Adjuvilo
Adjuvilo is a constructed language created in 1910 by Claudius Colas under the pseudonym of "Profesoro V. Esperema". Although it was a full language, it may not have been created to be spoken. Many believe that as an Esperantist, Colas created Adjuvilo to help create dissent in the then-growing Ido movement. Colas himself called his language simplified Ido and proposed several reforms to Ido.
Colas created a nearly complete grammar, but did not create a new vocabulary. Adjuvilo uses mainly the vocabulary of Ido with modifications according to the grammatical changes of Ido. Colas in some cases reestablishes the Esperanto forms of words and even constructed some new words like sulo for "sun" and dago for "day".
Phonology and orthography
Like Ido, Adjuvilo has five vowel phonemes. The vowels and are interchangeable depending on speaker preference, as are and. The combinations /au/ and /eu/ become diphthongs in word roots but not when adding affixes.Adjuvilo also uses the same orthography as Ido: the 26 letters as the English alphabet and ISO Basic Latin alphabet with three digraphs and no ligatures or diacritics. The only modification is that the stress is always on the penultimate syllable like in Esperanto, whereas in Ido in the infinitive of the verbs the last syllable is stressed.
| Letter | IPA | English |
| a | most similar to a as in "father" | |
| b | b as in "stable" | |
| c | ts as in "cats"; also used in the digraph ch | |
| d | d as in "adopt" | |
| e | , | most similar to e as in "egg" or e as in "bet" |
| f | f as in "afraid" | |
| g | hard g as in "go" | |
| h | h as in "hat", "ahoy" | |
| i | i as in "machine", ee in "bee" | |
| j | , | s as in "pleasure, measure" or g in "mirage, beige" |
| k | k as in "skin, skip" | |
| l | most similar to l as in "lamb" | |
| m | m as in "admit" | |
| n | n as in "analogy" | |
| o | , | most similar to o as in "or" |
| p | p as in "spin, spark" | |
| q | same as k; used only in the digraph qu | |
| r | tt as in American English "butter", or r as in very in Scottish English and heightened RP, see Pronunciation of English /r/ | |
| s | s as in "east"; also used in the digraph sh | |
| t | t as in "stake, stop" | |
| u | u as in "rude" | |
| v | v as in "avoid" | |
| w | w as in "award" | |
| x | , | x as in "except" or "exist" |
| y | y as in "yes" | |
| z | z as in "zebra" |
The digraphs are:
| Digraph | IPA | English |
| ch | ch as in "chick" | |
| qu | , | qu as in "quick" |
| sh | sh as in "shy" |
Grammar
- The definite article for all genders is in the singular la and in the plural las but the form la can be valid for the plural. You may elide the final a of the article, replacing it with an apostrophe, as equally before a consonant as before a vowel. Example: l'artiklo, l'profesoro.
- All nouns end in the singular in -o and in the plural in -s. Example: la lando and las landos. Like Ido and Esperanto, Adjuvilo has no indefinite article
- Adjuvilo does not have grammatical genders. Nouns for females are all derived from the masculine form by using the affix -in. Example: filio and filiino.
- The genitive and the indirect object cases are expressed by prepositions. Example: Me donin la libro de la patro a mea filio.
- The adjective ends on -a, and also receives -s in the plural. It is placed before the noun. Example: un bona viro, belas juvenilos, granda monto.
- The adverb is formed from the adjective form by replacing the ending -a by -e. Adverbs are not changed in the plural. Example: Elas kantan bone..
- The personal pronouns are
- The possessive pronouns are formed by adding the adjective ending -a and in the plural the -s to the personal pronouns: mea, tua, ila, nosas, ilosas. The reflexive possessive pronoun sua in the singular and suas in the plural is only used for the third person and can be only used when it refers to the subject of the sentence.
- The demonstrative pronouns are cia and tia. Like other pronouns they also have plural forms. Cias floros estan bela ma tias arboros estan plu grandas
- The relative pronouns are qua, quas and que.
- The interrogative pronouns include qua, quo, quale, quare.
- The coordinating conjunctions include e, o ; adding a d before words that begin with a vowel.
- Tag questions are formed with the particle num. Num il parolan Adjuvilo?.
- Verbs are not conjugated according to singular/plural or person.
- The cardinal numbers are: 1 — un, 2 — du, 3 — tri, 4 — quar, 5 — quin, 6 — sis, 7 — sep, 8 — ok, 9 — nov, 10 — dek, 100 — cent, 1000 — mil, 1000000 — milion. The ordinal numbers are formed with the suffix -esma: unesma, duesma, triesma.
Comparison to Ido
- Adjuvilo completely eliminates a special ending for the accusative case, whereas in Ido it was still used in sentences beginning with the object.
- Adjuvilo uses the plural ending also for adjectives, the definite article and all pronouns.
- Adjuvilo uses as plural ending -s and not -i as Ido.
- Adjuvilo replaces the Ido infinitive ending -ar by the Esperanto form -i. The infinitive forms of the different tenses in Ido were completely abolished.
- Adjuvilo completely abolishes the synthetic passive voice form of the verbs by a compound form of the auxiliary verb "to be" and the corresponding participle.
- Adjuvilo changes the Ido system of affixes by creating new affixes, omitting some and modifying some existing ones.
- Adjuvilo changes many pronouns of Ido.
- The accent in Adjuvilo is always on the penultimate syllable, as in Esperanto.
- Colas also announced changes to the vocabulary without elaborating this completely. Example: ucelo → avio, hano → galo, hanino → galino, dio → dago, deo → dio, kelka → alguna, ceno → sceno, kam → quam, kin → quin, non → nov, kande → quande, pro quo → quare, kad → num, di → de, suno → sulo, ol → it / lo