| Sambahsa | |
|---|---|
| Sambahsa-Mundialect | |
 | |
| Created by | Olivier Simon |
| Date | 2007 |
| Purpose | Constructed language
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | (sph code proposal was rejected in 2018[1]) |
| Glottolog | None |
| IETF | art-x-sambahsa |
Sambahsa (constructed pronunciation:[samˈbaːsa]) orSambahsa-Mundialect is aninternational auxiliary language (IAL) andworldlang devised by French linguist Olivier Simon.[2] It is based on theProto-Indo-European language (PIE) and has a relatively complex grammar.[3][4]The language was first released on the Internet in July 2007; prior to that, the creator claims to have worked on it for eight years. According to a study addressing recent auxiliary languages, "Sambahsa has an extensive vocabulary and a large amount of learning and reference material".[5]
The first part of the name of the language,Sambahsa, is composed of two words from the language itself,sam andbahsa, which mean 'same' and 'language', respectively.Mundialect, on the other hand, is afusion ofmundial 'worldwide' anddialect 'dialect'.
Sambahsa tries to preserve the original spellings of words as much as possible and this makes its orthography complex, though still kept regular.[6] There are fourgrammatical cases:nominative,accusative,dative andgenitive.[7]
Though based on PIE, Sambahsa borrows a good proportion of its vocabulary from other language families, such asArabic,Chinese,Indonesian,Swahili andTurkish.[2]
Sambahsa's phonology has little to do withProto-Indo-European phonology, though the majority of its vocabulary comes from PIE.[8] The changes from PIE are not regular, since the creator of Sambahsa has tried to avoidhomophones, which would have become common after the elimination of some PIE sounds likelaryngeals or someaspirated consonants. Unlike someauxlangs likeEsperanto, the orthography of Sambahsa is complex yet regular and consists only of the 26 letters of thebasic Latin alphabet.[9] This system was chosen to preserve the recognizability of words taken from West-European languages, whereorthography plays a key role. For example, according to the rules of Sambahsa,bureau is pronounced as inFrench, andpoint as inEnglish.
Sambahsa'sphonemic inventory has 22consonants and ninevowels (excluding the lengthened forms of these vowels).[10] To help language learners, and becauseIPA symbols cannot be written with all keyboards, a special simpler system has been developed, calledSambahsa Phonetic Transcription, orSPT.
Compared to otherconlangs, Sambahsa words are short, often as short as English words, and highly consonantic.[11] This latter point is in accordance with the PIE background of Sambahsa, where roots have often a consonant-vocal-consonant structure.[12]
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | |||||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ||||||
| voiced | d͡z | d͡ʒ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | θ | s | ʃ | ç | x | h | |
| voiced | v | z | ʒ | ʁ | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | (w) | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i(ː) | y(ː) | u(ː) | |
| Mid | e(ː) | ø(ː) | ə | o(ː) |
| Open | ɛ(ː) | a(ː) | ||
Sambahsa'sstress rules are complex but regular, and tend to follow what is often found inGerman orItalian. This predictability implies that all words with the same orthography are pronounced and stressed the same way as each other. Thus, for example, while GermanPräsident and Italianpresidente are stressed on the "ent" syllable, Sambahsapresident is stressed on the "i", sincepresident can also mean "they preside", and a final "ent" never bears the stress. This regularity of accentuation can be compared with Englishpresident andto preside, two words that bear the stress on different syllables, though they share the same origin.
In Sambahsa,declensions are only compulsory forpronouns. The declensions of these pronouns (demonstrative/interrogative and relative/personal) are mostly parallel, and often show similarities with theirProto-Indo-European ancestors. Thus, in all Sambahsa declensions, the neuter nominative and accusative are identical, as it was the case in PIE.[13] There are identical forms for the relative and interrogative pronouns,[14] as well as for the third person pronoun and the definite article (the in English).[15]
Sambahsa has two numbers (singular and plural; thedual number of PIE has not been preserved) and fourgrammatical genders: masculine, feminine, neuter, and undetermined. This last gender, which is an innovation from PIE, is used when a noun of uncertain or unknown gender is referred to, and, in the plural, for groups containing elements of different genders. The creator of Sambahsa introduced this non-PIE element to avoid the"gender" dispute found in Esperanto.
Gender is attributed in Sambahsa according to the "true nature" of the noun referred to, asEnglish speakers do withhe,she andit.
Sambahsa has fourgrammatical cases:nominative,accusative,dative andgenitive; however, their attribution tries to be as logical as possible, and not arbitrary as in many modernIndo-European languages. The nominative is the case of thesubject, and the form under which words are given in dictionaries. Except for verbs describing a movement or a position (where the appropriateprepositions ought to be used), alltransitive verbs must introduce theaccusative case in the first place, before an eventualdative case. However, thedependent clause ofindirect speech is considered as a directobject, leading to verbs introducing an indirect object, even if there is no visible direct object.
Compare:
In Sambahsa, allprepositions trigger the accusative.[16]
Thegenitive indicates possession, and is used after adjectives that can introduce adependent clause.
Compare:
For substantives and adjectives, there are declined "free endings" (i.e. non-compulsory) used most often in literary context foreuphonics orpoetry. This system is inspired by the euphonic endings (ʾiʿrāb) found inModern Standard Arabic.
In Sambahsa, allverbs are regular, exceptses ('to be'),habe ('to have'), andwoide ('to know', in the meaning of Frenchsavoir or Germanwissen). Sambahsa verbs are indicated in dictionaries not under theirinfinitive form, but their barestem, because the whole conjugation can be deduced from the form of this stem.The maintenses of Sambahsa arepresent andpast, but many other tenses can be obtained through the use of affixes orauxiliary verbs. Sambahsa uses the following endings, which are close to those found in manyIndo-European languages.[17]
| Person | Present and other tenses | Past tense only |
|---|---|---|
| First-person singular | -o, -m (if the verb ends with a stressed vocalic sound) or nothing (if the last vowel of the verb is unstressed) | -im |
| Second-person singular | -s | -(i)st(a) |
| Third-person singular | -t | -it |
| First-person plural | -m(o)s | -am |
| Second-person plural | -t(e) | -at |
| Third-person plural | -e(nt) ("-nt"is compulsory if the verb ends with a stressed vocalic sound) | -(ee)r |
Sambahsa is unusual amongauxlangs because of its use of a predictableablaut system for the past tense and passive pastparticiples. For example,eh within a verbal stem turns tooh. Other verbs that cannot use ablaut can drop theirnasal infix, or use an improved version of theDe Wahl's rules. Finally, the remaining verbs simply add the past tense endings, which are optional for verbs of the categories described above.
Therefore, this system qualifies Sambahsa as a language belonging to theIndo-European family of languages, though it remains aconstructed language.[citation needed]
Because of its rather large vocabulary for anauxlang (as of April 2021, the full Sambahsa-English dictionary contained more than 19,500 entries[18]), it is difficult to assess the share of each language in Sambahsa's eclectic wordstock. However, the main layers are (either reconstructed or extrapolated) Indo-European vocabulary, Greco-Roman scientific and technical vocabulary (which is not discussed below, as it is more or less comparable to what is found in English) and multiple sources extending from Western Europe to Eastern Asia.
The core of Sambahsa's vocabulary is undoubtedly of Indo-European origin. Only a few Sambahsa words can be traced back to pre-Indo-European times (likekamwns, 'chamois', cf.Basque:ahuntz). Many basic Sambahsa words are thus very close to their reconstructed Indo-European counterparts. See (Sambahsa/Proto-Indo-European):eghi/*H₁eghis ('hedgehog'),ghelgh/*ghelghe- ('gland'),pehk/*pek ('to comb'),skand/*skand ('to jump'),peungst/*pn̥kʷsti- ('fist'),wobhel/*wobhel- ('weevil'),gwah/*gweH₂ ('to go'),tox/*tòksom ('yew wood' in Sambahsa; 'yew' in PIE),treb/*trêbs ('dwelling'),oit/*H₁òitos ('oath'),poti/*potis ('Sir, lord'). But less attested Indo-European vocabulary is found in Sambahsa too. For example, the common Sambahsa word forperson isanghen, as insemanghen, 'someone, somebody', and can be derived from PIE*?*H₂enH₁ǵh, only found inOld Armeniananjn ('person') andOld Norseangi ('smell'). Andmotic ('hoe') may be a cognate ofOld Church Slavonicmotyka and Englishmattock.
Though Sambahsa, like any other conlang, has derivation rules, it sometimes usesbackformation too. For example, the relation betweenLithuanianbendras ('companion'), Old Greekpentheros ('father-in-law') and Sanskritbandhu- ('companion') is uncertain;[19] however Sambahsa "reconstructs" this root asbehndwr frombehnd 'to bind'. PIE has*dhéǵhom 'earth' and*dhinéǵh- (withnasal infix) 'to shape, to make pottery'; accordingly, Sambahsa has(di)ghom anddinegh, but the latter can be understood as "to put earth on" if we refer toyug ('yoke') andyuneg ('to join'), both from PIE*yugom and*yunég-.
The Sambahsa word for 'ice pellet' iskersnit; it rests on the wordkersen 'frozen snow', itself fromOld Norsehjarn, Lithuanianšarma ('frost') and Russianserën.[20] But thesuffix-it was abstracted from PIE words like*sepit 'grain of wheat' and*H₂elbit 'grain of barley';[21] thuskersnit can be understood as 'a grain of frozen snow'.
A characteristic of Sambahsa is to include words found in different language families, while the most famousauxiliary languages tend to limit themselves to a compilation ofRomance vocabulary with some borrowings from theGermanic languages. For example:
Though they belong to different language families,[clarification needed][dubious –discuss] the languages spoken in Southeast Europe share a number of common grammatical features and of loanwords due to their historical background.[citation needed] That is why Sambahsa includes words from this region.
A significant part of Sambahsa's vocabulary comes fromArabic andPersian. Both languages have extensively provided loanwords to a lexical continuum ranging from the Atlantic Ocean to Indonesia because, respectively, of the spread ofIslam and the brilliance of the former Persian civilization. Sambahsa learning materials often call this stratum "Muslim".
Classical Chinese has heavily influenced the wordstock of neighbouring languages, mostly Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. As a result, Sambahsa incorporates some Sinitic vocabulary, but the phonetic differences between these various languages can be high.
Not all Sambahsa Sinitic words come from Classical Chinese. TheMin Nan language of Southern China provided loanwords to some South-East Asian languages, and some of these borrowings are, in turn, found in Sambahsa.
| Sambahsa | English |
|---|---|
| Sellamat! | Hello! |
| Kam leitte yu? | How are you? |
| Leito. | Fine. |
| Bahte yu Sambahsa? | Do you speak Sambahsa? |
| No, ne bahm Sambahsa. | No, I don't speak Sambahsa. |
| Marba! | Pleased to meet you! |
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