Europanto

language
name=Europanto
creator=Diego Marani
date=1996
setting=European Union administration
fam1=constructed languages
fam2=int. auxiliary languages
iso2=art|iso3=eur

Europanto is a linguistic jest presented as a "constructed language" with a hodge-podge vocabulary from many European languages. It was created in 1996 by Diego Marani, a journalist, author and translator for the European Council of Ministers in Brussels. Marani created it in response to the perceived dominance of the English language; it is an emulation of the effect that non-native speakers struggling to learn a language typically add words and phrases from their native language to express their meanings clearly.

The main feature of Europanto is that there are no fixed rules — merely a set of suggestions. This means that anybody can start to speak Europanto immediately; on the other hand, it is the speaker's responsibility to draw on an assumed common vocabulary and grammar between himself and the audience and to make himself understood.

Europanto is a parody of international auxiliary languages, namely their perceived tendency to very strongly formalize speech, and impose strict, but arbitrary rules on it.Fact|date=August 2008 The name "Europanto" is a portmanteau combination of "European" and the Greek stem "πάντ-" ("all"), and resembles "Esperanto".

Marani wrote regular newspaper columns about the language and published a novel using it. As of 2005, he no longer actively promotes it.

Example

ee also

* Esperanto
* Interlingua

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/220511.stm BBC News – Europe – Linguistic virus let loose on English]
* [http://www.europanto.be Europanto home page]
* [http://www.neuropeans.com/topic/europanto/what/more.php Europanto – What is it?]
* [http://109287.aceboard.net/ A fairly active forum for Europanto speakers]