Sambahsa and Uropi

So there exists a text which is available in both Sambahsa and Uropi. What is special about these two languages is that instead of being based on a particular group - like Interlingua is on Romance languages and Slovianski on the Slavic group - they are based on the world's largest language family - the Indo-European (IE) languages. Take out the Sinosphere, the Middle East, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Turkey and a couple of other small countries and everywhere an IE language is spoken. In 2007, more than 2.7 billion people had an IE language as their mother tongue, not to mention others who speak an IE language, particularly English and French, as a second language.

Coming back to Sambahsa and Uropi, Uropi doesn't look as antiquated as Sambahsa and it is phonetic! Sambahsa, on the other hand, in its attempt to preserve the orthography of words from West European languages has an "elaborated" (difficult) orthography. Here it's worth mentioning that you may have to make a few changes (not a big deal today for Linux users) to type the Uropi letter ʒ.

 

Where as written Sambahsa looks similar to Turkish, Albanian; Uropi's orthography makes it look more like a creole.

In Sambahsa, like in Russian, Hindi/Urdu and French, present tense is conjugated for person. As a consequence you don't have to use pronouns as often as in Uropi which has opted for a simpler approach (like in English and Norwegian).

Further compared to four definite articles in Sambahsa (German has three), Uropi (like English) has only one.

Both languages have aspects unique to them. Sambahsa uses demonstrative pronouns as articles and they are declined according to the gender, number and case. At the same time noun declination has been kept optional! In Uropi, there is only a genitive case and it is used to form adjectives!

I'm not competent so say anything more so here is a snippet from The Little Prince (Chapter Four, paragraphs two and three):

DE MIKI PRINS (Uropi)

Source: Yahoo Groups! Uropi Varkia

Da mozì ne stono ma mol. I zavì ʒe te usim de gren planete wim Ter, Jupiter, Mars, Venus we av nome, je ste suntade planete we se ekvos sa miki te un moz nerim ne vizo la ki u teleskòp. Wan un astronomìst diskròv un od la, he dav jo u numar po nom. He nom ja po samp “asteròid 3251”. [sic]

I av serios motive po kreo te de planet od wo de Miki Prins venì se asteròid B612. Di asteròid vidì solem vizen unvos teleskopim in 1909, pa u Turki astronomìst.

IS LYTIL PRINCE (Sambahsa)

To khiek staunihes me maung. Ioghi woid od exter ia piwon planetes kam id Ardh, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, quibs nams hieb esen dahn, eent centens alyen qua eent yando tem smulkaquem eet baygh difficil dyehrce ia med un telescope. Quan un astronom aunstohg oin ex ia, el ei dahsit ka nam un adadh. El kiel id mathalan : « asteroido 325 ».

Ho serieusa sababs os credihes od id planete quetos gwohm is lytil prince est asteroid B612. Tod asteroid buit dyohrcto tik oins, in 1909, ab un tyrk astronom.

Three Useful Artifical Languages to Learn

There are perhaps as many artificial languages (auxlangs) in the world as natural languages. Unfortunately, only a few of these languages have more than a dozen speakers. With perhaps more speakers than all the other auxlangs combined, Esperanto has been the queen of the field for the past 100 years. 

Other than Esperanto there are many exciting auxlangs and conlangs. For instance, one of them (Toki Pona) doesn't have more than 123 words to talk about everything in the world, while the vocabulary of another (Sambahsa) is inspired from proto-Indo-European (a language believed to be the mother of all Indo-European languages) and still there is a third (Lojban) that claims to have the most logical grammar. 

Exciting as these languages are, I wonder if an ordinary guy on the street has much use of them. To my knowledge there exist only three languages, that you can put to some practical use after learning and these are: 

1. Interlingua

It's my personal favourite. If you are reading this, you will find Interlingua the most familiar. It has its vocabulary extracted from the five major world languages namely English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Add to that occasional sprinkling of words from German and Russian and you get a language that, with the exception of the Middle East and the Far East, can be used everywhere. 

It is common to hear that there are exceptions and irregularities in Interlingua. Fortunately, you won't even notice them if you speak any of the source languages. How many of you would raise eyebrows on reading that Interlingua es is 'is' and son is 'are'? This is perfectly natural, isn't it?

There are two major advantages of learning Interlingua: 

• You get an insight into how Romance languages work and after spending a few months you begin to get the gist of texts in source languages (except English).
• Your English vocabulary takes a boost.

2. Slovianski

They call it the Slavic counterpart of Interlingua. The methodology of extracting vocabulary is more of less the same but there are more source languages - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Slovene, Bularian and Macedonian - and all of them are Slavic. A grammar of the language is available on this website but I haven't found any lessons yet. Therefore, I don't know how much it will help you in the understanding of Slavic languages. However, when I showed a few Slovianski sentences to a Russian friend, he understood almost everything.

Just like Interlingua, there are irregularities and exceptions. The difference is: we will feel the pinch this time!

And it should give you a taste of writing and reading in Slavic languages within a few months of study.

3. Esperanto

Esperanto doesn't help you understand any language. It looks ugly. The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans don't find it easy. Most speakers of the language prefer to talk about Esperanto than any other topic and they look down on other artificial languages, often calling it a "waste" of time and energy. Still, it among the three and the reason it the strength of its speakers. They are spread all over the globe and by even the most conservative estimates, there are at least 10,000 of them.

There are lots of books in Esperanto and if your dream is to see the world but you are tight on cash, Pasporta Servo (Passport Service) can help you. Through Esperanto, I have talked to people from China, Lithuania, Romania and the Democratic Republic of Congo and have learned how similar we are. But again, even here discussion about Esperanto takes at least 10% of the time.

Therefore if you are looking for a way so that you can start talking to people from all over the world without using Google Translate, Esperanto is the way to go.

===================================================

I wanted to add Frenkisch too but I don't think it's ready yet and I don't know a non-English Germanic language speaker who can tell me how effective the language is.

Ghato mien prientin hoyd!!!!

Note: Scripim in Sambahsa. Ho paur! Ia maght sayge no! Olivier, ne tarjem!

Som masrour hoyd. Ghatim mien prientin hoyd. Ia est bell ed wey ghietam in id autobus station os mien urb Patiala. Wey ghietam pos quar yars. Meg lieubho iam. Mien nov prient Rishabh dahit mi courage. Is est un jamile anghen.

Hoyd, eiskwo sayge, aun paur:

Ho Prientin,

Iam meist bell gwen,

In ia mund ed universe,

Meg lieubho te!

Easy Russian and Sambaha Texts (1)

I have begun learning Russian again and have almost completed the first 13 chapters of Learning Russian by Nina Potapova. I have got an old edition (1967) and it works great for me. As part of my revision, I'm posting here the Russian texts from the first five chapters in the book.

Also, because there aren't to be found any easy Russian texts online for beginners, I hope this will help them too. What's more, it is hard to find this amazing book. It appears to me Amazon offers only one of the four volumes the book was published in and there is only a single review on Open Library, which is written my none other than me.

As far as Sambahsa is concerned. My experience with constructed languages tells me you can learn them better when you get actively engaged with the language. So I've attempted to translate the same Russian texts into Sambahsa.

Lesson 1

Вот дом. Дом тут?
Her est un dom. Est her un dom?

Да, дом тут. Да, он тут.
Ya, id dom est her. Ya, id est her.

Вот мост. Мост там?
Her est un brigv. Est un brigv her?

Да, мост там. Да, он там.
Ya, id brigv est her. Ya, id est her.

Lesson 2

Вот дом и двор.
Her sont dom ed aula.

Вот дом, двор и забор.
Her sont dom, aula ed kagh.

Вот двор. Тут трава. Там ива.
Her est un aula. Her est trav. Ter est un salk.

Порт там? Да, он там.
Est id port ter? Ya, id est ter.

Мост тут? Да, он тут.
Est id brigv her? Ya, id est her.

Вот стол. Ваза и роза там.
Her est un meja. Vase ed rose sont ter.

Lesson 3

Вот фабрика. Вот станок.
Her est un fabric. Her est un jihase.

Вот комната. У нас тут урок.
Her est un kamer. Habmos un lection her.

У вас тут урок? Да, у нас тут урок. Вот карта СССР.
Habte yu un lection her? Ya, habmos un lection her. Her est id map os Soviet Union.

Вот бумага. Вот буква к и буква х. Вот буква х и буква г.
Her est papier. Her sont buksteiv к ed buksteiv х. Her sont buksteiv х ed buksteiv г. 

Там хор.
Id khor est ter.

Lesson 4 

Карта тут? Да, она тут.
Est her id map? Ya, id est her.

Это карта СССР? Да, это карта СССР.
Est tod un map os Soviet Union? Ya, tod est un map os Soviet Union.


Это Москва? Да, это Москва.
Est tod Moskva? Ya, tod est Moskva.

Вот двор. Фонтан там? Да, он там, направо.
Her est un aula. Est id fontan ter? Ya, id est ter, levtro.

Lesson 5

Вот мой брат Юрий.
Her est mien brater Yuri.

Я иду домой.
Gwahm kyant dom.

Вот мой дом.
Her est mien dom.

Направо моё окно.
Dextro est mien fenster.

Там моя комната.
Ter est mien kamer.

Я даю урок.
Dahm un lectionum.

Вот карта: это моя страна.
Her est un map: tod est mien land.

Твой брат поёт, и я пою.
Tien brater kant, ed ego kano.

Я еду домой.
Wehgho kyant dom.

Я знаю это.
Gnohm tod.

I faced two problems with translation.

1. Russian has two words for Sambahsa her(here): вот and тут.
2. I don't know how to translate Russian это (this), so I've used Sambahsa so.

Prient Olivier, som maaf!

Kamo id bahsa ma ne poitto faham meg. Kamo kheisse id ed ne tik bahm malye. :(

When Robert chose Lingwa de Planeta as his preferred language for writing literature in 2010, he also said he was putting learning Sambahsa "on hold" because of "insufficient documentation." He called it the most perfect of all languages he had examined and it was back in June last year. 

Now, we are three months into 2011 and I don't think the situation has improved a lot in terms of documentation. It doesn't mean the author has gone dormant. He continues to translate texts, has made online the second edition of the 12,000-word Sambahsa-English Dictionary and even uploaded a verb conjugator on the internet. In spite of all this I am still finding it hard to learn the language and the possible could be that I've never learned a language with case system. I believe I need to know more about the cases (not just the rules) and for this reason I think it would be better if I learned some Russian and got a taste for how case system functions before picking up Sambahsa again.

Day before yesterday I started learning Russian again and if things go well I should be able to complete the first volume of Learning Russian by Nina Potapova between two to three months. Only then will I start learning Sambahsa again. By the way, I couldn't go past Katakana in Japanese. It's been put to rest too.

Understanding Sambahsa Pronouns 2

Hi again! This time, our focus will be on understanding the pronouns in the third and fourth categories in Sambahsa. So let's begin with the third category or His-Her pronouns.

Imagine a ten-year-old who starts playing with the computer of his elder sister. What will be the reaction of the elder sister: "Hey! It's my computer!" or "Hey! It's I computer!"?

Again, it wouldn't be I computer but my computer because that's how English works. I-We pronouns change into His-Her pronouns when you want to show you own something or have a relation to someone, as in 'my brother' or 'my friend.'

The same happens in Sambahsa too! So the sister of the ten-year-old would say this in Sambahsa:

Hey! Tod est mien computer.
Hey! That's my computer.

Hey! Tod est noster* computer.
Hey! That's our computer.

Hey! Tod est tien computer.
Hey! That's your (one person's) computer.

Hey! Tod est voster* computer.
Hey! That's your (a group's) computer.

Hey! Tod est eys computer.
Hey! That's his computer.

Hey! Tod est ir computer.
Hey! That's their computer.

Hey! Tod est ays computer.
Hey! That's her computer.

Hey! Tod est ir computer.
Hey! That's their computer.

Hey! Tod est ids computer.
Hey! That's its (say a robot) computer.

Hey! Tod est ir computer.
Hey! That's their computer

Hey! Tod est el computer.
Hey! That's his (an alien's) computer.

Do you remember an alien is someone whose gender isn't known? If not, having a quick look at  Understanding Sambahsa Pronouns 1 will help you.

Hey! Tod est ir computer.
Hey! That's their computer.

* = Notice that in English I haven't written that is but have used its short form: that's. In Sambahsa, noster and voster have their short forms too: nies and vies. There is no difference whatsoever in their meanings and it's all upon you to decide which form to use.

Here's a table of His-Her pronouns:

Mien- My; Noster or Nies - Our

Tien - Your; Voster or Vies - Your

Eys - His; Ir - Thier (males)

Ays - Her; Ir - Their (females)

Ids - Its; Ir - Their (robots')

Els - X's (alien's) ; Ir - XX's (aliens')

Okay! So let's move on to the fourth category of pronouns or To-him To-her pronouns. Suppose Fatima comes to you to ask for a book and you give her the book. How would you put that in English: 'I gave Fatima a book.' or 'I gave a book to Fatima.'?

In this case, both sentences are correct. In Sambahsa, when someone receives something or is directly affected by what you do, there's a special pronoun for that someone. Grammarians would express it this way: the recipient of direct object.

Don't worry if you don't understand that. The following sentences will help you get clearer about these fourth category pronouns:

Is daht mi un buk.
He gives (to) me a book.

Is daht nos un buk.
He give (to) us a book.

Is daht tib un buk.
He gives (to) you a book.

Is daht vos un buk.
He gives (to) you (you are a group) a book.

Is daht ei un buk.
He gives (to) him a book.

Is daht ibs un buk.
He gives (to) them (males) a book.

Is daht ay un buk.
He gives (to) her a book.

Is daht iabs un buk.
He gives (to) them (females) a book.

Is daht ei un buk.
He gives (to) it (a robot) a book.

Is daht ibs un buk.
He gives (to) them (robots) a book.

Is daht al un buk.
He gives (to) X (an alien) a book.

Is daht im un buk.
He gives (to) XX (aliens) a book.

To is redundant in English sentences but in Sambahsa, it's shown by the use of fourth category of pronouns or To-him To-her pronouns.

Again, here's a table of these pronouns:

Mi - (to) Me; Nos - (to) Us

Tib - (to) You; Vos - (to) You

Ei - (to) Him; Ibs - (to) Them

Ay - (to) Her; Iabs - (to) Them

Ei - (to) It; Ibs - (to) Them

Al - (to) X; Im - (to) XX

And with this, we are done with the simple pronouns. In the subsequent posts I'll try to explain Demonstrative (this, that) pronouns and Interrogative (who, what) pronouns.

Understanding Sambahsa Pronouns 1

If you are a linguist or someone comfortable with grammatical terms such as accusative, dative, genitive and so on, the fifth chapter in the Sambahsa Primer in English explains very well how pronouns work in the language. 

On the other hand, if you're like me, someone who isn't very competent at languages and prefers to learn through examples than cramming rules, that material is enough to scare you away thinking that it's too tough a language.

Fortunately, I managed to learn the pronouns and  that became possible only through kind help from Dr. Olivier Simon. If it weren't for him, I don't think I'd have been able to understand pronouns well and I might even have quit learning the language. 

To thank that guy, here's a small attempt from my side to provide an explanation of Sambahsa pronouns  and make it easier for non-grammarians to understand them. So without further ado, let's begin:

Pronouns in Sambahsa are divided into four categories and the first category of pronouns are I-WE pronouns. It means:

Ego - I; Wey - We

Tu - You; Yu - You

Is - He; Ies - They

Ia - She; Ias - They

Id - It; Ia - They

El -X; I - XX

Simple enough? Yeah, but why are there two you-s, three they-s? and what are the meanings of X and XX?

The English you can be translated as either tu or yu in Sambahsa. Now, if you are talking to a close friend or a family member, you would use tu. But, if there are more than one person you are talking to or you are at a business meeting, addressing others with yu shows etiquette.

The difference between the three they-s in Sambahsa is this: Ies denotes more than one male, Ias more than a female and Ia stands for the more than one non-living object.

Finally, el and i are a little tricky. Suppose you want to tell a friend that you saw an alien the previous night. Which pronoun: he, she or it, would you use? In English you can use either he or it but in Sambahsa, there is a special pronoun for these cases: el and its plural i. These are used when you aren't sure of the gender of an object or being.

I read a long time ago that it's easier to remember sentences than words so here are a few sample sentences:

Ego bahm.

I speak.

Wey bahmos.

We speak.

Tu bahs.

You speak.

Yu bahte.

You speak.

Is baht.

He speaks.

Ies bahnt.

They (males) speak.

Ia baht.

 She speaks.

Ias bahnt.

They (females) speak.

Id baht.

It speaks.

Ia bahnt.

They (neuter objects) speak.

El baht.

X speaks.

I bahnt.

They (objects or beings of unspecified gender) speak.

That wasn't very difficult, I believe. If you aren't already exhausted by now, let's have a look at the second category of pronouns or HIM-HER pronouns before we finish this post.

Okay, there are good people to be found everywhere and these good people love others around them. One of those good people is my grandmother Gurjeet Kaur Anand. How will I tell you that my grandmother loves me? Will I say: Mamma (as I call her) loves I or Mamma loves me? Of course, I'll use the second sentence because it sounds more correct!

The same thing happens in Sambahsa too. Just like in English, I-We pronouns change into Him-Her pronouns in certain sentences and here's how it happens:

Mamma lieubht me.

Mamma loves me.

Mamma lieubht nos.

Mamma loves us.

Mamma lieubht te.

Mamma loves you.

Mamma lieubht vos.

Mamma loves you.

Mamma lieubht iom.

Mamma loves him.

Mamma lieubht iens.

Mamma loves them (males).

Mamma lieubht iam.

Mamma loves her.

Mamma lieubht ians.

Mamma loves them (females).

Mamma lieubht id.

Mamma loves it.

Mamma lieubht ia.

Mamma loves them. (neuter objects; say books)

Mamma lieubht el.

Mamma loves X. (X may be an alien!)

Mamma lieubht i.

Mamma loves X. (there may be more than one alien.)

So, can you guess the meanings of me, him, her etc from the sentences? Just to be sure you are correct, match them with the table below:

Me - Me; Nos - Us

Te - You; Vos - You

Iom - Him; Iens - Them

Iam - Her; Ians - Them

Id - It; Ia - Them

El - Xy; I - XXy

How many did you get correct?!!

That's it for this time. In the next post, I'll try to cover the next two categories and then will try to continue with other grammar points as I progress in my studies.

Why have I decided to learn Sambahsa and Japanese?

In his forward to The Sambahsa Grammar, Dr. Olivier Simon writes something fantastic. There, the creator of the language rightly says:

"Since they (IALs) first became popular in the late 19th century, [most of the] auxiliary languages have placed simplicity above all else."

Before I read this, I'd tried to learn Esperanto, Interlingua and Lojban and had read about Ido, Latino Sine Flexione, Lingwa de Planeta and a whole lot of others.

Most of them - with the exception of Klingon and Na'vi in my mind - claim to be easier than any other language for one reason or another.

In spite of their relative ease in learning, I couldn't understand, why I was unable to learn them. This often made me think that learning languages wasn't my cup of tea. But after I reading these sentences in the same forward, I'm beginning to doubt this: 

"The new state of Israel, at its inception, could easily have gone with one of the many international auxiliary languages and yet went with a language that was not created to be easy, a language [that] appealed to people for its spirit and heritage, and not [for] its simplicity or international character."

Dr. Simon is right in saying that we are more likely to spend time learning something that is appealing to us than something that's easy but doesn't evoke any emotions.

A corollary of this statement is that languages are more than mere words linked together by some rules of a grammar.

It is something that most conlangers don't take care of when they set out to design a language.  I read in a blog (probably by Rick Harrison) that what the conlangers do is they conceive of their language as a product and want to make it better thinking that it would attract more speakers.

This is as far from reality as it can be because if a better language (I don't know what makes a language better) could attract speakers, auxlangs wouldn't have, on an average, less than 25 speakers per language. Especially, given the current scenario in which almost each conlanger claims that his or her language is better than others.

Now, turning to answering why I've decided to learn a language that didn't even have more than two fluent speakers by last count, I don't need more than these three words: on a whim.

I'm not a professional linguist who can analyze and then can make judgments about the 'linguistic superiority' (does there exist such a term?) of a language. I've decided to learn Sambahsa because its creator has explicitly mentioned in the forward that learning his language is not going to be an easy task.

I know that learning languages is not easy. The creator of the Sambahsa doesn't try to hide the difficulties, a learner would face, by playing with words. To me this is 'good' and has positive connotations. You can also say it's the absence of any exaggeration of any kind about the language that has attracted me to it.

I don't know if I will ever be able to learn Sambahsa to fluency or not. But I do know one thing: I'll not drop the language until I can link it to goodness as I perceive it.

Talking of Japanese, I've decided to learn it for exactly the same reason. The Introduction to the Complete Grammar Guide by Tae Kim doesn't adopt any short cuts and fools learners into believing that this is going to be a cake walk.

Another reason is that I'm curious to know what the Japanese felt when they first encountered Europeans, who were technologically more advanced than the Japanese back in the 16th and 17th centuries. Also, I want to read Osamu Dazai in the original.

My plan is to spend thirty minutes everyday for five days a week on Sambahsa and I'm looking forward to reading Ithacus is Calator within three months from now.

About Japanese, I'll spend 45 minutes everyday for six days a week and still consider myself lucky if I could complete the Basic Grammar on Tae Kim's website and get the gist of even a single text on Aozora, the Japanese equivalent of our The Gutenberg Project, in the same period.