wordia

Wordia is a constructed language (conlang) created for linguistic demonstration and language-learning resources. Developed within academic and hobbyist communities in the early 2000s, Wordia is designed to be moderately regular to facilitate analysis while remaining approachable for learners. The project aims to illustrate common linguistic phenomena such as affixation, compounding, and semantic narrowing.

Phonology and orthography: Wordia has 15 consonants: p, b, t, d, k, g, f, s, z, m, n, r, l, j, w and five vowels a, e, i, o, u. The language uses a simple Latin alphabet and a CV or CVV syllable structure. Stress is phonemic on the penultimate syllable. The orthography is largely phonemic; diacritics are rare.

Grammar: Wordia is predominantly agglutinative, encoding tense, aspect, number, and case with suffixes. The typical basic sentence order is SVO, with adjectives following nouns. Noun phrases employ case markers for subject, object, and indirect object, while there are no gender distinctions. Verbs mark person and tense through affixes; mood and evidentiality are indicated by clitics attached to the verb.

Lexicon and word formation: Core vocabulary is organized around around 1200 root morphemes. New words are formed via derivational affixes and productive compounding. Semantic fields are extended through metaphorical extension and regular semantic shifts.

Usage and status: Wordia has no native speakers but is used in academic examples, textbooks, and online conlang communities. There is a central Wordia Dictionary project that provides word entries, example sentences, and etymologies. The language is intended as a pedagogical tool and a platform for exploring linguistic theory rather than a fully developed natural language.