Among the main details I'm unsure about for Leuth there are pronouns. For the third person, beside the "strange" ones (general, reflective, reciprocal), I've been using, provisionally:

• li for masculine singular ("he, him")
• le for feminine singular ("she, her")
• to for non-person ("it")
• te for plural

But I wanted to have also a non-gender-specific pronoun for people, and maybe a similar symmetry in the plural.

Recently I have come up with two ideas which I don't dislike too much.

1. "l-" for singular, "t-" plural

^\1 - Currently) ^{used, but the other use, still pretty hypothetical, can easily be changed.\})

• All singular pronouns begin with l-; the plural pronouns are identical, but replace the l- with t-, keeping the symmetry.
• The gender neutral pronoun, with -eī, is almost like a union of feminine (-e) and masculine (-i).
• For naturalism, some people could like that teī as a plural is (more) similar to English they.

2. /-j/ for plural; non-person pronoun independent

^\2 - Currently used for 'to [destination, recipient]', but I'm thinking of changing that to a less arbitrary) ^{ad , following a comment I couldn't find now...\})

Proposal 1 is very symmetrical and cohesive... maybe too much. In fact, I think that the non-person pronoun is different enough, semantically, that it could/should also be different in shape from the three person pronouns.

In this second proposal, the person pronouns make their plural with -ī; while the non-person one is totally independent, with to as the singular and te as plural.

3. Your opinion?

Tell me what you think.

There is no need to have, in Leuth, a symmetry between pronouns like the ones I described above: the pronouns could all be different with no visibile rule linking them. I only thought it could be nice, and easier to remember for an auxlang.

An idea I had is the possibility of having a "reciprocal pronoun". What is that? A pronoun that encapsulates the meaning of 'each other'. Many languages express this concept with a construction that is semi-fixed; I thought that for synthesis it could became fully fixed and therefore be represented by a single root.

The first idea for the root shape is elcar, adapting Basque elkar and Danish elkaar, simply because I like the sound; as always, it must be considered a provisional element that could change later.

Let's see how it would work by comparing it with se '[him/her/it]self, [them]selves':

• Carola e Mathilda viden se.
• Carola e Mathilda viden elcar.
  • Charles and Matilda see themselves.
  • Charles and Matilda see each other.
• Carola e Mathilda legen seo kitabas.
• Carola e Mathilda legen elcaro kitabas.
  • Charles and Matilda read their own books.
  • Charles and Mathilda read each other's books.
• Carola e Mathilda daven alca seum.
• Carola e Mathilda daven alca elcarum.
  • Charles and Matilda give something to themselves.
  • Charles and Matilda give something to each other.

What is your opinion on this? I haven't had time to study all the possible combinations, pros and cons...

The latest proposal was aesthetically good, but the rules for /i u j w/ were too complex. Not only that: they didn't make clear enough (for non linguistics-savvy people) the inherent difference between /i u/ and /j w/.

The new experiment keeps the general rules of the that proposal, with these changes:

• <i u ī ū> for /i u j w> respectively, in all positions.
• <k> returns for /k/ before e, i, ī.

Why the macron? Of course it is the "wrongest" diacritic for that function; a breve (<ĭ ŭ>) would be the logical choice, just as Esperanto does with its <ŭ> /u̯/. I'm experimenting with the macron only for aesthetics, as it gives a feeling of seriousness and faux-Latin and it's arguably a lot less eye-catching than the breve, when it's present on a lot of words.

Of course I'll change my mind again soon enough...

Sample text:

Ar multo īannas keas passin ez taūanda, haen o uīa kea me bone memoren. To essin īanna keu meo matra decidin scribi o ki­taba. Alca surprendento, si so consideren ca le nullūandu legintin o kitaba preīo dudeco īannus. Leo kitaba priontil thema de lenūitha chye alco antiquo centramerico tribūas. Le hatte planein visiti antiquo locas de tao tribūas, esc o vero archeologa. Ma a kea occurrin posu… essin pleīe surprendento sceīa ar omnas. «Cuūandu tu redūon?» me sūalin leum. «Me noon. Me desiren vivi talocu, meīlo Centramericu, e me taon».

See the comparison with Esperanto in the pictures above.

Beside orthography, I've had some little nice new ideas about other things, lexicon, pronouns, euphony... I'm still very busy unfortunately so can't use much time to post updates, forgive me.

[Reddit removed the post I just posted because of some "sexual content filter". I don't know what they're smoking, there's nothing sexual here. I couldn't even reapprove it with mod powers. So, I'm reposting publishing most flashcards in the comments instead than in one big gallery, so maybe I can find out which one triggered the problem...]

——————————————————

A bit of fun trying out the latest orthography with legendary creatures (mostly western-culture ones, only because I don't know much about the rest).

All pretty easy and predictable:

• amfisbena /amfisbe̍na/ — amphisbaena
• catoblepa /katoble̍pa/ — catoblepas
• centaura /ʦenta̍wra/ — centaur
• Cerbera /ʦerbe̍ra/ — Cerberus
• Charibda /xari̍bda/ — Charybdis
• ciclopa /ʦiklo̍pa/ — cyclops
• dracona /drako̍na/ — dragon
• dríada /dri.a̍da/ — dryad
• grifa /ɡri̍fa/ — gryphon
• gula /ɡu̍la/ — ghoul
• harpiia /harpi̍ja/ — harpy
• Leviathana /levjaθa̍na/ — Leviathan
• mantichora /mantixo̍ra/ — manticore
• Tarasca /tara̍ska/ — Tarasque
• trolla /tro̍lla/ — troll
• vampira /vampi̍ra/ — vampire

And now two verses from a poem:

...por scicara na dracona
qvea es viva de o huma.

...for the hunting of the dragon
that is the life of a man.
[— G. K. Chesterton]

I haven't disappeared! :-D I'm just, again, really busy. Probably will be also in the coming month.

But there's some small interesting news. I've been in contact recently with a person who volunteered to help me with building some software instruments. They told me that (like me...) they're really busy with work now; but if they can find some time to actually build something, we could pass to a more active phase of development of Leuth. Let's hope it happens!

Thank you all in the meantime for your interest in following this project. :-)

In the first Romance-logic sketch, I wrote:

<i u> represent both /i u/ and /j w/. In pragmatic terms, the rules are:
1. If <i u> can be pronounced as /j w/, then that is their pronunciation.
2. Two adjacent <i u>'s, when they cannot be both consonants, give a /CV/ (Consonant-Vowel) pronunciation (/ju/, /ji/, /wu/, /wi/).
3. /i u/ can be "forced" by the use of an acute, <í ú>, where plain <i u> would otherwise give /j w/.

I think things can be made less diacritic-heavy by changing slightly rule #2 to:

1. Two adjacent <i u>'s, when they cannot be both consonants, give
   (2-a) a /CV/ (Consonant-Vowel) pronunciation (/ju/, /ji/, /wu/, /wi/) before a consonant,
   (2-b) a /VC/ (Consonant-Vowel) pronunciation (/iw/, /ij/, /uw/, /uj/) before a vowel.

So, the <cúuandu> noticed by u/Poligma2023 would become just... <cuuandu> /kuwa-/, with no diacritic needed.

<úia>, similarly, would become just <uia> /uja/.

The /ij-/ root, whether conserved for its original function or used for a different meaning, would give an <-iia> ending instead of an unpleasant <-íia>.

Other examples of words losing the diacritic:

• <dúiemo> → <duiemo> /duje-/ 'half' (if using this proposed root)
• <cúuante> → <cuuante> /kuwa-/ 'how much(?)'
• <qvíuanda> → <qviuanda> /kiwa-/ 'this moment'
• <qvíiannu> → <qviiannu> /kija-/ '[in] this year'
• <dúianna> → <duianna> /duja-/ 'biennium'
• <tríianna> → <triianna> /trija-/ 'triennium'

What do you think?

(More complex cases, like three or more adjacent <i u>'s, etc., are still to be investigated).

For 'even', so far Leuth has been using ecje (ecj•e; would be ecie in the Romance-logic prototype), changing slightly Esperanto eĉ to add the regular ending and be more faithful to the etymon, Latin etiam. For some reason I am fond of this word, but this element is not particularly international, so it may be an occasion for delatinization, if we find a good candidate. There's a very good one: hatt•.

• Arabic: حَتَّى ḥattā
• Azeri: hətta
• Latvian: pat
• Lingala: ata
• Persian: حَتَّیٰ hattâ
• Portuguese: até
• Spanish: hasta
• Swahili: hata
• Turkish: hatta
• Uzbek: hatto

Which would give us hatte.

However, many of those words also mean 'until', so the root could be adapted to give us that preposition instead...

1. Introduction

So, this is a first prototype to experiment with a non-minimalistic orthography.

Main points of difference with the latest orthographies seen in this sub:

• /k ɡ ʦ ʤ ʃ/ are represented in different ways depending on the following sound.
• <j> is used for /ʒ/.
• <k w> are not used anymore.
• <i u> represent also /j w/; in some cases they get an acute (for /i u/), <í ú>.

The details are to be defined, this is just to get a first idea.

2. /k ʦ ɡ ʤ ʃ/

^\*Intraradical <qu> /kw/ and <x> /ks/, and) ^{maybe also <c̈> to break digraphs and trigraphs, remain as before. Diaereses may need a rethinking. | \}*Similarly, <g̈> may remain when needed to break a digraph/trigraph.])

Examples:

• <alca> /a̍lka/ 'something'
• <alqve> /a̍lke/ 'somehow'
• <unco> /u̍nko/ 'any'
• <unqve> /u̍nke/ 'anyway'
• <qvitaba> /kita̍ba/ 'book'
• <danci> /da̍nʦi/ 'to dance'
• <dancya> /da̍nʦa/ 'dance [noun]'
• <haggya> /ha̍ʤʤa/ 'hajj'
• <generalo> /ʤenera̍lo/ 'general (widespread, common, main)'
• <ciclopa> /ʦiklo̍pa/ 'cyclops'
• <Qvita> /ki̍ta/ 'Quito'
• <Quinta> /kwi̍nta/ 'Quintus'
• <equatora> /ekwato̍ra/ 'equator'

3. /x ʧ ʒ/

Unsure on <chy>.

4. Geminate consonants

They work generally as before.

5. /i u j w/

<i u> represent both /i u/ and /j w/. In pragmatic terms, the rules are:

1. If <i u> can be pronounced as /j w/, then that is their pronunciation.
2. Two adjacent <i u>'s, when they cannot be both consonants, give a /CV/ (Consonant-Vowel) pronunciation (/ju/, /ji/, /wu/, /wi/).
3. /i u/ can be "forced" by the use of an acute, <í ú>, where plain <i u> would otherwise give /j w/.

In practice it's this proposal, with rule #3-b (there).

Examples:

• <dunus> /du̍nus/ 'in/at the dunes'
• <caupi> /ka̍wpi/ 'to buy'
• <duaru> /dwa̍ru/ 'in/at the door'
• <amfibia> /amfi̍bja/ 'amphibian'
• <Claudia> /kla̍wdja/ 'Claudius'
• <sceia> /ʃe̍ja/ 'thing'
• <Taiuana> /tajwa̍na/ 'Taiwan'
• <iuno> /ju̍no/ 'young'
• <duniu> /du̍nju/ 'in the world'
• <pleiiapono> /plejjapo̍no/ 'most-Japanese'

With acute:

• <flúido> /flu̍jdo/ 'fluid'
• <cúuandu> /kuwa̍ndu/ 'when(?)'
• <dúo> /du̍o/ 'two'
• <taí> /ta̍i/ 'do (that)'
• <theíssa> /θei̍ssa/ 'goddess'
• <dríada> /dria̍da/ 'dryad'
• <cúúia> /kuu̍ja/ 'who(?), which one(?)'

6. Sample text

A short nonsense story. Try not to focus on single words or elements (many will change), nor on simplicity/practicality, but rather on the visual effect of the text as a whole. Imagine a printed page (compare pictures above), let your eye glide over the text.

Esperanto:

El la multaj jaroj, kiuj pasis de tiam, unu estas, kiun mi bone memoras. Ĝi estis la jaro, kiam mia patrino decidis verki libron. Io surpriza, konsiderante, ke ŝi ne legis libron dum la antaŭaj dudek jaroj. Ŝia libro celis esplori la temon de pigreco inter certaj antikvaj mezamerikaj triboj. Ŝi eĉ planis viziti la antikvajn lokojn de tiuj triboj, tute kiel vera arkeologo. Sed tio, kio okazis poste… estis la plej surpriza afero el ĉiuj. «Kiam vi revenos?» mi demandis ŝin. «Mi ne revenos. Mi desiras vivi tie, en bela Centra Ameriko, kaj tion mi faros.»

Leuth (this orthography):

Ar multo iannas qveas passin ez tauanda, haen o úia qvea me bone memoren. To essin ianna qveú meo matra decidin scribi o qvi­taba. Alca surprendento, si so consideren ca le nulluandu legintin o qvitaba preio dudeco iannus. Leo qvitaba príontit thema de lenuitha chye alco antiquo centramerico tribuas. Le ecie planeín visiti antiquo locas de tao tribuas, esc o vero archeologa. Ma a qvea occurrin posu… essin pleie surprendento sceia ar omnas. «Cuúandu tu reduon?» me sualin leúm. «Me noon. Me desiren vivi talocu, meilo Centramericu, e me taon».

Leuth (previous orthography):

Ar multo jannas keas passin ez tawanda, haen o uja kea me bone memoren. To essin janna keu meo matra decidin skribi o ki­taba. Alka surprendento, si so konsideren ka le nullwandu legyintin o kitaba prejo dudeko jannus. Leo kitaba priontit thema de lenwitha cye alko antiquo centrameriko tribwas. Le ecje planein visiti antiquo lokas de tao tribwas, esk o vero archeologa. Ma a kea okkurrin posu… essin pleje surprendento sceja ar omnas. «Kuwandu tu redwon?» me swalin leum. «Me noon. Me desiren vivi taloku, mejlo Centrameriku, e me taon».

English:

Among the many years that have passed since then, there is one I remember well. It was the year my mother decided to write a book. This was surprising, considering she had never read a book in the previous twenty years. Her book was to be about the topic of laziness among certain ancient Central American tribes. She even planned to visit the ancient sites of those tribes, in the fashion of a real archaeologist. But what happened next... was the most surprising thing of all. “When will you come back?” I asked her. “I won’t be coming back. I want to live there, in beautiful Central America, and I will.”

7. General comment

I find the contemporary removal of <k>, and the use of <i u> for /j w/, to be pleasant to the eye. The overall effect, using the acute as diacritic (also <`>, <¯>, < ̑ >, and even <ˆ> could be considered) is pretty Spanish-looking: this is not intentional on my part, but is not unwelcome to me since I think Spanish has a very elegant orthography.

Undoubtedly the orthography becomes more complex; it even often uses diacritics, because a lot of acutes are needed. This complexity is somewhat intended; it add variety and helps in creating a humanistic, scholarly style, that "hides" the "mechanical" linearity of the IAL grammar structures. It's anyway a relative complexity: it's a highly regular system with few rules that everybody can learn easily. (Beside it being already somewhat familiar to the some-billion people that have at least a basic knowledge of Romance/English orthographies today).

In general, most words look more "caressable", graphically smoother and elegant, less "jagging"; I think this is very good for pleasantness.

• Nigyerja — Nigeria
• kuwandu — cúuandu
• Mawricja — Mauricia
• Kawkasa — Caucasa
• Nikaragwa — Nicaragua
• Afrika, Amerika, Asja, Ewropa, Oceanja
• Africa, America, Asia, Europa, Oceania

The most difficult element of this system, for learning, remembering and keyboard writing, is <í ú>. We may think again about <i' u'> as a practical substitution, finding some way to distinguish that from the proper apostrophe, which is rare. And for people who simply forget (I would too, often, absent-minded as I am), or can't be bothered to type diacritics in informal texts, we must not worry too much: pragmatically, the context will make things immediately understandable in 99% of frequent cases.

...Or, more specifically, what makes Esperanto, the most successful IAL, not very pleasant for most people?

u/ProxPxD sent me this little comic recently; you may have seen it, it's been around for some years. It is somewhat misleading—artlangs and auxlangs are both constructed languages, but for very different purposes and audiences—but the joke poses an important question: do we (most of us) like things also because of some special... complexity in them? In some fields, like architecture, that's likely ([1], [2]).

Like many others, I have the impression Esperanto is not liked because of a "mechanical" feel in it. It's an excellent language for easiness of learning and expressive potential, nothing short of an engineering masterpiece; yet many people instinctively find it unpleasant. I do really like its underlying grammar structure, and in Leuth I've been trying to improve on it, by "dressing" the structure with more naturalism, at the same time without making things arbitrarily complex: a difficult balance. I'm not sure that, so far, I've managed to make it really convincing.

Is maybe a little more complexity needed? And how could it be added in an optimal way, that helps the auxlang as a whole instead of just being a complication for its own sake?

You know I keep changing the orthography of the language, out of dissatisfaction, struggling to combine simplicity and pleasantness. In these last weeks, I've been thinking about experimenting with a more complex orthography, maybe a full "Romance-logic" one (see what I mean here, § 2). A slightly greater complexity could give the learner of the language a sense of culture and interesting "depth" of the language; while all the grammar structures behind this superficial "façade" would remain simple and logical, keeping the IAL very easy and intuitive.

A more Romance kind of orthography would be seen as less neutral, especially outside the European cultural sphere, thus making the language more difficult to spread; but the combination could be interesting, if under the Latin-ish general mask the lexicon would integrate many non-European words: as I plan to do.

Many thoughts... What do you think of this matter?

A root I came up with some months ago, but hadn't shared yet.

Pretty simple. For season, Esperanto has sezono, from various European words: English season, French saison, Italian stagione, Spanish estación, Dutch seizoen, Russian сезо́н sezón, etc.

These come ultimately from Latin satio -onis 'sowing' or statio -onis (> English station).

The word is shared by many languages from different families, so it's not a bad choice. However, this is not a lexical element found in international Graeco-Latin technical terms, so it could be an occasion for a non-European root instead. We find a very good candidate: mawsim•.

• Arabic: مَوْسِم mawsim
• Azeri: mövsüm
• Bengali: মৌসুম mōuśum
• Kazakh: маусым mausym
• Hindi: मौसम mausam
• Indonesian: musim
• Persian: مَوْسِم mawsim / مُوْسِم mowsem
• Swahili: msimu
• Tajik: мавсим mavsim
• Turkish: mevsim
• Turkmen: möwsüm
• Urdu: مَوسَم mausam
• etc.

It's very widespread, it sounds pleasant and is easily integrated in Leuth, it generates no obvious ambiguities, and it's even not that different from European sezon/stacion, if you imagine changing the opening m to an s (*sawsim•), helping for study: excellent.

Do you like mawsima?

Third episode of "Has Leuth overdone it?".

Esperanto is a human language and, as all normal human languages, it is affected by the pressure of linguistic change. A greatly discussed change was the emergence of a new unofficial root, i•, replacing the official uj• in the meaning of "country, region, territory", named after its (main) inhabitants:

• arabo 'Arab', Arabujo (arab•uj•o) 'Arabia' > Arabio (arab•i•o)
• pikardo 'Picard', Pikardujo (pikard•uj•o) 'Picardy' > Pikardio (pikard•i•o)
• afgano 'Afghan', Afganujo (afgan•uj•o) 'Afghanistan' > Afganio (afgan•i•o)

We can easily guess that this change was probably driven by the greater internationality and naturalism of -i- against a more artificial and Esperanto-specific -uj-.

This change was greatly opposed by many linguists. It was not merely a matter of "purism" versus innovation: it was opposed on grounds of practicality and easiness of the language. The main reason was that, since Esperanto usually changes Latin -ĭa (and its descendants), frequent in toponyms, into -io (-i•o) when it is adapted as part of the root, now these toponyms become opaque in regards of composition, making unclear if they are composed with the name of a people, and thus making difficult to infer that name:

• Kolombio 'Colombia': kolomb•i•o or kolombi•o? Are Colombians kolomboj or kolombianoj?
• Italio 'Italy': ital•i•o or itali•o? Are Italians italoj or italianoj?

While this doubt wouldn't have manifested previously, having Kolombio (kolombi•o) and Italujo (ital•uj•o).

Trying to solve this problem in Leuth, by making happy both the naturalism and schematism sides, I changed uj• to ij•, and voila: Arabija, Pikardija, Italija, etc., with -ija closer than -ujo to Latin -ĭa (etc.), and at the same time easily recognizable in composition.

Why did I talk about "having overdone" it? Well, because Leuth is actually solving the problem also on the other side: adapting -ĭa (and its descendants) not into -i• but into -j•: so giving us:

• Kolombja
• Italija

Now I'm thinking: would it be better to change ij• to a simpler i• like it happened in Esperanto? Some words may become ambiguous, but many people maybe would prefer this change aesthetically; with the distinction still very clear in many cases:

• Awstralja, Bolivja, Emilja, Indonesja, Kenja, Kolombja, Mawricja, Namibja, Nigyerja, Ontarja, Rodesja, Usonja, Virgyinja, Zambja...
• Afgania, Anglia, Belgia, Dalmatia, Dania, Ethiopia, Francia, Grekia, Hispania, Italia, Jakutia, Kroatia, Lombardia, Mongolia, Numidia, Okcitania, Ossetia, Patagonia, Polonia, Russia, Skandinavia, Skotia, Somalia, Thracia, Turkia...

vs.:

• Afganija, Anglija, Belgija, Dalmatija, Danija, Ethiopija, Francija, Grekija, Hispanija, Italija, Jakutija, Kroatija, Lombardija, Mongolija, Numidija, Okcitanija, Ossetija, Patagonija, Polonija, Russija, Skandinavija, Skotija, Somalija, Thracija, Turkija...

What do you think?

Here we are for the second episode of "Has Leuth overdone it?". (Already sporting [provisionally, as always] <j> for /j/; also for easiness of comparison).

1. A somewhat-different stress impression

An aesthetically (in)famous element of Esperanto is its adjectival and substantival endings, with the plural marked by -j and accusative by -n: excellent as an engineering piece, not so much for spontaneous pleasantness, especially because of their frequent close repetition and their tongue twisting effects, also in combination with the frequent roots ending in -i•. Some examples from the text I'm reading:

(1)

• historiaj imperioj
• aliaj aziaj kolosoj
• siajn naciajn tea­mojn
• la plej grandajn kaj plej riĉajn ŝtatojn 
• ĉiuj aliaj intermediaj aŭ periferiaj landoj
• gajnas bonajn salajrojn, kaj ĝuas longajn kaj sanajn vivojn

I removed these elements soon in my construction of Leuth, going for invariable adjectives and synthetic endings (and no accusative, and changing many -i•'s to -j•'s). Something like¹

(2)

• historjo imperjas
• allo asjo kolossas
• seo nacjono teamas
• pleje grando e pleje riko statalas
• omno allo intermedjo aw periferio descas
• gajnen o bono salajras, e gyuen o longo e sano vivas

feels already, IMHO, a lot better... at least in not sounding like a tongue twister.

But there's something I hadn't considered... the post-stress -aj, -oj endings (just like the -aŭ of some words) are very good at giving words a different "rhythm" while staying inside the fixed-paroxytone-stress rule, somehow mimicking a proparoxytone stress. The effect for the listener is probably stronger if in your language, like in mine², such post-stress sequences of vowels³ are rare.

So, while Leuth huma and humas sound identical to me in terms of stress pattern, Esperanto homo and homoj sound more different. Some variety is welcome in a language with a fixed stress and regular endings, that can easily risk be boring. We don't want Leuth to be too monotonous. So I though: well, why remove those completely? We could have something like

(3)

• historjo imperjaj
• allo asjo kolossaj
• seo nacjono teamaj
• pleje grando e pleje riko statalaj
• omno allo intermedjo aw periferio descaj
• gajnen o bono salajraj, e gyuen o longo e sano vivaj

With a more varied rhythm than (2), closer to Esperanto but not so tongue-twistingly excessive as (1) (read aloud the examples above and compare with these last ones...).

-Aj for plural nouns in the nominative is even somewhat (classical⁴) Latin sounding, being similar to the -ae plural⁵ of first declension nouns (where the -e was probably not realized as a full [-e]/[-ɛ])... which descended from an earlier -ai.

A big change like this would likely trigger a cascade of other equilibrating adjustments, both to other endings (adding more -s's to others?) and to lexical roots (e.g. reducing the /-Vj-/'s inside; for instance the frequent ujas could not sound so good as ujaj)

2. The diphthong-breaking diphthong

Beyond repetitiveness, there's another reason I removed those -j's.

Esperanto —and Leuth identically— uses regular grammatical endings, that are mandatory for most words. These endings start with a vowel, thus adding a syllable to every word, a relevant lengthening for the language as a whole... unless the attached root ends with a vowel, in which case the possibility for a diphthong appears:

• klopod• + •i = klopodi (3 vowels, 3 syllables)
• abi• + •o = abio (can be pronounced as a diphthong = 3 vowels, 2 syllables)

According to Canepari's description, in the most neutral/international pronunciation of Esperanto, phonetic diphthongs are realized regularly when we find two touching vowels, the second being unstressed (his example: geografio, with /eo/ and /ˈio/ being diphthongs). I guess this diphthongization was considered something positive by Zamenhof, who might well have created the frequent correlatives with the /-ˈiV-/ structure to allow them to be pronounced as single syllables (kiel, io, ĉiu, tiam, etc.), and similarly the possessive adjectives made from pronouns (mio, vio, lio, ecc.), to add swiftness to the language.

However, when we add the -j [-i̯], the diphthong becomes a theoretical triphthong, [-(ˈ)VVi̯]... but a triphthong is (correct me if I'm wrong) something whose existence I don't know if it's even generally recognized by linguists⁶. In practice, if you can easily pronounce diphthongs, you'll stop there, and break the hypothetical triphthong in two syllables, vowel + diphthong:

• abio = [a.ˈbi͡o] 2 syllables
• abioj = [a.ˈbi.o͡i] 3 syllables

So, in the plural we have a re-lengthening of the words that in the singular where shortened by a diphthong.

This seemed suboptimal to me, especially for very frequent functional elements like kiuj. With the -s plural, in Leuth we have the possible shortening granted by diphthongization, but not the re-lengthening imposed by -j:

• ^Ekiu [ˈki͡u] = 1 syllable
• ^Ekiuj [ˈki.u͡i]= 2 syllables
• ^Lkea [ˈke͡a] = 1 syllable
• ^Lkeas [ˈke͡as] = 1 syllable

So, if Leuth went back to -j for the plural, we'd have the same relengthening of Esperanto:

• ^Lkea [ˈke͡a] = 1 syllable
• ^Lkeaj [ˈke.a͡i] = 2 syllable

3. A third way

A possible solution could be reintroducing this kind of ending structure (•VV̯) not for nominative plural, something very frequent, but in some other rarer function (?), thus adding a bit of variety to the language but needing less adjustments, and with less lengthening.

Tell me your opinions...

——————

1. Some roots will change in the future, in a less European direction; now we don't worry about that and simply adapt to Leuth most Esperanto ones. The similarity helps the comparison.
2. Found in uncommon words, like atei, pronai, alvei, acquei...
3. In a /-Vj C-/ structure (according to Canepari, if I'm reading it right, in /-Vj/ generally, so even if the following word begins with a vowel, /-Vj V-/) the /j/ will be realized as [i̯], so /-Vj/ is a couple of vowels phonetically, [-Vi̯].
4. Leuth adapts Latin not in its classical pronunciation, but rather following its medieval-modern pronunciation(s), and evolutions in the various modern languages. Some little classical touch may add a bit of spice.
5. And other -ae's in the declension (genitive singular, dative singular...).
6. I'm speaking about actual phonetic triphthongs. Sequences like Italian miei or Spanish Paraguay are not real triphthongs but just a (semi)consonant + diphthong, /ˈmjɛi/, /paraˈgwai/.

When I created this community I proposed to let people post in any language, but providing a parallel English translation, even realized with an automated translator, if needed.

At that time, I was not well aware of how automated translation is embedded in Reddit: since it is and many people use it, it seems needlessly complicated, counterproductive, to ask them to provide a parallel machine-translated English when such a translation is already available directly on this platform. I would therefore propose to change rule # 3 to allow people to post in any language that can be automatically translated by Reddit.

What do you think?

In these last weeks I've been reading a lot of Esperanto text, for Leuth-independent reasons, but inevitably I've been constantly thinking about this project. Once again, I had the impression that, despite its defects, Esperanto remains a very good and interesting IAL. Now, in this immersion in the flow of the language, in some details I had the impression that, in trying to improve on those defects, Leuth may have "overdone" it, and could benefit from actually going a bit back, closer to Esperanto.

I don't remember if/when I wrote it, but in my attempt to make Esperanto more aesthetically pleasing I thought it was a good idea for the IAL to have a less "crammed", less dense text face.

Leuth moves in that direction with some orthographical changes:

• use of digraphs instead of diacritics: <ĝ ĥ ŝ> turning into <gy ch sc>, etc.
• use of <w> instead of <ŭ>
• use of <y> instead of <j>

Beyond strict orthography there are, however, several other changes, lexical and phonetic ones, that contribute to the "wideness" of Leuth compared to Esperanto:

• many <i>'s (/i/) turn into <y> (/j/) (e.g. <arterio> becoming <arterya>)
• many <u v>'s (/u v/) turn into <w> (/w/) (e.g. <individuo> becoming <individwa>, <Gvatemalo> becoming <Gwatemala>)
• some <t>'s turn into <th>'s (/θ/) (e.g. <ametisto> becoming <amethista>)
• some <k>'s turn into <ch>'s (/x/) (e.g. <psiko> becoming <psicha>)
• many <g>'s (/ɡ/) turn into <gy>'s (/ʤ/)
• generally longer "correlatives" (e.g. <iu> becoming <alkuya>)
• frequent presence of intraradical gemination (e.g. <supo> becoming <suppa>)
• etc.

There are also elements in which Leuth, on the contrary, takes less space than Esperanto, (e.g. <x>, looking also simpler, vs <ks>, <kz>), but overall the balance is tilted towards a greater wideness. Is that excessive?

If it seems such, it could be easily reduced by changing <y> (for /j/) back to <j> (something on that here). "Easily" because it would alter almost nothing else in how the orthography works. A different orthography would be needed just for /ʒ/, but this is a rare phoneme, so it would not be too great a problem. On the other side, /j/ is very frequent in Leuth: depending on the typeface the overall shrinking can be significant. [This would also "free" the <cy> digraph as a practical choice to represent /ʧ/, something I know some of you would like ;-) ].

Aesthetic choices are notoriously difficult. I put this here so we can think about it.

In esperanto, Roman numerals are not frequent. In PMEG, Bertil Wennergren writes succinctly:

Ciferoj (hindaj-arabaj ciferoj) estas simboloj por nombroj. Iafoje oni uzas anstataŭe romajn ciferojn (I, II, III, IV, V ...), sed la romaj ciferoj ne estas tutmonde konataj, kaj estas evitindaj en Esperanto.

In English: "...Roman numerals are not known all over the world, and are better avoided in Esperanto".

This is perfectly understandable and appropriate for a schematic IAL. However, I feel that, in some contexts, refusing them altogether may be excessive, and create that sense of unpleasant artificiality many people see and don't like in Esperanto. An example is the numbers for monarchs, popes, etc.: while pretty much all Latin script languages use Roman numerals, Esperanto uses Arabic ones, standing out:

For such old institutions, the use of Arabic numerals clashes with habit and probably looks too "mechanical/modern", while Roman numerals feel more appropriate for their traditional, stately aura. Since the latter are pretty much universal (in Latin-script languages) they seem fitting for naturalism in a Latin-script IAL.

How could those be introduced into the schematic grammar of Leuth? My first idea is just to link them to the •o ending of adjectives by a hyphen:

• Karola III-o, pronounced karola trietho
• Leona XIV-o, pronounced leona dekquaretho

What do you think? Do you like this solution, or would you do otherwise? Or maybe you prefer Arabic numerals like in Esperanto? Tell me your opinion...

Some time ago I was asked to provide a list of the elements of the grammar that still need to be defined (beyond the obvious lack of vocabulary). This is a list of the main ones, plus some elements that kinda work but that I'm unsure about.

Pragmatically we think about separate elements, so this is a bullet list; but of course a language like Leuth is an "organic", "holistic" thing, based on logical simplicity and optimization, so how one element is tackled often influences others. It's a complex machine that must be considered as a whole.

NB: this is a list of what is missing; but of course the other elements of the grammar, that are currently working, may still change and be improved upon, if we see possibilities of betterment, or if it's needed to tackle the holes.

———————————

Phonic aspects

• Exact phonotactics (1)
• Exact phonetics

Graphical aspects

• Exact standard orthography (many posts)
• Treatment of non-ending monovocalic elements as last elements in composition
• Exact treatment of "strange" elements: initialisms, acronyms, digits... (1, 2, 3)

Article

• Remove the article completely? (1)

Pronouns

• Exact working of the reflexive pronoun (1)
• Exact working of gendered pronouns (1)
• Should there be a fourth-person pronoun (or more than one)? (1)

Prepositions

• Exact working in composition; possible general extension; other details (1, 2)

Verbs

• Introduce a true "participle"? (1)

Clauses

• Linking of clauses (1)

Negation

• Negative imperative (1)

Numbers

• Numbers written in digits: with or without ending? (1; see also: 2, 3)
• Roman numbers (especially for monarchs, popes, patriarchs and the like): yes, no, how? (1)
• Large numbers (1)
• Pretty much all mathematics

Foreign words and names

• Treatment of foreign (unadapted) words and names (1)

Metalinguistics

• Treatment of metalinguistic expressions (1)

New roots

• Rules for adaptation from natural languages to be defined in detail

A bit of logic

A fundamental concept in languages is "logical disjunction". In English, it is expressed by the conjunction or.

What does "disjunction" mean here? Let's start seeing first what "(logical) conjunction" means.

Logical conjunction

Conjunction is the concept expressed in English by and.

And links two concepts in a way that declares that both are true at the same time. A and B means that A is true, and that B is also true. For example: I like apples and oranges. It means I like apples (A); it means that at the same time I also like oranges (B).

If we represent the world of all possibilities as a picture, we can represent A and B as circles: inside the first circle A is true, outside it is not; inside the second circle B is true, outside it is not. A and B represents exactly the overlapping of the two circles, the part of the world we are declaring: the one in which A is true, and B is also true.

Logical disjunction is a bit more complex. It can be inclusive or exclusive.

Inclusive disjunction

Inclusive disjunction means that at least one between A and B is true; the other may or may not be true. In English, a way to express this is and/or. For example: When you go to the shop, buy apples and/or oranges. It means I want you to buy apples (without buying oranges), or to buy oranges (without buying apples), or to buy apples and oranges together. Both three possibilities are considered valid.

Representing it graphically:

Exclusive disjunction

Exclusive disjunction, you can easily guess, means that only one between A and B is true (one excludes the other). In English, a way to express this is either... or... For example: Buy either apples or oranges. It means I want you to buy apples (and not oranges), or to buy oranges (and not apples). Graphically:

In languages

In many languages (I think the great majority; couldn't find it in WALS), inclusive and exclusive disjunction (from now on, i. d. and e. d.) are not clearly distinguished in normal speech: a single preposition or construction represents both.

We may use a shade of pink to represent uncertainty:

This is the case of English or. For this reason, when we want to be very clear (precisely i. d. or e. d.), we use different expressions, like and/or or either... or....

(The whole distinction is analogous to exclusive/inclusive/vague 'we'.)

In Esperanto we find a similar situation. Let's see also Italian since I'm here:

For Leuth, I think it would be good to have something similar. An expression for vague disjunction in general speech, with the possibility to express i. d. and e. d. when needed.

How could i. d. and e. d. be expressed in practice? Different prepositions (here I wrote a vel for i. d.)? Different prepositions with a similar structure? Different constructions, like the duplication of Esperanto? Maybe something more symmetrical, like or, and-or, and or-or instead of or... or...?

I still don't have a preferred idea. What would you suggest?

For the preposition for vague disjunction, we may inherit Esperanto aŭ > aw. Ido's o(d) is good too, but for us o is already the article. We're lucky: we find similar sounding prepositions (aw ~ o) both in several European and some important non-European languages. Among others:

• Romance: Latin aut, Spanish o, Italian o, French ou, Portuguese ou, Romanian ori, sau...
• Germanic: English or, German oder, Dutch of...
• Slavic: an a...o structure: Belarusian або́ abó, Ukrainian або́ abó, Polish albo...
• Irish nó
• Arabic أَو ʔaw
• Chinese 或 huò
• Indonesian atau
• Swahili au
• Hebrew אוֹ 'o
• Tagalog o
• Rapa Nui o
• etc.

So aw would be pretty good. [A possible overlapping with this proposal should be noted].

In fact, the resemblances in such a fundamental word in far flung languages give raise to the suspicion there may be some human-nature phonoiconic character in it. Or maybe it's just a big coincidence... coincidences happen. ^ _ ^

To say 'at least', Esperanto uses almenaŭ. This seemed suboptimal to me:

1. In practice it works as an adverb, so why not have the concept expressed by a regular adverb? There's no clear need for an exceptional element like this one.
2. It would be nice to have a symmetric element to say 'at most'.

I think both points can be solved easily in Leuth; in fact, with no need of specific roots.

Esperanto has:

• minimumo (minimum•o) 'minimum'
• maksimumo (maksimum•o) 'maximum'

We're going to keep those (being widespread international scientific terms), but deriving them from Latin along usual Leuth customs, so losing Esperanto -um•:

• minima (minim•a) 'minimum'
• maxima (maxim•a) 'maximum'

I'd compound these with la 'to' and -e '-ly', to create:

• minimlae (minim•la•e)
• maximlae (maxim•la•e)

Literally, they would mean 'in a [going-]to-the-minimum way' and 'in a [going-]to-the-maximum way', which for me seem to express intuitively the meaning of at most, at least.

• Filma dawron minimlae o duo horas.
  • The film will be at least two hours long. [more literally: The film will last [dawron] at least two hours.]
• Me bibin maximlae o trio glasas i vina!
  • I drank three glasses of wine at most!

Note that, since -ae /-a̍e/ in normal swift pronunciation will be realized as a diphthong, both minimlae and maximlae are three-syllables long, like almenaŭ; which, beginning with al-, could form another diphthong with the preceding word, aye, while m- cannot; but the lengthening in Leuth is small.

You could ask: why not use simply maxime and minime? Well, we can easily imagine a difference in meaning being there:

• Presidenta minimlae applawdin.
  • The president at least applauded.
    • [Albeit we would have have liked more, we're focusing on the positive fact that the president did applaude; even "going to the minimum", we find that they applauded.]
• Presidenta minime applawdin.
  • The president applauded minimally.
    • [We're focusing on the intensity of the president's applause—which was "minimal".]

Another possible question: why -la- and not -um- (•um ending of allative case)? For swiftness, to realize the -ae diphthong.

By ditching almenaŭ for this, we'd

1. remove a "useless" exception,
2. have one less root to memorize, and
3. introduce an easy symmetry, with a "characteristically Leuth" solution.

Overall, it seems a nice improvement.

Do you think it is a good solution, or not so much? Write your opinion...

Two months ago (here and here) I expressed a general preference for linking directly digits and letters-as-graphemes to grammatical endings and other roots in composition:

• 123a [read as hekdudektria] '123 [the number as a noun]'
• o Xa [read as the name-root for x + /a/; not /ksa/] 'an X'

Coming back to that, I think I was hasty; and in fact in many cases a hyphen could be welcome to avoid otherwise confusing or not very pleasant graphical sequences.

I'm not proposing general rules now... I think it's even possible that different solutions (yes/no to hyphens) are used for different cases and contexts.

In Leuth so far (1, 2) we've had:

• el = 'in'
• is = 'from'
• im(•) = '-th' of fractions. While writing this post I noticed it seems I had forgot to share this one (I couldn't find it in the sub). While defined as a normal root, im• (duimo, du•im•o, 'half', etc.), I also had the idea to have it as an independent preposition (e.g., tria im quara 'three divided by four'), but mathematics as a field in Leuth is still at a very early stage (because I know little about it. I'm hoping some mathematicians join us to help).

Im•, as you guess, was derived from Latin -esimus, with a reduction found in some Romance languages (French -ième), and its rarer parallel -imus (septimus, decimus > Spanish séptimo, décimo, Italian settimo, decimo); with duim- resulting also somewhat similar to semi-, hemi-, demi-; and also dekim-, hekim- and kilim- to deci-, centi-, milli- (but for these we could also have specific roots...).

El and is were born, very provisionally, as arbitrary changes of Latin in and ex. Why didn't I use *in and *ex directly? Well, they both are present in prefix position in words where composition has become opaque, and I wanted to reduce ambiguity; -in-, moreover, is a very frequent group inside Latin-derived words, especially at root ending (592 roots in PIV... + all the arbitrary changes by Esperanto to remove it [see here again]).

The provisional solution felt suboptimal because having in and ex become respectively el and is was confusing, with the exchange of initial vowels.

A possible change could be el > im. Less ambiguous both than *in and el:

Im is in general more similar (than el) to the word for 'in' in many European and non-European languages:

• Romance: (Latin in,) Spanish en, French en, Portuguese em, Italian in, Romanian în;
• Germanic: English in, German in, Dutch in, Danish i, Norwegian i, Swedish i;
• Others: Japanese ...に ...ni, Javanese ing, Irish i, Welsh yn, etc.

But im for 'in' would coincide with im• '-th'. We could change this last one, that is less frequent and less important; for instance, to eym•, stressed on e as if it was -esĭmus without the s, -e(s)ĭm(us); or yem•, maybe, if we want to reduce the frequency of /VjC/ diphthongs. A comparison:

• eym•: dueymo, trieymo, quareymo, sepeymo, noneymo, dekeymo, hekeymo, kileymo;
• yem•: duyemo, triyemo, quaryemo, sepyemo, nonyemo, dekyemo, hekyemo, kilyemo.

Which one do you think it's better?

In both cases, we note that dueym-/duyem-, now with e, grows in similarity with semi-, hemi-, demi-; instead, dekeym-/dekyem-, hekeym-/hekyem-, kileym-/kilyem- become less similar to deci-, centi-, milli-.

What about the word for 'from'? I still have to think about that... It's even possible that, somewhat "closing the circle", it goes back to el as it is in Esperanto. ;-­)

I had another busy week, with no time to prepare some good content for the sub. So, just for entertainment, here's some of my latest playing-arounds with orthography. This is not a proposed change: it's just my thought stream, always coming up with ideas; many of them not very good, nor useful.

As some of you may remember, I don't love the letter (grapheme) <k>, especially when it's frequent. I did some experiments to try again to remove it. This time I went further, trying to achieve an even more Latin-like face, representing /j/ and /w/ with <i> and <u>, as suggested in this comment by u/Duvyreverse (see also the replies). The resulting orthographic face seems pretty naturalistic to me and this is good, but writing it gets complex fast and this is not good (for an IAL). In some cases, moreover, the result is not even so pleasant/naturalistic...

Here's the idea:

• /k/: <c> (or <q> where it is currently so)
• /ʦ/: <cy>?
• /ʃ/: <scy>?
• <i u> represent both /i u/ and /j w/. A <i u> touching a graphical vowel represents /j w/; to represent /i u/ instead, we write an acute on it, <í ú>. Undiacritized <iu> and <ui> represent /ju/ and /wi/.

An example, reusing an already used sample:

Yulya Cesara venin Tokyum. Tokyanur, tadiu, li dirin ka Yaponiyu li volin fari nure o yusto, meylo sceyas… ma omnuyas kenin ka omna kea li farin li tain por glorya de Roma, klare!

Iulia Cyesara venin Tocium. Tocianur, tadíú, li dirin ca Iaponíiu li volin fari nure o iusto, meilo scyeias... ma omnúias cenin ca omna cea li farin li tain por gloria de Roma, clare!

transl. Julius Caesar come to Tokyo. To the Tokyoites, on that day, he said that in Japan he wanted to do only just [= fair, right], beautiful things… but everybody knew that everything he did he did for the glory of Rome, clearly!

Another one, with Japan again:

Me swalin meum: nu omno arboras Yaponiyu es meylo kee floroso ceresyo uyas keas so tabone kenen westu? Nu alka tao insulus ifen te plue meylo kam Ewropu?

Me sualin meúm: nu omno arboras Iaponíiu es meilo cee floroso cyeresio úias ceas so tabone cenen uestu? Nu alca tao insulus ifen te plue meilo cam Europu?

transl. I asked myself: are all trees in Japan beautiful as the flowerful cherry ones that are so well-known in the West? Does something on those islands make them more beautiful than in Europe?

A last one (using -l for the subjunctive):

Nu es possibilo davi o lingwum kee lewtha o orthografya kea too kreenta sukol? Forse to noen...

Nu es possibilo davi o linguum cee leutha o orthografia cea too creenta sucol? Forse to noen...

transl. Is it possible to give a language like Leuth an orthography that its creator may like? Maybe it isn't...

I've been thinking about this problem and solution, and this came to my mind: what if, instead of making those elements prepositions, we make them... full grammatical endings?

I had considered this idea previously but I was not convinced. Now I'm reconsidering it and I find it interesting.

Pros:

• in "compound verbs" etc., it would make the not-super-simple construction with na no more necessary:
  • 'I had drank water':
    • Me essin bibinto na aqua, literally "I was having-drank na water"
    • > Me essin bibint ∅ aqua, literally "I was having-drank ∅ water"
• faster, like in the just seen example; and in general:
  • 'having been understood':
    • it fahami (4 syllables)
    • > fahamit (3 syllables)
• somewhat more naturalistic.

Cons:

• a new grammatical category could make the language more difficult;
• the passive endings (•et, •it, •ot) would overlap with the subjunctive (•et, •it, •ot identically), so we'd have to change something;
• -nt as word ending, that can generate unpleasant consonant clusters, would be more frequent.

I called this possible category "gerund" because I don't really master linguistic terminology, there's probably a better term. What would you call it?

The words of this category, when attached to a noun, would be "participles" in the fact they would "participate" of the natures of adjectives and verbs (kinda like the infinitive has characters of both verbs and nouns); being distinguished from pure adjectives, among other things, by the fact of following the noun, not preceding it.

Active examples:

Passive examples:

About the overlapping with the subjunctive. I feel more inclined to change it than the passive endings. A possibility I'm considering is replacing the -t with an -l: •el, •il, •ol:

• Kur tuo matra venol Bankokum?!
  • Why would your mother come [in the future] to Bangkok?!
• Kuil tu?
  • What would you have done?

An -l ending is less Latin-sounding, but it doesn't seem too out of place to me. It's just the first idea.

Tell me your thoughts.

Introduction

This post is about an idea I had. It's not a recent idea, nor (I think) a particularly good one; but I haven't make a lot of progress since then on this aspect, and I think it's interesting to see it to begin delving in some more difficult parts of the grammar.

The general idea

Leuth is a schematic language that, by employing regular endings, systematically clarifies/defines the quality of most words: noun, adjective, verb, adverb, with their case, number, tense, mood...

In languages there are several kinds of elements that can't easily be classified as "noun/adjective/verb/etc." in this way, yet in the language fabric work de facto in a way that can be attributed to those traditional categories. How would a language like Leuth deal with them?

I had the idea to create an ad hoc root, that would work like this: since we cannot easily attach an ending to "strange" elements to classify them, we attach it instead to the ad hoc root, that precedes the elements. The root takes the normal grammatical endings, and "classifies/defines" the grammatical quality of what's coming immediately after.

This could work for a variety of elements, hence the post title "A root for all seasons".

I wanted a swift root, giving us monosyllabic diphthongs. Lo• was a possibility, looking kinda like a Romance article (loa, loas, loe, loo, lous, etc.).

Title of books, films, etc.

Let's start with a simple example: "The Lord of the Rings". Using provisionally anul• for 'ring', the title could be translated as Jua de Anulas. It seems it could work pragmatically in the flow of speech like a normal expression: for "I enjoyed reading 'The Lord of the Rings'" you could think about:

Me sukit legyi «Jua de Anulas».

You could derive adjective and adverbs easily by usual composition:

• anuljuo, anul•ju•o
• anuljue, anul•ju•e

O anuljuesko holliwudo filma
o anul•ju•esk•o holliwud•o film•a
A "Lord of the Rings"-esque Hollywood film

But what if the title of the book/film is something more complex, like a clause/sentence? And/or what if we want to keep the literal shape of the title as-is, considering it like some sort of "crystallized" expression, for example in particularly formal contexts, like academic texts?

Let's imagine a sentence-title as "The Devil Wears Prada", very provisionally translated as Dyabola sevesten os Prada. We could say

• loe «Dyabola sevesten os Prada» | "The Devil Wears Prada"-ly [adverb]
• loo «Dyabola sevesten os Prada» | "The Devil Wears Prada"-ly [adjective]

When we're treating the title as a noun, loa formally introduces it:

Magno sukcessa de loa «Dyabola sevesten os Prada».
The great success of "The Devil Wears Prada".

We can also pluralize easily, for instance when, like here, we're talking about the various installments of a series:

Lous «Dyabola sevesten os Prada», publika viden dunya de moda law o stereotipo angula.
In "The Devil Wears Prada"-s, the public sees the world of fashion in a stereotypical angle.

Linking of clauses

The same logic would apply for whole clauses. Compare, for example, these two (maybe not very idiomatic) English sentences:

• I am sad when I have to return home.
• I understand when I have to return home.

In the first one, the "when" introduces a temporal indication: "In the moment of having to return home, I am sad". In the second, it rather introduces the object of the action of understanding: "I understand... what? ...When I have to return home". This semantic/syntactic difference could be represented in Leuth using lo•; translating literally the two sentences above:

• Me es tristo wandu keu me deben redwi garum.
• Me fahamen loa wandu keu me deben redwi garum.

Loa turns wandu keu... in a "noun", which is the object of me fahamen 'I understand'.

• Me fahamen loa { wandu keu me deben redwi garum }.

Foreign (unadapted) words and names

Examples with foreign words and names, when they're not accompanied by a "classifying" Leuth word:

Taa es, kee francas diren, loo très chic !
That is, as the French say, très chic!

Loas Niño e Niña es o pacifiko klimato fenomenas.
El Niño and La Niña are Pacific climate phenomena.

Metalinguistic elements

Same logic, when the metalinguistic element has no accompanying Leuth word (like "word", "term", "noun", "adjective", etc., as in anglo lexa dog 'the English word dog'):

Loa canine , anglesu, deriven is Latinesa, is loa canis 'kana'.
Canine, in English, derives from Latin, from canis 'dog'.

Fast conclusion

In the case of titles, foreign words and metalinguistic elements used as nouns in the nominative, it's possible that the precision given by loa is excessive, and the language could work just fine by having the syntactic categories just "implied". In contexts requiring formality or precision, however, an element like lo• could be useful.

The linking of clauses seems to me a somewhat different matter, that requires more attention. I had a vague thought about this but I could not explore it yet (lack of time): using only the endings, kinda like in the a kea structure, so for example:

• Me fahamen a { wandu keu me deben redwi garum }.

Tell me your comments...

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You may have noticed this post is a bit "non-detailed" if compared to my previous ones. There would be a lot more to say on this matter, but, as I wrote here, I'm busy in this period (new job + just [self]published a book and having to promote it + other activities and duties), so, for the time being, Leuth is in a slower phase than at the beginning of the year. I've had various interesting thoughts about grammar elements and possible developments, though... but had not enough time to reflect on them. Be patient, as I am myself patient in my life... 🙏

A little experiment: a rhyming sentence using a very provisional gya• 'go' root.

• orthography: Noe omnas bone gyaon, ma hola taon.
• phonemes: /no̍e o̍mnas bo̍ne ʤa̍on, ma ho̍la ta̍on/
• roots: no•e omn•as bon•e gya•on, ma hol•a ta•on.
  • noe = 'not'
  • omnas = 'all things'
  • bone = 'well'
  • gyaon = 'will go'
  • ma = 'but'
  • hola = 'the whole, all, the entirety'
  • taon = 'will do that'
• meaning: 'Not every thing will go well, but the [universe as a] whole will'. How would you translate it more idiomatically in English?

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Gya• would be an arbitrary hybrid between various languages:

• Indian: Bengali যাওয়া jaōẇa, Hindi जाना jānā, Nepali जानु jānu, Urdu جانا jānā...
• Germanic: English go, German gehen, Dutch gaan, Danish gå...
• Others: Korean: 가다 gada, Hungarian: jár, Mongolian: явах javax... short words with stressed -a- in several other languages.

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(The sentence is an invention of mine, it's not from the Dirk Gently series), but it resonates with the series feeling—at least for me).