In a world filled with lame, flawed interlanguages such as Esperanto, Ido, and Interlingua (to name a few), I am pleased to announce an auxlang truly fit for the job: Kokipopi. Designed for ultimate clarity and internationalism, it will certainly stir up feelings of love and brotherhood. Many other invented languages claim they will promote world peace, but it is my firm belief that only Kokipopi can make this claim and tell the truth about it.

In order to allow the highest amount of speakers to use it, there are only four sounds, and they are all commonly used: p, k, o, and i. In addition, since many people can only pronounce (C)V syllables, this will be the syllable structure of the language.

Nouns will be represented by an ending of -i. Verbs will be represented by an ending of -o. There will be no adjectives, since once you can describe something and attach a label to it you can persecute it.

Nouns are formed by using basic roots that describe them. ko is a root that means big, ki is a root that means small, po is the root that means round, and pi is the root that means square. (Note: if you get a word like *kopo where it ends in -o but is a noun, add an -i to the end of it, getting kopoi) In addition to removing the necessity for more verb-adjectives, this makes for better understanding when using nouns. For example, the English word speaker can mean several different things, all having their own word in Kokipopi. Doubling an element makes a plural, such as kiki, "small things." Another bonus of this feature is that it will put an end to racism. How can you oppress a class when they have the same name as you?

Pronouns (treated as nouns) will not be separated by gender, as many people aren't used to this custom. The same goes for plurals. Instead, in order to make for full flexibility, the same word (kokipopi) will be used to represent first, second, and third persons. In addition, this word forms relative pronouns, question words, and other non-personal pronouns (everything, someone, etc.).

Verbs are also formed by roots. ko is a root that indicates a physical action, ki indicates nonphysical action, po indicates a change in state, and pi indicates a continuation in state (and an -o at the end after an -i is just making it clear that it's a verb). Thus, the phrase "has been thinking" would be represented by kipio, since thinking is generally not a physical action and whoever is thinking is continuing to do it.

Word order in interlanguages tends to be SVO or SOV. Now, these may represent 80% of natural languages, but they aren't fair to people who natively speak in an VSO, VOS, OVS, or OSV language. In the interest of fairness, Kokipopi will be an OSV language.

As you can see, these features and designs have been created with everyone in mind, and I would be overjoyed if the EU accepts my languages as The interlanguage. I would not be pleased just for myself, but for the spirit of peace that acknowledgement and acceptance of Kokipopi would clearly display.

-eric "kopoi" sleator
Mon 9 Oct A.D. 2000