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Glosa, an International Auxiliary Language
December 13, 2004
Glosa, short information
Brevi info in English
There are many drafts of international auxiliary languages, but Glosa is the most advanced one with no grammatical endings on the words (linguists call that an “isolating” structure). It is designed by Ronald Clark and Wendy Ashby and goes back to Lancelot Hogben’s Interglossa (1943).
From The Glosa Basic Reference (by Ron Clark and Wendy Ashby, 1994):
Glosa is an artificial language intended for use among people with different native, cultural, or national languages. It is an auxiliary language and has no purpose of supplanting or replacing any other languages. Its purpose is only to be a common means of communication for people of different languages. Glosa has several distinguishing characteristics:
- Its structure is very simple and based on semantics. It is an analytical language with no inflexions, genders, or diacritical marks. Glosa does have ways of forming plurals, tenses, questions, etc., similar to Chinese and Malay, which use a word for each idea, but no inflections. A small number of words handle grammatical relationships not otherwise provided for. Many Glosa words can serve as more than one part of speech as meaning and common sense allow.
- Glosa words are based on Latin and Greek roots common to the chief Euro-languages; via science, technology, and medicine, these words are penetrating all languages. Although a larger vocabulary is available, a base vocabulary of between 1000 and 2000 words handles most situations.
- Its pronunciation is simple and regular, and its spelling is phonetic.
- Above all, Glosa is neutral. Because it is no one’s own language, it is available to everyone without jealousy or resentment over the dominance of any one or a few national languages. Its use of Latin and Greek roots, many of which are already in widespread use, gives it internationality.
Glosa Mechanic
Some examples:
| u feli | A cat, the cat |
| plu feli; poli feli | Cats; many cats |
| tri feli | Three cats |
| u feli tri | The third cat |
| u-ci feli; u-la feli | This cat; that cat |
| plu-ci feli, plu-la feli | These cats; those cats |
| Fe ki ad urba. | She goes to town. |
| Fe nu ki ad urba. | She is now going to town. |
| Fe fu ki ad urba. | She will go to town. |
| Fe pa ki ad urba. | She went/did go to town. |
| Fe pa du ki ad urba. | She was going to town. |
| Fe fu du ki ad urba. | She will be going to town. |
| Fe nu pa ki ad urba. | She has just gone to town. |
| Fe nu fu ki ad urba. | She is just going to go/is about to go … |
| Fe pa more ki ad urba. | She used to go/habitually went to town. |
| Fe ne sio ki ad urba. | She wouldn’t go to town. |
| Lase na ki ad urba. | Let’s go to town. |
| Lase fe ki ad urba. | Let her go to town. |
| Si fe ki ad urba, … | If she go to town, … |
| Fe sio ki ad urba, … | She would go to town, … |
| Qe fe ki ad urba? | Is she going to town? |
| Qe tu pote ki ad urba? | Can you/are you able to go to town? |
| Qo acide? | What is happening? |
| Tu pa vide qo-pe? | Whom did you see? |
| Qo-ka fe pa ki ad urba? | Why did she go to town? |
| Fe fu posi ki ad urba. | She might go to town. |
| gene u feli | Get a cat |
| ge-lose feli | Lost cat |
| Id frakti; id pa frakti. | It is breaking; it broke. |
| Id pa gene frakti. | It got broken. |
| Id es ge-frakti. | It is broken. |
| lave se | Wash oneself |
| Mi auto pa vide id. | I myself saw it. |
| ma; maxi | more/-er; most/-est |
| mei; mini | less; least |
| u andro; qi … | The man who … |
| u feli; qi … | The cat which … |
| (Opposites with NO-:) | |
| gravi; no-gravi | heavy; light |
| (Negation with NE-:) | |
| frigi; ne-frigi | cold; not cold (not necessarily hot) |
| Tu feno sani. | You look well. |
| An feno no-sani. | He looks ill. |
| Tu pa gene nati di okto, | You were born on the eighth of May. |
| meno pento. | |
| Mi gene sko de Deutsch. | I am learning German. |
| Fe sti fobo mi. | She frightens me. |
| Na nece sti logi u demo. | We must make people understand. |
| Fe habe dek anua. | She is ten years old. |
| An nima es George. | His name is George. |
| Place. Gratia. Penite. | Please. Thank you. Sorry. |
| Qo-lo tu eko? | Where do you live? |
| Qo es tu eko-lo? | … |
| Qe tu gene sko de Glosa? | Are you learning Glosa? |
| retro tri meno | Three months ago |
| iso mega de | as big as |
| di-mo | Sunday |
| di-bi | Monday |
| Qo horo? Id es pen horo. | What time is it? It’s 5 o’clock. |
| Nona minuta po tri horo | 9 minutes past 3 |
| bi-pen minuta pre six horo 25 minutes to 6 | |
| Na pa ki a Roma tem | We went to Rome in March. |
| meno tri. | |
| medika-pe | medical doctor |
| medika-fe | female medical doctor |
| medika-an | male medical doctor |
| France-lingua | French (language) |
Please visit the English, German or Glosa section site for further information, material, texts, links or dictionaries.
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