Gilo Grammar 4

Vocabulary

4.1       Classification

Gilo is classified into approximately 1000 main classes of meaning.  The classification is based on those used by Peter Roget in his Thesaurus.  Each main heading of meaning is numbered.  Sub headings and individual words are shown by additional letters to a maximum of 3 digits and 3 letters e.g.:

Main heading words are not all necessarily root words, but may be compound words consisting of combinations of two or more root words (e.g. 017a below).  This is used particularly when forming opposites, negatives etc to the root word.

4.2       International Standards

A large number of words used today are already of an 'International' standard.  These relate mainly to the genus names for plants and animals.  Although the English words for most domestic and farm animals are short and simple (e.g. cat, dog, cow, pig etc), once we go beyond those (rhinoceros, reindeer) there is little difference between the length of the English and the genus name.  It therefore makes sense to continue with the international convention for such names (e.g. cat, filis; dog, kanis) rather than to use a mixture of the shorter English words and genus names for the others.  A similar argument applies to plant names.

The same principle applies to words for countries, people’s names, place names and currencies.  Native language names for those items are used in Gilo.  E.g. Moscow will be pronounced as it is in Russian - Moskva, Paris will be Pari and Rome will be Roma.  (See Section 19, Countries, Peoples and Languages).

4.3       Condensed English

Gilo uses words derived from English but which have been 'condensed' down to the minimum possible number of letters or syllables in order to simplify learning.  English is the most common second language in the world and therefore there is the comfort of some degree of familiarity with many of the words used for the maximum number of people.  All words in Gilo are spelt phonetically, hence it will be the sounds of the words rather than the spellings that will be familiar.  For those people who are unfamiliar with English then the short words will ease the learning process.

4.4       Root Words

All root words are single syllable and have up to four letters.  They are based as near as possible to existing English words, although some of them may be less easy than others to recognise.  The link to the original English word may be remote in some cases, or a non-English word used, due to the preferred word already being taken.  See Gilo Vocabulary Notes for further comments on the reasons behind the choice of vocabulary.

Root words are the fundamental building blocks of the language.  Root words are generally (but not always) based on the abstract nouns.  From the root words are derived tangible nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and prepositions.  Root words are combined together to form compound words (see 5.5 below).

An example of a root noun is 'bel', meaning beauty (an abstract noun).  To this root we add a verbal suffix to create the verb 'beliz', meaning 'to beautify'.  We can also add an adjective suffix 'a' to make 'bela' e.g. 'peel bela' (a beautiful woman).  The same affix 'a' can also make an adverb e.g. 'pentoz bela' (beautifully painted).  Note that a 'qualifying' word following a noun will always be an adjective and one following a verb will always be an adverb.

A number of frequently used words consist of single letter roots e.g.:

However the above roots are never used alone, they will always have an additional letter or letters to make them into a noun, adjective, verb or adverb e.g.:

4.5       Vowel & Consonant Clusters

Double vowel clusters (known as diphthongs) are not normally used.  Double & triple consonant clusters are kept to a minimum.  This is in order to avoid confusion between different root words as much as possible, as well as to reduce pronunciation difficulties.

4.6       Pronunciation

There is no necessity for stress on any particular syllable in Gilo words. .  However it is important that individual roots are pronounced clearly and separately to avoid confusion.  Root words have been chosen to avoid alternative meanings as much as possible when they are combined.  Occasionally it may help with some compound words if the ‘mid’ root is stressed, in order to avoid confusion. .  Pronunciation should otherwise generally follow that of the French language where there is normally equal stress on each syllable

E.g.      relidbuk (reference book) is made of roots rel-id-buk.  Pronunciation should be rel id buk, not re lid buk.

4.7       Gilo Vocabulary

The Gilo Vocabulary has a separate web page.  It consists of the complete Gilo word list categorised by Roget reference number.  The complete wordlist can be copied from the web page onto any spread sheet and then re-sorted into alphabetical order of English or Gilo words as required.

Any alphabetical search of the word list should allow for the fact that more than one English word may be covered by a single Gilo word and that a single English word may have multiple meanings and therefore be covered by more than one Gilo word.