart’ dru-tri ‘across, opposite’ fra-no ‘out of’ hemu-tri ‘home(ward)’ ka-tri ‘out of’ kri-tri ‘around’ lo-tri ‘along’

mi-tri ‘in between’ no-tri ‘into, inward’ pi-tri ‘up’ re-tri ‘back’ so-tri ‘down’ ti-tri ‘backward’ tra-tri ‘through’ va-tri ‘forward’ vi-tri ‘up against’

Directional prepositions additionally have various other suffixes which can help to hone their intended meaning. You’re already familiar with the adjectival -la of the correlatives and the nominalizing -lu of the pronouns: These can also be used with many prepositions to create adjective and noun formations based on their directionality. The suffix -vi (itself a pronoun meaning ‘touching’ or ‘on’) can transform a preposition from proximal (“next to”) to pertingent (“touching”). Some of these affixes can also be combined. The following is a non-exhaustive list of prepositional derivations:

bi-lu ‘side’ bitri-la ‘sideways’ bi-vi ‘on the side of’ bro-la ‘respective’ brola-ke ‘in other words’ di-la ‘separate’ ka-la ‘external, outer’ ka-lu ‘exterior’ katri-la ‘outward’ ka-vi ‘on the outside of’ no-la ‘internal, inner’ no-lu ‘interior’ notri-la ‘inward’ no-vi ‘on the inside of’ pi-la ‘upper’ pi-lu ‘top’

pitri-la ‘upward’ pi-vi ‘on top of’ so-la ‘lower’ so-lu ‘bottom’ sotri-la ‘downward’ so-vi ‘on the bottom of’ sti-la ‘alternative’ ti-la ‘dorsal’ ti-lu ‘back’ titri-la ‘backward’ ti-vi ‘on the back of’ to-la ‘contrary’ va-la ‘frontal’ va-lu ‘front’ vatri-la ‘forward’ va-vi ‘on the front of’

Many prepositions can be pre-pended to a verb and replaced by na. In other languages where this can occur (such as Esperanto), this can be considered a type of valency promotion, but as the direct object in Europic also requires a preposition, this is perhaps an irrelevant description. For example, there is no difference semantically between the following:

• Mu kweme fra Kanadiyu ‘I come from Canada’ → Mu fra-kweme na Kanadiyu.
• Ru ki klede no paltu ‘She put on a jacket’ → Ru ki no-klede na paltu.
• Tenge-tu bo su ‘Think about it’ → Botenge-tu na su, Botenge-tu la-na, or Tenge-tu la-bo.

Pronominal Adverbs

The last example reflects another prepositional feature of the language. Possibly inspired by Germanic languages which compound correlatives here / there / where with prepositions to create pronominal adverbs, ostensibly replacing a pronoun (such as what, that, or this), e.g. ‘with that’ → ‘therewith’ (damit, darmed, daarmee, &c), ‘for what’ → ‘wherefor’ (hvorfor, wofür, waarvoor), &c. In Europic, the same can be done with the particles kwa‑ and la‑, e.g. me lasu ‘with it’ → la-me ‘therewith’, pro kwasu ‘for what’ → kwa-pro ‘wherefor’. Distinction with tci‑ and li‑ is possible but rare (e.g. tci-la-da ‘hereto, to this’, li-la-no ‘therein, in that’).

Particles

“Particle” is a very vague term, even moreso than “adverb”—already the proverbial junk drawer of the parts of speech. Most particles indicate verbal tenses, aspects, and moods, though a few may modify other parts of speech. (The particle ya, for instance, is probably better classified as an adjective, but here it is—whaddya gonna do about it?) The verbal particles have already been discussed in Verbs, above; some other particles include:

• ke ‘which’ (Creates a relative conjunction from a kwa-correlative.)
• li ‘there’ (Indicates distal deixis.)
• na (Indicates a direct object. Really a preposition.)
• ni ‘any’ (Creates an elective from a swa-correlative.)
• tci ‘here’ (Indicates proximal deixis.)
• ya ‘-(e)s’ (Indicates the plural. May be considered an adjective. Never used with a number.)

Conjunctions

The final category of “Can it be another adverb?” is the conjunction. Perhaps also particles, these are set aside because they always occur at the beginning of a clause. Many of the conjunctions are the old standards we know and love - “and, or, but, if…” - but, being an auxiliary language, there are also a number of specialized conjunctions among these. In particular, Chrysanthi made use of several “logic gates” for the conjunctions, so, for example, there are different words to translate ‘or’ where both of the elements that it joins can be true - dro (‘and/or’ ~ ‘x or y or both’) compared to ‘or’ where those elements are mutually exclusive - dwa (‘or’ ~ ‘x or y but not both’).

Most conjunctions by default are phrasal - that is, they join two elements within a single clause (klebru wa brumblu ‘bread and butter’, pe teru dwa pe maru ‘by land or by sea’), but they can be made clausal with the addition of the affix -ke. Clausal conjunctions separate two complete clauses: Those minimally containing a verb (Ruya le mandju-ke na klebru wa brumblu, wa-ke le bevu-ke na vinu. ‘They ate bread and butter and drank wine.”)

In addition to converting phrasal conjunctions to clausal ones, -ke can also be used to form a number of conjunctions from prepositions, e.g. compare dji la martu ‘until the morning’ to dji-ke ru veka-ble ‘until he wakes up’.

be ‘but’ brola-ke ‘in other words’ dji-ke ‘until’ dro ‘and/or (phrasal)’ dro-ke ‘and/or (clausal)’ du-ke ‘while, as’ dwa ‘xor (phrasal)’ dwa-ke ‘xor (clausal)’ go-ke ‘after’ gro-ke ‘despite that’ ke ‘that (subordinate)’ ke-kwo ‘as, like, that’ ko-ke ‘because of that’

kwa ‘whether, if’ kwasi ‘as if, like, as though’ layo ‘because’ le-ke ‘before’ nwe ‘and not, but not’ nyu ‘nor, neither (phrasal)’ nyu-ke ‘nor, neither (clausal)’ pro-ke ‘in order to’ sti-ke ‘instead’ wa ‘and, also (phrasal)’ wa-ke ‘and, also (clausal)’ ye ‘if

Relative conjunctions are formed by adding ke- to the beginning of any of the interrogative correlatives, e.g.:

ke-kwa ‘that, which’ ke-kwaru ‘who’ ke-kwasu ‘what’ ke-kwavo ‘where’ ke-kwano ‘when’

ke-kwamo ‘how’ ke-kwanta ‘how much’ ke-kwantano ‘how long’ ke-kwayo ‘why’ ke-kwaca ‘what kind’

These differ from the interrogatives in that they are not forming a question, but answering it in a subordinate clause. Compare, for example the following pairs:

• Li-laru se kwaru? ‘Who is that?’ but:
• Se djentu, ke-kwaru le fraste na ma supu. ‘That’s the person who stole my soup.’
• Mu-tu kwano go yite? ‘When are we going?’
• Mu-tu go yite, ke-kwano mu prete. ‘We’ll go when I am ready.’

Note that unlike the pure interrogatives, which move around according to their role in the sentence, relativized interrogatives always occur at the beginning of a clause, and are (ideally) preceded by a comma.

Syntax

Word Orders and Alignments

Typology

The basic word order is SVO, though this is flexible because the order of the clause-internal phrases is so strict. Since the direct object role is marked by a preposition (na), the direct object is treated as a prepositional phrase, though in clauses with multiple PPs, na-phrases usually come last.

Noun Phrases

The standard order of most noun phrases is:

1. Preposition
2. Determiner
3. Numeral
4. Noun
5. Adjective (phrase)
6. Plural Marker
7. Genitive (phrase)
8. Relative (clause)

For example: ‘He went with those three ugly men from John’s village who stole my brother’s dog.’

Ru le yite me li-triya djentotcu burta fra viliku Djana…
S	V	1	2	3	4 5 (6)	1 4	7
ru	le yite	me	li	triya	djentotcu burta	fra vil-iku	Djan-a
3sg.ani	pst go	cmt	dst-dem	3	man ugly	from town-dim	John-poss
He	went	with	those	three	ugly men	from village	John’s
He went with those three ugly men from John’s village…

…ke-kwaru frastare na kanu de ma bratotcu.
8 (S)	V	1 4	1	2	4
ke-kwa-ru	le fraste	na kanu	de¹	ma	brat-otcu
rel-inter-person	pst steal	acc dog	poss	1sg.poss	sibling-msc
who	stole	dog	of	my	brother
…who stole my brother’s dog.

¹ Here the possessive phrase is rendered with de because the possessive-cum-adjective structure is mainly used with a single word or name. If the phrase had been “...the child’s dog,” it would usually be rendered as na kanu kinda, but the extra word ma ‘my’ causes it to default to the de-construction. Na kanu ma-bratotca and na kanu de kindu are not wrong, just less common. (Note, too, that there is a special hyphenated construction when you “adjectivize” a noun with a determiner.)

Adjective Phrases

The standard order of most adjective phrases is:

1. Determiner
2. Number
3. Noun
4. Adverb of degree (modifying the adjective)
5. Adjective

For example: ‘That is a very good cat.’

Li-laru se gatu muji brava.
S	V	3	4	5
Li-la-ru	se	gatu	muji	brava
dst-dex-3ani	cop	cat	aug	good
That (one)	is	cat	very	good
That is a very good (well-behaved) cat.

Adverb Phrases

Adverbs, always the black sheep of the parts of speech, are slipperier than most to define and trickier to assign concrete rules. There are a few guidelines, however.

1. When an adverb complements a verb, it precedes the verb.

   Mu-ya taldi spete. ‘We wait patiently.’ (“We patiently wait.”)

2. When there are verbal particles present, the negative particles most closely precedes the verb, preceded by other verbal particles, preceded by non-particle adverbs.

   Mu-ya taldi sta-le ne spete. ‘We were not waiting patiently.’ (“We patiently were not waiting.”)

3. Interrogative adverbs (as well as other adverbial correlatives) are treated as any other adverb, and precede the verb as directly as possible. (See the Adverbial Interrogative, below.)

   Mu-ya kwantano hasta spete? ‘How long have we been waiting?’ (“We how-long have-been waiting?”)

4. When an adverb complements another part of speech (usually an adjective or another adverb), it immediately precedes it (see also Adjective Phrases, above).

   Mu-ya hasta spete du vrimyu lanti longa! ‘We have been waiting for such a long time!’ (“We have-been waiting for (a) while so long!”)

Verb Phrases (Clauses)

The standard order of most verb phrases is:

1. Conjunction
2. Subject
3. Adverbs (other than particles and negatives)
4. Particles
   1. Voice (ga, dri, ki…)
   2. Mood (si, ba…)
   3. Aspect (ha, sta, gi…)
   4. Tense (go, le…)
   5. Negative Marker (ne)
5. Verb
6. Prepositional Phrases (other than direct and indirect objects)
7. Indirect Object
8. Direct Object (with na)

Identity Clauses

Identity clauses are those that use a copula (“to be”) to join a noun or pronoun to another noun that identifies it. These may seem “backwards” in Europic: Their structure is similar to the construction in Welsh, for example. Rather than “I am a writer,” the phrase would normally be rendered as “Writer am I” (Welsh: Awdur ydw i).

• I am a writer. Grafatru se mu.
• He is a poor man. Djentu povra se ru.

In the case where one element is a pronoun and the other is a noun, the noun usually comes first. If the pronoun is expletive, it may be dropped entirely.

• That is a dangerous animal! Djuru prikla se laru! → Djuru prikla se!
• It is her new song. Ra kantu nova se su. → Ra kantu nova se.

When both elements are pronouns, particularly when one is expletive, the first may be dropped entirely.

• It’s me! Laru se mu! → Se mu!
• He is not the same person. Ru ne se sparu. → Ne se sparu.

Identity clauses usually require se ‘to be’ as a copula, but there are a few other verbs which sometimes use this structure which lacks a direct object, such as hete ‘to be named’ or ble ‘to become’.

• Her name is Mary. Maryu hete ru.
• He became the new boss. Kapu nova le blive ru.

Polar Questions

Polar questions (also known as yes-no questions, binary questions, or boolean question) are formed by adding the particle kwa to the beginning of a clause. (While there is no great English translation for this word, it is directly equivalent to Esperanto ĉu, Japanese ね, or Chinese 嗎. If you really wanted to translate this word directly into English, you might think of it as ‘is it (true) that’. It is also directly comparable to the French phrase est-ce que.) The word order within the clause does not change as it does in many European languages. E.g.

• You can come tomorrow. → Can ⇄ you come tomorrow?
• Tu pe krasti kwe. → Kwa tu pe krasti kwe?

Wh-Questions

In most European languages, Wh-Questions (yeah, sorry, that’s just what they’re called; I hate it too) are formed with an interrogative word, such as ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘what’, &c – those words that in Europic begin with kwa- – and these words generally appear at the beginning of the clause. In Europic, however, pronominal interrogatives (those question words ending in -u) may appear at the beginning of the clause for emphasis, but normally they occur after the verb, particularly in clauses where they are the object of the verb. Where the interrogative is adverbial (when, how, where, how much…) they precede the verb as other adverbs. The following are the unmarked (normal) orders for each type of question:

Pronominal Interrogative as Copular Subject

The pronominal interrogatives consist of those question words which act as pronouns, which is an irksomely roundabout way to describe them. More specifically, words like ‘who’ or ‘what’ which refer back to a noun. Even more specifically, these are any of the kwa-correlatives which end in -u. As specifically as I am willing to get in this space, they may be any of the following interrogatives: kwaru ‘who’, kwasu ‘what’ kwantu ‘how many/much (of it)’, kwacaru ‘what kind of person’ and kwacasu ‘what kind of thing’.

When a pronominal interrogative is used as the subject of an identity clause, they follow the verb (usually se).

• What is your question? Ta frasku se kwasu? (“Your question is what-thing?”)
• Who is that woman? Laru djentinu se kwaru? (“That woman is what-person?”)

Pronominal Interrogative as Subject with Object

When a pronominal interrogative serves as the subject of a sentence in which there is a direct object, it takes the primary (subject) position, i.e. it comes at the beginning of the clause, before the verb.

• Who ate my eggs? Kwaru ha mandju-ke na ma wovu ya? (“What-person has eaten (acc.) my eggs?”)
• What happened to your house? Kwasu le sketce na ta mezu? (“What-thing did happen to your house?”)

Pronominal Interrogative as Object

When a pronominal interrogative serves as the object of a sentence (direct or indirect – which is irrelevant, because there’s not really such a thing as a direct object in Europic), it follows the verb and is preceded by a preposition.

• What are you doing? Tu derte na kwasu? (“You do (acc.) what-thing?”)
• How many are you taking? Tu yite na kwantu? (“You go with how-many?”)

Adverbial Interrogative

Adverbial interrogatives are those question words which are neither pronouns nor determiners; they pose questions that ask about time, location, motivation, or manner. Specifically, they are the interrogatives ending in -o: kwavo ‘where’, kwano ‘when’, kwamo ‘how’, kwayo ‘why’, and kwantano ‘how long’. Adverbial interrogatives tend to immediately precede the main verb of the clause.

• When is your sister coming? Ta bratu kwano kwe? (“Your sibling what-time comes?”)
• Where did I put my keys? Mu kwavo ha mete na ma klutcevlu? (“I what-place did put (acc.) my set-of-keys?”)

Adjectival Interrogative

Finally, adjectival interrogatives are simply determiners that are interrogative in nature. They are always accompanied by a noun or noun phrase and they stick with their noun, wherever that happens to fall in the clause. Adjectival interrogatives consist of kwa ‘which’, kwanta ‘how much, how many’, and kwaca ‘what kind of’.

• How many children do you have? Tu he na kwanta filu? (“You have (acc.) how-many child(ren)?”)
• Which person said that? Kwa djentu ledike na lasu? (“Which person did say (acc.) that-thing?”)
• What kind of animal is it? Kwaca djuru se? (“What-kind-of animal is [that/it]?”)

Commands

There are two main types of imperatives: Positive and Negative. Both are formed by appending the pronoun (with a hyphen) to the end of the verb. In the case of the negative imperative (a.k.a. the prohibitive), that verb is usually ne ‘don’t’, followed by an infinitive verb. (See also the Imperative Mood.)

• Go to work! Yite-tu da labraryu! (“Go-you to work-place!”)
• Don’t go yet! Ne-tu sto yite! (“Don’t-you already go!”)

Comparison

The comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs are achieved with the use of suffixes:

• -oz- forms the comparative, equivalent to ‘more’ or ‘-er’.
• -ist- forms the superlative, equivalent to ‘most’ or ‘-est’.

For example:

• fakla ‘easy’ → fakloza ‘easier’ → faklista ‘easiest’
• fakli ‘easily’ → faklozi ‘more easily’ → faklisti ‘most easily’

There is also a contrastive (“anti-comparative”) and a sublative (“anti-superlative”) suffix:

• -esl- forms the contrastive, equivalent to ‘less’.
• -uzl- forms the sublative, equivalent to ‘least’.

For example:

• fakla ‘easy’ → faklesla ‘less easy’ → fakluzla ‘least easy’
• fakli ‘easily’ → faklesli ‘less easily’ → fakluzli ‘least easily’

The superlative does not take the definite determiner as it does in many languages, as definiteness is implied in the construction, but as the determiner la became more of a true article and less of a neutral demonstrative, it became common to include it in colloquial Europic.

Two nouns being compared are joined by the preposition kwo ‘than’.

• Li-lasu le se kaku branista na ke-kwasu mu le-lano le mandju-ke. Su le se metci branoza kwo Marya-lu! ‘That was the best cake I’ve ever eaten. It was even better than Maria’s!’
• Djanu vlokozi krende kwo Dwardu, be Milyu vlokisti krende. ‘John runs faster than Edward, but Emilia runs (the) fastest.’

The comparative forms can often be found in inchoative verbs (usually suffixed with -ble). In most familiar languages, the comparative is implied in the inchoative (e.g. ‘to heat up’ ≅ ‘to become hot-ter’), but there is a more subtle distinction possible in Europic where kalda-ble ‘to become hot’ is not quite synonymous with kald-oza-ble ‘to become hotter’.

Vocabulary

Sources, Derivation, & Maintenance

Obviously an auxiliary language, upon deployment, will not contain every term of art or specialized vocabulary, and new words and concepts are appearing all the time, so many new terms need to be added to the lexicon in order for the language to be useful. In the case of Europic, the original Deployment Committee morphed into a sort of ad hoc authority for the language (thereafter known as Memetatu Yevropica: The Committee for the Europic Language, or often just “La Memetatu”), maintaining a public dictionary database and carefully curating new additions to the language to account for phonotactics, repair strategies, and adherence to the language’s principals. However, after the fall of the ECA in the mid-24th century, the language was no longer regulated and grew organically very quickly.

That being said, the Committee used Chrysanthi’s original rules for word development as a guide for increasing vocabulary where necessary. Chrysanthi deliberately concealed much of his process for creating vocabulary, believing that having clear etymologies for the lexicon could lead to an unproductive attempt to compare percentages of source languages. However, many words have very clear origins. Chrysanthi’s general process, while undocumented, seems to have followed these guidelines for derivation:

1. If there is a common theme throughout multiple European languages that fits Europic phonology, use it. E.g. Romance, Celtic trist- ‘sad’ → trista. (Usually these are borrowings from Latin or Greek that have propagated across the continent.)
2. If there is a clear root, but it begins with a vowel, choose an initial consonant (or cluster) from a parallel source: E.g. Romance -am- ‘love’ + Germanic/Slavic liub-' → lyam-.
3. If there are two clear roots and one is already used by Esperanto, use the other. E.g. Eo. hundo, bovo, ŝnuro → Eu. kanu, vaku, kordu.
4. If there is a clear root, but it is larger than one syllable, condense it if possible. If it contains illicit consonant clusters, adjust according to the language’s repair strategy. E.g.: pastinak- ‘parsnips’ → stanku.

Prime Roots

Roots are the primary semantic elements that make up every word. There are five types of root word:

1. Basic roots make up the bulk of words in the language. They necessarily consist of an onset (a consonant or valid consonant cluster), a vowel, and a coda made up again of a consonant or consonant cluster. No basic roots are actual words: a final vowel is required to create a licit word.
   1. kan‑ ‘dog’ → kanu ‘dog’, kana ‘canine’
   2. vid‑ ‘eye~see’ → vide ‘to see’, vida ‘visual’, vidu ‘eye’, vidilu ‘lens’
   3. brut‑ ‘use’ → brute ‘to use’, bruta ‘used’, brutu ‘use, usage’, brutunya ‘useless’
2. Long roots are rare, and usually indicate a borrowing. The majority of original long roots were place names and personal names, as well as a handful of minor words which were not deemed important enough to have a dedicated basic root.
   1. djapan‑ ‘Japan’ → Djapaniyu ‘Japan’, djapanicu ‘Japanese (language)’
   2. frangal‑ ‘France’ → frangala ‘French’, frangaliya ‘from France’
   3. kanad‑ ‘Canada’ → kanadiya ‘Canadian’, Kanadiyu ‘Canada’
3. Affix roots consist of a vowel followed by a consonant (cluster).
   1. -il‑ ‘tool’ → bervilu ‘kettle’, cendilu ‘staircase’, metrilu ‘measuring tool’
   2. -or‑ ‘level’ → plodoru ‘volume’, hugroru ‘humidity’, tejoru ‘weight’
   3. -al‑ ‘fraction’ → tcerala ‘quarter’, duwalu ‘half’, triyalu ‘one third’
4. Particle roots consist of an onset and any vowel. Particles are usually full words in their own right, often prepositions, conjunctions, and other adverbial particles.
5. Short-form roots consist of a single onset only. They consist of verbs, pronouns, and determiners. The verbs almost always have a full-form basic root equivalent which can be used interchangeably when alone; specific rules govern the use of which form to use in compounds. (See Short-form Verbs). Pronouns consist of m‑, t‑, r‑, and s‑; determiners can also be made into pronouns, but require an affix to avoid confusion. The determiner roots are most often found as the first element of Correlatives.

Root Families

Roots do not exist in a vacuum. While roots consisting of similar sounds may be unrelated, there are some groupings of similar roots, especially across the short forms and particles. While short‑ and long-form verbs are obviously related (even edge-case se~heste ‘to be’), there are some less obvious relationships across parts of speech among the particles. For instance, short form fye ‘stop’ and cessative aspect particle fu ‘stop doing’ are generally grouped together, as are their opposites, gye ‘begin’, full form gine, and inceptive aspect gi ‘start doing’. Some also consider future tense particle go to belong to this family. There is negative concord across ne ‘not’ and na ‘no, none’; dr‑ may indicate opposing forces in dra ‘other’, dri ‘each other’, dro ‘and/or’, and dru ‘facing, opposite’; and dj‑ indicates swiftness or immediacy in time with dja ‘already’, dje ‘just, only’, dji ‘up to, until’, djo (an immediacy particle) ‘just did, about to do’.

Classical Calques

Instead of shoveling “universal” common borrowings directly into the language, there is a formula by which Latin and Greek roots and affixes can be parsed and reassembled. Often, this results in very similar, familiar words, but equally often the resulting word bears no resemblance to the common terms we know and love.

Prefixes

• da- a-, ad- (‘to, at’): da-tire ‘attract’, da-nunk-atu ‘announcement’
• de- de- (‘of, from; down’): de-cende ‘descend’, de-grad-acu ‘degradation’
• di- di-, dis-, dys- (‘apart’): di-skute ‘discuss’, di-romp-atu ‘disruption’
• go- post- (‘after’): le-go-tri-la ‘preposterous’, go-mulda ‘posthumous’
• ka- e-, ex- (‘out’): ka-spete ‘expect’, ka-tir-atu ‘extraction’
• le- pre-, ante- (‘before’): le-dik-atu ‘prediction’, le-vide ‘preview’
• me- con-, syn- (‘with, together’): me-klide ‘conclude’, me-sent-acu ‘sympathy’
• mi- inter- (‘between’): mi-verpe ‘interject’, mi-kepe ‘intercept’
• ne- in-, non- (‘un-, not’): ne-kont-abla ‘uncountable’, ne-kred-abla ‘incredible’
• no- in-, en- (‘in’): no-hale ‘inhale’, no-fer-atu ‘inference’
• pa- pan-, tot-, omni- (‘all’): pa-sav-enta ‘omniscient’, pa-diw-ismu ‘pantheism’
• pe- per- (‘by way of, for’): pe-gane ‘forgive’, pe-kepe ‘perceive’
• pro- pro- (‘forward, for’): pro-duk-acu ‘production’, pro-verpe ‘project’
• re- re- (‘back, again’): re-rul-acu ‘revolution’, re-plene ‘reply’
• so- sub-, hypo- (‘down, under’): so-plen-atu ‘supply’, so-swiv-enta ‘subsequent’
• to- contra-, anti- (‘against’): to-dike ‘contradict’, to-no-dik-acu ‘counter-indication’
• tra- tra-, trans- (‘through’): tra-fere ‘transfer’, tra-yite ‘transit’
• va- ante- (‘in front of’): le-va-bi-kinsa ‘preantepenultimate’, va-kombru ‘anteroom’

Roots

• bat -struct, -strue, -stroy (‘build’): me-bate ‘construct’, de-bat-ita ‘destroyed’
• cend scend- (‘go toward’): de-cende ‘descend’, tra-cende ‘transcend’
• dik dict (‘say’): to-dike ‘contradict’, de-dik-acu ‘dedication’
• diw de(o)-, theo- (‘god’)
• duk duct, duce (‘pull’): tra-duke ‘translate’, pro-duk-atu ‘product’
• grad -grade, -gress (‘step’): re-tri-grad-a ‘retrograde’, de-grade ‘degrade’
• graf -scribe, -gram, -graphy (‘write’): byuva-graf-atu ‘biography’, luma-grafu ‘photograph’
• kad -cide (‘fall’): de-kade ‘decide’, me-no-kad-atu ‘coincidence’
• kep -ceive (‘get’): me-kepe ‘conceive’, mi-kepe ‘intercept’
• klagr carn-, sarc- (‘meat’): klagr-alya ‘carnivorous’, re-no-klagra-de ‘reincarnate’
• klid -clude (‘close’): no-klide ‘include’, ka-klide ‘exclude’
• kwem -vent, -vene (‘come’): me-kweme ‘convene’, da-kwem-atu ‘adventure’
• lum -lumin, -luc, -photo (‘light’): luma-me-pon-atu ‘photosynthesis’
• met -mit, -met, -pon (‘put’): me-met-atu ‘committee’, tra-mete ‘transmit’
• morf mut-, morph-, form- (‘change’): tra-morfe ‘transform’, ka-morf-atu ‘exchange’
• muj multi-, poly- (‘many’): muj-angla ‘polygonal’, muja-tranka ‘multi-faceted’
• pon pon-, pos-, thes- (‘put’): me-pon-acu ‘composition, synthesis’
• tir -tract, -tire (‘pull’): re-tire ‘retract’, so-tir-acu ‘subtraction’
• trew -fide (‘trust’): me-trewe ‘confide’, di-trew-alya ‘diffident’
• verp -ject (‘throw’): no-verpe ‘inject’, kri-verpu ‘environment’
• vid vis-, vid- (‘see’): pi-vid-atru ‘supervisor’, ka-vid-atu ‘evidence’

Suffixes

• -abla -able, -ible (‘able’): re-tir-abla ‘retractable’, kred-abla ‘credible’
• -acu -ation, -ing (‘action’): ka-plen-acu ‘occupation’, tra-port-acu ‘transportation’
• -alya -ive, -al (‘tendency towards’): lest-alya ‘estival’, neb-alya ‘nebulous’
• -atu -ate, -ment, -Vnce (‘result’): fal-atu ‘requirement’, hest-atu ‘existence’
• -de (from derte) -ify, -ficate (‘do, make’): klara-de ‘clarify’, falsa-de ‘falsify’
• -icu -ic, -ish, -ian (‘language’): frangal-icu ‘French’, latin-icu ‘Latin’
• -ismu -ism (‘ideology’)¹: ne-diw-ismu ‘atheism’, prad-ismu ‘pacifism’
• -ita -ate, -icated (‘done’): di-lany-ita ‘torn asunder’, mort-ita ‘dead’
• -itu -ity, -ness (‘state’): kald-itu ‘heat’, klar-itu ‘clarity’
• -oru -ure, -ity, -th (‘level’): fond-oru ‘depth’, kald-oru ‘temperature’
• -osa -ous, -ful (‘replete with’) prikl-osa ‘perilous’, gratc-osa ‘grateful’

¹ NB: -ismu is calqued from -ism only for ideologies in favour of (pro) something (e.g. pacifism, nationalism, fascism). An ideology in opposition to something must be prefixed with to- (e.g. to-velismu ‘ageism’, to-(pela)klarvismu ‘racism’). To- also calques anti- or counter/contra- in terms like anti-semitism or counter-terrorism. So terms like ‘anti-racism’ take an additional prefix of dru- ‘in opposition’ to avoid reduplicating the prefix, e.g. dru-toklarvismu ‘anti-racism’. But that is beyond the scope of calques at this point.

Note that some of these calques are more “performative” than accurate. In Latin and Greek, there are often superfluous affixes that don’t contribute directly to the meaning of the word (for example, many words ending in -tion could be calqued directly to a noun rather than adding the abstract -acu suffix, but it is kept anyway for recognition purposes. Furthermore, some of the calque “blocks” don’t translate their Europic meaning directly; for example, de- does not faithfully translate de, e.g. ‘de-scend’ → de-cende: de here would be more accurately translated with so-tri, though non-calque form sotri-cende exists as a synonym. Another oblique match-up is pro, which is often better translated as va-tri ‘forward’, though va only occurs in calques as an equivalent of ante.

Hyphenation

While it plays only a minor role in the overall structure of the language, hyphenation in Europic has a storied and contentious history, and prescriptive usage never entirely aligned with best practices.

In Chrysanthi’s original proposal of Europic, he argued not only that every morpheme of every word should be separated by hyphens, but also that all elements of every phrase should be joined by them as well. The result was a bit reminiscent of the transcription of Hittite, known to be one of his interests, which probably inspired the idea. Adverbs and particles were joined to their verbs, and noun phrases were completely connected from preposition through adjective to plural particle. For example, consider the following common phrase: ‘Emilio used to go to France to buy green kazoos for her.’

Chrysanthi: Milyu stu-le-yite da-Frangal-iyu pro-ke budje na-zumba-su-grena-ya we-ru.
Memetatu: Milyu stu-le yite da Frangaliyu pro-ke budje na zumbasu grena ya we ru.
(Vulgar European: Milyu stul’ite da Frangliu proke budje na zumbasui grenai werù.)

While this kind of hyphenation served to nicely bracket many of the phrases in a way that may have simplified learning the grammar, the Memetatu opted to avoid hyphenating suffixes, prepositions, and particles that followed a main term, resulting in the stress of all words being completely predictable. (Chrysanthi fought hard for the inclusion of hyphens after prepositions, but it was struck down on the basis that this would change the stress of sequences where prepositions preceded pronouns, e.g. na mù, vs. nà-mu. The first version released by the Memetatu, however, still hyphenated most morphemes, including all elements of compounds.

A spelling reform in 2101ᴀᴅ removed more hyphens, offering the opinion that when multiple words are compounded, the hyphens should be removed from the most closely associated terms (which is essentially how people had been using them anyway). For example, in the adverbial particles: go-le ‘would’ → ha-gole ‘would have’ (formerly ha-go-le). The hyphen between go and le is removed, because they are more closely related: They are both tenses, while ha is an aspect.

• Vide + pe-kepilu → vida-pekepilu ‘optical sensor’
• Go + mi-daju → go-midaju ‘afternoon’
• Mu-tu + [[ya#Europic|ya]] → mutu-ya ‘we all’ (also fully condensed → mutuya)
• Mi-daju + mandju → midaja-mandju ‘lunch’

A general guideline was issued that a word should contain a maximum of one hyphen, with very few exceptions where further compounding was impractical or ambiguous, e.g.:

• ki-byuva-grafatu ‘auto-biography’ (“self-life-writing”)
• ku-pano-la ‘perpetual’ (“repeatedly-forever-wise”)
• no-flasku-me ‘to bottle’ (“in-bottle-put”)

The hyphen that remains should serve as a kind of bracketing, e.g.:

• meglivaska-ru ‘adult, grown-up’ (megli-vaska [“large-grown”] + ru [“person”]: contrast with megli [“large”] + vaska-ru [“growth-person”])

Some other hyphenation guidelines:

• When short-form verbs (and their derivations) are used as a suffix, they should be hyphenated: E.g. blanka-de ‘to whiten’, wecku-ge ‘to poison’, skulku-matru ‘accuser’
• -su ‘thing’ and ‑ru ‘person’ should be hyphenated when suffixed to another complete morpheme, but they are not hyphenated in correlatives: E.g. motra-ru ‘mechanic’ (“motor-person”) but naru ‘no one’ (“no-person”).
• “Stacked” prefixes are usually still separated by hyphens, especially where they might otherwise create a new element that can be confused for a root.

While these style guides are helpful, the likelihood of their consistent, correct usage is only slightly more widespread than that of your/you’re and there/their/they’re.

Names

Names are the most “open” category in the language, often open to interpretation, modification, contraction, and other processes which are not usually otherwise permissible or grammatical. Most names take a “long root,” but many – especially personal names – have short root “nickname” forms, e.g. Danyelu ‘Daniel, Danielle’ with short form Danyu ‘Dan, Danny’.

Personal Names

At its inception, Chrysanthi provided many samples of potential names, but advised that names – especially personal names – be left open to interpretation.

Most names have a default long root form and one or more short-form variants, although a few short names do not have a long form, and vice versa. Per Chrysanthi, as long as it conforms to the phonotactics and morphology of the language, any one‑ or two-syllable word could be a name.

Toponyms (Place Names)

Toponyms are usually comprised of long roots, often with additional affixes such as ‑iyu to indicate a country name. Names of cities are usually just long roots with no additions.

Kinship Terms

In standard European fashion, Europic reflects a typical Inuit-type kinship system with no differentiation between maternal and paternal lines. Its structure is such that all familial relationships by default are non-gendered, but gender can be specified if necessary with the endings -in- ‘female’ and -otc- ‘male’. The basic familial terms are:

Gen.	Direct Line	Indirect Line
+3	le-nonu ‘great-grandparent’
+2	nonu ‘grandparent’	le-vunklu ‘great-auncle’
+1	vatru ‘parent’	vunklu ‘auncle’
0	bratu ‘sibling’	kuzu ‘cousin’
-1	filu ‘child’	nefu ‘nibling’
-2	niku ‘grandchild’	go-nefu ‘grand-nibling’
-3	go-niku ‘great-grandchild’

(I use the awkward but slightly less cumbersome non-gendered terms nibling for ‘niece or nephew’ and auncle for ‘aunt or uncle’ – I know, I hate it too, but sometimes you just have to accept the least horrible options. Child here should be understood as ‘son or daughter’ rather than any random small human.)

There are two distinct types of marriage relationships: The term swekru is compounded to refer to relatives of one’s spouse, while compounds with camu refer to the spouse of one’s relative. In many languages, these terms are conflated, but this allows the distinction between, for example, brata-swekru ‘brother-in-law, the brother of one’s spouse’ and brata-camu ‘brother-in-law, the spouse of one’s brother’. The latter construction is also used to compound “step-”relationships, such as vatra-caminu ‘father’s wife’, i.e. “step-mother.”

There are root terms for all direct relationships from grandchildren to grandparents. Further terms can be indicated with prefixes such as go- ‘great, future generations’ and le- ‘great, past generations’, e.g. go-niku ‘great-grandchild’ vs. le-nonu ‘great-grandparent’.

Lexicon

• Complete List of Europic Words
• Swedesh List (Europic only)