Lingua Franca Nova (), abbreviated as LFN and known colloquially as Elefen, is an

auxiliary Auxiliary may refer to: * A backup site or system In language * Auxiliary language (disambiguation) * Auxiliary verb In military and law enforcement * Auxiliary police * Auxiliaries, civilians or quasi-military personnel who provide support of ...

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

originally created by C. George Boeree of

Shippensburg University Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania (Ship or SU) is a public university in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Founded in 1871, it later became the first teachers college in Pennsylvani ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...

, and further developed by many of its users. Its vocabulary is based on the

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...

French,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional It ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, and Catalan. Lingua Franca Nova has

phonemic spelling A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthographi ...

based on 22 letters from the Latin script. The grammar of Lingua Franca Nova is inspired by the

Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

creole languages A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. W ...

. As most creole languages, Lingua Franca Nova has an extremely simplified grammatical system that is easy to learn.

History

Boeree started to design Lingua Franca Nova in 1965, with the goal of creating an

international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...

simple, coherent and easy to learn for international communication. He was inspired by the

Mediterranean Lingua Franca The Mediterranean Lingua Franca, or Sabir, was a pidgin language that was used as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries. Etymology ''Lingua franca'' meant literally "Frankish language" in Late Latin, a ...

or " Sabir", a Romance pidgin used by European sailors and merchants as a

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

in the

Mediterranean Basin In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and wa ...

from the 11–18th century, and by various creoles such as

Papiamento Papiamento () or Papiamentu (; nl, Papiaments) is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), with official status in Aru ...

and

Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people worl ...

. He used French,

, and Catalan as

lexifier A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a pidgin or creole language's vocabulary (lexicon). Often this language is also the dominant, or superstrate language, though this is not always the case, as can be seen in t ...

s. Lingua Franca Nova was first presented on the internet in 1998. A Yahoo! Group was formed in 2002 by Bjorn Madsen, and reached about 300 members who contributed significantly to the further evolution of the language. In 2005 Stefan Fisahn created a

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

for the language. The wiki moved to

Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom ...

in 2009, then was hosted directly on the official website in 2019. In 2007, Igor Vasiljevic created a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

group, which now has over 600 members. LFN was given an

ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for i ...

designation ("lfn") by SIL in January 2008. In 2008 Simon Davies started to make important updates to the LFN–English searchable "master" dictionary. The dictionary is being kept up-to-date in the official website, with over 20,000 entries, and was even published in printed form in 2018. In 2012 a novel entirely translated into Lingua Franca Nova was first published in printed form: ''La aventuras de Alisia en la pais de mervelias'', which is Simon Davies's translation of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its seque ...

's ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatu ...

''. In 2014 a new official website was launched on the "elefen.org" domain: it offers various teaching supports (such as word lists for travellers, complete grammar guides) available in several languages, and hosts a wiki and the searchable official dictionary. Some literary works entirely translated in Lingua Franca Nova are also publicly available on the official website for reading. On April 18, 2018, Wikipedia in Lingua Franca Nova, called "Vicipedia", was officially launched as a regular Wikipedia project. On May 15, 2020 on the Web and on May 10, 2021 in printed form the first original literary novel written in Lingua Franca Nova was published: ''La xerca per Pahoa'', by Vicente Costalago. On January 5, 2021, the language's creator, C. George Boeree, died of pancreatic cancer aged 68.

Pronunciation and spelling

Phonology

Vowels

Lingua Franca Nova has five vowels like

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...

, and

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

Consonants

Orthography

LFN is normally written using the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

. Its orthography is highly

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

. LFN

vowel A vowel is a Syllable, syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in Vowel ...

s (''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'' and ''u'') are pronounced as they are in Spanish or Italian (approximately as in ''bar'', ''bait'' or ''bet'', ''beet'', ''boat'' or ''ball'', and ''boot''). The vowel sounds allow a degree of variation, especially ''a'', ''e'', and ''o.''

Diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

s are ''ai'' , ''au'' , ''eu'' , and ''oi'' (approximately as in ''my'', ''cow'', ''"eh-w"'', and ''boy''). The letters ''i'' and ''u'' are used as

semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the ...

s ( and ) at the start of a word before a vowel (e.g. '), between vowels (e.g. '), in ''li'' and ''ni'' (not in the first syllable of a word) between vowels (e.g. '), and in ''cu'' and ''gu'' before a vowel (e.g. '). The letter ''n'' is pronounced as in ''think'' () before ''g'' (e.g. ') and ''c'' (e.g. '), and in ''-ng'' at the end of a syllable (e.g. '). The letters ''a'', ''e,'' and ''o'' may vary in pronunciation with possible allophones being , or , and or respectively. Although stress is ''not'' phonemic in LFN, most words are stressed on the vowel or diphthong before the last consonant (e.g. ', ', '). Words with no vowel before the last consonant are accented on the first vowel (e.g. '). Words ending in a diphthong are accented on the diphthong (e.g. '). Those ending in the double vowels ''ae'', ''ao'', ''ea'', ''eo'', ''oa'', ''oe'', or ''ui'' are accented on the first of these vowels (e.g. '). The addition of ''-s'' or ''-es'' for plural nouns does not alter the stress. The phoneme /h/ is highly marginal and may be silent. The letters ''k'', ''q'', ''w'', and ''y'' (''ka'', ''qua'', ''wa'', and ''ya'') are available for words and names from other languages. Variations in pronunciation are acceptable.

Vocabulary

Sources of lexicon

The lexicon of Lingua Franca Nova is primarily founded on West Romance languages: French,

, and Catalan. Lingua Franca Nova does not derive the word form in a strictly logical way, but lexicon creators also consider sound beauty and other subjective factors. Generally, if a word is similar in most of source languages, this is adopted. Of course, each language has spelling and pronunciation variants. Generally, Lingua Franca Nova prefers pronunciation to spelling. When source languages share a native word from Latin, but they change it in various ways, Lingua Franca Nova prefers the oldest variant, namely a variant similar to Latin. For example: But when the Latin form does not agree to the

phonotactic Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...

rules of Lingua Franca Nova, its spelling is adapted (similarly to modern languages, especially Italian): The lexicon of Lingua Franca Nova can accept foreign words being internationally important (for example names of modern nations, main languages, seas and other international geographic entities, important entities from various world cultures). Generally, words are phonetically transcripted, not

orthographically An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

(for example, letter ''c'' becomes ''s'' if the source language spells it in a

sibilant Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...

way, ''tx'' in words taken from Italian). A lot of exceptions are possible, especially when the pronunciation is uncertain; in such a case, orthography is preferably followed (for example, word "English" is transcribed as ''engles'' and not ''inglix'' to retain a more recognizable form).

Grammar

LFN is an SVO (subject-verb-object) language.

Modifiers In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", prov ...

generally follow what they modify, as do prepositional phrases and

subordinate clauses A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as th ...

. Other than the plural in ''-s'' or ''-es,''

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

s are invariant. A noun's role in a sentence is determined by word order and

preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

s. There are 22 prepositions, such as ''a'' (at, to), ''de'' (of, from), ''en'' (in, into), and ''con'' (with). Nouns are usually preceded by articles (''la'' or ''un'') or other

determiners A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner ...

such as ''esta'' (this, these), ''acel'' (that, those), ''alga'' (some), ''cada'' (every, each), ''multe'' (many, much), and ''poca'' (few, little). Possessive determiners,

cardinal numeral In linguistics, and more precisely in traditional grammar, a cardinal numeral (or cardinal number word) is a part of speech used to count. Examples in English are the words ''one'', ''two'', ''three'', and the compounds ''three hundred ndfort ...

s, and the adjectives ''bon'' and ''mal'' (good and bad) also precede the noun;

ordinal numeral In linguistics, ordinal numerals or ordinal number words are words representing position or rank in a sequential order; the order may be of size, importance, chronology, and so on (e.g., "third", "tertiary"). They differ from cardinal numerals, ...

s follow the noun. A variety of pronouns are identical to or derived from determiners. The personal

pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...

are invariant: ''El'' is used for people and higher animals; ''Lo'' is used for all else. ''On'' is used in the same way as in French or "one" in English (in the way that one would be using it if one said this sentence). For the first and second person pronouns, the reflexives are the same as the regular pronouns, and the possessive determiners are ''mea, nosa, tua,'' and ''vosa.'' Possessive pronouns are formed by using the article ''la'' before possessive determiners, e.g. ''la mea''. ''Se'' is the third-person reflexive, singular and plural. The third person possessive determiner, both singular and plural, is ''sua'', and the possessive pronoun is ''la sua''.

Verbs A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

are invariant. The verb alone represents the present tense and the infinitive. Other tenses and moods are indicated by preceding particles:

Adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...

such as ''ja'' (already) and auxiliary verbs such as ''comensa'' (begin to) are used to add precision. The active

participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

ends in ''-nte'' and the passive participle in ''-da.'' They can be used with ''es'' (to be) to form a progressive aspect and a passive voice, respectively.

Adjectives In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...

are invariant, and adverbs are not distinguished from adjectives. Adjectives follow nouns and adverbs follow verbs but precede adjectives. The comparative is formed with ''plu'' or ''min,'' the

superlative Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages t ...

with ''la plu'' or ''la min.''

Question A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are interrogative ...

s are formed by preceding the sentence with ''esce'' or by using one of several "question words", such as ''cual'' (what, which), ''ci'' (who), ''do'' (where), ''cuando'' (when), and ''perce'' (why). These same words are also used to introduce

, as are words such as ''si'' (if), ''ce'' (that), ''car'' (because), and ''afin'' (so that).

Prepositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

include ''a'' (at, to), ''de'' (of, from), ''ante'' (before, in front of), ''pos'' (after, behind), etc. Conjunctions include ''e'' (and), ''o'' (or), and ''ma'' (but).

Affixes

LFN has a small number of regular

affixes In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They a ...

that help to create new words. Three

suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...

that create nouns are ''-or,'' ''-ador,'' and ''-eria,'' which refer to a person, a device, and a place respectively. They can be added to any noun, adjective, or verb. For example: * ''carne'' (meat) + ''-or'' > ''carnor'' (butcher) * ''lava'' + ''-ador'' > ''lavador'' (washing machine) * ''flor'' + -''eria'' > ''floreria'' (florist shop) Another suffix is ''-i'' which, added to an adjective and some nouns, means "to become" or "to cause to become". It is also used with names for tools, machines, or supplies with the meaning "to use". For example: * ''calda'' (hot) + ''-i'' > ''caldi'' (to heat) * ''telefon'' (telephone) + ''-i'' > ''telefoni'' (to telephone) Two more suffixes are ''-eta,'' which means a small version of something, and ''-on,'' which means a large version of something. (They are ''not,'' however, simply synonyms for small and large.) For example: * ''bove'' (cow, cattle) + ''-eta'' > ''boveta'' (calf) * ''tela'' (cloth) + ''-on'' > ''telon'' (sheet, tablecloth) There are also three suffixes that turn nouns into adjectives: ''-al'' means "pertaining to...," ''-in'' means "similar to...," ''-osa'' means "full of..." For example: * ''nasion'' (nation) + ''-al'' > ''nasional'' (national) * ''serpente'' (serpent) + ''-in'' > ''serpentin'' (serpentine) * ''mofo'' (mold) + ''-osa'' > ''mofosa'' (moldy) Other suffixes include ''-able'' (-able), ''-isme'' (-ism), and ''-iste'' (-ist). There are also several

prefixes A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particu ...

. ''Non-'' means not, ''re-'' means again or in the opposite direction, and ''des-'' means to undo. For example: * ''non-'' + ''felis'' (happy) > ''nonfelis'' (unhappy) * ''re-'' + ''pone'' (place) > ''repone'' (replace) * ''des-'' + ''infeta'' (infect) > ''desinfeta'' (disinfect) Other prefixes include ''pos-'' (post-), ''pre-'' (pre-), ''supra-'' (super-), ''su-'' (sub-), ''media-'' (mid-), ''vis-'' (vice-), ''inter-'' (inter-), and ''auto-'' (auto-, self-) Compounds of verbs plus objects create nouns: * ''porta'' (carry) + ''candela'' (candle) > ''portacandela'' (candlestick) * ''pasa'' (pass) + ''tempo'' (time) > ''pasatempo'' (pastime) * ''para'' (stop) + ''pluve'' (rain) > ''parapluve'' (umbrella) Two nouns are rarely joined (as they often are in English), but are linked with ''de'' or other prepositions instead: * ''avia de mar'' - seabird * ''casa per avias'' - birdhouse * ''xef de polisia'' - police chief

Literature

A rich literature in Lingua Franca Nova with both original and translated texts exists. The first original literary novel written in Lingua Franca Nova was ''La xerca per Pahoa'', by Vicente Costalago, published on May 15, 2020 on the Web and on May 10, 2021 in printed form. He published the second original novel in the language, entitled ''La marcia nonconoseda'', in February 2022. Here are the main literary works translated into Lingua Franca Nova, all publicly available for reading on the official website: * ''Colinas como elefantes blanca'' ("

Hills Like White Elephants "Hills Like White Elephants" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was first published in August 1927, in the literary magazine ''transition'', then later in the 1927 short story collection '' Men Without Women''. Later the story was adapted f ...

") by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

* ''Demandas de un laboror lejente'' ('' Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters'') by

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

* ''Frate peti'' ('' Little Brother'') by

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent o ...

* ''La alia de capeles roja'' ("

The Red-Headed League "The Red-Headed League" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It first appeared in ''The Strand Magazine'' in August 1891, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Conan Doyle ranked "The Red-Headed Leag ...

") by

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

* ''La aventuras de Alisia en la pais de mervelias'' (''

'') by

* ''La cade de la Casa de Usor'' ("

The Fall of the House of Usher "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in ''Burton's Gentleman's Magazine'', then included in the collection ''Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque'' in 1840. The short story ...

") by

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widel ...

* ''La jigante egoiste'' (" The Selfish Giant") by

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

* ''La prinse peti'' (''

The Little Prince ''The Little Prince'' (french: Le Petit Prince, ) is a novella by French aristocrat, writer, and military pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and ...

'') by

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...

* ''Leteras de la tera'' (''

Letters from the Earth ''Letters from the Earth'' is a posthumously published work of American author Mark Twain (1835–1910) collated by Bernard DeVoto. It comprises essays written during a difficult time in Twain's life (1904–1909), when he was deeply in debt an ...

'') by

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...

* ''Re Lear'' (''

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...

'') by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

* ''Tra la miror, e lo cual Alisia trova a ultra'' (''

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There ''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'' (also known as ''Alice Through the Looking-Glass'' or simply ''Through the Looking-Glass'') is a novel published on 27 December 1871 (though indicated as 1872) by Lewis Carroll and the ...

'') by

* ''Un canta de natal'' (''

A Christmas Carol ''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas Ca ...

'') by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

* ''Wini-la-Pu'' (''

Winnie-the-Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character w ...

'') by Alan Alexander Milne

Flag

The flag of Lingua Franca Nova, designed in 2010 by Stefan Fisahn and Beate Hornung, is the main symbol of Lingua Franca Nova and Elefenists. The flag is made up of five color strips (blue, green, yellow, orange and red) starting from the bottom-left angle and extending to top and right borders. It is similar to the flag of

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...

, a country which adopts the

Seychellois Creole Seychellois Creole (), also known as kreol, is the French-based creole language spoken by the Seychelles Creole people of the Seychelles. It shares national language status with English and French (in contrast to Mauritian and Réunion Creole, ...

as its official language, but uses the colors of a rainbow symbolizing peace. Its shape is meant to call the sunrise to mind. In the past other flags existed: the first one, originally designed by Boeree and jokingly called "europijon" from the word pun between "pijon" (

dove Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

) and "europijin" (euro pidgin), was inspired by

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...

's drawing.

Sample texts in LFN

Article 1 from the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...

Lord's Prayer

Notes

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Official website

Dictionary

Vici de Elefen

Lingua Franca Nova on Langoland
!--http://langoland.free.fr/--> * Swadesh list for Lingua Franca Nova {{Interlanguage varieties International auxiliary languages Languages written in Latin script 1998 introductions International auxiliary languages introduced in the 1960s Constructed languages introduced in the 1960s

History

Pronunciation and spelling

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Orthography

Vocabulary

Sources of lexicon

Grammar

Affixes

Literature

Flag

Sample texts in LFN

Lord's Prayer

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links