(), (), (), and ' were a series of languages created by Bavarian politician and teacher

Adalbert Baumann Adalbert Baumann (10 February 1870 – 6 December 1943), was a German Gymnasium (school), gymnasium teacher, politician, and historian. He is best known for his ideas surrounding Bavarian separatism, and for his series of languages, Wede. Pol ...

to create a

zonal auxiliary language Zonal auxiliary languages, or zonal constructed languages, are constructed languages made to facilitate communication between speakers of a certain group of closely related languages. They form a subgroup of the international auxiliary languages b ...

based on the German language. The first of the languages, Wede (short for ''Welt-dialekt'', World dialect), was published in 1915, with Weltdeutsch, Weltpitshn, and Oiropa'pitshn being published in 1916, 1925, and 1928 respectively. The languages were ''

a posteriori ('from the earlier') and ('from the later') are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on experience. knowledge is independent from any experience. Examples include ...

'', largely based on the

German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

– they primarily differed in grammatical and orthographic simplifications. Baumann's languages received a largely negative reception, being mocked by members of the

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

and

Ido Ido () is a constructed language derived from a reformed version of Esperanto, and designed similarly with the goal of being a universal second language for people of diverse languages. To function as an effective ''international auxiliary ...

communities; none were implemented in any official manner. The primary purpose of these languages was to provide a simplified version of German to be easily learnt by foreigners, particularly in the

Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

and the

German colonial empire The German colonial empire () constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by Kleinstaat ...

. Baumann saw previous

international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a ...

s as unsuitable for international communication, in particular criticising their orthographies and source languages. The languages were published via two books and several articles in newspapers.

Creator

Adalbert Baumann was a German gymnasium teacher, politician, and historian. A supporter of

Bavarian separatism Bavarian nationalism is a nationalist political ideology that asserts that Bavarians are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Bavarians.James Minahan. ''One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups''. Green ...

, he founded the Democratic Socialist Citizen's Party of Munich () in mid-November 1918. Baumann promoted the creation of a union state between

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

and Bavaria, on the basis that a

peace treaty A peace treaty is an treaty, agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually country, countries or governments, which formally ends a declaration of war, state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an ag ...

for a victorious Germany after the First World War would better benefit Bavaria in such a country. Baumann was a member of the Munich branch of the

USPD The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of anti-war members of t ...

, but quit in mid-1920. Joining the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

, Baumann was a proponent for the formation of a German language office; in 1933, he sent a letter to

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...

with a plea to establish one, which was denied, and he would later be expelled from the Party in 1937. Contrasting with his

German nationalism German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and of the Germanosphere into one unified nation-state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as ...

, Baumann also supported the formation of a European Economic Union of 26 countries; in March 1935, Baumann wrote a letter addressed to the governments of Europe demanding an artificial

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

be installed to aid "the economically consolidated Europe". In Baumann's view, the language should be German:

English translation: ''An artificial language such as the linguistically and practically nonsensical
Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
, which is to be relearned by all peoples, cannot be taken into consideration as such an auxiliary language; only a simplified, extensive derivation of the most widely spoken language in Europe an that being German!''

History

Wede

In September 1915, Baumann published ''Wede: the language of understanding for the Central Powers and their Friends, the new World Language (''), wherein he outlined his thoughts regarding

s and presented Wede. The name is an

abbreviation An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening (linguistics), shortening, contraction (grammar), contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened for ...

for "" (''World Dialect''), which Baumann shortened in "the American way". Baumann believed that the

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

(among which he counted

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, due to the

influence of French on English Influence may refer to: *Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships **Minority influence, when the minority affect the behavior or beliefs of the majority Science and technology *Sphere of influence (astrody ...

) had been the dominant world languages throughout the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

up to the time of writing, partly perpetuated through the use of Latin in the Christian Church and also through the suppression of Germany by France in events such as the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

. Baumann also saw the use of Spanish in the Americas as an example of how

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

influence (as he termed it, ) still continued to impact the world and Germany. Baumann was a critic of previous international languages;

Volapük Volapük (; , 'Language of the World', or lit. 'World Speak') is a constructed language created in 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany, who believed that God told him to create an international lang ...

for its excess

verb form In linguistics, conjugation ( ) is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'' ...

s (especially its use of an

Aorist Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...

aspect), excessive

minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate t ...

s, and excessive use of umlauts. Baumann especially took issue with

, criticising the

circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from "bent around"a translation of ...

es used in its orthography, supposed monotony, instability, and dearth of speakers. Baumann found the

correlative In grammar, a correlative is a word that is paired with another word with which it functions to perform a single function but from which it is separated in the sentence. In English, examples of correlative pairs are ''both–and, either–or, nei ...

system of the language unacceptable, due to the similarity of the individual correlatives making distinguishing between them in fast speech difficult. In Baumann's view, a significant reason for the failure of previous language projects was that they were based on the Romance languages, and especially on the

dead language An extinct language or dead language is a language with no living native speakers. A dormant language is a dead language that still serves as a symbol of ethnic identity to an ethnic group; these languages are often undergoing a process of re ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. Wede was a language created for chauvinistic,

nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

, and

imperialist Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power ( diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism fo ...

purposes:

English translation: ''... that Germany, according to the unbiased judgement of all peoples, has the most moral right to give the world an auxiliary language born from its womb, a world language in the Germanic, not in the Romanic spirit.''

In this, Baumann was not the first – according to German interlinguist

Detlev Blanke Detlev Blanke (30 May 1941 – 20 August 2016) was a German Esperantist. He was an interlinguistics lecturer at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He was one of Germany's most active Esperanto philologists and was from 1991 to 2016 both the chair ...

Elias Molee Elias Molee, sometimes self-styled elias molee, (January 3, 1845 – September 27, 1928) was an American journalist, philologist and linguist. Background Elias Molee was born in Muskego, Wisconsin, the son of John Evenson Molie and Anne Jacobso ...

Tutonish Tutonish (also called Teutonish, Teutonik, Allteutonish, Altutonish, Alteutonik, Nu Teutonish, Niu Teutonish, or Neuteutonish) is a constructed language created by Elias Molee. He worked on it for several years, and he reformed it multiple times, ...

was also created for chauvinistic purposes; Sven Werkmeister argues that Wede was a form of

linguistic purism Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is a concept with two common meanings: one with respect to foreign languages and the other with respect to the internal variants of a language (dialects). The first meaning is the historical trend ...

, as part of its function was to prevent uncontrolled

language change Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistic ...

and influence from foreign languages. The language received a negative reception, with Soviet Esperantist Ernest Drezen describing it as "incomprehensible" and remarking that "for the Germans it is nothing but a caricature reminiscent of their own mother tongue" in his (History of the international language).

Weltdeutsch

On 16 December 1916, Baumann released a sequel to ''Wede'', entitled (''The new, easy Weltdeutsch (the improved Wedé') for our allies and friends!''). The book, like its predecessor' was published by in Munich.' Baumann created Weltdeutsch as a response to reactions to Wede's orthography, which he intended to simplify in the new language. According to Baumann, the new language was particularly influenced by the comments from a W. Schreiber, Fritz Buckel,' and privy councillor Emil Schwörer'','' who would publish his own German-based auxiliary language, ', in the same year. Baumann argued that his language was necessary due to the incoming "world economic war" between Germany and England, claiming that this war could only be won through a political and economic

alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...

between Germany and the Central and Eastern European powers.' As such an alliance was hindered by the multilingualism of Europe, Baumann designed Wede to be a foreigner-friendly form of the German language. Baumann viewed the international use of French and of English as a factor for the struggle of the Central Powers in the First World War,' citing the use of French in Turkey as the reason for Turkey's supposedly positive relations with France during the war. Additionally, Baumann saw the increasing

world population In demographics of the world, world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of h ...

as a threat to the German language, reporting that German had fallen to fourth place among the most spoken languages, behind

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

.' In Baumann's view, one of the largest reasons for this decline was German's difficulty of acquisition: judging by this criterion, he viewed English as surpassing German.'

Welt'pitshn and Oiropa'pitshn

In 1925, Baumann released another language, (). Like its predecessors, it received a negative reception, being described in the Esperanto newspaper ' as a "result of partisan critics on the territory of international language" (""). An article in the February 1926 edition of the

Universal Esperanto Association The Universal Esperanto Association (, UEA), also known as the World Esperanto Association, is the largest international organization of Esperanto speakers, with 5,501 individual members in 121 countries and 9,215 through national associations (i ...

's magazine ''Esperanto'' reported that although Baumann had published articles in the press he had no supporters for Welt'pitshn, and called the language a "mutilated German". Three years later in 1928, Baumann published a fourth language – (, abbreviated to "Opi"). Baumann published and promoted it in several newspapers, including the '' Allgemeine Rundschau'' of Munich. Although he intended to publish another book on the language, as he had for both Wede and Weltdeutsch, he was unable to find a publisher willing to release the work, despite attempting correspondence with sixty

publishing house Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

s. Like its predecessors, it was mocked by both Esperantists and Occidentalists, with Johano Koppmann responding in ':

English translation: ''We ask, in what year do they want to demand that everyone must learn German words, why must all other languages be excluded from the cooperation of the construction of an auxiliary language? ... Taking everything together, we think it is useless for one man to work for 16 years on a problem that has long been solved, these past 50 years.'' — Johann Koppman, 15 June 1928 in .

Grammar

Baumann's languages had large grammatical simplifications, with several features of

German grammar The grammar of the German language is quite similar to that of the other Germanic languages. Although some features of German grammar, such as the formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that o ...

being removed. Among these was

grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

, with Wede now only conjugating

articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article(s) may also refer to: ...

for

grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a Feature (linguistics), feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other ...

. This removal also extended to gendered third-person pronouns; German's masculine, feminine and neuter , , and were all replaced with ''de''. Baumann quantified his grammatical simplifications into a set of

rules Rule or ruling may refer to: Human activity * The exercise of political or personal control by someone with authority or power * Business rule, a rule pertaining to the structure or behavior internal to a business * School rule, a rule tha ...

, of which there were 38 for Weltdeutsch and Welt'pitshn, and 25 for Oiropa'pitshn.

Adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

inflection was also removed, with only the ending ⟨-e⟩ remaining for all adjectives in Weltdeutsch, as in Wede. Wede also supported using

present participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...

s as adjectives, as well as

nominalized adjective A nominalized adjective is an adjective that has undergone nominalization, and is thus used as a noun. In ''the rich and the poor'', the adjectives ''rich'' and ''poor'' function as nouns denoting people who are rich and poor respectively. In Eng ...

s, which were marked with the suffix ''-s''. Wede's

degrees of comparison The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

were marked with the suffixes ''-ere'' for the comparative and ''-ste'' for the superlative, although the latter became ''-este'' after singular articles. Baumann also removed many of German's prepositions in Weltdeutsch, leaving 27 from German's 54. Oiropa'pitshn's grammar was largely based on that of English, as Baumann considered it the simplest of modern languages – Julian Prorók, writing in ''

Cosmoglotta Interlingue (; ISO 639 ''ie'', ''ile''), originally Occidental (), is an international auxiliary language created in 1922 and renamed in 1949. Its creator, Edgar de Wahl, sought to achieve maximal grammatical regularity and natural character ...

'', described it as "reforming German in an English fashion" ("").

Articles

Wede's definite article was ''t'' (plural ''ti''), and the indefinite article ''eine'' (no plural indefinite article existed). Omission of an article was grammatical in several cases, for example after

prepositions Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

relating to time and place and in

idiom An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a Literal and figurative language, figurative or non-literal meaning (linguistic), meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic speech, formulaic ...

s. Articles were also to be omitted after mergers of articles and prepositions (as in , "above the", from and ). In Weltdeutsch, Welt'pitshn, and Oiropa'pitshn, the articles were ''de'' in the singular and ''di'' in the plural. In Weltdeutsch, ''aine'' was used as an indefinite article; although

English articles The articles in English are the definite article '' the'' and the indefinite articles '' a'' and ''an''. They are the two most common determiners. The definite article is the default determiner when the speaker believes that the listener kn ...

were also grammatical, with ''an'' being used in front of vowels and ''a'' in all other cases (''a hund'', ''an apfel'').

Verbs

Wede had two

tenses In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, a ...

(the

present The present is the period of time that is occurring now. The present is contrasted with the past, the period of time that has already occurred; and the future, the period of time that has yet to occur. It is sometimes represented as a hyperplan ...

and

past The past is the set of all Spacetime#Definitions, events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human ...

, specifically the

preterite The preterite or preterit ( ; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple p ...

), and two

auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or ...

s, ''hawen'' and ''werden''. Baumann decided to have a total of four verb forms, from these two tenses in conjunction with the

active Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * "Active" (song), a 2024 song by Asake and Travis Scott from Asake's album ''Lungu Boy'' * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several com ...

and

passive Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of ...

voices – ''hawen'' was used for the active and ''werden'' for the passive. Other forms of the two auxiliary verbs were used to create other moods and voices, such as the

conditional Conditional (if then) may refer to: *Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y *Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a conditional, a ...

, which was formed with ''wirden'' (, would). In Wede, all verbs ended in ''-en'', but this ending could often be dropped. However, there were several exceptions to this rule, such as when the endings were needed for clarity; this was seen for instance in the verbs ''hawen'' and ''gewen.'' {, class="wikitable mw-collapsible" , + class="nowrap", Wede verb conjugations !Tense !Form !''Wede'' !English !Notes , - , Infinitive , ''-en'' , ''slagen'' , to strike , , - , Present Participle , ''-end'' , ''slagend'' , striking , , - , Past Participle , ''ge- +'' stem ''+ -(et)'' , ''geslag(et)'' , struck (or strucken) , Parenthesised endings indicate that their use is optional. , - ! colspan="5" , Active forms , - , Present , ''-en'' , ik slag(en){{NoteTag, ''slag(en)'' , I strike , '' Vide supra.'' , - , Preterite , ''hawen + -et'' , ''ik hawen geslag(et)'' , I have struck , , - , Future , – , ''ik slag(en) morgen'' , Tomorrow I will strike , {{Anchor, FutureBaumann elected not to create a new conjugation, so future phrases were constructed using specific time phrases. , - , Imperative , Singular: ''-e'' Plural: ''-en'' , ''slage!'' ''slagen!'' , Strike! , , - , Conditional , Present: ''wirde'' + infinitive Past: ''wirde hawen'' + past participle , ''ik wirde slag(en)'' ''ik wirde hawen geslag(et)'' , I would strike I would have struck , , - , Optative , ''meg(en)'' or ''welen wir'' , ''er meg(en) slag(en)'' or ''welen wir slag(en)'' , May he strike! or May we strike! , , - ! colspan="5" , Passive forms , - , Present , ''werden'' + past participle , ''ik werden geslaget'' , I am (being) struck , , - , Preterite , ''worden'' + past participle , ''ik worden geslaget'' , I have been struck , , - , Conditional , ''wirde'' + past participle , ''ik wirde geslaget'' , I would be struck , , - , Future , – , ''ik werden geslaget morgen'' , Tomorrow I'll be struck , '' Vide supra.'' In Weltdeutsch, Baumann added a third conjugation, the

, and further simplified verbs by eliminating forms such as the

and

subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as the conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unrealit ...

,{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=19, name=B16p19 and further reducing

irregular verb A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instance ...

s.{{Cite journal , last=Mühlhäusler , first=Peter , date=1 January 1993 , title=German koines: artificial and natural , url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijsl.1993.99.81/html , journal=International Journal of the Sociology of Language , issue=99 , pages=81–90 , doi=10.1515/ijsl.1993.99.81 , s2cid=143448951 , issn=0165-2516 , access-date=28 April 2023 , archive-date=28 April 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230428092447/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijsl.1993.99.81/html , url-status=live , url-access=subscription Weltdeutsch's past tense used no auxiliary verb, and had a conjugation following German's

imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was doing (something)" o ...

construct. Weltdeutsch's present tense was formed using the language's only auxiliary verb ''tun'' conjugated for person, followed by the infinitive form of the verb, although the auxiliary verb was to be omitted in

colloquial speech Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=19, name=B16p19 In Weltdeutsch,

tmesis In its strictest sense, tmesis (; plural tmeses ; Ancient Greek: ''tmēsis'' "a cutting" < ''temnō'', "I cut") is the dividing of a word into two parts, with another word inserted between those parts, thus forming a

separable verb A separable verb is a verb that is composed of a lexical core and a separable particle. In some sentence positions, the core verb and the particle appear in one word, whilst in others the core verb and the particle are separated. The particle is t ...

s was also eliminated: such verbs would be hyphenated instead.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=19, name=B16p19 {, class="wikitable mw-collapsible floatright" , + class="nowrap" , Weltdeutsch conjugations of ''tun''{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=19, name=B16p19 !Person !Present !Past !Conditional !English , - , First , ''tu'' , ''tat'' , ''tät'' , I do, I did, I would , - , Second , ''tust'' , ''tat-st'' , ''tät-st'' , You do, you did, you would , - , Third , ''tut'' , ''tat'' , ''tät'' , He does, he did, he would {, class="wikitable mw-collapsible" , + class="nowrap" , Weltdeutsch conjugations{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=19, name=B16p19 !Tense !Form !Weltdeutsch !English , - , Present , conjugated verb ''tun'' + infinitive , ''ich tu komen'' , I come , - , Past , conjugated verb ''tun'' + infinitive , ''ich tat komen'' , I came

Nouns

{, class="wikitable mw-collapsible floatright" , +Overview of cases (with the noun for "father") ! rowspan="2" , Case ! rowspan="2" , Preposition ! colspan="2" , Wede{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=84, name=B15p84 ! colspan="2" , Weltdeutsch{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, pp=18–19, name=B16p18-19 , - !Singular !Plural !Singular !Plural , - ,

Nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...

, - , rowspan="4" , ''t fater'' , rowspan="4" , ''ti fatera'' , rowspan="4" , ''de fater'' , rowspan="4" , ''di fätern'' , - ,

Accusative In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...

, - , - ,

Dative In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this exampl ...

, ''to'' , - ,

Genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

, ''fon'' In Wede, plural nouns used the suffix -''a''. This replaced any other ending from German; for example, {{Lang, de, Eltern (parents) became ''eltera'', and {{Lang, de, Weihnachten (Christmas) became ''weinagta''.Wede's

accusative case In grammar, the accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "he ...

was identical to its nominative case; the dative case, using the preposition ''to'' (a loanword from English), was only used to distinguish direct and indirect

objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...

and for directions, and the genitive, using ''fon'', for showing origin and possession.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=83, name=B15p83 Apart from using ''fon'', the

genitive construction In grammar, a genitive construction or genitival construction is a type of grammatical construction used to express a relation between two nouns such as the possession of one by another (e.g. "John's jacket"), or some other type of connection (e ...

could also be expressed using a hyphenated closed compound: for example, ''t frau fon t haus'' ({{Lit, the woman of the house, {{Langx, de, die Frau des Hauses, links=no, lit=) could become ''t haus-frau'' ('the house-wife', {{Langx, de, die Hausfrau, label=none).{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=84, name=B15p84 Weltdeutsch's plural nouns ended in ''-en'', except in certain circumstances, such as words ending in ''-el, -er'', or ''-en''. Plural nouns were mostly distinguished via

ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut ( , from German ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its relate ...

, usually to umlauted versions (e.g. "au" to "äu"). In both Weltdeutsch and Wede,

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

was handled using a system of prepositional complements.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, pp=18–19, name=B16p18-19

Orthography

Wede included a

spelling reform A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples a ...

, using an

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

of 24 letters.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=80, name=B15p80 From the German alphabet, Baumann removed the letters ⟨v⟩, ⟨c⟩, ⟨j⟩, and substituted ⟨f⟩, ⟨kw⟩, ⟨k⟩, ⟨sh⟩, and ⟨f⟩ for the multigraphs ⟨ph⟩, ⟨qu⟩, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨sch⟩, and ⟨pf⟩.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=79, name=B15p79 The umlauted letters ⟨ ä⟩, ⟨ ü⟩, and ⟨ ö⟩ were also removed. Baumann considered umlauts to be too great a technical difficulty for foreign

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...

es, although ⟨ ǝ⟩{{NoteTag, Although in Baumann's ''Wede'' this letter is described as a "turned e" ({{langx, de, umgekehrtes e), Baumann may have been describing and using the letter schwa ( ə). was added to partly replace ⟨ö⟩.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=80, name=B15p80 Baumann removed the use of

silent letter In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign , which resembles the ...

s, in particular instances of ''e'' and ''h''.''{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=81, name=B15p81'' {{Anchor, Orthography of WeltdeutschUmlauts reappeared in the orthography of Weltdeutsch, where the digraph ⟨eu⟩ was replaced with ⟨eü⟩ – ⟨Deutschland⟩ (Germany) becomes ⟨Deütschland⟩. The letter ''é'' was added to represent a

long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...

''e''. Baumann changed ⟨ei⟩ to ⟨ai⟩, ⟨sch⟩ to ⟨sh⟩ (like in Wede), and the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

⟨ -end⟩ became ⟨-ent⟩.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=4, name=B16p4 Double letters were replaced with single letter equivalents.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=28, name=B16p28 Noun

capitalization Capitalization ( North American spelling; also British spelling in Oxford) or capitalisation (Commonwealth English; all other meanings) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in ...

was also removed in Wede and Weltdeutsch, although in Wede this came with several exceptions, such as

proper noun A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity ('' Africa''; ''Jupiter''; '' Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

s, the word God, and the

formal Formal, formality, informal or informality imply the complying with, or not complying with, some set of requirements ( forms, in Ancient Greek). They may refer to: Dress code and events * Formal wear, attire for formal events * Semi-formal atti ...

pronoun ''Si''.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=81, name=B15p81 Baumann changed German's compounds to put

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...

s between stems, so the language's

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

⟨Weltdeutsch⟩, is rendered ⟨Welt-deütsh⟩ in Weltdeutsch.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=4, name=B16p4

Lexicon

Similarly to

controlled natural language Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are subsets of natural languages that are obtained by restricting the grammar and vocabulary in order to reduce or eliminate ambiguity and complexity. Traditionally, controlled languages fall into two major types ...

s such as

Charles Kay Ogden Charles Kay Ogden (; 1 June 1889 – 20 March 1957) was a British linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an Eccentricity (behavior), eccentric and Emic and etic, outsider, he took part in many ventures related to lit ...

Basic English Basic English (a backronym for British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is a controlled language based on standard English, but with a greatly simplified vocabulary and grammar. It was created by the linguist and philo ...

, Baumann argued that German's

lexicon A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word () ...

was too large, and eliminated many

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

s from Weltdeutsch, arguing that only two to three thousand words were necessary for daily life. Weltdeutsch removed several

s and

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...

s – for example, {{Lang, de, der Stiel ("the handle") and {{Lang, de, der Stil ("the style of writing") became ''de stil'' and ''de sraib-art'' respectively.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=29, name=B16p29 The languages were

,{{Citation , last=Blanke , first=Detlev , title=Planned languages – a survey of some of the main problems , url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110886115.63 , work=Interlinguistics , year=1989 , pages=67 , access-date=7 May 2023 , place=Berlin, New York , publisher=De Gruyter Mouton , doi=10.1515/9783110886115.63 , isbn=9783110886115 , archive-date=11 July 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230711173538/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110886115.63/html , url-status=live , url-access=subscription being based mostly on

High German The High German languages (, i.e. ''High German dialects''), or simply High German ( ) – not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called "High German" – comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Ben ...

, although the languages were influenced by

German dialects German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant s ...

; several vocabulary substitutions came from

Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...

varieties, and Baumann stated that

Middle High German Middle High German (MHG; or ; , shortened as ''Mhdt.'' or ''Mhd.'') is the term for the form of High German, High German language, German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High ...

helped eliminate excess consonants.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1915, p=17, name=B15p17 Apart from German, Oiropa'pitshn's vocabulary was partly drawn from

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

; in ''Weltdeutsch'', Baumann had thanked the

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

for spreading ''di deütshe sprache'' ("the German language") around the world.{{Efn-lr, {{harvnb, Baumann, 1916, p=23, name=B16p23 Baumann further claimed in 1928 that one of the benefits of his language would be that it would be comprehensible to the "Jews of the world who make up the economy".{{efn-lr, {{Cite journal , last=Baumann , first=Adalbert , date=1928 , title=Eine Intereuropäische Hilfssprache in Vorschlag gebracht , trans-title=A Proposition for an Inter-European auxiliary language , url=https://newspapers.com/article/volkszeitung-tribune-adalbert-baumann/128434587/ , journal={{ill, Tägliche Omaha Tribüne, de , publication-place=Munich , pages=3 , via=Newspapers.com

Notes

{{NoteFoot

References

Primary

''This list of references shows references from Baumann's publications.'' {{Notelist-lr

Secondary

Bibliography

* {{Cite book , last=Baumann , first=Adalbert , url=https://digital.onb.ac.at/RepViewer/viewer.faces?doc=DTL_4419933 , title=Wede, die Verständigungsprache der Zentralmächte und ihrer Freunde, die neue Welt-Hilfs-Sprache. , date=September 1915 , oclc=186874750 * {{Cite book , last=Baumann , first=Adalbert , url=https://digital.onb.ac.at/RepViewer/viewer.faces?doc=DTL_4420170 , title=Das neue, leichte Weltdeutsch (das verbesserte Wedé) für unsere Bundesgenossen und Freunde! : seine Notwendigkeit und seine wirtschaftliche Bedeutung ; Vortrag, gehalten am 16. Dezember 1915 im Kaufmännischen Verein München von 1873 ; in laut-shrift geshriben! , date=16 December 1916 , publisher=Huber , oclc=634651654 {{Constructed languages {{Authority control Constructed languages introduced in the 1910s German-based pidgins and creoles International auxiliary languages German language Zonal auxiliary languages