Lingua sistemfrater


Lingua sistemfrater ', also referred to as Frater', is an a posteriori international auxiliary language created by Vietnamese translator Phạm Xuân Thái in 1957 as Frater : The simplest International Language Ever Constructed. The language uses a largely Greco-Latin lexicon, and an Asian-influenced grammar.
Frater was one of the international languages created in Asia, and had a vocabulary of more than 6,000 words.

Phonology and orthography

Frater used an orthography of eighteen letters from the Latin script: five vowels: a, e, i, o, u, and thirteen consonants: b, d, f, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, and t. These letters were enunciated as their pronunciations in the International Phonetic Alphabet, with the following exceptions:
  • ⟨j⟩ is pronounced as ;
  • The letters ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ are pronounced as the diphthongs and, respectively.
The stress is placed on the last syllable of the word; there are no silent letters.

Grammar

Article

There is no indefinite article or definite article.

Personal Pronouns

Possessives are formed by adding the preposition ot before the pronoun. Unlike English that distinguishes three genders for the third-person singular pronoun, the pronoun was invariable.

Nouns

The noun in Frater is invariable. Plurals can be formed by adding -multi to the end of the noun:
mensa - mensamulti

Adjectives

The adjective in Frater is invariable and is always placed after the noun; except for cardinal numbers.

Numbers

The cardinal numbers in Frater:
1 - uni
2 - bi
3 - tri
4 - kuadri
5 - kuinti
6 - ses
7 - sep
8 - okta
9 - nona
10 - deka
11 - dekauni
12 - dekabi
13 - dekatri
20 - bideka
24 - bidekakuadri
30 - trideka
40 - kuadrideka
85 - oktadekakuinti
100 - senti
367 - trisenti-sesdeka-sep
600 - sessenti
1000 - mil
1000000 - milion
Ordinal numbers are formed by placing the cardinal number after the noun.

Verbs

The verb in Frater is invariable in person and in number.
The passive voice is formed by adding the auxiliary verb es before the infinitive:
Ilis es trauma.

Syntax

The syntax in Frater is: Subject - Verb - Object.
Questions are formed by placing the verb before the subject.
Interrogative words include: antropkia, kia, plaskia, temkia, prokia, kak, and multikia.

Example

The Lord's Prayer

For comparison the Lord's Prayer is provided in Frater, Glosa, Latin and English.