Auxlang 2012: First 50 words

Okay, moving right along.

I've done the first 50 words or so of the 1000 words to be created for the initial core vocabulary of Auxlang 2012. Another 19 sessions to go.

Once the core vocabulary has been created, then will come the task of generating clusters of words for related concepts, by using standard affixes (nothing so extreme as the Esperanto approach; more like Occidental) and some compounding. That will maybe triple the number of words. This should be thought of as a prototype of a vocabulary: if I don't like it, I can just throw it away. We're not playing for sheep stations here. Anyway, at each stage many valuable lessons will be learned and experience will be gained. Hopefully the end result will be that I will better understand the design considerations for languages such as Sambahsa and Occidental.

Watching the iterative process of me creating this vocabulary over the next 19 sessions is going to be like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Already plenty of problems and mistakes are visible. However, some ideas are beginning to form in my mind for how to deal with them.

We can see I've gone for a reasonably etymological orthography, not to mention I've got some ideas about short and long vowels, which together are contributing to perhaps an excessive number of doubled consonants. In general the current orthography is a little difficult, but not impossibly so; perhaps something workable can come from this.

You can see my philosophical beliefs, for an auxlang, of always using hyphens to form compound words, and always marking the stressed syllable in polysyllabic words; the former helps the latter, because clearly breaking up compounds into their component words assists with accentuation.

You can see some weird stuff like my current tentative practice of placing a backtick (`) immediately after a word to indicate that the word does not have any plural form (that is, for number; it may have a plural for varieties). The idea is to constantly instruct the reader, so that everytime a reader reads a text these facts are constantly reinforced. If the reader wishes to use that word in a sentence to discuss the text, she knows it has no plural and she knows how to pronounce it aloud as the orthography indicates all of this in  reasonably regular manner (although here unexplained).

ENGLISH	AUXLANG	FRENCH	GERMAN	Plural / past
abdomen	àbdomen	ventre m.	Bauch m.	àbdomens
belly	vènter	ventre m.	Bauch m.	vènters
above	ùber	au-dessus de	über	ùber
absent	àbsent	absent	abwesend	àbsent
accept	accèpt	accepter	annehmen	accèpted
accident	àccident	accident m.	Unfall m.	àccidents
accompany	acòmpany	accompagner	Begleiten	acòmpanyed
accomplish	acòmplish	accomplir	Vollbringer	acòmplished
accuse	accùse	accuser	anklagen	accùsed
actor, actrice	àcter	acteur, actrice	Schauspieler -in	àcters
add	add	ajouter	hinzufügen	àdded
address	addrèsse	addresse f.	Adresse f., Anschrift	addrèsses
administrative	administratìf	administratif	Verwaltungs-	n/a
adventure	avènture	aventure	Abenteuer	avèntures
adventurer	avènturer	aventurier, aventurière		avènturers
adventurous	avèntureus	aventureux, aventureuse		n/a
advice, counsel	còunsel`	conseil m.	Rat m.	no plural
after	àfter	après	nach	n/a
afternoon	àfter-noon	après-midi	Nachmittag m.	àfter-noons
age	àge	âge	Alter m.	àges
agricultural	agricùltural	agricole	Agrar-, landwirtschaftlich	n/a
agriculture	agricùlture`	agriculture f.	Landwirtschaft f.	no plural
air	air`	air m.	Luft f.	no plural
air conditioning	climatisation`	climatisation, Air conditionné	Klimaanlage f.	no plural
airplane	aviòn	avion m.	Flugzeug, flieger	aviòns
airport	air-port	aéroport	Flughafen m.	air-ports
almonds	àmond	amandes	Mandeln	àmonds
alphabet	alfabet	alfabet m.	Alfabet n.	alfabets
always	ìmmer	toujours	immer	n/a
ambulance	àmbulance	ambulance f.	Krankenwagen	àmbulances
and	ed	et	und	n/a
and	ed	et	und	n/a
ankle	ànkel	cheville f.	Knöchel m.	ànkels
answer n., response	respònse	réponse f.	Antwort n.	respònses
ant	ant	fourmi		ants
apartment	apàrtment	appartement m.	Wohnung f.	apàrtments
apple	àppel	pomme f.	Apfel m.	àppels
approximately, circa	circa	environ	ungefähr	n/a
apricot	àpricot	abricot m.	Aprikose	àpricots
April	àpril	avril	April	àprils
argument, dispute	dispùte	dispute f.	Streit m.	dispùtes
arm	arm	Bras m.	Arm	arms
around	aròund	autour	Um, ringsum	n/a
arrive	arrìve	arriver	ankommen	arrìved
art	art	art m.	Kunst f.	arts
ashtray	ash-tray	cendrier m.	Aschenbecher	ash-trays
ask	ask	demander	Bitten	àsked
August	àugust	août	August	àugusts
aunt	tànte	tante (du côté du père)	Tante (väterlicherseits)	tàntes
available	avàilible	disponible	erhältlich	n/a
bachelor, single	célibatàire	célibataire	Junggeseller, unverheiratet	célibatàires

Key: Red and blue indicate problem words which I think need either to be reconsidered altogether or might need respelling; red ones are considered worse than blue ones. Green (the text, not the background shading) indicates words imported from Sambahsa... mostly small grammatical words. Backtick (`) at the end of a word indicates the word has no plural form (for number; it may have a plural form for varieties). Grave accent indicates the stressed syllable (e.g. àppel). Acute accent modifies the vowel sound, as in French (e.g. café). Pronunciation is similar to but often not exactly like the source languages.

Warning: the above table will quickly become out of date as the language changes during its development. This table will not be updated to reflect future changes in the language made after this post.