A little-known fact is that the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, the world-renowned author of the Divine Comedy, was what in modern terms we may describe as a world federalist.

In his Latin treatise Monarchia, he argued that the best condition for the progress of humanity lies in a peaceful union of all kingdoms in a single jurisdiction.

Dante wishes for all the known world to be united in peace, with a set of common rules valid everywhere, and then special rules to allow the specificities of "nations, kingdoms and cities", from subsaharan Africa to Europe to the frozen wastes of northern Asia: in modern terms, pretty much a "world federation".

>[...] 5. Habent nanque nationes, regna et civitates intra se proprietates, quas legibus differentibus regulari oportet: est enim lex regula directiva vite. 6. Aliter quippe regulari oportet Scithas qui, extra septimum clima viventes et magnam dierum et noctium inequalitatem patientes, intolerabili quasi algore frigoris premuntur, et aliter Garamantes qui, sub equinoctiali habitantes et coequatam semper lucem diurnam noctis tenebris habentes, ob estus acris nimietatem vestimentis operiri non possunt. 7. Sed sic intelligendum est: ut humanum genus secundum sua comunia, que omnibus competunt, ab eo regatur et comuni regula gubernetur ad pacem. Quam quidem regulam sive legem particulares principes ab eo recipere debent, tanquam intellectus practicus ad conclusionem operativam recipit maiorem propositionem ab intellectu speculativo, et sub illa particularem, que proprie sua est, assummit et particulariter ad operationem concludit. [...]

>[5] For nations, kingdoms and cities have characteristics of their own, which need to be governed by different laws; for law is a rule which governs life. [6] Thus the Scythians, who live beyond the seventh zone and are exposed to nights and days of very unequal length, and who endure an almost unbearable intensity of cold, need to have one set of laws, while the Garamantes require different laws, since they live in the equatorial zone and always have days and nights of equal length, and because of the excessive heat of the air cannot bear to cover themselves with clothes. [7] It is rather to be understood in this sense, that mankind is to be ruled by him in those matters which are common to all men and of relevance to all, and is to be guided towards peace by a common law. This rule or law should be received from him by individual rulers, just as the practical intellect, in order to proceed to action, receives the major premiss from the theoretical intellect, and then derives the minor premiss appropriate to its own particular case, and then proceeds to the action in question.

In his medieval point of view, he imagines an "emperor" at the top of this polity, but for our days, in more modern terms, we may imagine in that place a democratically nominated government and parliament, similarly to what we find in the European Union.

Dante's treatise is particularly interesting in showing how the ideas of a brilliant mind remain intellectually relevant for the organization of mankind even after seven centuries.

Don’t forget to fly your flag! 🇪🇺 ^ _ ^

A little experiment: a rhyming sentence using a very provisional gya• 'go' root.

• orthography: Noe omnas bone gyaon, ma hola taon.
• phonemes: /no̍e o̍mnas bo̍ne ʤa̍on, ma ho̍la ta̍on/
• roots: no•e omn•as bon•e gya•on, ma hol•a ta•on.
  • noe = 'not'
  • omnas = 'all things'
  • bone = 'well'
  • gyaon = 'will go'
  • ma = 'but'
  • hola = 'the whole, all, the entirety'
  • taon = 'will do that'
• meaning: 'Not every thing will go well, but the [universe as a] whole will'. How would you translate it more idiomatically in English?

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Gya• would be an arbitrary hybrid between various languages:

• Indian: Bengali যাওয়া jaōẇa, Hindi जाना jānā, Nepali जानु jānu, Urdu جانا jānā...
• Germanic: English go, German gehen, Dutch gaan, Danish gå...
• Others: Korean: 가다 gada, Hungarian: jár, Mongolian: явах javax... short words with stressed -a- in several other languages.

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(The sentence is an invention of mine, it's not from the Dirk Gently series, but it resonates with the series feeling—at least for me).

I played a bit with the new tool that was dropped in r/conlangs, translating some simple sentences.

These examples are a bit misleading in the fact that it seems Leuth almost always uses fewer letter than English to express the same concepts. But these are just some cases with particular words: in other cases English takes less space.

For word order in Leuth, see this post.

I wrote that I'm considering <gy> (we saw it briefly here in the comments) as a possible way to represent /ʤ/, without having necessarily a similarity with /ʧ/. Such similarities, in fact, are nice for the linguist or the schematic thinker, but not really relevant (in a language like Leuth) for the great mass of language users.

(By coincidence, <cs> for /ʧ/ is the "Hungarian solution", and Hungarian uses <gy> to represent not exactly /ʤ/ but the similar /ɟ/...)

A short recap:

Leuth adapts Latin words in a way that is generally similar to Esperanto, but tries to be more systematic/predictable (Esperanto sometimes is not), naturalistic, and (in a way) also faster. Among other things:

1. Leuth adapts Latin <g> always as /ʤ/ before <e>, <i> (and <y>, <ae>, <oe>) (while Esperanto uses mostly /g/, but also /ʤ/, unpredictably).
2. Leuth often^([1]) changes vocalic Latin <i> and <y> to consonantal /j/ where Esperanto retains vocalic value.

These two points give rise, in several words, to the somewhat awkward /ʤj/ cluster; which, in my opinion, doesn't sound very well, and also doesn't look very well however we represent /ʤ/, unless we use a diacritic:

.	good looking IMHO?
legxyona	❌
legsyona	❌
leḡyona	✅
legyyona	❌

I thought: what if in adapting from Latin we tweaked the rules to actually simplify this <gyy> /ʤj/ phonematically to <gy> /ʤ/?

Latin	Leuth (proposal)	pron.	meaning
legio -onis	legyona	/leʤo̍na/	legion
legionarius	legyonara	/leʤona̍ra/	legionary
legionella	legyonella	/leʤone̍lla/	legionella
regio -onis	regyona	/reʤo̍na/	region
spongia	spongya	/spo̍nʤa/	sponge
hygiene (?)	higyena	/hiʤe̍na/	hygiene
nostalgia	nostalgya	/nosta̍lʤa/	nostalgia
orgia	orgya	/o̍rʤa/	orgy
syzygia	sizigya	/sizi̍ʤa/	syzygy
Ortygia	Ortigya	/orti̍ʤa/	Ortygia
Pelagius	Pelagya	/pela̍ʤa/	Pelagius

Etcetera. This would affect also the various ^(Engl.)-logy (< ^(Lat.)-lōgia < ^(Gr.)-λογία) terms, when they are not disciplines (that would be remade as -•olog•ey•a) and are adapted, and would thus become -logyas (-logy•as).

For my personal bias this seems good, at least at a first impression, because it's similar to what happens in my native tongue, Italian^([2]); in various cases it's pretty similar, both phonetically and graphically, to English too.

It could be a compromise between having /ʤ/ and the languages that adapt this cluster as <gi> /gi/, /gj/ etc., being <gy> more similar to them, visually, than the previous <gx>, <gs> (<gxy>, <gsy>); e.g.:

• legyonara; German Legionär, Czech legionář, Estonian leegionär, Polish legionista, Finnish legioonalainen, etc.

/ʤj/ would anyway continue existing as a valid cluster; it would just be rarer.

A comparison with <gy> in general:

macrons	⟨cx⟩, ⟨gx⟩	⟨cs⟩, ⟨gs⟩	⟨cs⟩, ⟨gy⟩
c̄okolata, C̄ila, dac̄a, ḡawhara, haḡḡa, c̄akra, ḡena, anḡela, Ḡibraltara, exagḡeri, c̄echa, Niḡerya, sfinḡa, apac̄a, massaḡi, Ḡaypura, kec̄wa, Verḡilya, ponc̄a, taḡika, ḡaldu, ḡeba, c̄ikungunya, c̄adora	cxokolata, Cxila, dacxa, gxawhara, haggxa, cxakra, gxena, angxela, Gxibraltara, exag̈gxeri, cxecha, Nigxerya, sfingxa, apacxa, massagxi, Gxaypura, kecxwa, Vergxilya, poncxa, tagxika, gxaldu, cxikungunya, gxeba, cxadora	csokolata, Csila, dacsa, gsawhara, haggsa, csakra, gsena, angsela, Gsibraltara, exag̈gseri, csecha, Nigserya, sfingsa, apacsa, massagsi, Gsaypura, kecswa, Vergsilya, poncsa, tagsika, gsaldu, csikungunya, gseba, csadora	csokolata, Csila, dacsa, gyawhara, haggya, csakra, gyena, angyela, Gyibraltara, exag̈gyeri, csecha, Nigyerya, sfingya, apacsa, massagyi, Gyaypura, kecswa, Vergyilya, poncsa, tagyika, gyaldu, csikungunya, gyeba, csadora

(Orthography really has me overthinking...)

Aesthetically, this "/ʤj/ gyy to /ʤ/ gy" solution looks good graphically, since in various case it gives a nice faux-classical appearance to words. Hygiene, Ortygia, syzygia &gt; higyena, Ortigya, sizigya... these could easily look like real Graeco-Latin words to non-experts.

It's just an idea, a new one; I still have to reflect on it, experiment, see the downsides...

Anyway, <gy> for /ʤ/ could be a possibility even without this simplification, so keeping <gyy> /ʤj/.

What do you think?

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[1] Exact rules for difficult cases are still to be defined.

[2] Roughly: of course various details differ.

Some country names.

(Current presence or absence on the map is not indicative of a preference on my part or something like that; it's just determined by:

• whether I already had (time to form) some thoughts about it or not;
• the easiness or difficulty of adapting/calqueing the country's name; and
• the size of the country.

On a bigger map, you could add many smaller European countries: Belgiya, Bulgariya, Cipra, Csechiya, Estoniya, Hungariya, Kroatiya, Malta, Slovakiya, Sloveniya, Vatikan[urb]a...)

Remember, all names may change.

And yes, this is going to r/MapsWithoutNZ (Newzelanda, Newzelandya?)...

Here I experimented with a new <gy> for /ʤ/, without symmetry with /ʧ/, that remained <cs>. I'm doing a post on this soon.

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Let's translate the caption:

• orthography: Descas ar humo dunya 2026u
• phonemes: /de̍ʃas ar hu̍mo du̍nja dukildudekse̍su/
• roots: desc•as ar hum•o duny•a 2026•u
  • descas = 'countries'
  • ar = '[being part, member, component] of'
  • humo = 'human'
  • dunya = 'world'
  • 2026u = 'in 2026' [should this be written 2026-u, with a hyphen?]
• meaning: '[The] countries of [= making up] the human world in 2026'

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Desc• comes from Indian languages: Bengali দেশ deś, Hindi देश deś, Kannada ದೇಶ dēśa, Sanskrit देश deśa, Urdu دیش deś, Telugu దేశము dēśamu, etc. (+ a vague resemblances with descendants of Latin pagensis: paese, pays, etc.).

I don't speak Chinese. I tried to study it self-taughtly years ago, but my Western weakling brain couldn't remember ideograms and struggled too much with pronunciation, so I couldn't get past the first beginner steps. There's one thing, however, that I remember well: how much pinyin seemed suboptimal to me, and how much this hindered my learning efforts.

I remember in particular the onsets. Chinese has a system of consonants that for most Westerners is alien and very difficult to master; at the same time, it's a beautifully symmetrical system, that could be adequately (even easily) represented by using a similarly symmetrical graphical Romanization. A straight-forward Romanization would help a lot for understanding and remembering the relations between phonemes. Pinyin, instead, uses some non-obvious choices and employs letters somewhat arbitrarily; making things, IMHO, needlessly difficult.

Some days ago for some reason I remembered this and produced a rough first-idea sketch for a reform.

The main points:

• Aspiration. Pinyin represents it by contrasting graphemes that in most Latin-script languages represent phonemes that contrast instead in voicedness-voicelessness (<p> vs <b>, <k> vs <g>); in some cases with not immediately clear choices (<z> vs <c>, <q> vs <j>). Understandable for the speakers of some Latin-script languages, but for the wider majority this seems anti-practical, misleading, needlessly difficult. My proposal: represent aspiration with the same symbol in all cases, for instance <h>.
• Simpler and wider recognizability. Pinyin uses <p>, <k>, <t> to represent /pʰ/, /kʰ/, /tʰ/. By itself, understandable. But Chinese has also /p/, /k/, /t/... and these are represented by <b>, <g>, <d>. You have /p/, /k/, /t/: just represent them with <p>, <k>, <t>, and use something else for /pʰ/, /kʰ/, /tʰ/.
• Affrication. Pinyin uses <c> and <z> to represent the affrication of <s> (not too bad), and similarly <ch> and <zh> to represent the affrication of <sh>, but then also <q> and <j> to represent the affrication of <x>... Too random. Let's keep things simple, and represent affrication always by the same symbol, e.g. <t>.

You can see the first idea table in the cover picture above (Reddit somehow doesn't let me upload it in the post).

Note that I followed the same general principle of pinyin: no diacritics or strange graphemes for consonant phonemes: just plain Latin letters or clusters of Latin letters.

Wouldn't a proposal like mine be clearer (for the great majority of Latin-script language speakers)?

Is it easy to understand/remember that in ^(P)<Xí Jìnpíng> the initial phoneme of the second word is just the affricate equivalent of the initial phoneme of the first word? Not at all, they seem just different letters with no clear relation. But it would be super-easy to understand if it was written <Xí Txìnphíng> instead.

Some other examples:

pinyin	this proposal
Běijīng	Pěitxīng
Guǎngzhōu	Kuǎngtcōu
Máo Zédōng	Máo Tsétōng
Kǒng Fūzǐ	Khǒng Fūtsǐ

A nice touch: note how the Romanization makes some famous names closer to their actual adaptation in many Latin-script languages, making languages feel closer, more related (Pěitxīng: Pequim, Pekín, Pékin, Pechino, Peking, etc.; Kuǎngtcōu, Cantão, Cantón, Canton, Kanton, Quảng Châu, etc.)

Tell me your thoughts...

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EDIT. Some people in the comments say this proposal is too complicated. The table may appear frightening, but it actually requires the learner to learn just four super-simple things:

1. <x> = /ɕ/;
2. <c> = /ʂ/;
3. <h> after a consonant = aspiration;
4. <t> before a consonant = affrication.

The rest is just standard widespread use of Latin letters (<d> = /d/, <p> = /p/, etc.). A lot less complicated than current pinyin.

I wrote this post some months ago. I now think the idea here considered is not a good one. I think reasoning, looking for solutions, can be theoretically interesting even when not successful (and maybe somebody could adopt the idea for an artlang or something) so I share it anyway for your curiosity.

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In esperanto, /j/ is very frequent, being the grammatical mark of pluralization. Leuth doesn't use it in endings; but /j/ is anyway very frequent, and a lot more frequent inside roots, as Leuth turns many Latin /i/'s (and /y/'s) into /j/'s (therefore having often the stress in its original place), while Esperanto mostly keeps them as /i/'s (often moving the stress). Adapting from other languages, Esperanto often turns post-consonantal /j/'s to /i/'s.

Marking the stressed letter with bold:

Latin etc.	Esperanto	Leuth
Asia	Azio	Asya
Australia	Aŭstralio	Awstralya
ecclesia	eklezio	ekklesya
hodie	hodiaŭ	hodyu
imperium	imperio	imperya
Cartesius	Kartezio	Kartesya
Tokyo	Tokio	Tokya

As /j/ is such a frequent phoneme in Leuth, its graphical representation is important for the face of the language.

Using ⟨j⟩, Esperanto realizes a very good consistency with many Latin-script languages; many different sounds but all represented by ⟨j⟩:

• Esperanto: Johano
• Latin: Io(h)annes / Jo(h)annes
• English: John
• French: Jean
• Spanish: Juan
• Portuguese: João
• German: Johannes, Johann, Jan
• Polish: Jan, Janusz
• Finnish: Joni, Jouni, Juhana, Juhani, etc.
• other Germanic and Slavic languages, where ⟨j⟩ represents truly /j/

But, as we said, Esperanto pays the price of moving the stress, often turning diverse endings into repetitive litanies of -ío, -ío, -ía, -ía...

For Leuth the choice was not easy: for some words ⟨j⟩ looks better... in others ⟨y⟩ looks better... Trying to achieve a more "classical" face, in the end I though ⟨y⟩ looked better overall:

• Asya, Awstralya, hodyu, imperya, Kartesya, Tokya... instead of
• Asja, Awstralja, hodju, imperja, Kartesja, Tokja...

since post- and pre-consonantal ⟨y⟩ can be easily found in Latin (from Greek), while ⟨j⟩ (in modern orthography^([1])) can touch a consonant only following it and only in compound words with j- as the first letter of the second piece (e.g. interjectio)... so it's a lot rarer.

This choice is annoying for the fact that it removes the beautiful graphical consistency achieved by Esperanto. ... English John, French Jean, Spanish Juan, German Jan, etc. etc... but Leuth Yohanna. Not very naturalistic.

Some weeks ago I though: what about a hybrid solution? Have both ⟨j⟩ and ⟨y⟩ represent /j/, but in different positions: e.g.:

>⟨j⟩ at root beginning while ⟨y⟩ inside the root

or, more refinedly:

>⟨j⟩ when not touching a different consonant (in the same root), ⟨y⟩ when preceding or following a different consonant (in the same root).

Latin	⟨y⟩ Leuth	match?	⟨j⟩ Leuth	match?	Hybrid	match?
Libya	Libya	✅	Libja	❌	Libya	✅
hyaena	hyena	✅	hjena	❌	hyena	✅
procyon	procyona	✅	procjona	❌	procyona	✅
Cartesius	Kartesya	❌	Kartesja	❌	Kartesya	❌
Asia	Asya	❌	Asja	❌	Asya	❌
Io(h)annes / Jo(h)annes	Yohanna	❌	Johanna	✅	Johanna	✅
Iulius / Julius	Yulya	❌❌	Julja	✅❌	Julya	✅❌
iustus / justus	yusto	❌	justo	✅	justo	✅
Iesus / Jesus	Yesua^([2])	❌	Jesua	✅	Jesua	✅
iasminum / jasminum	yasmina	❌	jasmina	✅	jasmina	✅

With such a rule, an "other consonant + ⟨j⟩" or "⟨j⟩ + other consonant" sequence would become a mark of composition, like today ⟨ks⟩ and ⟨kw⟩. For example, hekjanna 'century' would have only one possible division in roots: hek•jann•a, being *hekj•ann•a impossible, while today hekyanna could be both hek•yann•a and *heky•ann•a^([3]). Symmetrically, we'd know that procyona 'raccoon' is not *proc•yon•a, because ⟨cy⟩, like ⟨qu⟩, couldn't exist across root boundary.

(If such a possibility was chosen, /ʒ/ —today represented by ⟨j⟩— would need a new representation, but that is not too important as it's a rarer phoneme).

Would it be worth it? Or would the frequent alternation between ⟨j⟩ and ⟨y⟩ just be confusing, and in the end not even pleasant for the eye? Single words look good, but omno scejas dunyu not really... It seems confusing without seeming a lot more beautiful in exchange.

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[1] ⟨j⟩ as a different letter from ⟨i⟩ was invented during the Renaissance.

[2] Like in Esperanto, a somewhat irregular derivation for a particular name. Could change.

[3] Heky• and ann• don't exist as roots right now, but are fully possible theoretically.

How to express the concept of groups of elements relatively only to their number? Like, in English,

• couple 'group of two elements',
• dozen 'group of twelve elements',
• score 'group of twenty elements, etc.

At first I thought about having a specific root; something fast, for example i•:

• duia (du•i•a) 'couple'
• dekduia (dek•du•i•a) 'dozen'
• dudekia (du•dek•i•a) 'score'

but then I realized... since the numeric roots act like multiplying prefixes, we don't need a "specific root to interact with numbers to define groups this way", we just want to multiply a generic element... and we already have a root for that: uy• (≈ Esp. ul•)!

So, just like we have

• dudia (du•di•a) 'period of two days = couple of days'
• dekduyanna (dek•du•yann•a) 'period of twelve years = dozen of years'

we'd have:

• duuya (du•uy•a) 'couple of elements = couple'
• dekduuya (dek•du•uy•a) 'dozen of elements = dozen'

etc. (Could this work?).

...But then...

Thinking further, there are, anyway, cases where, for specificity and naturalism, some root of that kind would be nice. In an interesting schematic development, we'd also have, by backformation^([1]), a root for the single element, not existing in source languages. E.g., in music:

• duet &gt; dutetta (du•tett•a)
• quartet &gt; quartetta (quar•tett•a)
• quintet &gt; quintetta (quin•tett•a)
• sextet &gt; sestetta (ses•tett•a)
• septet &gt; septetta (sep•tett•a)

etc.; so, tetta^([2]) alone would mean '[mainly classical] musician [performing]'?

(Quartet, quintet etc. with the meaning of 'composition for a quartet, quintet, etc.' could be quartettaja, quintettaja, etc., -•tett•aj•a; aj• ≈ Esp. aĵ•).

Or:

• monologue &gt; unaloga^([3]) (un•alog•a)
• dialogue &gt; dualoga (du•alog•a)
• trialogue, trilogue &gt; trialoga (tri•alog•a)

Could aloga mean something by itself?

Somebody could ask whether we need specific roots of this kind. We don't need them: clearly we could call a quartet a "quaruya ek musicians" or even, just with the same logic as above, a "quar-musician". But since these words are international, well extended beyond the core of Graeco-Latin-dom, having some little redundancy for naturalism (and nuances) doesn't seem too bad.

There are various terms of this kind (number-groups) in languages, that, while being synonymous, subsequently specialize their meaning. In Italian, for 'group of three elements', we have trio, terzetto, triade, terna, terno, trinità, trittico (and also terzina, tripletta, etc.)... all with different nuances. Even in Esperanto we find par•o, triad•o, and kvartet•o, kvintet•o, septet•o (could have just created *tet•... well, still could), etc...

Could we have also a root for 'couple' like par• in Esperanto, maybe that can be extended to other numbers, to indicate not just a group of 'multiple elements' loosely, but rather explicitly with some kind of union/link between them? Ad•? Duada, triada, like English dyad, triad (from Latin, itself from Greek)? (Just an idea on the fly.)

(...And we also have ar•... 🤔).

Further thoughts...

In natural languages, number prefixes don't always have exactly a multiplying value. They do in terms like

• Lat. triennium = period of three years (≈ Leuth triyanna)
• Lat. triduum = period of three days (≈ Leuth tridia)

and kilometre, hectolitre, bifocal, trisyllabic, etc.

but on the contrary, for example, Spanish tetracampeón (tetra- '4-', campeón 'champion') is not a '[group of] four champions' but rather a 'four-times champion': so in Leuth usually we'll say that by adding the root for 'time': quar{time}{champion}.

Would it be understandable anyway if, in this or other cases, we omitted the "middle root", therefore having a number-something term that does not mean 'a number of somethings'? Probably in some cases it could be pragmatically useful, for swiftness. Maybe, instead of removing the middle root completely, we could satisfy swiftness by using in its place the i preposition (≈ Esp. je): quari{champion}...^([4])

And what about a term like quaritha (quar•ith•a; itha = 'quality, character, -ness, -ity')? Should it mean 'quality of being four' or 'a group of four qualities'?

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Notes

[1] Well... nothing strange for Leuth. But matching schematism and naturalism with the right choices is always pleasant.

[2] Italians, don't laugh.

[3] Should we change un• to mon•? Maybe we should have both for naturalism...

[4] Is it a coincidence that -i- is the most frequent "compounding vowel" in Latin? Of course it isn't... We love backformation here. B-)