If a new international language was being constructed, what would you want in it?

[JohnRM]

Knowing that it would inevitably fail, I would care not for its content.

 

[holy king]

i didnt read the op, but we should make it english and call it something else, hoping nobody will notice.

 

[amadeus]

How can we say that one universal language would be easy? I imagine it would be easy for some and much more difficult for others...

On the whole, for example, I find Japanese grammar conjugation to be easier ("objectively" so, since I'm a native speaker of English and don't worry about it so much) than English. But at the same time, English has only 62 characters (being generous with upper and lower case plus 10 numerals) compared to Japanese and its two-thousand plus kanji/kana systems.

 

[red_elk]

Esperanto?

 

[Harvin87]

i didnt read the op, but we should make it english and call it something else, hoping nobody will notice.

I bet americans wouldn't notice

 

[Shekwan]

It could be called Internetish.

 

[tycoonist]

No it's not.

Yes it is. a language that is spoken in just one country is not widely spoken.

 

[Phrossack]

It must make extensive use of the kh- sound. Or it should be Khalka Monggol.

 

[Harvin87]

-regularity in verbs. just one system, that works for all verbs, common or uncommon. no conjugations, no irregularities.
-no genders
-simple plurals - just adding one letter to the end of a noun.
-no agreement between adjectives and nouns
-negation by just one word - adding one word to a sentence for not, a different word for never, a different word for not much etc.
-no peculiar pronunciation - all words are phonetic.

it sounds like the anti-thesis of the German language...

 

[RedRalph]

Some form of newspeak, literally. Trim the language down to a bare minimum, conjoin words etc... I believe Russian does this very well, but obviously that would be a no-go for an international language. But for the purposes of the OP, why say 'civilization fanatics centre' when you could say 'civfancen'?

What Winner is proposing doesn't need to be poetic, so I think newspeak would od the job.

 

[tycoonist]

it sounds like the anti-thesis of the German language...

well basically i just took all the things that are thoroughly unnecessary and threw 'em away. inspired by French though, not German.

 

[Zelig]

I would want no sounds, so a sign language.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Some form of newspeak, literally. Trim the language down to a bare minimum, conjoin words etc... I believe Russian does this very well, but obviously that would be a no-go for an international language. But for the purposes of the OP, why say 'civilization fanatics centre' when you could say 'civfancen'?

What Winner is proposing doesn't need to be poetic, so I think newspeak would od the job.

Urgh, I despise newspeak, its so ugly.

 

[RedRalph]

Urgh, I despise newspeak, its so ugly.

It is indeed, but that's not relevant for the purposes of the OP. I use the phrase newspeak cause everyone here will understand it, but I really mean the ideas of it rather than newspeak specifically.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I know, but I can't even think about it without thinking of Katie Couric, which makes me want to punch everyone in the face.

 

[Mise]

I would want all of the English words, grammar and syntax in it.

 

[Shylock]

Bin dun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

 

[warpus]

- Latin-based alphabet
- All verbs regular
- Gdańsk

 

[kulade]

This doesn't strike me as "easy". As I said, the new language should be as easy as possible, so there will be some trade-offs.

Why criticize inclusive and exclusive pronouns as not easy? If "easy" is your number one goal, why not eliminate plurality as a whole? Obviously your, as everyone else's definition of "easy" is usually just going to mean "as close to my native language as possible."

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I'd want to see the cost-benefit analysis first.