Lingwa de Planeta (also Lidepla or LdP) is a constructed international auxiliary language based on widely spoken languages of the world, including Arabic, Mandarin, English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
The main idea of Lidepla is a harmonious whole on the base of the most widespread and influential national languages. The intention is also for it to have something in common with the native languages of most people. With the various source languages from across the globe, it is one of the a posteriori languages.
Development of the language began in 2006 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by a group of enthusiasts, with Dmitri Ivanov being the project leader. The basic version of the language was published in June 2010.
Alphabet and pronunciation The official Lidepla alphabet is based on the Latin script and contains the following 25 letters,Grammar with examples, sections: Alphabet and pronunciation and Stress (accessed 2017) and their upper case equivalents:
+ Lingwa de Planeta alphabetLetterabchdefghijklmnoprstuvwxyzIPA phonemes~ ()k͡s~ɡ͡z (s)Nameabechedeeefgehaijakaelemenopeeresteuvewaix (iks)yeze
The letter q is not used, and c occurs only in the digraph “ch”. The letter y represents the same vowel as “i”, but is never stressed. The following digraphs and letters are pronounced as follows, with examples:
ch – /t͡ʃ/ as in “cheese”: chay — tea -ng, at the end of a word – /ŋ/Riverego as in sing: feng — wind sh – /ʃ/ as in “shoes”: shi — ten
j – /d͡ʒ/ as in “Jack”: jan — to know z – /d͡z/: zun — to go in for x – /ks/ as in “extra”: examen — exam
-ng- in the middle of a word is pronounced /ŋg/ (as is “ng” in finger). v and ending -ng may alternatively be pronounced as /w/ (as in wood) and /n/ (nose), respectively. x between two vowels may be pronounced as /gs/, and x before a consonant and at the start of words may be pronounced as /s/.
Some learning material uses /h/ for the letter h.English Wikibooks course, and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfItYf-cAig, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUz_mjfqBIY The grammar allows that pronunciation, but gives /x/ as ch in German Fach as the primary.
For more details on the phonology, see the section Phonology below.
Stress The general rule regarding the stress is:
the vowel before the last consonant (or “y”) is stressed: máta (mother), família (family), akshám (evening), ruchéy (brook)
Lidepla tries to preserve the original sounding of the international words, though, so there are some exceptions, as follows, in short:
some endings (-um, -us, -er, -en; -ik-, -ul-Do note that -fula is an ending on its own, not containing the -ul- ending, and thus receives normal stress, and most but not all suffixes) are never stressed the doubled vowel is always stressed (like in adyoo, “bye”)
Description and grammar The main idea behind Lidepla was to create a harmonious whole on the base of the most widespread and influential national languages of the planet. That results in the Lidepla vocabulary containing a fairly significant amount of non-European words, which makes Lidepla a world language. A general design principle for Lidepla was to have something in common with the native languages of most of the people on Earth.
The Lidepla grammar is based on three rules, the rule of the constant form, the rule of belonging to a word class, and the rule of direct word order.
Rule of the constant form The word form never changes. Special particles are used to express the grammatical meanings, for example:
me lubi – I love li lubi – they love yu ve lubi – you will love me wud lubi – I would love lubi (ba) – love!
The only two exceptions are: the plural of nouns, which is made by adding the suffix -s: kitaba (book) — kitabas (books), flor (flower) — flores (flowers), and the verb to be, which has its own forms: bi for the indefinite es for the present bin for the past
Rule of belonging to a word class Every Lidepla word belongs to a word class – noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. Derivation takes place by means of affixes and particles:
– to love (verb) – love (noun) – loving (adjective) – lovingly, with love (adverb)
There are no fixed endings for the word classes; there are preferable ones, though. Thus, most verbs end in i, but there are some exceptions (for example: – to know, – to talk, etc).
Derivation By means of affixes and particles, new words can be made up, both of the same class and of the other. For example:
somni – to sleep somni-she – sleeping en-somni – to fall asleep somni-shem – sleepingly, as if while asleep somni-ki – to doze somnishil – sleepy gro-somni – to be dead to the world somnilok – sleeping place ek-somni-ki – to take a nap somninik – sleepyhead +Affixes AffixProductiveHyphenatedStressedTypeAdded toCreatesMeaningExample -neyyesyessuffixpronoun, nounadjectivecreates adjectivesmata-ney (mother's) -geyesyessuffixnounnounpiece, single itemdoga-ge (a single dog)(e)syesnosuffixnounnounplurality (in a countable sense. Not needed if preceded by a plural quantifier like "mucho")lingwas (languages) akshames (evenings)man-yesyesprefixnounnounmasculineman-doga (male dog)gin-yesyesprefixnounnounfemininegin-doga (female dog)oyesnosuffixnounnounmasculinedogo (male dog)inayesnosuffixnounnounfemininedogina (female dog)(s)ayesnosuffixverbnounAct and its manifestation/instance/result/resulting stateada (addition)ingyesnosuffixverbnounThe very action as process; repeated action; occupation, hobby, sportswiming (swimming)(i)kayesno (with monosyllabic i-verbs, -ika is added with a hyphen)nosuffixverbnounobject, thing, something concretenovika (something new, novelty) ski-ika, pi-ikaturayesnosuffixverbnounend result/product of actionmixtura (mixture)watyesnosuffixverbnounobject of actionpiwat (beverage)eryesnosuffixverb, nounnounboth doer (person) and tool/ device/appliancezwoer (doer) politiker (politician)or, atornonosuffixdoer or tool -shayesyessuffixverbnoundoing person (noun form of the active participle marker -she)lekti-sha (reader person)tulnonosuffixverbnounvintitul (screwdriver)istayesnosuffixnounnounperson in relation to a certain doctrine (‘ism’) or professiondentista (dentist)
Principle of necessity The use of a special particle is optional if its meaning is clear from the context. For example:
Yeri me miti ela – "Yesterday, I met her", and Manya me miti ela – "Tomorrow, I'll meet her"
both lack particles indicating time, because it is already obvious from "yesterday" and "tomorrow". In the same manner:
Me vidi mucho kinda – "I see a lot of children"
lacks the plural indicating ending -s, because the plural is already indicated by mucho, in contrast to:
Me vidi kindas – "I see children"
that uses the plural "-s" ending.
Rule of direct word order The word order in a sentence is usually direct; that is, subject — predicate — object, attribute goes before the noun, prepositions are before the noun group they refer to.
If the word order is changed, it is shown by the use of special particles. For example, den is put before the object, like this:
Ela lubi lu – “She loves him”, versus Den lu ela lubi, with the same meaning (literally “Him she loves”) – where the object lu is marked by placing den before it.
Personal pronouns The basic personal pronouns of Lidepla are:
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" ! person ! singular ! plural |- ! 1 | me | nu |- ! 2 | yu | yu |- ! rowspan="2" | 3 | ta | rowspan="2" | li |- | it
There is a distinction in third person singular between animate and inanimate: ta is used for humans and animals (corresponding to he/him, she/her, and it when used about an animal), and it about things and objects. If the speaker wishes to distinguish gender, there is also third person singular ela (she, her) and lu (he, him).
Just as in English, second person plural (you, you all) and singular (you) are both the same word: yu. Lidepla also has an indefinite personal pronoun: oni (one, they as in “they say that...”, and “one does not...”).
Possessive forms The short form of the possessive pronouns looks like this:
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" ! person ! singular ! plural |- ! 1 | may | nuy |- ! 2 | yur | yur |- ! 3 | suy | ley
The third person singular suy is universal and can be used as the possessive form for both ta, it, ela and lu – for ela and lu, there are also the forms elay and luy.
The suffix -ney is used to form adjectives from nouns.-ney is also used to form passive/past active participe Therefore, it is also possible to form longer possessive pronouns with the base form and the suffix -ney: mi-ney, yu-ney, etc.
Verbs Verb roots never change in Lidepla. Verbs belong to one of two types: +Verb TypesTypeDescriptionExamples1i-verbsend in consonant+ividi — to see dumi — to think
fobisi — to frighten
pri — to like
chi — to eat
pi — to drink.1.1monosyllabic i-verbssubtype, in derivation their -i is always preservedchi — chier, chiing pi — pier, piing2otherEnding in anything other than consonant+i.
Verbs with prefixes fa- and mah-, which contain adjectives, are type 2 verbs too:
fa-syao — to diminish, become smaller (syao small)
fa-muhim — to become more important (muhim important)
mah-hao — make better, improve (hao good).jan — to know gun — to work
go — to go
yao — to want
lwo — to fall
krai — to cry
prei — to pray
joi — to rejoice, be happy
jui — to enjoy, revel in
emploi — to employ
kontinu — to continue.
Tense are formed by particles, or by suffixes. +Verb FormsTenseFormationMeaningExamplePresentSimpleverbvidi (see) chi (eat)
gun (work)PresentContinuouszai + verbzai chi (is eating)PresentPassivegei + verbgei chi (is being eaten)PresentConditionalwud + verbwud chi (would eat)PresentPerfecthe + verbhe vidi (have seen) he chi (have eaten)
he gun (have worked)PastSimpleverb-tevidi-te (saw) chi-te (ate)
gun-te (worked)PastPerfecthe + verb-tehe kuki-te (had cooked)PastRemotegwo + verbsome time ago, earlier in life, have been to somewhere or used to do somethingPastImmediateyus + verbhave just done something (the word yus means just)PastContinuouszai + verb-tezai chi-te (was eating)FutureSimpleve + verbwill do something, going to do somethingve shwo (will speak)FutureImmediatesal + verbto be about to do somethingsal go (about to go) sal chifan (about to have a meal)FuturePerfectve he + verbve he chi (will have eaten)FutureContinuousve zai + verbve zai chi (will be eating)
Vocabulary Lidepla sources its vocabulary from major world languages, including among its officially declared source languages Arabic, Mandarin, English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, though words are also taken from a variety of other world languages from Turkish to Estonian. The most frequent words, though, are of English, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi origin. There are not definite endings for different parts of speech, so nearly any word can be easily incorporated. The words are adapted to Lidepla phonology and do not preserve original orthography – preserving pronunciation is prioritized over spelling.Yahoo discussion group: “ ... While borrowing a word, we usually save its pronunciation, not spelling...”
As of 2014, the Lidepla vocabulary had about 4,000 entries, meaning about 10,000 individual words, with an increasing number. For a word to be incorporated, the following principles are taken into account: short words without consonant clusters are preferred the word has to be widespread and/or phonetically familiar for speakers of at least a few different national languages. For example, the word darba (strike), of Arabic origin, is close to Russian "удар" (udar; strike), Chinese "打" (dǎ; to strike), and even marginally to English "strike" and Hindi "प्रहार" (prāhar).
Similarity examples Whole Lidepla phrases sometimes sound very close to national languages ones, with the same meaning: