Introduction Alphabet and Pronunciation Accent Derivation Article Nouns Adverbs Proper Nouns

Comparatives Pronouns Verbs Numbers Glossary Conclusion Sample Text Where Can I Learn Latino Sine Flexione?

In 1903 Prof. Giuseppe Peano published an article titled De Latino sine Flexione, Lingua Auxiliare Internationale. Its point was simple: why quibble over which planned language would make a better international tongue when the world already has one -- Latin! Not classical Latin, which died with the Empire, but the living Latin of English and the Romance languages. Anglo-Latin, as it were. And simplified Anglo-Latin at that, without all those hydra-like inflexions, conjugations, double roots, and so forth. In fact, without any grammar at all. Less, Peano argued, is more.

And to prove his point, he began his article in classical Latin and then, little by little, dropped the inflexions, until at last he had clipped the Latin hydra down to one grammatical head -- all without any loss of meaning or comprehension. The result he called "Latino sine Flexione", although for a time it was called "Interlingua" before the emergence of another "Interlingua" that obliged it to go back to "Latino sine Flexione". (There's always something Spinal-Tappish about the way conlangs arrive at their final names.)

But in the end the language's "he governs best who governs least" approach to language didn't prove to be very popular with its would-be subjects, and Peano's Interlingua came to be replaced, name and all, by the later Interlingua of the Association pro le Lingua Auxiliar International.

Back to Top

ALPHABET AND PRONUNCIATION

Although tastes differed, most Latino-speakers preferred the orthography and pronunciation of classical Latin:

Back to Top

ACCENT

The primary stress in words always falls on the penultimate syllable, and the secondary stress, when needed, falls wherever euphony demands.

Back to Top

DERIVATION

Where Esperanto and Ido can be regarded as "compromise pan-european", (their word derivations and orthographies are compromises between the major languages of Europe -- hence their chimeric appearance), Peano introduced a new strategy: "etymological Anglo-Latin", in which the most modern and international words (which Peano found to be the Latin word stock of English) are more or less consistently traced back to the original Latin source word in order to forge a language more naturalistic and recognizable than any other conlang before it.

Here's his method:

All Latino nouns are taken from the Latin genitive along the following table:

Latin buffs may recognize the Latino endings as the Latin ablative, and they'd be right. But Peano's aim was to enable people not already familiar with the Latin ablative to use existing Latin dictionaries (most of which only give the nominative and genitive forms) to figure out what the Latino form of a word is.

Nouns can also be used as a verbs.

Adjectives are taken from the Latin nominative neutral ending when it is -e or -um (to be changed to -o); otherwise their source is the genitive (to be changed like nouns, above):

Adjectives can also be used as an adverbs.

For the most part, verbs are created by dropping the -re from the Latin infinitive:

The exceptions are: dic "says", duc "leads", es "is", fac "does", fer "carries", vol "wants". Verbs can also be used as nouns.

Back to Top

ARTICLES

There are no definite or indefinite articles in Latino. They must be translated by a pronoun, like illo or uno, when they are indeed pronomial and necessary:

Back to Top

NOUNS

The plural ends in -s, but only in cases of absolute need. (Eg., decem simia or decem simias "ten monkeys".)

As for gender, even though Latino inherited the gender endings of Latin, supposedly there is absolutely no gender in Latino, i.e. cane ("dog") no more indicates the male sex than the female. To do that, one adds mas or femina: cane mas ("male dog"), cane femina ("bitch").

On the other hand, Latino has pairs like filio/filia, illo/illa, propheta/prophetissa, which suggest that its words in fact still carry grammatical gender.

Back to Top

PROPER NOUNS

Names usually written in the Roman alphabet are transcribed as literally as possible Caesar, Shakespeare, Descartes, Dell'Abate, John, Giovanni, Fafa Floly, Europa, Asia, Peru, El Salvador, München, New York. Names written in a non-Roman alphabet are transcribed phonetically: Socrates, Pushkin, Pythagoras, Dniepr.

Back to Top

ADVERBS

Adverbs are created with cum mente or in modo: illo calcitra suo patre cum mente impavido "he fearlessly kicked his father".

Back to Top

COMPARATIVES

The comparative follows the following model:

Back to Top

PRONOUNS

The pronouns are me (I), te (thou), illo (it, he or she), illa (she), id (it), nos (us), vos (you all), and illos (they). The reflexive is se. The possessives are: meo, tuo, suo, nostro, vestro

Back to Top

VERBS

Verbs are conjugated as follows:

To express tenses other than the present, one uses temporal adverbs or e (past tense) or i (future tense):

Back to Top

NUMBERS

The numbers are: uno, duo, tres, quatuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem, decem-uno, decem-duo, viginti, triginta, quadraginta, quinquaginta, sexaginta, septuaginta, octoginta, nonaginta, centum, mille. Other combinations: decem et uno (eleven), duo decem (twenty).

Back to Top

CONCLUSION

There's a fundamental flaw in the "naturalistic" approach to neo-Latin conlangs that undermines their whole reason for existence. That flaw, of course, lies in the fact that it's the irregularities and complexities of Latin that created the need for an artificially streamlined version in the first place. To incorporate those drawbacks into a planned language is to re-invent a square wheel. Why, for example, preserve the gender markers of Latin in a language claiming to have no gender at all? How does one justify to a student that he should say muliere and not muliera or muliero, or poeta and not poete or poeto? If Esperanto's akcento seems artificial to those accustomed to writing accento, accent or even accentus, at least its form is predictable; who but a Latin scholar might guess that the Latino word is accentu?

Other problems besiege the learner: Latino has inherited the many affixes of Latin, many of which have the same meaning, and many of which also have multiple meanings. If a constructed language doesn't bring some order to this chaos, what's the point of having one?

Then there's the question of precision of expression, of clearly conveying the relationship between words, which is a function of grammar. Latino prides itself on having almost no grammar, reasoning that the less grammar a language has, the easier it is to learn. But the student quickly finds out that this isn't always true, and that a simple grammar, without exceptions that need to be learned by heart, would be easier to work with and more precise.

So Latino came and went, nowadays serving only to create confusion between itself and the Interlingua of the 1950s. But the project wasn't a complete loss, for it did formulate, more thoroughly than any other language before it, a method of systematically and rationally pulling root words from the tangled hydra heads of Latin and its offshoot languages. When someone succeeds in combining that method with the iron regularity of Esperanto, then, at last, the world will have something worth adopting.

Back to Top

SAMPLE TEXT

“O domino Deo!” illo cogita, “possibile que me es stupido? Hoc me nunquam suppone, et hoc nullo debe sci! Possibile que me non es apto ad meo officio? Non, es re intolerabile si me dic que me non vide textura!”

“An, vos exprime nihil super id!” dic uno de textores.

“O isto es splendido! Toto magnifico!” dic vetere ministro, dum examina per suo perspicillos, “Hoc designo et hoc colores! Certo, me vol dic ad imperatore que illo place ad me maximo modo!”

“Bene, hoc satisfac nos!” dic ambo textores, et illos mentiona nomines de colores et de extraordinario designo. Vetere ministro ausculta cum attentione, pro pote idem repete, quando illo redi ad imperatore, et ita illo fac.

ab Hans Christian Andersen

Capitano Vulpe vade cum suo amico Capro cum alto cornu. Isto non vide plus longe quam suo naso; illo es doctore in fraude.

Siti obliga illos ad descende in puteo.

Post quam ambo bibe ad abundantia, Vulpe dice ad Capro: “Quod nos fac, compatre? Bibe non es toto; oporte exi de hic. Erige tuo pedes ad alto et item tuo cornus; pone illos juxta muro. Primum me rampe super tuo dorso; deinde me surge super tuo cornus; et per medio de isto machina, me exi de isto loco; post quod me trahe te.”

“Per meo barba, dice alio, id es bono, et me lauda gentes valde sapiente sicut te. Me ipso nunquam inventa illo secreto, me confite id.”

Vulpe exi de puteo, relinque suo socio et fac ad illo pulero sermone, pro exhorta ad patientia. “Si cælo, illo dice, dona ad te per excellentia, tanto judicio quam barba ad mento, te non descende temerario in isto puteo. Nunc vale; me es extra. Tenta de trahe te ex, nam me ipso habe uno negotio, que non permitte me de siste in via.”

In omne re, respice fine.

“Petro te i cade cito ex trahino, quando te propende in tale modo ex ostio.”

Parvo Petro non cura monitione, et patre sume in veloce modo pileo de suo filiolo, et occule eo post se.

“Pulchre! nunc tuo pileo abes!”

Petro incipe fle violente, usque suo patre sic in fine: “Nunc, es te tacito, puero, si me sibila, illo reveni”.

Sibila, et repone pileo super Petro.

Post pauco tempore, quando patre non es parato ad id, Petro, illo ipso, jace pileo foras et dic: “Papa, sibila te uno altero vice”.

Back to Top

WHERE CAN I LEARN LATINO SINE FLEXIONE?

Theoretically, all you need to learn Latino Sine Flexione is the info already on this page and a Latin dictionary. Which is a good thing, since there isn't much else out there:

• Europeano

Back to Top