Introduction

Vorlin is a planned language (which might also be called an artificial language, a universal language, or a constructed language, depending on your preference in terminology). The creation of Vorlin began in late 1989 and the first published version appeared in March, 1991. Since that time, I have continued refining the design. These changes have partly been inspired by suggestions from others who have used the proto-language, and are partly the result of my ongoing studies of linguistics and language design issues. The main objective of the design is still vor, our word for "a compromise between technical and aesthetic criteria," in other words, the avoidance of extremism in the design of things.

noteworthy features of Vorlin:

The vast majority of root-words in Vorlin are nouns, for two reasons: 1) I believe it is easier to translate nouns which refer to discreet objects and perceptions into other languages than it is to translate verbs, prepositions and other kinds of words; 2) Vorlin uses affixes to derive most of its verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions from nouns, which gives us a relatively regular and predictable grammar, and reduces the number of morphemes that must be memorized.

Vorlin is not a highly inflected language. The adjectives, for example, do not change their form to reflect the case, number, or gender of the nouns which they describe. Nouns do not go through contortions to indicate case or number. Verbs do not change form to indicate the person or number of their subject; indication of tense is optional and is accomplished with adverbs.

The vocabulary is taken from a wide variety of sources. The morphology is carefully designed to provide vor. Most morphemes are relatively brief (2 or 3 letters).

Orthography and Pronunciation

alphabet:

Vorlin uses these 25 letters: abcdefghijklmnoprstuvwxyz. (Q is absent.)

capitalization:

Only proper nouns and their derivatives begin with upper-case letters; Vorlin does not automatically "capitalize" the first letter of a sentence. This style of capitalization enhances the difference between proper names and identical-looking Vorlin compound words.

pronunciation:

Vorlin's rules of pronunciation are simple and have no exceptions. There are no silent letters. The following table explains the phonemes represented by each Vorlin letter. The English equivalents which are given here refer to Standard American English, not British English.

• a: as in "father." (open, front, not rounded)
• b: as in "bubble" (voiced bilabial plosive)
• c: like the "sh" in "ship" (voiceless postalveolar fricative)
• d: as in "deed" (voiced dental or alveolar plosive)
• e: When "e" is followed by a consonant within a word, it is like the "e" in "ten men". When "e" occurs at the end of a word, it is longer and more frontal, more like the "ey" in "they" but hopefully without the diphthongal off-glide which occurs in English.
• f: as in "fluff" (voiceless bilabial or labiodental fricative)
• g: as in "gargle", not as in "ginger" (voiced velar plosive)
• h: as in "heat" (never silent). The guttural ch of German "bach," Scottish "loch," Yiddish "chutspah" is an acceptable alternative pronunciation for persons (e.g Spanish-speakers and Russians) whose native languages do not contain an English-style "h". (voiceless velar or glottal fricative)
• i: as in "machine" and "ski," not as in "stick" (close, front, not rounded)
• j: as in French "bonjour." This sound is also heard in the English words "vision, pleasure, azure." (voiced postalveolar fricative)
• k: as in "key-stroke" (voiceless velar plosive)
• l: as in "legal"
• m: as in "memory" (voiced bilabial nasal)
• n: as in "noon" (voiced alveolar nasal)
• o: as in "note," Spanish "ocho" (close-mid, back, rounded)
• p: as in "pop" (voiceless bilabial plosive, preferably aspirated)
• r: always distinctly spoken; use a Spanish (voiced alveolar) trill, or a German (voiced uvular) trill.
• s: as in "sissy", not as in "rose" (voiceless alveolar fricative)
• t: as in "tight" (voiceless dental or alveolar plosive, preferably aspirated)
• u: as in "truth," German "du." (close, back, rounded)
• v: as in "valve" (voiced labiodental fricative)
• w: as in "water"
• x: like the "ch" in "church"
• y: as in "yes" and "yo-yo"
• z: as in "zigzag" (voiced alveolar fricative)

Rule for accentuation of polysyllabic words: If a word ends with a vowel, stress the next-to-last syllable. For words ending in consonants, stress the final syllable.

Some languages contain "digraphs" - special combinations of two letters which represent single sounds. English examples of digraphs are the "sh" in "ship" and the "th" in "bath." Vorlin root-words don't contain any digraphs. However, you may occasionally find unofficial digraphs used in Vorlin text to re-spell foreign names; for example, "dj" represents the sound of "J" in "James," "ay" represents the /ai/ diphthong in "Kyle" and "Mike," "ey" represents the e-gliding-to-i in "Cey" and "Kay," and "oy" represents the /oi/ diphthong in "Roy."

Nouns

No declension or inflection to indicate case, number, or anything else.

Compounds

In the formation of compound words, the most significant root-word comes last, and is preceded by its modifiers. For example, ful (meaning "bird") and hus ("house") combine to form fulhus ("birdhouse," a man-made dwelling-structure for birds); ful plus gan (which means "song") produces fulgan ("birdsong," the song of birds) or ganful ("songbird," a bird associated with singing).

Pronouns

The personal pronouns are mi (I), vi (you singular), li (he), zi (she), ta (he/she), di (it), mo (we), vo (you plural), lo (they). All nouns are represented by the neuter pronoun di unless they refer to animate, sentient creatures. Add -xe to form possessives: mixe (my), loxe (their). The relative pronoun is kel: vi bi hom kel havo dat xa pola nuva lin ma? = are you (the) person who has information about many new languages?

Articles

Vorlin does not have definite articles (equivalent to the English word "the") or indefinite articles (like English "a"). Articles in a universal language project are usually a by-product of Euro-centric bias. The rules that govern the usage of articles vary from language to language, and are a great difficulty for people whose native languages do not have articles (and many languages do not).

Verbs

The four verbs are:

i : intransitive, meaning "to do, to engage in (a specified activity)"
o : transitive, meaning "impart quality X to Y, do process X to Y"
bi : intransitive copula, equivalent to some uses of English "to be"
wi : intransitive, meaning "become, acquire the quality/status"

derivatives:

                                    i       o       bi      wi
active participle, adjectival:      inda    onda    binda   winda
active participle, adverbial:       inde    onde    binde   winde
passive participle (noun):          -       it      -       -
passive participle, adjectival:     -       ita     -       -
passive participle, adverbial:      -       ite     -       -

The verbs i, o, wi usually appear as quasi-suffixes attached to other root-words, but bi normally appears in free-standing form. A few simple phrases illustrating the use of verbs:

zi lofo li. She loves him.
li lofo zi. He loves her.
zi volo lofo li. She wants to love him.
lixe fac rubwi. His face reddened (became red.)
li bi bona hom. He is a good person.
zi bi lofita. She is loved.
moxe lofita lin our beloved language
lofinda hom a loving person
homlofinda hom a people-loving person

Some of these could be expressed in other ways:
lixe fac rubwi = lixe fac wi ruba = lixe fac nifo bi ruba
homlofina hom = hom kel lofo heta hom

The transitive -o is normally used when the "object" of the verb is a phrase beginning with ke : mi keno ke vi filo Vorlin (I know that you like Vorlin).

The meanings of o : From the point of view of an English-speaking person, the meaning of o varies somewhat depending on the noun (or other root-word) to which it is attached.

1.) When the root-word refers to an abstract quality, o means "impart the quality to something else." Examples:
hol (completeness) + o = holo (to complete something)
rub (redness) + o = rubo (to redden something)

As a metaphorical extension of the above principle, o can mean "apply the named substance to something else." Example:
sal (salt) + o = salo (to salt something), e.g. temur salo tol vun ("time salts all wounds")

2.) When used with a noun that refers to a relationship, o means "have the relationship toward something." Examples:
sen (lack of) + o = seno (to lack, be without)
sim (similarity) + o = simo (resemble, be similar to)

3.) When used with a noun that refers to an activity or process, o means "do the process or activity to something." Examples:
vid (vision) + o = vido (to see)
don (giving) + o = dono (to give)

4.) In keeping with item 3, when the noun refers to an emotion, o means "feel that emotion toward..." Vorlin is much more consistent about this than English and other languages, so be careful when translating terms of emotion into Vorlin. (Rather than saying "that interests me" or "she makes me angry," a speaker of Vorlin generally takes responsibility for his/her own emotions and says the equivalent of "I do fascination to that" or "I do anger to her.") Examples:
lof (love) + o = lofo (to love someone)
fob (fear) + o = fobo (to be afraid of, to fear something)

5.) The verb o is seldom or never attached to nouns that refer to plants or animals, periods of time (such as "year" or "day"), or geographical features (such as "ocean" and "mountain"). Attaching o to a preposition, numeral or particle should generally be avoided because it is likely to create a word that might be interpreted in several different ways. causatives: The notion of "causing someone to do something" can be expressed by the verb kazo; the infix -ok- can be used with transitive verbs. Please note how the verb's "arguments" are arranged when -ok- is used; the "causee tag" ce points out who is being caused to do whatever is being done. Examples:
zi senoko lof ce mi. (She deprived me of love; literally "she lack-cause love 'ce' me.")
li vidoko buk ce zi. (He showed her the book; literally "he see-cause book 'ce' her.")
zi diroko mi ce pafel. (She aimed the gun at me; literally "she aim:at-cause me 'ce' gun.")

The sentences above could be re-phrased as:

zi kazo mi seno lof. (She caused me to lack love.)
li kazo zi vido buk. (He caused her to see the book.)
zi kazo pafel diro mi. (She caused the gun to point toward me.)

Numerals

The basic cardinal numerals are: yun (1), dus (2), tri (3), fir (4), zag (5), sor (6), sep (7), hac (8), kyu (9), dek (10), hun (100), kil (1000), wan (10 000), meg (1 000 000), gig (1 000 000 000).

For the sake of discussion, we will call the numerals dek, hun, kil, wan, meg, gig "powers-of-ten words." Prefixing a numeral-word ranging from 2 to 9 onto a powers-of-ten word indicates multiplication. Therefore, dusdek means "twenty," sepdek means "seventy," etc. Note that dek by itself means "ten;" it is not necessary to say *yundek.

In naming integers larger than ten, we create a compound word, starting with the multiple of the largest powers-of-ten word and working our way down to the hundreds, tens, and units. These words are written with hyphens after each powers-of-ten word to make reading them easier. Examples: 11 = dek-yun, 21 = dusdek-yun, 365 = trihun-sordek-zag, 7654 = sepkil-sorhun-zagdek-fir.

Ordinals are formed by adding the suffix -a; adverbials are formed by adding -e: yuna = first, yune = firstly; dusa = second, duse = secondly.

Fractions are formed by the suffix -yet : tri firyet = three fourths, 3/4; fir sepyet = four sevenths, 4/7.

Serial numbers, such as the name of a year or a telephone number, are normally spoken digit by digit. The year 1957 is called "yun kyu zag sep" rather than *kil-kyuhun-zagdek-sep.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adding the suffix -a to a noun or preposition forms an adjective meaning "characterized by" or "pertaining to." Examples: ful = bird, fula = avian; bon = goodness, bona = good; son = sound, sona = sonic.

The suffix -a by itself is brief but ambiguous; if you need more precision, you have other options. The suffix -oj means "having a larger than usual amount or heavier than normal concentration of"; -uz means "having an ordinary amount or typical concentration of"; and -ij means "having a smaller than ordinary amount or thinner concentration of." (By the way, these words ending with -oj, -uz, -ij can be used either as adjectives or adverbs.) Additionally, you can use xa- to indicate pertinence, -hava to indicate that something "has" or "is furnished with" something else, or -sena to indicate a lack of something. (-hava is a contraction of -havonda, and -sena of -senonda.) Examples:

bom tree
boma arboreal (= xaboma or bomhava)
xaboma arboreal, pertaining to trees
bomhava tree-ed, having tree(s)
bomsena tree-less, devoid of trees
bomoj having a large quantity of trees, a dense tree population
bomuz having an ordinary concentration of trees
bomij having a sparse tree population, having few trees

hit heat
hitoj hot
hituz warm or lukewarm or "room-temperature"
hitij cool

-oj, -uz and -ij can also be used with verbs to indicate intensity. duti = to blow (i.e. to move as a current of gas); dutiji = to puff or waft (to move as a current of gas with very little intensity).

The opposite meaning of an adjective (if a direct opposite would make any sense) can be formed by adding the prefix kan- (related to Spanish contra-). Thus bona means "good" and kanbona means "bad," fula means "avian" (pertaining to birds) so kanfula would be a nonsense word and would not be used in normal communication. Do not equate kan- with English un-. There is nothing equal to kan- in English, although it is much like contra- in the medical term "contra-indicated," and like anti- in "anti-matter."

Some commonly-used root-words have been given separate opposites. For example, mala has the same meaning as kanbona. These opposites prevent monotonous over-use of kan- and increase the brevity of common words.

Adding -e to a root-word forms an adverb. The -e suffix has a meaning similar to "in the manner of" or "using a method involving..." (Similar to the English suffix -ly.) Examples: bon = goodness, bone = well; mal = badness, male = poorly, badly.

Comparatives are created like so:
bona good
ho bona better, more good
hostu bona best, most good
hi bona less good
histu bona least good

Prepositions