Volapük Vifik: Lärnod Telid
"Are we all nut cases?"
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Many people consider Volapük to be a very hard nut to crack. Most of them nowadays seem not to consider grammatical cases even necessary! The proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating, so nut cases or not, we can lose nothing at all by having a quick look at the five cases of this remarkable language. Here they are: Del binon jönik = The day is beautiful
Löfob deli jönik = I love a/the beautiful day
Mem dela jönik = The memory of a/the beautiful day
Sagob dele jönik = I say to a/the beautiful day:
o del jönik! = Oh beautiful day!
In Volapük there is no word for "a/an" in English. The closest we can get to such a concept is to use the word for "one" -- del bal.
Neither is there a word for "the" in the normal way of things. However when we use words which have no equivalent in Volapük, be they names of people, places, or things, then the word el (from Spanish) serves for "the".
Let’s have a glance at the five cases now.
Del is a noun, and is in what is called the nominative case. It is the basic case, and in Volapük always starts and ends with a consonant. Why then, you may ask, does del sometimes add -i, -a and -e? This is to indicate its relationship to other words in the sentence. For example, -i tells us that the word is the object or victim of some action or influence exercised by another word. Look at the second line of the mini-saga above, where deli is the object or victim of love, whereas in the first line, del is very clearly the subject or the doer. Further down, in the third line, we see that dela means "of a day, of the day"; similarly, dele means "to a day, to the day". If we put the letter O all on its own followed by the nominative case, then we begin to wax lyrical, so to speak. We have now gone into raptures of delight, hopefully, by murmuring "Oh beautiful day!" (This is called the vocative case in Volapük., the case you use when directly addressing someone or something.)
The word which describes del is jönik. Such words are called adjectives. Normally they come after nouns in Volapük, whereas in English they come first!
The remaining words are called verbs. They are either doing words (löfob = I love, sagob = I say) or else basic words of being (binon = is). In Volapük, all verbs follow a regular, unchanging pattern, unlike in English, where they are peppered with irregularities or many kinds!
How about having a bit of practice of your own? Using zif (= a town / the town), can you translate the following mini-saga into English? MEM ZIFA JÖNIK
Zif binon jönik.
Löfob zifi jönik;
Sagob zife jönik:
O zif jönik!
Here are some new words for you to practice by speaking them out loud:
del = a day
dog = a dog
fa = by
fat = a father
flen = a friend
gok = a fowl
i = also
jevod = a horse
kapar = a goat
"Are we all nut cases?"
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Many people consider Volapük to be a very hard nut to crack. Most of them nowadays seem not to consider grammatical cases even necessary! The proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating, so nut cases or not, we can lose nothing at all by having a quick look at the five cases of this remarkable language. Here they are: Del binon jönik = The day is beautiful
Löfob deli jönik = I love a/the beautiful day
Mem dela jönik = The memory of a/the beautiful day
Sagob dele jönik = I say to a/the beautiful day:
o del jönik! = Oh beautiful day!
In Volapük there is no word for "a/an" in English. The closest we can get to such a concept is to use the word for "one" -- del bal.
Neither is there a word for "the" in the normal way of things. However when we use words which have no equivalent in Volapük, be they names of people, places, or things, then the word el (from Spanish) serves for "the".
Let’s have a glance at the five cases now.
Del is a noun, and is in what is called the nominative case. It is the basic case, and in Volapük always starts and ends with a consonant. Why then, you may ask, does del sometimes add -i, -a and -e? This is to indicate its relationship to other words in the sentence. For example, -i tells us that the word is the object or victim of some action or influence exercised by another word. Look at the second line of the mini-saga above, where deli is the object or victim of love, whereas in the first line, del is very clearly the subject or the doer. Further down, in the third line, we see that dela means "of a day, of the day"; similarly, dele means "to a day, to the day". If we put the letter O all on its own followed by the nominative case, then we begin to wax lyrical, so to speak. We have now gone into raptures of delight, hopefully, by murmuring "Oh beautiful day!" (This is called the vocative case in Volapük., the case you use when directly addressing someone or something.)
The word which describes del is jönik. Such words are called adjectives. Normally they come after nouns in Volapük, whereas in English they come first!
The remaining words are called verbs. They are either doing words (löfob = I love, sagob = I say) or else basic words of being (binon = is). In Volapük, all verbs follow a regular, unchanging pattern, unlike in English, where they are peppered with irregularities or many kinds!
How about having a bit of practice of your own? Using zif (= a town / the town), can you translate the following mini-saga into English? MEM ZIFA JÖNIK
Zif binon jönik.
Löfob zifi jönik;
Sagob zife jönik:
O zif jönik!
Here are some new words for you to practice by speaking them out loud:
del = a day
dog = a dog
fa = by
fat = a father
flen = a friend
gok = a fowl
i = also
jevod = a horse
kapar = a goat