{ Up to date English to Ok root word list}
What is this?
Ok is a Conlang. Conlang is a contraction that stands for constructed language. Conlanging is a hobby that I've been interested in for more than 20 years.
I've got several Conlangs but Ok is the most developed and, the only one on the Web.
Ok started as an attempt to create a conlang mentioned by Robert A. Heinlein in one of his short stories. This Conlang was called Speedtalk and it was highly polysynthetic (Each word contains the meaning of a sentence).
Ok did not turn out as compact as Speedtalk but, I never abandoned it because I failed. I realized that Ok was still an interesting project in its own right.
To begin with I established some parameters that shape Ok as it still is today.
1. The Ok language would be as streamlined and as compact as I could make it.
2.All English words would become Ok syllables
.3. These syllables would contract together wherever possible.
4.Many words that I considered unnecessary would not exist in Ok
5. Ok syntax would would be as compact as I knew how to make it.
These were most of the parameters that keep Ok as streamlined as it is
On top of that I decided that Ok should be as regular as possible and, have as few noun declension as I could get away with. Its spelling (although strange looking) would be easy and regular. The letters always stand for the same sound every time although there are diphthongs and double consonants.
I wanted to make Ok an a priori language. All of my conlangs are a priori. A priori means that it is not based on any existing language.
To achieve this I first decided what consonants would be allowed in
Ok. I wanted as many as I could find so that I would have a larger vocabulary.
I included the double consonant clusters
br,bl,cr,cl,dr,dl,fr,fl, etc,etc in fact all of those consonant clusters
that you find in English.
Then I decided what vowels were going to be in Ok. I came up with 10
Having already decided that an Ok syllable would consist of a vowel and a consonant ( or consonant cluster) I combined the vowels and consonants in every possible combination and got a pool of VC syllables that I could assign English words to.( VC stands for Vowel Consonant) This pool wasn't large enough. The simple solution was to flip them around and double this pool by adding the CV syllables. this gave me a large enough pool of syllables.
I chose a three syllable limit for any Ok word
How to handle the grammar without losing the streamlined quality stumped
me for awhile.
I could not see how to indicate a grammatical function without adding syllables.
Changing the vowel was not an option because they were all in use and I
wanted Ok to be as unambiguous as possible. Using special syllables added
to the length of the word and subtracted from my available pool of syllables
that I could assign words to.
I realized that the spoken length of a syllable is due to its vowel
and that a consonant is really unpronounceable without a vowel. I could
attach a consonant to the vowel-end of a syllable and indicate grammar
that way! The Ok word would remain the same length!
Of course I had already used up all the consonants too But I knew there
were alot more of them out there in the wild wide world and I went and
sought them out
Ok was ready to go. I started assigning English words to Ok syllables
in a random way. And began translating into Ok. I didn't really like the
way my grammar consonants made the language sound and, I thought it might
be too difficult for people to pronounce. I simplified by using consonants
that were already in use. I was at first afraid that this might confuse
people as to what the Ok word was trying to express. This was when I was
still thinking that people would take the word apart and translate it to
English. Then I realized that would probably be too difficult to do on
the fly anyway
( Not to mention that few conlangs are actually used :) ) and that
Ok words should just be taken as a whole like other words are. Nwmtraeud
just means -'Thanks to you' it isn't necessary to know its really Nwm-
trae-ud. ( towards you- thanks- to)
So that's how Ok got to be where it is today. Poised on the brink becoming the world's auxilary language ;)
At present I have assigned English words to about half of the Ok syllables.
I have translated all of the Basic English vocabulary into Ok syllables
I want to make sure I get the most useable and useful English words first..
They are not all on this site but I'm working on it. And as for the Ok
words?
Well, as you might imagine, the way Ok is designed, there would be millions
of them. The challenge to me now is to find the most common and useful
*Ok* words and it looks like thats going to take some time!
Nwmtraeud!
-Duke Keenan.