Lingua sistemfrater ( ''English'': ''Language of Brotherhood''), also referred to as Frater, is an

a posteriori ('from the earlier') and ('from the later') are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on experience. knowledge is independent from any experience. Examples include ...

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

created by Vietnamese

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

Phạm Xuân Thái in 1957 as ''Frater (Lingua sistemfrater): The simplest International Language Ever Constructed.'' The language uses a largely Greco-

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

lexicon A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word () ...

, and an Asian-influenced

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

. Frater was one of the (comparatively rare) international languages created in Asia, and had a vocabulary of more than 6,000 words.

Phonology and orthography

Frater used an orthography of eighteen letters from the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

: five

vowels A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

: a, e, i, o, u, and thirteen

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

: b, d, f, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, and t. These letters were enunciated as their pronunciations in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

, with the following exceptions: * ⟨j⟩ is pronounced as * The letters ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ are pronounced as the

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, 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 ...

s iand u respectively. The stress is placed on the last

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

of the word; there are no

silent letters In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign , which resembles the ...

Grammar

Article

There is no

indefinite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the ...

definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...

Personal Pronouns

Possessives are formed by adding the preposition ''ot'' before the

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) 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 part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...

. Unlike English that distinguishes three genders for the third-person singular pronoun, the pronoun was invariable.

Nouns

The

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

in Frater is invariable. Plurals can be formed by adding ''-multi'' (many) to the end of the noun: mensa (table) - mensamulti (tables)

Adjectives

The

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

in Frater is invariable and is always placed after the noun; except for cardinal numbers.

Numbers

The cardinal numbers in Frater: 1 - uni 2 - bi 3 - tri 4 - kuadri 5 - kuinti 6 - ses 7 - sep 8 - okta 9 - nona 10 - deka 11 - dekauni 12 - dekabi 13 - dekatri 20 - bideka 24 - bidekakuadri 30 - trideka 40 - kuadrideka 85 - oktadekakuinti 100 - senti 367 - trisenti-sesdeka-sep 600 - sessenti 1000 - mil 1000000 - milion Ordinal numbers are formed by placing the cardinal number after the noun.

Verbs

The

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

in Frater is invariable in person and in number. The passive voice is formed by adding the auxiliary verb ''es'' before the infinitive: Ilis es trauma (they are wounded).

Syntax

The

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

in Frater is: Subject - Verb - Object. Questions are formed by placing the verb before the subject. Interrogative words include: ''antropkia'' (who), ''kia'' (what), ''plaskia'' (where), ''temkia'' (when), ''prokia'' (why), ''kak'' (how), and ''multikia'' (how much; how many).

Example

The Lord's Prayer

For comparison the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...

is provided in Frater,

Glosa Glosa is a constructed international auxiliary language based on Interglossa (a previous ''draft of an auxiliary'' published in 1943). The first Glosa dictionary was published 1978. The name of the language comes from the Greek root ''glossa'' m ...

(a later auxiliary language with isolating grammar and Greco-Latin vocabulary), Latin and English.

References

Sources

External links

* Official website (English, Esperanto, Interlingua) * * (SCRIBD) * International auxiliary languages Constructed languages Constructed languages introduced in the 1950s Isolating languages Languages of Vietnam {{Constructed languages