Glosa is a constructed language specifically designed to be an auxiliary international language easy for anyone to learn. No need to be a rocket scientist or a Mensa genius (but Glosa would be a great help to them, too!).
Glosa has its roots in Interglossa, an artificial language published in 1943 by Professor Lancelot Hogben of
"Mathematics for the Million" fame. The language unfortunately fell into disuse until Wendy Ashby and Ronald Clark redesigned it as Glosa in 1985.
Help for the Foreign-Language ChallengedGlosa's main selling point is its simple, completely regular grammar: no verb conjugations, no agreement between nouns and adjectives, no tiring memorization, no BS. Spelling is phonetic and the vocabulary comes almost exclusively from Latin and Greek, making it immediately familiar to millions. What's more, the basic Glosa vocabulary has only 1,000 words. According to the authors, this is enough to carry on conversation in any situation. If you want more Glosa words, you can access an advanced word list with an additional 6,000 words.
My ExperienceAlthough I know a few other planned languages (Esperanto, Lingua Franca Nova and Interlingua), I find Glosa easier than any of them. I'm not about to give them up, but Glosa is a welcome addition. With only a thousand already-familar words to learn in basic Glosa, it's not going to take much time to get up to speed. And while it's not beautiful like Lingua Franca Nova or in widespread use like Esperanto, it has a completely different flavor. Exotic and logical. Glosa is what I'd expect islanders on an undiscovered atoll in the Pacific to be speaking---or aliens from an advanced civilization.
At any rate, I like Glosa and will continue playing with it.
Here's a sample Glosa text (translation : Shakespeare, Richard II. Act 3, Scene 2)
... de konfort, ze-pe dic: Las na dic de tumb, de verm, e epitaf; Fac pulve na papir; ko pluvi ok Graf tristi epi facia de u ge. Elekt plu lega-pe; dic testament: Sed, ne so, - na pote dona qo? Except na pove soma ad u ter? Na land, na vit, pan es de Bolingbroke; E nuli-ra es de na excepti mort E u mikro model de u sika ter; Qi es u tegu pasta de na os.
and the original:
... of comfort, no man speak. Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors, and talk of wills; And yet not so - for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's. And nothing can we call our own but death And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
A re-vide !
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