For a time, Pasilingua was regarded as a serious competition to Volapük, but never got much support. However, Frederick Bodmer lauded the project and its author for its inclusion of pidgin elements; it was quoted by Louis Couturat and Leopold Leau, in their Histoire de la langue universelle, and in books of various other interlinguists at the beginning of the 20th century.
The language was based on English, with influences from French and German. Its radicals had natural appearance, without much deformation, but the derivation was not natural, as it was possible to radically change the appearance of word; however, word families were formed regularly.
In spite of its name, the language is not a pasigraphy because it is not an a priori language, but a posteriori/natural one, almost a euroclone.
Alphabet and pronunciation
The alphabet has 31 letters:
10 vowels: a, ä, è, e, i, y, o, u, ü (French u);
21 consonants: b, c, ç (/s/), d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, z.
There are also two digraphs: ch and sch. The words are pronounced like in German.
There is no stress.
Grammar
Article
The definite article is to (masculine), te (feminine), ta (neuter);
The indefinite article is uno (masculine), une (feminine), una (neuter).
The articles agree with the noun in number and case. There are four cases in a single conjugation; case can be indicated on the article - to (nominative), tode (genitive), toby (dative) and ton (accusative) - or on the noun.
Nouns
Nouns have four cases and three genders; all form plural by adding -s.
Gender endings are: masculine in -o; feminine in -e and neuter in either -a (concrete) or -u (abstract). For example, to homino (the man), te femine (the woman), ta cita (the city), ta modestiu (the modesty).
The four cases are nominative, genitive, dative and accusative, like in German.
Pasilingua declension
Singular
Plural
Nominative
mortu (the death)
mortus
Genitive
mortude
mortusde
Dative
mortuby (to the world)
mortusby
Accusative
mortun
mortun
Verbs
Verbs have four conjugations:
1) Grander esse - to be big
2) Grandir esse - to become big
3) Grandar esse - to make (something) big
4) Grandor esse - to be made big
Each conjugation has three tenses:
1) mi morter - I die
2) mi mortefer - I died
3) mi morterer - I will die
Vocabulary
The majority of the vocabulary was based on English, French, German and Latin; particles were generally based on the former. A lot of words had two synonyms, Germanic and Romance - for example bono and guto mean "good" and Deo and Gotto mean "God".
Much like in other constructed languages, words are formed by affixes. For example, - mortu, death; morto, dead (masculine gender); morte, dead (fem.); morta, dead (neut.); mortiro, dying; mortaro, murderer; mortamenta, instrument of murder; mortana, poison; mortarea, battlefield; mortitarea, churchyard; mortiblo, mortal; mortablo, fatal; mortoblo, easy to kill; morter, to be dead; mortir, to die; mortar, to kill; mortor, to be killed
