Sona – an auxiliary neutral language
I chose the name SONA for this new ‘Interlanguage,’ not that it has any connection with √SWEN = son-us (sound), but because its component radicals so (help, auxiliary), and na (negative, neutral, neuter) expressed ‘auxiliary-neutral’. The fact that I aimed also at sonority was purely incidental. My first, and far most difficult task, was to select sufficient and appropriate radicals to cover the requisite number of categories. It was clear my radical elements must be as concise and simple as possible, consisting of sounds that all races could pronounce. Final consonants, as at, ast, ant, abl, are not easy for some, nor are initial consonant groups, such as st, str, skl, bhru. In C. -n, ng, in (I.) -n, in Gk. -n, -s, -x, are for instance the only final consonants tolerable. Yet to avoid such combinations involves a considerable sacrifice of possible monosyllables and our radical elements ought to be monosyllabic. Accepting n as the only consonant final that could be allowed, and with a selected alphabet of twenty-four letters, I found that only 195 monosyllables were forthcoming of the types a, an, ta, tan-, only just more than half the required number. These were all of the simplest form, for I decided that Diphthongs must also be excluded. Such vowel shades as are found in Chinese, ai, ao, ei, eu, iao, ou, ü, iu, uei, wai, wei, and so on, are too complex and did not fit into my general scheme. There remained then the simplest forms of dis-syllable -ata, ita-, which were easy to combine. Even to these, however, there was an objection. The orderly prefixing of five vowels in rotation to the radical ta would tend to a monotonous uniformity. I therefore took only the three primary vowels a, i, u, thus producing 180 dis-syllables, the remaining five being the Particles au, ua, ue, ui, uo (Monosyllables).
Still further to reduce the disadvantage of these
recurring vowel prefixes a, i, u, I hit upon the device–
similar to that of Chinese– of making these three vowels actual
radical prefixes. Thus, for example, with the radical ta I
brought ata, ita, uta into direct relationship, as well as
the -n form tan. In other words all five radicals
containing the elementary or ‘Primary’ ta were
brought into a ‘Group’ each member of which should be
related visually and in meaning to the common ta. This
was a great step forward, for the grouping provided a convenient
aide-memoir. When we saw uta ‘swell’ (= onda)
we knew that it belonged to the Group ta ‘increase.’
Thus, in graphic form:–
| Primary | TA | augment | TE | grasp | TO | passing |
| -n form | tan | bulk | ten | reception | ton | exhaust |
| a- pf. | ata | extension | ate | tube | ato | senility |
| i- pf. | ita | filling | ite | flap | ito | expiring |
| u- pf. | uta | swelling | ute | uto | excess |
A glance is sufficient to observe the inter-relationship of the members of each Group. Each of the 12 consonants has 5 such Groups, providing us with 300 radicals. The 6 aspirates have only the -n form, giving us the remaining 60. Now, just as in the chemical formula H2O the element H is constant, so must each radical be constant and indivisible in form and meaning. In other words – as if ta- in the English table, tacit, attack, iota had a common value. Thus in any polysyllable where the two letters ta come together in this order they must have some sense of augmentation.
Before going on to greater detail it may be as well to give a brief outline of how these radicals are employed. At the outset it should be clearly understood that a radical is the symbol of an idea, or group of ideas, and is better termed an ideogram. Just as the C. yu ‘hand’ is used in many compounds, often losing its primary meaning, so our te, J. te ‘hand’, may be used to express ideas of grasping, anything to be grasped, which protrudes and therefore can be grasped. The meaning is never obscure. We may have tebi (handle), bute (nose), tega (arm), sute (stalactite), bate (stick), and so on, the idea of te being consistent throughout.
A radical is thus not a definite part of speech; da ‘do’, though intrinsically verbal, is also a particle like English ‘to’ in ‘to go’ = da ru, and a noun in dane ‘deed’. The English noun ‘water’ may be verbalized in the same way– ‘to water,’ just as ‘to blow’ may be made the noun ‘blow’. The Particle ci (relative) ‘which,’ is verbal in ciru ‘to refer,’ and a noun in cira ‘someone.’
The value of a radical is automatically modified according to its relative position in a word. As a pf. it is the stronger element; as a sf. the weaker. Thus combining ta ‘augment’ and ra ‘male’ we have tara ‘a big man,’ rata ‘a giant.’ The principle of this relation is that of possessor to possessed. Sona usually foregoes any formal sf. for the possessive; E. the father's brother, C. fu hiung, S. para bora. In case of ambiguity however we may add si, the equivalent of English -'s, and say parasi bora (§31). The epithet is always placed before its headword; E. the stern father, C. fu yen, S. jeyo para, or in one word jepara; inversely, E. the father (is) stern, C. fu yen, S. para jezi (see §35).
Some radicals again develop an arbitrary value when used either as a pf. or sf.; ka ‘lead’ as a pf. forms the causal verb, or in the adjective form kayo = chief, principle; as sf. it distinguishes a t.v.
A radical in isolated form may in itself be a word: e.g. fu ‘external’ or ‘out,’ kan fu ‘house exterior,’ fu kan ‘out of the house,’ on fu ‘he is outside,’ da fu ‘to put out,’ ru fu ‘go out!’ In combination it sometimes forms a word which becomes arbitrarily fixed, a natural development in all national languages. The I.G. √AC = ‘sharp,’ ‘swift’ produced Gk. ikfos, E. ‘horse,’ L. ‘equus,’ E. ‘acrid,’ ‘acute,’ ‘ague,’ ‘eager’; the corresponding S. aki ‘swift’ produces akizu ‘horse’ = "swift animal" = equus. It is true that "swift animal" would not necessarily indicate ‘horse’; it might be a hare, a greyhound, a buck. But it has become arbitrarily fixed in this sense, just as the English word ‘swift’ has been fixed to name a cartain bird.
akizu obviously has not been directly borrowed from ‘equus,’ though it may appear so. Likewise toreno ‘train’ is not a copy of Italian ‘treno’; it has been built up from to ‘passing,’ re ‘straight,’ no ‘carry,’ derived as follows:– to J. noru ‘ride,’ ‘carry’ = S. noru. But for the moment these examples will be sufficient to show the a priori basis of Sona. Its word-forming capacity is almost unlimited and its euphony assured by the even distribution of consonants and vowels, helped in rare cases by the non-radical vowel y (ataya for ataa) (Euphony §8). It admits of such polysyllables as durevohuda ‘the moaning of the wind in the trees’ (analytically– voda vi hu po dure) and zinyasagiada Life Insurance Company, as in G. and R..
The grammar of Sona should be regarded more as a guide indicating how the 36 Auxiliary Radicals or ‘Indicators’ are used to mark normal grammatical distinctions of gender, number, case, noun, verb and particle. I have adopted the Arab grammarian's division into three categories (i) Noun, (ii) Particle, (iii) Verb. An ‘Indicator’ is a radical (always monosyllabic) employed to indicate a grammatical category. Sona does not always follow European models. It discards all redundencies. In English we say “two boys came yesterday”; in Sona “two boy come yesterday.” It is clear that more than one boy is already indicated by ‘two,’ while ‘yesterday’ shows the time, or tense of the verb. In the Introductory I have explained that a radical is an Ideogram and not necessarily a noun, particle or verb, unless it be so fixed either by its relative position, or by another radical. Thus para ‘father’ (Nominative) becomes a Genitive, or Possessive, in para kan ‘the father's house’; or an Accusative in on se para ‘he sees the father;’ or a Verb in da para ‘to father.’
How is Sona to be taught? This is looking very far ahead– perhaps into the realms of Utopia. Yet the author must hope that his off-spring is the best, that he has solved the problem where others have failed, and taking it for granted with the majority of mankind that a good Interlanguage would be useful and timesaving, must then assume that it will be taught. If every nation agrees to accept Sona as its second language it follows that the language will be taught first in the elementary schools of the world. How then should it be taught? Not, I hope, in the way I was taught Latin, French, Greek, and German.
Its lack of real grammar may prove a difficulty to the teacher. It has few hard and fast rules. He must at least have imagination and ingenuity, as well as a sense of humour, to lead his flock into these new fields of word-making which he might well turn into a game more diverting than a crossword puzzle. At any rate he will be bringing up a race of young philologists with minds widened beyond mensa, mensae, mensam.
I have no doubt that Sona will at first seem strange, and to an English child, for instance, nothing like English. This cannot be helped. It does not clain to be like English, but to contain sufficient English methods to appeal to his reason. The teacher of an English class should demonstrate what similarities of method there are with their own language; the analytical verb, one form often for both singular and plural, as sheep, fruit, man (Sona has nothing so strange as mouse, mice!), the position of the oblique pronoun— mi se tu ‘I see you’— not like the French ‘je vous vois.’ While touching on these three monosyllables he might show that mi I, me and tu you, thou, thee are not unlike English me, thee, and how common are the two consonants throughout the languages of the world in forming the first and second persons. The radical se is of Teutonic origin; (E.) ‘see,’ (G.) ‘sehen,’ (Swed.) ‘se,’ (Dan.) ‘see’. Then there is the English method of word-agglutination: side-way, wayside; water-pipe, pipe-water; eye-glass, glass-eye; firewood, wood-fire. Few other languages can do this so simply.
In this way the teacher should try to overcome the initial strange look of the language. Indeed, it looks very much like Japanese, which has pleasant looking words like ‘sayonara,’ ‘meigin,’ ‘aratamaru’. Having prepared the ground, and it is hoped interested the class, he should begin with a few simple ‘Primaries,’ such as da ‘do,’ ru ‘go,’ su ‘water,’ explaining their origin, I.G., A., and T. respectively. “If you care to look at a map of Turkey or Central Asia you will see that most of the rivers are called ‘Su.’ Somehow it almost sounds like running water, doesn't it?” Now, it seems to me that a simple method of teaching these radicals would be to have 375 cards, about three inches square, on each of which is printed one radical in bold type. These, when pinned to the black-board, would clearly be seen across the class room. He selects an easy one— let us say SU— pins it to the board and explains what it means and how it is pronounced. “No! you must not call it ‘syu’; that letter is an ‘oo’ as in our English word ‘rule’.”
The class see the word as an entity, never broken or changed (unless of course he cut the card!): that is important. No less important is it to explain that although the radical displayed on the board means ‘water’ when it stands alone, its intrinsic value is to express all ideas of liquidity, fluidity, as he will presently illustrate by attaching other cards either in front of or after it. Why has su been chosen instead of Esp. akvo, Nov. aque, Gk. hydro, A. maya, C. shui, J. sui (the last two mentioned speak for themselves)— why? Because it is simple and because it fits into the Radical Scheme. “Now,” says the teacher, taking out the card RU and for the while removing the former, “we have another radical meaning ‘motion’. As you see it by itself it means ‘to go’. It is found in Arabic and Persian. An Arab says ‘ruh!’ a Persian ‘beru’ when he sends you away. The French have ‘rue’ meaning a street; we have ‘rush,’ ‘run,’ ‘route,’ which remind us of the sound if not the derivation. I am going to put the first card in front of this.” The class see the combined cards thus:— SU RU “What does this mean— water-motion? Flowing of course. No! not ‘syu-ru’ but soo-roo— don't drop your last sound."
He may then point out that there is an I.G. √ SRU also impliying ‘to flow,’ and that the A. word is actually ‘suru’. He now reverses the order the of the cards. The class see the combination RU SU. What now? Motion-water? “We know what a motion picture is. A stream of pictures. This is merely a stream, river. It sounds like one, too. It does mean a river.” The class are begining to progress. I suggest that this method be continued daily, taking perhaps ten radicals a day, but always giong back to the old ones and combining them with the new.
It will have been noted that so far the teacher has not touched on the subject of the new language's phonetics, nor I, for the matter of that. The alphabet of our ‘Interlanguage’ presented many problems. No alphabet that can be invented can satisfy the claims or idiosyncracies of all nationals. J. has no ‘l,’ ‘v’; C. no ‘b,’ ‘d,’ ‘r,’ ‘g’; A. no ‘p’; F., I., R. no sounded ‘h.’ The Persian sounds the letter ‘wau’ like ‘v,’ the Arab like ‘w’. The German sounds ‘w’ like ‘v’ and ‘v’ like ‘f’. Our ‘Inter-language’ must strike a happy medium.
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this version ©2002 by the Sona Sojigi