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© 1998 Ed. Robertson
The end of the 19th century saw the publication of a great number of international language projects. This was time of great interest in the idea of a world auxiliary and also a time of great rivalry between competing proposals. These two facts are surely related. The centenary of one of the most interesting of these, Léon Bollack's Bolak or Blue Language, occurs in 1999. This was a mixture of a priori and a posteriori elements. In the years following its publication it acquired a following of a sort, and materials were produced for it in at least French, German, English, Spanish, Italian and Czech, and it must rank somewhere in the top 20 most significant attempts at an international auxiliary language. Unfortunately Bolak has not received the attention its success deserved in terms of mentions in works dealing with the history of constructed languages and those commentators who preferred the `naturalism' of the Euroclones have largely ignored it.
The centenary of Bolak deserves to be marked however not merely for its significance. The merits of the language are, as always, a matter of individual taste, but its author deserves credit for a number of inventive or even insightful features. One of these is his division of the language into small words (motules), which carry the burden of the structural roles, and large words (granmots), which provide the semantic content. This feature was, incidentally, one inspiration for my own project, Dunia.
The name of the language, Bolak, means both `blue language' and `ingenious creation' in the language itself, and it is, of course, perhaps immodestly, also named after its author. The choice of name, however, belies the fact that Bollack, unlike most international language inventors, was prepared to liquidate his project in favour of another language. Bollack was prepared to accept the decision of the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language in favour of Ido, having tried, and failed, to win the support of that body for his own project. For that reason, if for no other, Léon Bollack and his creation deserve to be remembered and respected.
Bollack was also concerned to combat chauvinist attitudes in his own country, France, towards Germany, which was also an admirable thing for him to do, especially given the times he found himself active in. Such actions are the logical philosophical and political corollary of creating or advocating an international language. They contrast however, with those of certain other personalities or organisations in the history of the international language movement. As an aside, one can think of Ostwald, one of the 'eminent' people involved in the initiation of Ido, who created the proposal 'Weltdeutsch' when friendly contacts with the French were no longer popular in his country. Or, in later years, one can think of the appalling and naive behaviour of the German Esperanto movement shortly after Hitler came to power.
The introductory grammar which follows is based on the standard work 'La Langue Bleue', Paris 1899, which runs to several hundred pages, which also includes an interesting summary of previous IL projects. Obviously this treatment cannot be as comprehensive as the original, but Bollack, like many IL inventors, was a bit pedantic in the way he expressed things, so there is less left out than one might be led to fear. At any rate, I have tried not to leave out anything essential.
Interjections
The small words, or motules, of Bolak are composed of a maximum of 3 letters. If composed of 3 letters, they must not end in a consonant. They perform 4 functions in the language: interjections, 'framework words', connectors and designators. Interjections are composed of one vowel, or the same vowel doubled:
a expresses lack or discouragement
e exhuberance or encouragement
i paroxysm or joy
o doubt or warning
u equanimity or consent
The doubled forms express the opposite of their single equivalents:
aa resignation, disgust
ee condemnation
ii pain, suffering
oo appeal, request, threat
uu repulsion, annoyance, fear
The vowels concerned are those chosen by Bollack for his 'Daisy Rule'. These are used as prefixes on nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (i.e. 'granmots'), to modify their meaning by adding the emotion involved in the corresponding interjection. If we take the Bolak root lov (love), the 5 vowel affixes can be used to form other words as follows:
alov indifference, 'lack of love'
elov passion, 'exhuberant love'
ilov worship/idolatry, 'paroxysmal love'
olov inclination, 'doubting love'
The prefix u- is only used in this context with adjectives and adverbs:
uloved having equally loved
With nouns and verbs u- has other uses which we can go into later.
The 'Daisy Rule' is so called because of the custom in French of pulling the leaves off a daisy to determine the degree to which one is loved by one's partner, similar to the '(s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not' custom in English.
Framework words
The second category of motules comprises the 'framework words'. They are so called because they form a framework around the word or framework which follows. Again in Bolak this category of words can be distinguished phonotactically in a similar way to the interjections, this time one or other of the following two combinations of letters: i) two different vowels, or ii) one or two consonants followed by a -u.
There is one group of framework words about which Bollack says: "At first sight their meaning could appear bizarre. Nevertheless, in my opinion they are necessary in an artificial language." These 4 words are used to circumvent long phrases necessary in the context of two speakers of different languages who try to communicate using an auxiliary language. This is of course the point of creating an auxiliary, so the suggestion is not without merit. Let us take the sentence 'give me bread', and its Bolak translation et givo pan, in the context of a speaker of French conversing with a speaker of English, using Bolak. Suppose the French speaker forgets that the Bolak for bread is pan. In this unlikely example, he or she could say:
Et givo ou 'pain' give me what I call 'pain'
Et givo iu 'bread' give me what you call 'bread'
The other two words in this group are:
au used to mark a proper name, and
eu used to mark a technical term or a word from the language of neither participant.
This leaves 12 other possible combinations of two different vowels. Four are used as general purpose substitution words, a bit like 'je' in Esperanto.
io can be used to substitute for any preposition, and
oi for any conjunction.
ea can be used to replace any article, adjective or pronoun in the singular, and
ae in the plural.
The other 8 are used as optional markers of verbal aspect or mood.
oa to start to, to be about to
eo to finish, to have just
ia to intend to
oe to have to, to be obliged to
ai to wish to, to be inclined to
ei to be able to, to be possible to
ie to do frequently or regularly
ao to do rarely or intermittently
Here Bollack makes an interesting error in one place in his book and lists oi instead of ai at this point, clearly having forgotten that oi has already been used. This brings out Bolak's most obvious design fault: that it is over-designed and that this leads to some things being difficult to remember.
There are 45 permitted combinations of the other form of framework words (Cu or CCu). Of these the most useful are:
nu negative me nu lovi I do not love
du interrogative me du lovi? Do I love?
tnu int. neg. me tnu lovi? Do I not love?
ku subordinate … ku me lovi … that I love
knu sub. neg. … knu me lovi … that I do not love
su reflexive me su lovi I love myself
snu refl. neg. me snu lovi I do not love myself
The others are indispensible words which can be used free-standing or as prefixes in word-formation.
ru again, re-
pu arch-, chief-
Ru vice-, sub-
fku anti-, contra-
pru ante-, pre-, ex-
plu poly-
smu semi-, hemi-
sku -ish
kvu eu-
mu mal-, caco-
The symbol R is taken from the Cyrillic alphabet and is same sound as English/Spanish ch. The letters C, H, J, Q, W, X, Y, and Z are not used in Bolak.
At this point Bolak gives the example: me du snu oa ru lovo? (do I not begin to love myself again?) as an illustration of how to combine these motules.
Connectors
The third part of speech in Bolak is the 'connectors'. This includes things such as prepositions and conjunctions. The form of this group of words comprises two or three letters including one consonant and one or both of the vowels I and O. The basic prepositions include ib above, oR below, og behind, ik in front of, ot outside of, in in, il around, ol beside. These can be modified to express motion towards or from by the addition of -i or -o respectively: ogo from behind, ini into etc. Other prepositions which do on begin with i- or o- do not relate to position in time or place, e.g. ki with, spi towards, pi for etc. There are many other prepositions which could only be listed in a much fuller description of the language. The indefinite preposition io has already been mentioned. With many verbs a preposition is unnecessary, e.g.: govo Paris to go to Paris.
Some important conjunctions are it and and or or. Two other words which have the same phonotactic shape as this group are si yes and no no.
Designators
The fourth class of words are the `designators'. These are motules of two or three letters which have a form like that of the `connectors', but are composed of a consonant and one or both of A or E, instead of I or O. There are six kinds of designators: relative, interrogative/exclamatory, personal, possessive and personal. In some of these groups the final vowel, if any, indicates whether the word is singular or plural, e.g.
Singular Plural Meanings
ra re who (relative)
ka ke who? (interrogative)
ak ek who! (exclamatory)
ag age this, these
af afe that, those
an ane one, several
at ate each, every, all
ad ade of the
al ale to the
The personal designators, however, do not change according to whether singular or plural, and there are different consonants at the beginning for all of the personal pronouns:
me I, te you (familiar singular), ve (respectful sing.), se he, le she, Re it
ne we, pe you (fam. plural), ge you (resp. plur.), be they (masc.), fe they (fem.), de they (neuter).
Personal designators have a number of cases in Bolak:
Nominative me I
Accusative ma me
Dative ama to me
Ablative ema from me
Vocative em me!
Emphatic eme myself
Some of these cases are also used with relative and interrogative designators.
The possessive designators are derived from the personal pronouns, with the ending -ea neing used for the singular and -ae for the plural, e.g. mea/mae my (sing./plur.)
The indefinite designators are about 50 in number. Some are formed from A followed by a consonant with the plural formed by adding -E, as in the demonstratives above:
ab/abe such a/such
am/ame the same
ap/ape any
as/ase a certain/certain
av/ave the other(s)
The majority are formed from two consonants ending in -A in the singular and -E in the plural. Some of these a singular and no plural, and others a plural and no singular:
spa each fke several
tsa a little of fle few
mra not a tle every/everybody
The last of these appears in the Bolak slogan: Dovem pro tle (Second (language) for everybody).
Some others are:
kla/kle somebody/some people
ksa/kse whichever
sfa/sfe someone else/other people
psa/pse one another
fna/fne one or the other(s)
tna/tne neither one nor the other(s)
kva/kve whatever/whatever things
One example of the use of the indefinites that is given is: Et nu maki sfa, ska te nu vili ku sta maki ad ete (Do not do to another what you would not want someone to do to you).
Numbers and other Granmots
The large words of Bolak convey the bulk of the semantic content. The form of these words is 3 letters or greater. If composed of only 3 letters, the last of these must be a consonant, each class of words having its own look in Bolak. Noun roots must end in some consonant other than R and d.
There are 4 types of granmots: a) nouns (including numbers), b) verbs, c) attributives (adjectives) and d) modifiers (adverbs). Normally, for all of these, the root word is the noun, except for certain basic adverbs ending in R. Noun roots can be transformed into other parts of speech by the addition of various endings.
Numbers are a special kind of noun. The numbers 1 to 10 are:
Ven, dov, ter, far, kel, gab, Rep, lok, nif, dis.
11 to 19 are: diven, didov, diter, difar etc.
20: dovis 50: kelis 1000: mel
21: dovis ven 100: son 2015: dovmel dikel
30: teris 101: son ven 10000: dismel
31: teris ven 125: son dovis kel 100000: sonmel
40: faris 200: dovson 1000000: mlon
Endings can then be added on to each of these cardinal numbers:
-am (collective), e.g.
venam unity
dovam duality, duo
teram trinity, trio
-em (ordinal), e.g
venem first
dovem second
terem third
-ip (multiplication)
venip single
dovip double
terip triple
-om (division)
venom whole
dovom half
terom third
-erl (no. of kinds)
venerl one kind of
doverl two kinds of
tererl three kinds of
-olt (no. of times)
venolt once
dovolt twice
terolt thrice
Numerals are placed before the noun they relate to.
Nouns
Nouns in Bolak must in their root forms begin and end with one or two consonants and end with one or two consonants. They cannot end in R or d. Normally these roots are one syllable in length. There are also a number of nouns which have more than one syllable, but these must not contain any affixes which are used in word formation. Bollack regarded the number of affixes used in agglutinative conlangs as confusing. For this reason the two syllable word sigar (cigar) is allowed because there is no suffix -ar in Bolak.
However a two syllable root ending in a suffix that was used, e.g. -or or -ort would not be permitted. The ending -or is used to indicate the agent associated with the root, e.g.:
spil game
spilor player
The ending -ort is used to indicate the place associated with the root:
pan bread
panort bakery
The suffix -u is used to form the plural of nouns while the prefix u- is used to form the feminine. Nouns in Bolak are not assumed to be masculine, and there also a masculine prefix stu-. Thus:
kval horse
ukval mare
stukval stallion
Nouns referring to familial or social relationships have separate words for the male and female equivalents:
per father
mer mother
lonk uncle
tant aunt
fem woman
man man
In the event of the learner not remembering the Bolak word for the the feminine of the pair, the possibility of using the feminine prefix together with the male word is explicitly permitted. What the learner is supposed to do in the event of forgetting the male word is not stated.
The suffix -in can be used to refer to a female who acquires a title by virtue of marriage, e.g.:
reks king
reksin queen (consort)
As opposed to:
kvin queen (in her own right)
There is no masculine equivalent for this.
Nouns can be combined with various framework words mentioned earlier, e.g.:
bisp bishop
bu bisp archbishop
gon angle
plu gon polygon
lov love
fku lov hate
The operation of the Daisy Rule prefixing nouns with a-, e-, i-, or o- has already been mentioned.
The augmentative and diminutive suffixes are -as and -et respectively.
The affix -an can be used to indicate the inhabitant of a place.
Compound nouns can be formed by joining two noun roots with a -u- between them. The headword comes last as in English, Chinese, Hungarian, German etc., e.g.:
kafumilv coffee mill (kaf: coffee, milv: mill)
dormukar sleeping car (dorm: sleep, kar: car)
noksuknis night shirt (noks: night, knis: shirt)
sopuspon soup spoon (sop: soup, spon: spoon)
Proper nouns can be used to qualify a headword as a separate word and not joined by a preposition:
Bolak ditort Bolak publishing house
The subject noun always goes before the verb. A vocative noun always goes at the beginning of a sentence, as a separate clause, then followed by a vocative pronoun. Object nouns follow the verb. Any indirect object complement follows the direct object, and if there is more than one indirect object, these follow in decreasing order of interest.
Verbs
Verbs are formed from the noun in Bolak by adding the appropriate tense affixes. There are four simple tenses:
Eternal lovi to love
Present lovo to be loving
Past love to have loved
Future lova to be going to love
Verbs can of course be formed from roots where the Daisy Rule has operated, e.g. ilovi, to worship.
Verbs are preceded by their subject noun or pronoun and are invariable for person and number.
The simple tenses can be modified by prefixing u- before the verb to provide their perfect or anterior equivalents:
me lova I shall love
me ulova I shall have loved
The grammar does not state whether this u- is to be added before or after the operation of the Daisy Rule.
The passive voice is created by inserting a -u- between the root and the tense ending:
me lovua I shall be loved
me ulovua I shall have been loved
What Bollack calls the reflexive voice is formed by inserting the reflexive particle:
me su lovi I love myself
What is called the subordinate mood is simply formed by using ku or knu for positive and negative subordination respectively, e.g.:
Re nanko knu me spiko it is necessary that I should not speak
The imperative is formed by putting the pronoun into the vocative:
te komo you come
et komo come!
em komo let me come! etc.
Because verbs can be freely formed from nouns the question may sometimes arise of what the meaning is of the verb thus formed. The following three possibilities of meaning can be tried in the following order of precedence:
In the state of, or having the root noun.
Accomplishing the root noun.
To make use of the root noun.
Examples of each of these are:
1. bel beauty beli to be beautiful
2. bark embarkation barki to embark
3. bint string binti to tie up
Attributives and modifiers
Attributives are formed from noun roots by adding a vowel and -d. This vowel varies according to ideas of tense, so the word may also be regarded as the verb plus a participial ending, e.g.:
lovid loving (in general)
lovod loving (at the moment)
loved having loved
lovad going to love
Attributes used predicatively can be translated by verbal expressions:
me lalgo I am ill
There is no need to say:
me sero lalgod
Attributives follow the noun they qualify. Degrees of comparison are provided by the Daisy Rule:
ipraved (of) the bravest (of)
epraved (ku) braver (than)
upraved (ku) as brave (as)
opraved (ku) less brave (than)
apraved (of) the least brave (of)
The words pliR (more) and leR (less) can also be used.
Modifiers always end in -R, and are the adverbial equivalent of the attributives:
loviR lovingly (in general) etc.
There are also a number of basic modifiers, e.g. moR (very), paR (not very) and many more.
If modifiers are used with a verb, they are placed after the verb, but if they are modifying an attributive or another modifier, they are placed before the word they modify.
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