Glosa (auxiliary language)

Glosa is an international auxiliary language. Glosa is an isolating language, which means that words never change form, and spelling is completely regular and phonetic.

Glosa
Glosa
Created by	Ronald Clark and Wendy Ashby, based on the Interglossa of Lancelot Hogben
Date	1972–1992
Setting and usage	international auxiliary language
Purpose	constructed language auxiliary language Glosa
Sources	Interglossa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	None
IETF	art-x-glosa
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As an isolating language, there are no inflections, so that words always remain in their dictionary form, no matter what function they have in the sentence. As a result, grammatical functions, when not clear from the context, are taken over by a small number of operator words and by the use of word order (syntax).

Glosa takes most of its vocabulary from Greek and Latin roots, seen by the authors as international in a sense by their usage in science.

History

Glosa is based on an older draft auxiliary language from 1943 called Interglossa, which was developed by Lancerot Hogben in 1943.

Ron Clark discovered Interglossa in 1960. He joined Hogben to develop the language. Wendy Ashby joined them in 1972. After Hogben's death in 1975, Ron and Wendy made many changes in the language and they renamed it Glosa.

In 1979, they tested the language with volunteers from the city they were living in. Also, the first dictionary was published.

Since 1987, the NGO Glosa Education Organisation (GEO) promotes the language. Its official website was created in 1996 by Paul O. Bartlett. Later, Marcel Springer became the person in charge of it.

In 2021, a wiki in Glosa was created by Vicente Costalago.

Grammar

Main article: Glosa grammar

Alphabet and spelling

Glosa spelling is completely regular and phonetic: one spelling always represents one sound, and one sound is always represented by one spelling. With the sole exception of SC which represents the sound ʃ (as “sh” in short), every letter just represents one sound, and vice versa. Glosa is written with the Latin letters.

Glosa alphabet (and the digraph sc)

Letter	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	z	(sc)
IPA phoneme	a	b	t͡ʃ	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	kw	r	s	t	u	v	w	ks	z	ʃ

Word classes

Glosa contains two major groups of words:

Primitives

Primitives are the small number of basic function words present in most languages—these allow us to describe the relationships between the major ideas we bring across. These are basically prepositions and conjunctions, such as: de [of], e [and], pre [before], supra [above], sub [under; below; lower; beneath; lesser; somewhat].

Substantives

Substantives here are the group of words that represents the more complex things, actions and descriptions (sometimes usable for all three) present in a language, such as: via [road], kurso [run], hedo [happy], vide [see], celera [swift], tako [fast; quick; prompt; hurry; rate; speed]; oku [eye]. Please note that many of these words have many meanings, based on how they are used in a sentence (verb, adjective, etc.), for example: "oku" can mean "eye", "optical", "see (look)", "perceive (with the eyes)", or "to peep".

Parts of speech

Glosa words can often serve as more than one part of speech. Thus part of speech is a role that the word plays in a sentence, not a property of a word.

Personal pronouns

Personal Pronouns

Person	English	Glosa	English	Glosa
1	I, me	mi	we, us	na
2	you (s.)	tu	you (pl.)	vi
3	she, her	fe	they, them	mu
	he, him	an
	it	id
	he/she/one	pe

The reflexive pronoun ”oneself” is se, the reciprocal pronoun alelo means ”each other”,^[1] and the emphatic auto is used for “self, own“.

Verbs

Most words can act as verbs, depending on their places in the sentence (usually in the middle).

Example of Verb Tenses
Tense	Prior Word	Glosa Text	English Translation
Infinitive	-	Mi volu lekto u bibli.	I want to read the book.
Simple Past	pa	Mi pa lekto u bibli.	I (did) read the book.
Imperfect	pa du	Mi pa du lekto u bibli.	I was reading the book.
Past Participle	ge-	U ge-lekto bibli	The read book / The book that has been read
Simple Present	(nu)	Mi (nu) lekto u bibli.	I (do) read the book / I am reading the book.
Continuous Present	du	Mi du lekto u bibli.	I am reading the book.
Present Perfect	nu pa	Mi nu pa lekto u bibli.	I have (just) read the book.
Future-in-Present	nu fu	Mi nu fu lekto u bibli.	I am just about to read the book / I am just going to read the book.
Future-in-Past	pa fu	Mi pa fu lekto u bibli.	I was about to read the book / I was going to read the book.
Simple Future	fu	Mi fu lekto u bibli.	I shall/will read the book.
Future Perfect	fu pa	Mi fu pa lekto u bibli.	I shall/will have read the book (by tomorrow).
Conditional	sio	Mi sio lekto u bibli...	I would read the book...
Imperative	-!	Lekto!	Read!
Negative	ne	Mi ne lekto u bibli.	I do not read the book/I am not reading the book.
Interrogative	qe	Qe mi lekto u bibli?	Am I reading the book? / Do I read the book?
Passive	gene	U bibli gene lekto ex mi.	The book is/gets read by me.
Gerund	-	(U) lekto (de bibli).	(The) reading (of the book...)

"Prior word" here means a word used immediately before the verb of the sentence or clause in order to show its tense. For example:

• To show that a verb is in the past tense, add pa before the verb.
• To indicate the future tense, add fu before the verb.
• To indicate the conditional, add sio before the verb.

Adjectives

Adjectives, like the rest of the language do not change. They are generally placed before the word that they modify.

To create "opposites", one just places "no-" as a prefix to the adjective. It is the equivalent of some of the uses on in- or un- in English.

• kali – beautiful
• no-kali – ugly
• termo – hot, heat
• meso-termo – warm
• no-termo – cold

Conjunctions

• akorda-co – accordingly
• alo – or
• alo...alo – either...or
• alora – in that case...
• anti-co – however
• e – and
• fini-co – finally
• hetero-co – otherwise
• jam – already
• kaso – case...
• ko-co – also
• klu – even...
• ni....ni – neither...nor
• pene – almost
• po-co – after that
• posi – perhaps
• plus-co – moreover
• qasi – as if...
• sed – but
• si ne... – unless
• vice – instead of...

Question and answer words

	Question (what)	Indefinite (some)	Very indefinite (any)	Universal (every)	Negative (no)
	qo–	uno–	ali–	panto–	nuli–
–ra (thing)	qo-ra? (what thing?)	uno-ra (something)	ali-ra (anything)	panto-ra (everything)	nuli-ra (nothing)
–pe (individual)	qo-pe? (who?)	uno-pe (someone)	ali-pe (anyone)	panto-pe (everyone; all)	nuli-pe (no one)
Individual	qo? (what [horse]? which [horse]?)	uno (some [horse])	ali (any [horse])	panto (every [horse])	nuli, zero (no [horse])
–lo (place)	qo-lo? (where)	uno-lo (somewhere)	ali-lo (anywhere)	panto-lo (everywhere)	nuli-lo (nowhere)
–mode (manner)	qo-mode?, komo? (how, in what way)	uno-mode (somehow)	ali-mode (in any way)	panto-mode (in every way)	nuli-mode (in no way, no-how)
–ka (cause)	qo-ka? (why; for what cause)	uno-ka (for some cause)	ali-ka (for any cause)	panto-ka (for all causes)	nuli-ka (for no cause)
–te (intention)	qo-te? (why; with what intention)	uno-te (with some intention)	ali-te (with any intention)	panto-te (with all intentions)	nuli-te (with no intention)
–metri (quantity)	qo-metri?, qanto? (how much)	uno-metri (some)	ali-metri (any)	panto-metri (all)	nuli-metri (none)

In addition to the above, there is the prefix/beginning singu- (each), and the suffixes/endings -numera (amount/number), -speci (quality/kind of) and -kron (time), which can be used in the same way as the above.

Qo horo? can also be used for “What time?” or “What is the time?”.

Demonstratives

The basic demonstratives are:

• ci, here
• u-ci, this, this one, this [X]
• plu-ci, these
• la, there
• u-la, that, that one, that [X]
• plu-la, those

The demonstratives can also be used in the same way as the words in the table above: u-ci mode, u-la mode (thus; in this way, in that way), u-ci ka, u-la ka (for this cause, for that cause), u-ci te (with this intention), etc.

For “this time”, there's also nu (now), and for “that much/that many”, you can say tanto; for “that kind” talo.

To change a phrase into a question, qe is placed at the beginning of the sentence.

Prepositions

• ab – away from (abduct)
• ad – to / towards (advance)
• ana – up (anabolic)
• anti – against (antibiotic)
• de – of / about / pertaining to (describe)
• dextro – (on the) right (ambidextrous)
• dia – through (diagonal)
• epi – on (epicentre)
• ex – out (of) / by (agent) (exterior)
• infra – below / under / lesser (infrared, inferior)
• intra – inside (intracloud)
• kata – down (catastrophe)
• ko – with (coöperate)
• kontra – counter / opposite (counter, contrast)
• laevo – left (levorotation)
• margina – edge / side (margin)
• meso – middle (Mesopotamia)
• minus – without / lacking (minus)
• para – beside (parallel)
• per – by (instrumental) (per)
• peri – around (pericarp)
• po – after (post scriptum)
• pre – before (previous)
• pro – for (pro or con)
• proxi – near (proximity)
• supra – over / above (supranational)
• te – in order to... (tendency)
• tem – for a period of time (temporary)
• tele – far (telephone)
• to(po) – at place (topology)
• trans – across (transition)
• ultra – beyond (ultrasophisticated)
• vice – instead of (vice-president)

Numbers

The numbers from 0–10 are: ze, mo, bi, tri, tet, pen, six, seti, ok, nona, deka. For 0, 4, 5, 7 and 8 (ze, tet, pen, seti, ok), there's also the longer forms zero, tetra, penta, septi and okto. Higher numbers are formed by combining the numerals in the number, and in some cases by proper names:

Number	Glosa name	Exact translation
11	mo-mo	one-one[2]
12	mo-bi	one-two
20	bi-ze	two-zero
22	bi-bi	two-two
100	hekto (mo-ze-ze)	(one) hundred (one-zero-zero)
101	mo-ze-mo	one-zero-one
1.000	(mo-)kilo	(one) thousand
1.000.000	(mo-)miliona	(one) million

Note that some use centi, the older form of hekto, for “hundred”. Centi is now used as “hundredth” in accordance with the ISO standard usage.

When numbers are placed before the noun, they are cardinal; when they are placed after the noun, they are ordinal:

• Mi fu lekto mo bibli – I will read one book
• Mi fu lekto bibli mo – I will read the first book

Mo, bi and tri also means single, double and triple, respectively.

Sample

The following is the Lord's Prayer in Glosa, compared with Interglossa, Frater and English versions, respectively:

Glosa version	Interglosa[3]	Frater version	English[4]
Na patri in urani: na volu; tu nomina gene honora, tu krati veni e tu tende gene akti epi geo homo in urani. Place don a na nu-di na di-pani e tu pardo na plu Mali akti; metri na pardo mu; qi akti Mali a na. E ne direkti na a u proba; sed libe na ab Mali. Ka tu tena u krati, u dina e un eufamo pan tem. Amen.	Na Parenta in Urani: Na dicte volo; tu Nomino gene revero; plus tu Crati habe accido; plus u Demo acte harmono tu Tendo epi Geo homo in Urani; Na dicte petitio: Tu date plu di Pani a Na; plus Tu acte pardo plu malo Acte de Na; metro Na acte pardo Mu; Su acte malo de Na. Peti Tu non acte dirigo Na a plu malo Offero; Hetero, Tu date libero Na apo Malo. Causo Tu tene u Crati plus u Dyno plus un eu Famo pan Tem. Amen.	Pater mis in sel, nam ni es santa, nasionroi ni aribe, desir ni es fakto, sur geo omo sin sel. Don mis jurdis pani jur mis. Perdon erormulti mis, omo mis perdon filone mis. Ne direk mis a proba, e libere mis ot benne. Amen.	Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.