Bonko
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Bonko is a minimalistic constructed language with 130 root words and 14 phonemes. Root words can be combined to express more complex concepts. Bonko is a language based on the Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis which state "the language a person speaks determines how a person understands the world and behave in it". Bonko has simple, yet logical root words. The word "light" also means "heat" because light gives off heat. Bonko was inspired by Toki Pona.
| Bonko | ||
|---|---|---|
| Created by: | Nakeem J. Jones | 2008 |
| Setting and usage: | International auxiliary language | |
| Total speakers: | ~15 (not fluently) | |
| Category (purpose): | constructed language International auxiliary language Bonko |
|
| Category (sources): | vocabulary from Romance, Germanic languages, Slavic languages and Sino-Tibetan languages | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | art | |
| ISO 639-3: | – | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Contents |
[edit] History of Bonko
Nakeem grew up speaking English but always had an interest for linguistics. At the age of 10 he begin learn Japanese which caught his interest through a anime called Inuyasha. After learning the Hiragana and Katakana Japanese syllabaries, he began to study the Kanji characters which he gained a lot of interest in and, later studied Mandarin Chinese. He believed that the Chinese language grammar was easier because the characters have many meanings and there were no conjugation of verbs although there were certain characters to add before verbs to indicate their future, present, or past tense. Later he grew interest in 2 artificial languages Ido and Lojban. He decided Ido was imperfect because it was biased towards European languages. After studying Lojban for a while he decided that Lojban was to artificial to be used fluently by most people. He believe that language should be more easy than accurate however, accuracy should be used if it's an important matter. Language should be like a dictionary within its self so even the simplest people can understand what is being said. That is when he decided to create Bonko.
[edit] Root Words
Origins of the 130 root words of Bonko:
- Latin languages(Spanish, Latin, Italian, French, Portuguese)
- Sino-Indo languages (Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Hindi)
- The Ido-Esperanto language
- Germanic languages (Dutch, English, German, and Swedish)
- The Toki Pona language
- Original
Because it borrows root words from languages around the world, it's easier to learn native speakers of many different languages.
When Bonko take a word from a language, it gives it more meaning than it originally had. A simple word like "luna" (from Spanish) can mean moon or satellite. The moon is like a satellite to the planet Earth, that's why "luna" can mean moon and satellite.
Take a look at this chart which shows the origins of some of the Bonko root words:
| Bonko | English | German | Spanish | Latin | Greek | Japanese | (Mandarin) Chinese |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | at | bei | a | apud | σε (se) | へ (he) *Very loosely translated | 在 (zai4) |
| babe | paper | papier | papel | pecto | χαρτί (charti) | ペーパ (pe-pa) | 纸 (zhi3) |
| ban | bread | brot | pan | panis | ψωμί (psomi) | パン (pan) | 饭 (fan4) |
| beto | petal | flügel | pétalo | orbis | πετώ (peto) | 便 (ben) | 便(bian) |
| bola | ball | ball | bola | orbis | κύκλος (kyklos) | ボール(bo-ru) | 毬(qiu2) |
| ci | is | ist | es | - | - | いる・ある (iru/aru) | 是 (shi4) |
| ke | what | was | que | quisnam | τι (ti) | 何(nani) | 何(ke) |
| len | people | leute | gente | gens | λαός (laos) | 人 (nin) | 人 (ren) |
| luna | moon | mond | luna | luna | σελήνη(selini) | 月(tsuki) | 月(yue) |
[edit] Grammar
Bonko's typology is very loose. The particle "a" helps people understand the meaning of the sentence no matter how it's written.
Some words:
- ni - I/me
- ano - love
- a - to, at, in , on, towards, receiving object particle
- ti - you
All of the following sentences mean, "I love you":
| Order | Sentence |
|---|---|
| SVO | ni ano a ti. |
| SOV | ni a ti ano. |
| VSO | ano ni a ti. |
| VOS | ano a ti ni. |
| OSV | a ti ni ano. |
| OVS | a ti ano ni. |
Complex words
Complex words are made by combining root words together. Think of the word "microscope". There isn't clue as to what a microscope is in the word microscope (unless you know Greek). In Bonko the word "microscope" can be translated as "lili oko koso" which literally means a "microscopic viewing device".
The Chinese and Japanese follow this process of making complex words also. In Chinese, Microscope (显微镜) means "prominent microscopic mirror". In Japanese, it's 顕微鏡 meaning "microscopic mirror".
[edit] The Bonko Community
The Bonko community is expected to grow as multi-lingual dictionaries and learning grammar books are made. The Bonko-English dictionary is located on the website and will be made to ".PDF" and ".HTML" formats. Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and Korean releases are to be expected.
