Glosa (auxiliary language)

Glosa is an international auxiliary language. Glosa is an isolating language, which means that words never change form, and spelling is completely regular and phonetic.
As an isolating language, there are no inflections, so that words always remain in their dictionary form, no matter what function they have in the sentence. As a result, grammatical functions, when not clear from the context, are taken over by a small number of operator words and by the use of word order (syntax).
Glosa takes most of its vocabulary from Greek and Latin roots, seen by the authors as international in a sense by their usage in science.
History
Glosa is based on an older draft auxiliary language from 1943 called Interglossa, which was developed by Lancerot Hogben in 1943.
Ron Clark discovered Interglossa in 1960. He joined Hogben to develop the language. Wendy Ashby joined them in 1972. After Hogben's death in 1975, Ron and Wendy made many changes in the language and they renamed it Glosa.
In 1979, they tested the language with volunteers from the city they were living in. Also, the first dictionary was published.
Since 1987, the NGO Glosa Education Organisation (GEO) promotes the language. Its official website was created in 1996 by Paul O. Bartlett. Later, Marcel Springer became the person in charge of it.
In 2021, a wiki in Glosa was created by Vicente Costalago.
Grammar
Alphabet and spelling
Glosa spelling is completely regular and phonetic: one spelling always represents one sound, and one sound is always represented by one spelling. With the sole exception of SC which represents the sound (as "sh" in short), every letter just represents one sound, and vice versa. Glosa is written with the Latin letters.
Word classes
Glosa contains two major groups of words:
Primitives
Primitives are the small number of basic function words present in most languages--these allow us to describe the relationships between the major ideas we bring across. These are basically prepositions and conjunctions, such as: de [of], e [and], pre [before], supra [above], sub [under; below; lower; beneath; lesser; somewhat].
Substantives
Substantives here are the group of words that represents the more complex things, actions and descriptions (sometimes usable for all three) present in a language, such as: via [road], kurso [run], hedo [happy], vide [see], celera [swift], tako [fast; quick; prompt; hurry; rate; speed]; oku [eye]. Please note that many of these words have many meanings, based on how they are used in a sentence (verb, adjective, etc.), for example: "oku" can mean "eye", "optical", "see (look)", "perceive (with the eyes)", or "to peep".
Parts of speech
Glosa words can often serve as more than one part of speech. Thus part of speech is a role that the word plays in a sentence, not a property of a word.
Personal pronouns
The reflexive pronoun "oneself" is se, the reciprocal pronoun alelo means "each other", and the emphatic auto is used for "self, own".
Verbs
Most words can act as verbs, depending on their places in the sentence (usually in the middle).
"Prior word" here means a word used immediately before the verb of the sentence or clause in order to show its tense. For example:
To show that a verb is in the past tense, add pa before the verb.
To indicate the future tense, add fu before the verb.
To indicate the conditional, add sio before the verb.
Adjectives
Adjectives, like the rest of the language do not change. They are generally placed before the word that they modify.
To create "opposites", one just places "no-" as a prefix to the adjective. It is the equivalent of some of the uses on in- or un- in English.
kali - beautiful
no-kali - ugly
termo - hot, heat
meso-termo - warm
no-termo - cold
Conjunctions
akorda-co - accordingly
alo - or
alo...alo - either...or
alora - in that case...
anti-co - however
e - and
fini-co - finally
hetero-co - otherwise
jam - already
kaso - case...
ko-co - also
klu - even...
ni....ni - neither...nor
pene - almost
po-co - after that
posi - perhaps
plus-co - moreover
qasi - as if...
sed - but
si ne... - unless
vice - instead of...
Question and answer words
In addition to the above, there is the prefix/beginning singu- (each), and the suffixes/endings -numera (amount/number), -speci (quality/kind of) and -kron (time), which can be used in the same way as the above.
Qo horo? can also be used for "What time?" or "What is the time?".
Demonstratives
The basic demonstratives are:
ci, here
u-ci, this, this one, this [X]
plu-ci, these
la, there
u-la, that, that one, that [X]
plu-la, those
The demonstratives can also be used in the same way as the words in the table above: u-ci mode, u-la mode (thus; in this way, in that way), u-ci ka, u-la ka (for this cause, for that cause), u-ci te (with this intention), etc.
For "this time", there's also nu (now), and for "that much/that many", you can say tanto; for "that kind" talo.
To change a phrase into a question, qe is placed at the beginning of the sentence.
Prepositions
ab - away from (abduct)
ad - to / towards (advance)
ana - up (anabolic)
anti - against (antibiotic)
de - of / about / pertaining to (describe)
dextro - (on the) right (ambidextrous)
dia - through (diagonal)
epi - on (epicentre)
ex - out (of) / by (agent) (exterior)
infra - below / under / lesser (infrared, inferior)
intra - inside (intracloud)
kata - down (catastrophe)
ko - with (cooperate)
kontra - counter / opposite (counter, contrast)
laevo - left (levorotation)
margina - edge / side (margin)
meso - middle (Mesopotamia)
minus - without / lacking (minus)
para - beside (parallel)
per - by (instrumental) (per)
peri - around (pericarp)
po - after (post scriptum)
pre - before (previous)
pro - for (pro or con)
proxi - near (proximity)
supra - over / above (supranational)
te - in order to... (tendency)
tem - for a period of time (temporary)
tele - far (telephone)
- at place (topology)
trans - across (transition)
ultra - beyond (ultrasophisticated)
vice - instead of (vice-president)
Numbers
The numbers from 0-10 are: ze, mo, bi, tri, tet, pen, six, seti, ok, nona, deka. For 0, 4, 5, 7 and 8 (ze, tet, pen, seti, ok), there's also the longer forms zero, tetra, penta, septi and okto. Higher numbers are formed by combining the numerals in the number, and in some cases by proper names:
Note that some use centi, the older form of hekto, for "hundred". Centi is now used as "hundredth" in accordance with the ISO standard usage.
When numbers are placed before the noun, they are cardinal; when they are placed after the noun, they are ordinal:
Mi fu lekto mo bibli - I will read one book
Mi fu lekto bibli mo - I will read the first book
Mo, bi and tri also means single, double and triple, respectively.
Sample
The following is the Lord's Prayer in Glosa, compared with Interglossa, Frater and English versions, respectively:
References
Writings on the subject
Ashby, Wendy & Clark, Ronald: Glosa 6000: 6000 Greek and Latin words and roots which occur in the Euro-languages and international scientific terminology. London: 1983 (48 p.)
Ashby, Wendy & Clark, Ronald: Glosa 1000. Richmond: Glosa, 1984
Ashby, Wendy & Clark, Ronald: Basic dictionary of the international language Glosa. Richmond [Surrey]: Glosa, 1987 (44 p.)
Ashby, Wendy: 18 steps to fluency in Euro-Glosa. Glosa, 1989 (2nde edition)
Ashby, Wendy & Clark, Ronald: Introducing Euro-Glosa. Richmond: Glosa, 1990 (36 p.)
Other websites
Official website
Wiki
Reddit
Constructed languages