Angos

Angos (/'aŋ.gos/) is a constructed international auxiliary language created by Benjamin Wood in 2011. It is designed to be phonetically regular with a strict Subject-Verb-Object sentence structure, a reduced phonemic inventory, and small vocabulary base. The main linguistic influences of Angos are English, Mandarin Chinese, Finnish, and Spanish, from which grammar, syntax, and phonotactics are derived. The language's vocabulary is mostly a posteriori, being borrowed from many different languages, including rarer languages such as Basque, Navajo, and Irish Gaelic. The Angos dictionary has been translated into English, Hungarian, French, Chinese, Italian, and Finnish.

A notable feature of Angos is the absence of verb and adjective roots, instead being represented with part-of-speech markers (like those used in Esperanto). In other words: verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs are derived from nouns. An additional feature is a morphological distinction between natural and man-made nouns. The word angos translates to "man-made language". Angos has been listed on Risto Kupsala's list of worldlangs as an 'Active' language.

Phonology and Orthography
Angos is written using the Latin alphabet; the 21 letters are identical to their IPA equivalents unless specified otherwise in parenthesis.

Vowels
* Acceptable allophone

Diphthongs
* occurs at the end of the word

Consonants
* allophone of /n/; occurs before velar plosives

Syllable Structures and Phonotactics
Syllable structures with examples (S = semivowel):


 * V - a.ma.o
 * VC - ak.sa.lo
 * VS - aw.ke.lo
 * VSC - ayn


 * SV - yu.tu.so
 * SVS - wey.-on.do (see below)
 * SVC - was.no


 * CV - is.ka
 * CVC - pan.ho
 * CVS - kay.so
 * CSV - mwe
 * CSVC - syen
 * CSVS - (no example)

/l/ can not be adjacent to another C; S or V must precede/follow it.

For compound words, the uninflected roots must be looked at individually. If they do not belong in any of the above structures, then an 'e' sound is placed between the boundary.

Examples of 'e' usage:
 * aksal-pulof - /ʔak.sa.le.pu.lof/
 * yang-seson - /jan.ge.se.son/
 * aksal-ipos - /ʔak.sa.le.ʔi.pos/ (see below)

Root-initial vowels will always have /ʔ/
 * mek-omo - /mek.ʔo.mo/
 * dawa-omo - /da.wa.ʔo.mo/
 * kino-omo - /ki.no.ʔo.mo/

Consonant gemination may occur if the boundaries are identical:
 * ays-seson - /ays:eson/

Parts of Speech
Like Esperanto, Ido, and other Esperantidos, Angos uses a system of letter classifiers to designate a word's part of speech. Root classifiers (o, a, i, and u) can be further inflected with -s to denote a man-made quality.

Nouns
Nouns in Angos are static; they do not change for definitiveness, number, or case.
 * leisos - a/the house
 * le leisos - houses (the particle le signals plurality)
 * de leisos - to a/the house (where de signals direction towards something)

Articles (a/an, the) are not present in Angos. Instead, determiners from the correlative table are used to indicate definitiveness.

Pronouns
Following the use of the noun ending -o and the plural particle le, pronouns have the following configuration:

Verbs
Verbs in Angos are ambitransitive; they can act transitively or intransitively depending on the presence of an object or prepositional phrase. Verbs do not conjugate for person, number, tense, aspect, or mood.
 * Wo ala. - I eat / I am eating.
 * Wo ala tofao. - I eat an apple.
 * Wo sona. - I sleep.
 * Wo sona lo. - I cause him/her to fall asleep

Reflexivity can be expressed or emphasized with the adverb idu
 * Wo idu sona. - I cause myself to fall asleep (I fall asleep).

Because there are no inherent verb roots in Angos, the meaning of a word with the verb ending is dependent on the context of the noun root used. For example, ota, from the root ot- meaning "fire", does not inherently mean "burn". It is instead any action related to the use of "fire" in context.
 * Vao ota. - The tree is burning.
 * Wo ota momos. - I light the candle. (in this sense, applying fire to something)

A more common verb ba, from b- "grasp", is more fluid-
 * Wo ba lo.
 * "I grasp it." (physically)
 * "I take it."
 * "I get it." (physically and mentally)
 * "I understand it."
 * "I know it."

Word Order
Angos uses Subject-Verb-Object word order, with direct modifiers preceding what they modify.
 * Mao ala nesumo.
 * [The] cat eats [the] mouse.

Thus a sentence with modifiers would follow the pattern [subject adjective]-Subject-[adverb]-Verb-[object adjective]-Object.
 * Bali mao hilosu ala lavi nesumo.
 * [The] big cat quickly eats [the] small mouse.

For modal verbs such as bisaa "can" or desa "want", the secondary verb (if there is one), is placed after the modal.
 * Lo bisaa aksala.
 * He/She can write.

Descriptors will still precede each of the verbs.
 * Lo bisaa hilosu aksala
 * He/She can write quickly.

The passive voice in Angos is formed with the particle te, placed immediately in front of the verb.
 * Kalimo te aksala dave ipos
 * [The] word is written on [the] paper.


 * Vindawgos me te tayla ve wo
 * [The] window was broken by me.

Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases are formed with a preposition, modifiers of the object, then the object(s) of the preposition.
 * Los ine leisos
 * It [is] in [the] house


 * Mao ala nesumo ine leisos.
 * The cat eats the mouse in the house. (describes the position of the action)

For the purposes of literature, prepositional phrases may begin the sentence.

Particles
"Particles" is a catch-all category that includes prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, some adverbs, and other non-classifiable words. All these words end in -e and, if applicable, precede whatever they modify.

The following are selected particles with English translations, showing the variety of parts-of-speech the category encompasses.

Angos uses a set of determiner radicals that are inflected with the vowel classifiers.

For example, when the k radical is inflected:
 * ko - what (an s can be added to denote a man-made quality)
 * ki - which
 * ka - do what
 * ku - how

Relative Clauses
Unlike some languages, Angos does not use any interrogative correlatives to form a relative clause. Instead, the particle lae is used.
 * Na-omo lae wo me via - The man who I saw
 * Oyo lae me cea - The place where it happened
 * Leisos lae (lis) vindawgos tayli - The house whose (its) windows are broken

Compounding
Angos employs heavy use of endocentric compounding, in which the head of the compound modifies the following root. Compounds are formed by root junction, with a dash (-) separating each root. The root at the end of the compound is the focus, and is the one that inflects for part-of-speech.

Compound words may have as many roots necessary to form the idea, though the majority of compounds are between 2 and 3 roots in length.

Examples:
 * tesem-leisos
 * dog house

With the root tesem (dog) + leis (shelter) + artificial noun ending os. House is the focus of the compound, and dog describes the purpose or quality of the following root. In this context, it is a man-made shelter for a dog.


 * yel-hay-oyos
 * airport

yel (sky) + hay (vessel) + oy place + os. Air describes vessel (airplane), and air vessel describes the place.

If two compounded roots break a phonological rule, an unmarked reduced vowel sound /ɛ/ may be placed between the roots. Thus yel-hay (airplane) in the previous example would be rendered phonetically as /'jel(e)'haj/, as the consonant l must be succeeded by a vowel or semivowel.

Vocabulary
The vocabulary base of Angos draws from many different languages across many language families. The chosen roots reflect linguistic constraints (such as tones) and current linguistic dominance. There are approximately 1,200 roots that, when inflected, allow for up to 9,600 semantically independent words. This is not including the tens of thousands of possible compound words or the semantically flexible nature of the language.

Source Examples
The following is a list showing several examples from each of the language families used in developing Angos vocabulary.


 * Indo-European
 * Germanic (English, German, Swedish, Dutch)
 * buk - Ger. "Buch"
 * find - Ger. "finden"
 * makt - Ger. "Macht"
 * ans - Eng. "answer"
 * dot - Eng. "dot"
 * el - Eng. "ear"
 * eg - Eng. "egg"
 * fel - Eng. "fear"
 * sag - Ice. "saga"


 * Latinate (Spanish, French, Latin, Romanian, Italian)
 * osk - Sp. "oscuro"
 * man - Lat. "manus"
 * ide - Lat. "idea"
 * lus - Sp. "luz"
 * level - Lat. "level"
 * gen - Lat. "genus"


 * Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech)
 * kost - Ru. "кость"
 * most - Ru. "мост"
 * tel - Ru. "тело"
 * boka - Ru. "показ"
 * odvolan - Cz. "odvolání"


 * Greek
 * mek - "μηχανή"
 * amit - "αμέθυστος"
 * aluk - "ιεραρχία"
 * hip - "ίππος"


 * Indo-Iranian (Hindi/Urdu, Persian)
 * vayask - Hin. "वयस्क"
 * pani - Hin. "पानी"
 * gasal - Per. "گزر"
 * hiyal - Per. "خیار"


 * Altaic (Korean, Turkish, Japanese)
 * mame - Jap. "豆"
 * yume - Jap. "夢"
 * kino - Jap. "機能"
 * aig - Jap. "映画"
 * cimun - Kor. "질문"
 * yocen - Kor. "요청"
 * bimil - Kor. "비밀"
 * yuli - Kor. "유리"
 * ot - Turkmen "ot"
 * sel - Turkish "sel"
 * bicak - Turkish "bıçak"
 * bulun - Turkish "burun"
 * yamul - Uyghur "يامغۇر"


 * Finno-Ugric (Finnish, Hungarian)
 * tapy - Fin. "tappio"
 * oleta - Fin. "olettaa"
 * hawsk - Fin. "hauska"
 * neste - Fin. "neste"
 * nalu - Fin. "naru"
 * cel - Hung. "cel"
 * isom - Hung. "izom"
 * lend - Hung. "rend"
 * mag - Hung. "mag"
 * yeve - Hung. "jövő"


 * Chinese
 * na - Man. "男"
 * ni - Man. "女"
 * may - Man. "买卖"


 * Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew)
 * kalim - Ar. "كلمة"
 * isal - Ar. "أشار"
 * dail - Ar. "دائرة"
 * laks - Ar. "الرقص"
 * dawa - Ar. "دواء"
 * ikal - Heb. " עקרון"
 * metim - Heb. "מתים"
 * mafte - Heb. "מפתח"


 * North American Languages
 * akis - Navajo "akʼis"
 * netan - Navajo "naatʼáanii"
 * nehas - Navajo "nahasdzáán"
 * wey - Cherokee "ᎤᏪᏴ"
 * way - Cherokee "ᏩᏯ"
 * noy - Cherokee "ᏃᏯ"
 * unole - Cherokee "ᎤᏃᎴ"
 * nenok - Greenlandic "nanoq"
 * aluvek - Inuktitut "ᐊᕐᕕᒃ"


 * Basque
 * leis - "leize"
 * hili - "hiria"
 * kemen - "kemena"
 * hauc - "hautsa"
 * awkel - "aukeratu"


 * Austronesian Languages
 * itik - Malay "itik"
 * naga - Malay "naga"
 * lat - Indonesian "lalat"
 * ikan - Indonesian "ikan"
 * hwa - Māori "hua"

Sample
Has-ku-bavelo ye Yango (The North Wind and the Sun)


 * Angos

Has-ku-bavelo me aolaa, lo sefe makti. Yango me sukoba, tave makto mwe kulameo. "Le wo ke hadaya", te ansa ve Yango. Wase le lo, na-omo safala davale ofidi hodos. Lo me ba ays-seson-volos. "Kwe makt-hadayo", te ansa ve Yango, "Le wo sevame atempa wesa volos ve di na-omo". "Wo ke vakalu da, isoma lo wesa li le volos," te ansa ve Bavelo. Bavelo sefe isomu me bavela. Le cilo panha de le vao, ye ealo te mena mwe hauco ye ipo. Mice, hie ceo lae lo isomu bavela de hodos, na-omo he sele isomu me ba li volos. Hie di ceo, yango idu me wesa ve mego. Lo me tepula ealo ye aysi nehaso. Na-omo dave hodos wes-botaa li le volos. Yango sipotu sele otu lusa. Na-omo me sensa tepulo ye sayu wesa li le volos ye idu esa yase vao. "To ku me da?", te simuna ve Bavelo. "Wo me vakalu da," te ansa ve Yango, "Wo me lusa hio. Wo me liana tongwe kulameo."


 * English

The North Wind boasted of great strength. The Sun argued that there was great power in gentleness. "We shall have a contest," said the Sun. Far below, a man traveled a winding road. He was wearing a warm winter coat. "As a test of strength," said the Sun, "Let us see which of us can take the coat off of that man." "It will be quite simple for me to force him to remove his coat," bragged the Wind. The Wind blew so hard, the birds clung to the trees. The world was filled with dust and leaves. But the harder the wind blew down the road, the tighter the shivering man clung to his coat. Then, the Sun came out from behind a cloud. Sun warmed the air and the frosty ground. The man on the road unbuttoned his coat. The sun grew slowly brighter and brighter. Soon the man felt so hot, he took off his coat and sat down in a shady spot. "How did you do that?" said the Wind. "It was easy," said the Sun, "I lit the day. Through gentleness I got my way."