Slovio is a written and spoken constructed language created by linguist Mark Hucko. Slovio is an international auxiliary language created to help Slavic speakers intercommunicate. The grammar principles of Slovio are similar to Esperanto (unified noun, adjective and verb endings, no flexion), but the vocabulary is derived from the most common words from Slavic languages. According to Hucko, Slovio is understandable by more than 400 million people throughout the world without any prior study of the language. This, however, may be a side effect of the long exposure of speakers of Slavic languages to the compulsory education of Russian during the communist era.
The name, Slovio, comes from the Proto-Slavic slovo which means "word" (and has been retained in that form in contemporary Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Czech languages). As of March 2005, the dictionary of Slovio contains some 27,000 entries.
Alphabet
Slovio uses, more or less, the Latin alphabet:
- a b c cx d e f g gx h hh i j k l m n o p q r s sx t u v z zx
The sound and pronunciation of the letters are similar to Esperanto, but note the following differences:
- cx - pronounced like ch in China
- gx - pronounced as a hard g as in jar
- sx - pronounced like sh in hush
- zx - pronounced as the zh sound as in leisure
- h - pronounced either as h in hotel or as ch in Bach (German composer) or in Okhotsk
These are optional letters:
- hq - always pronounced as a hard h in hotel
- hx - always pronounced as German ch in Bach or Spanish j in Juan
- wx - pronounced as shch as in wish-chest
- q - can be used as softener, e. g. the word canyon would be written canqon
- x - prounounced as ks in Texas
The Slovio letters lack any diacritic markings. One would write a c together with a x as a single letter represent the ch sound. This system allows for easy transmission via computer and other communication networks without the need for any special fonts.
Slovio can be also written with Cyrillic letters:
- A a - А а
- B b - Б б
- C c - Ц ц
- Cx cx - Ч ч
- D d - Д д
- E e - Е е
- F f - Ф ф
- G g - Г г
- Gx gx - ДЖ дж
- H h - Х х
- I i - И и
- J j - Й й
- K k - К к
- L l - Л л
- M m - М м
- N n - Н н
- O o - О о
- P p - П п
- R r - Р р
- S s - С с
- Sx sx - Ш ш
- T t - Т т
- U u - У у
- V v - В в
- X x - Кс кс
- Wx wx - Щ щ
- Z z - З з
- Zx zx - Ж ж
Text sample in Slovio
- Slovio es novju mezxunarodju jazika ktor razumijut cxtirsto milion ludis na celoju zemla. Ucxijte Slovio tper!
- Словио ес новйу межународйу йазика ктор разумийут чтирсто милион лудис на целойу земла. Учийте Словио тпер!
- Slovio is a new international language that is understood by 400 million people in the world. Learn Slovio now!
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