Babm

Babm (pronounced [bɔˈɑːbɔmu]) is an international auxiliary language created by the Japanese philosopher Rikichi [Fuishiki] Okamoto (1885–1963). Okamoto first published the language in his 1962 book, Universal Auxiliary Language Babm,^[1] but the language has not caught on even within the constructed language community, and does not have any known current speakers.^[2] The language uses the Latin script as a syllabary: each letter marks an entire syllable rather than a single phoneme. To readers used to the Latin script, this creates a rather oddly compacted script with far more consonant letters than vowel letters.

The language has in common with some 17th-century artificial languages an over-riding concern with taxonomy, and providing a universally consistent set of names for chemicals, etc.;^[3] the author's "scientific" preoccupation is a contrast to the socio-political mandate of Esperanto, although the 1962 book is certainly not lacking in statements about world peace.

Examples

[Babm:] V pajio ci htaj, lrid cga coig pegayx pe bamb ak cop pbagt.

[English:] I am reading this book, which is very interestingly written in Babm by a predominant scholar.^[4]

[Babm:] Dedh cjis beg kobp.

[English:] Time causes youth to be old.^[5]

References

Bibliography

• Okamoto, Rikichi [Fuishiki] (1962). Universal auxiliary language, Babm. Tokyo: The author. [Author appears as Fuishiki Okamoto.]
• Okamoto, Rikichi [Fuishiki] (1964). Sekaigogakuron. Tokyo: Minseikan. [In Japanese.]

External links

• Babm: The Simplest Auxiliary Language (excerpts from the 1962 book)
• "Babm and Lin" by Ray Brown
• The first 25 pages of Universal Auxiliary Language Babm