v3.0-alfa

Pandunia 3.0-alfa (canceled)

What happened?

It got canceled.

Pandunia 3 was supposed to bring together the best of versions 1 (renamed "Midi") and 2 (renamed "Mini") and add new features. It got a mixed response from the followers of Pandunia. Three varieties of the same language confused people, and the argument for propædeutic value was challenged by a critical review of the science behind it.

What was it all about?

1. The new version of Pandunia can serve as a propedeutic language! It is perfect to be taught in schools because it prepares students to learn other languages from any part of the world. Pandunia is better suited for propedeutic use than Esperanto because it is more international, more diverse and more flexible. (See Wikipedia article on Esperanto's propedeutic value.) Other auxlangs try to attract students but Pandunia attracts language teachers too – and one teacher brings many students in.
2. The new design is a differentiating factor that elevates Pandunia above other constructed auxiliary languages. Esperanto is stuck at being deeply agglutinative, LFN is stuck at being strictly analytic – Pandunia has the best of both worlds.
3. The new version can attract more people in the traditional auxiliary language audience. It is now more than an international auxiliary language. It is a functional gateway to learning any major language, and it is also a course in basic linguistics in itself.
4. This version of Pandunia is more diverse, more flexible and more expressive. It is possible to imitate different types of natural languages to some degree, and it is possible to create imaginary varieties and registers of Pandunia for literature without breaking the rules.
5. The new version combines versions 1 and 2 in the same language, so it can bring back the people who loved the word class markers in version 1 and lost interest when they were removed in version 2.

How was it supposed to be?

Version 3 of Pandunia combines versions 1 and 2 together. It has an agglutinative grammar that can be used also in a completely analytic way.

There are six grammatical vowel endings:

1. -e for nouns
2. -i for adjectives,
3. -o for adverbs
4. -a for verbs with the SV order
5. -u for verbs with the opposite OV order
6. -y (pronounced as the mid central vowel /ə/) for nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs with the SV order

The grammatical endings from 1 to 5 work exactly like in Pandunia v.1. The sixth ending is new. It works as the linking vowel in compound words (ex. dem-y-kratia 'democracy') and as the multipurpose word ending, which makes it possible to use the same exact word as a verb, noun and adjective like in Pandunia v.2.

I have envisioned three varieties of Pandunia.

1. Mini Pandunia uses only the neutral grammatical vowel ending. It has completely analytic grammar just like Pandunia v.2.
2. Midi Pandunia uses all six grammatical vowel endings. It is almost exactly like Pandunia v.1.
3. Maxi Pandunia extends from Midi Pandunia by encoding more grammatical information in one word. It is a complex variety compared to Mini and Midi, which are very simple. Maxi Pandunia is for educational and other special purposes only and it is not intended for general use.

All varieties are based on the same underlying grammar and use the same vocabulary. Therefore they are compatible with each other. They are also equally expressive. Their differences are not about what can be said but about how it can be said.

All varieties use the same structure words. So for example me 'I', te 'you', le 'it, he, she', no 'not', da 'of', a 'but' and sa 'to be' are in common to all of them. It's possible to form some basic sentences with these words only, for example me sa me, a te no sa me – I am me but you are not me. The structure words consist of a consonant and a standard word class marker.

Mini Pandunia uses only the multipurpose grammatical vowel ending, -y. Since grammar is not encoded in words in this variety, other means have to be used. Mini Pandunia uses the fixed subject–verb–object word order and little auxiliary words to organize sentences. For example, vidy means 'to see, to view' and 'sight, view'. bei is an auxiliary verb that turns the agent into a patient.

me vidy te. – I see you.
te bei me vidy. – You are by-me seen.
te bei vidy da me. – You are seen by me.

Midi Pandunia uses all six vowel endings, but -y is used only as the linking vowel in compound words like demykrati or demy krati 'democratic (adj.)'. (From grammatical point of view it doesn't matter are compound words written together or separately.) The vowel endings for nouns, adjectives and adverbs work the same way as in Esperanto, Ido, etc. so I won't describe them here again. Pandunia verbs are more interesting. As some of you may remember, the verb endings enable all six different word orders that are theoretically possible. Here are some of them for demonstration.

me vida te. – I see you. (SVO)
me te vidu. – I see you. (SOV)
te vidu me. – You are-seen by-me. (OVS)

Maxi Pandunia is for language education. It offers the possibility to use the structure words as suffixes. For example, here is how the subject pronoun is incorporated to the verb:

me vida te. =
vidu me te. =
vid- + -u + m- + te =
vidumy te. =
vidum te.

It is only a simple example. In more complex cases it is possible to incorporate also things like tense, mood, aspect and negation roots in the verb. Using Maxi Pandunia, grammar can be taught almost like mathematics because it is regular and the operations are almost as simple as addition and subtraction.