The artificial language "Eulalia" by Škrabec and its relation to Latin

Abstract

Škrabec designed Eulalia as a secondary, or a posteriori, artificial language. He based its pronunciation and transcription on the classical Latin pronunciation. Its lexis was derived by a system of transforming Latin and Latinised words into Eulalia. The system was intended to be simple, but Škrabec added a number of exceptions to avoid possible confusion of homonyms. Word stress is determined by the Latin rule about the pen ultimate syllable. There is a distinction between long and short vowels, as well as stressed and unstressed ones. Morphology, modelled primarily on Latin, is fairly simple but highly distinctive (for example, there are specific personal pronouns for all three genders). Nouns and adjectives have two cases and the singular, dual and plural number. The synthetic and analytic comparison of adjectives is simple, while the pronominal declension is rather complex. Finite verbal forms have the categories of voice (active and passive); tense (the present, past, and future tense, whose forms also permit the expression of duration or repetition and completion); inchoativity and intentionality; and the subjunctive, imperative, conditional and optative mood. Of non-finite forms, Eulalia has the participle (present, past, and future), infinitive and supine. The gerund is replaced by the infinitive or participle. There are no irregular or inconjugable verbs. A sound knowledge of Latin is required for the lexis of Eulalia in particular.