Pasilingua is 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 ...

proposed by

Paul Steiner Paul Steiner (born 23 January 1957) is a German retired professional footballer who played mainly as a central defender. Club career Born in Waldbrunn, Baden-Württemberg, Steiner began playing football in his hometown with TSV Strümpfelbrunn ...

, first published in

Neuwied Neuwied () is a town in the north of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, capital of the District of Neuwied. Neuwied lies on the east bank of the Rhine, 12 km northwest of Koblenz, on the railway from Frankfurt am Main to Cologne. Th ...

in 1885 (although some sources claim that the year was 1886) in his book ''Three World Language Systems (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

: Drei Weltsprach-Systeme)''.

Overview

For a time, Pasilingua was regarded as a serious competition to

Volapük Volapük (; , "Language of the World", or lit. "World Speak") is a constructed language created between 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Catholic priest in Baden, Germany, who believed that God had told him in a dream to create an i ...

, but never got much support. However,

Frederick Bodmer Frederick Bodmer (actually ''Friedrich Bodmer'') (14 February 1894 – 2 January 1960) was a Swiss philologist and author of the popular book ''The Loom of Language''. Life He wrote his PhD thesis in 1924 at University of Zurich on the topic ''Stu ...

lauded the project and its author for its inclusion of pidgin elements; it was quoted by

Louis Couturat Louis Couturat (; 17 January 1868 – 3 August 1914) was a French logician, mathematician, philosopher, and linguist. Couturat was a pioneer of the constructed language Ido. Life and education Born in Ris-Orangis, Essonne, France. In 1887 he ...

and Leopold Leau, in their ''Histoire de la langue universelle'', and in books of various other interlinguists at the beginning of the 20th century. The language was based on

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, with influences from

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

and

. Its radicals had natural appearance, without much deformation, but the derivation was not natural, as it was possible to radically change the appearance of word; however, word families were formed regularly. In spite of its name, the language is not a

pasigraphy A pasigraphy (from Greek πᾶσι ''pasi'' "to all" and γράφω ''grapho'' "to write") is a writing system where each written symbol represents a concept (rather than a word or sound or series of sounds in a spoken language). The aim is to b ...

because it is not an a priori language, but a posteriori/natural one, almost a euroclone.

Alphabet and pronunciation

The alphabet has 31 letters: * 10 vowels: a, ä, è, e, i, y, o, u, ü (French u); * 21 consonants: b, c, ç (/s/), d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, z. There are also two digraphs: ch and sch. The words are pronounced like in

. There is no stress.

Grammar

Article

The definite article is to (masculine), te (feminine), ta (neuter); The indefinite article is uno (masculine), une (feminine), una (neuter). The articles agree with the noun in number and case. There are four cases in a single conjugation; case can be indicated on the article - to (nominative), tode (genitive), toby (dative) and ton (accusative) - or on the noun.

Nouns

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 have four cases and three genders; all form plural by adding -s. Gender endings are: masculine in -o; feminine in -e and neuter in either -a (concrete) or -u (abstract). For example, to homino (the man), te femine (the woman), ta cita (the city), ta modestiu (the modesty). The four cases are nominative, genitive, dative and accusative, like in German.

Verbs

Verbs have four conjugations: : 1) Grander esse - to be big : 2) Grandir esse - to become big : 3) Grandar esse - to make (something) big : 4) Grandor esse - to be made big Each conjugation has three tenses: : 1) mi morter - I die : 2) mi mortefer - I died : 3) mi morterer - I will die

Vocabulary

The majority of the vocabulary was based on English, French, German and Latin; particles were generally based on the former. A lot of words had two synonyms, Germanic and Romance - for example bono and guto mean "good" and Deo and Gotto mean "God". Much like in other

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. ...

s, words are formed by affixes. For example, - mortu, death; morto, dead (

masculine gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

); morte, dead (fem.); morta, dead (neut.); mortiro, dying; mortaro, murderer; mortamenta, instrument of murder; mortana, poison; mortarea, battlefield; mortitarea, churchyard; mortiblo, mortal; mortablo, fatal; mortoblo, easy to kill; morter, to be dead; mortir, to die; mortar, to kill; mortor, to be killed

Examples

The ''

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

'': : Patro miso, : quo er in coela, : nama tü sanctore : kingdoma tüa kommire, : tüa willu fairore : sur erda ut in coela. : Donnare misbi misan brodan taglian; : pardonnare missas dettas : uti mis pardonnars misosbi debitorosbi. Numbers from one to ten: Some sentences: : Quota hora er al? - What o'clock

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

is it? : Ubi habitiris tüs? - Where do you live? : Annóncius ers pro tos affäriros qua ta vapora pro ta industriu. - Advertisements are to the man of business what steam is to industry.

Bibliography

* F. Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1943), p. 442 * Moser, Hans: Zur Universal-Sprache: Kritische Studie über Volapük und Pasilingua, Berlin euwied Heuser, 1887 (32 p.), 408.9 M853u * Pei, Mario: One Language for the World. New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1958. * Steiner, Paul: Elementargrammatik nebst Übungsstücken zur Gemein- oder Weltsprache Pasilingua, Neuwied: 1885 (80 p.) * Steiner, Paul: Summary of the Universal Language Pasilingua, Neuwied: 1900 (35 p.)

External links

* A Google knol o
Pasilingua

Works
by Paul Steiner on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Histoire de la langue universelle
- A book by

and Leopold Leau which contains a description of Pasilingua (pages 280-293) {{Constructed languages Constructed languages International auxiliary languages Constructed languages introduced in the 1880s 1885 introductions