1. Presentation

The Ubabebi project concerns a constructed language with an international vocation. The best-known example of such a constructed language with an international vocation is the Esperanto.

The vocabulary of Ubabebi is constructed ex-nihilo: a) in such a way that the language is as easy as possible to learn, and b) without favoring any culture of origin.

Consequently, its vocabulary is: 1) distributed into pattern trees (whose branches are associated with particular conceptual areas), and 2) grouped into structured families of related words (creating topological mental images that are easy to memorize).

Its particularity is its complete computerization, which allows not just its creation and continuous modification via the Internet, but, above all, the automatic updating of all the sentences in its historical corpus that have been stored in its centralized computer system.

Preliminary remarks concerning the typography of this document: The words or groups of words that are underlined are Ubabebi-specific concepts that are described at one time or another in this document. The transcriptions of letters and sounds will be enclosed in single-quotes (‘…’). The example words and the sentences will be put between double-quotes (“…”). The language codes will be indicated in square brackets ([…]). [BBB] will be the language code of Ubabebi, even if this code is not officially one. The words or groups of words written in italics are subjective considerations.

2. Transcription

Ubabebi is transcribed using letters to form syllables, which are in turn assembled to form the words of its lexicon. As the language is fully computerized, it can be written using any character set related to a given culture (e.g. Korean letters), but can ultimately be read in any other character set (e.g. Sanskrit letters), the reader's computer program making the transcription automatically.

For convenience, for the present English version of this article, and therefore in the explanations given below, we will focus on the Latin letters used in English.

In Ubabebi, each letter (or group of letters) corresponds to a unique sound as it is almost the case in German (but not in French or English): so that, once the pronunciation of the letters has been learned, one can immediately read a text without error.

Ubabebi is transcribed using:

1) 5 main vowels (for the sounds transcribed in English by ‘a’ in “hat”, ‘e’ in “red”, ‘i’ in “bit”, ‘o’ in “hot”, ‘u’ in “Zulu”),

2) 2 extended vowels (for the sounds transcribed in English by ‘er’ in “her” (cf. ‘eu’ in French and ‘ö’ in German) and ‘ew’ in “few” (though in fact closer to the French ‘u’ and the German ‘ü’),

3) 4 nasalized vowels that are not current in English but are transcribed as ‘an/en’, ‘in/ain/ein’, ‘on’ and ‘un’ in French),

4) 14 main consonants grouped into 7 pairs of consonants,

5) 3 unpaired consonants (for the sounds transcribed in English as ‘l’, ‘r’, and ‘h’),

6) 3 semi-consonants (for the sounds transcribed in English by ‘y’, ‘w’ and the ‘ni’ in “onion” (cf. ‘ñ’ in Spanish and ‘gn’ in French).

Thus, altogether there are 31 letters (or rather 31 sounds) divided into 11 vowels and 20 consonants.

In order to transcribe these 31 sounds using the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, it was initially chosen to proceed as follows:

Ubabebi (Latin)	Transcription (EN)	As in…
‘a’	‘a’	“Alpha”
‘e’	‘e’	“Echo”
‘i’	‘i’	“India”
‘o’	‘o’	“Oscar”
‘u’	‘oo’	“Food”
‘x’	‘er’	“her” <<<
‘q’	‘ew’	“few <<<
‘aa’	‘an’ / ‘en’ [FR]	“entente” [FR]
‘ee’	‘in’ / ‘ein’ / ‘ain’ [FR]	“pain [FR]
‘oo’	‘on’ [FR]	“pont” [FR]
‘uu’	‘un’ [FR]	“lundi” [FR]
‘b’	‘b’	“Bravo”
‘p’	‘p’	“Papa”
‘c’	‘ch’	“Chilly”
‘j’	‘g’	“fuselage” <<<
‘d’	‘d’	“Delta”
‘t’	‘t’	“Tango”
‘f’	‘f’	“Foxtrot”
‘v’	‘v’	“Victor”
‘g’	‘g’	“Golf”
‘k’	‘k’	“Kilo”
‘m’	‘m’	“Mike”
‘n’	‘n’	“November”
‘s’	‘s’	“Sierra”
‘z’	‘z’	“Zulu”
‘l’	‘l’	“Lima”
‘r’	‘r’	“Romeo”
‘y’	‘y’	“Yankee”
‘w’	‘w’	“Whiskey”
‘nn’	‘ni’	“onion” <<<
‘h’	‘h’	“Hotel”

Remarks concerning the choices for the transcription of sounds in Ubabebi:

1) The pronunciation in Ubabebi of the five basic vowels that are transcribed as the five Latin letters ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’ and ‘u’ are similar to those of many Western languages, even if, in English, unfortunately: a) the English ‘u’ is generally NOT pronounced like the Ubabebi ‘u’, which is more like the German ‘u’ in the German word: “du” and the French ‘ou’ in the French word: “doux”; and b) the names of the English vowels are different from some of their pronunciations. Compare the word “rate”, in which the letter sounds like the name of the letter ‘a’ of the English alphabet, with the word “rat”, in which the pronunciation is that of the Ubabebi ‘a’.

2) The two sounds transcribed by ‘er’ [EN] in “her” (‘ö’ [DE] or ‘eu’ [FR]) and ‘ew’ [EN] in “few” (‘ü’ [DE] or ‘u’ [FR]) are transcribed in Ubabebi by the two letters ‘x’ and ‘q’:

o to avoid using accents that are always difficult to type on the keyboard;

o because these 2 letters are available in the sense that :

§ The sound associated with the letter ‘x’ in English could be transcribed in Ubabebi by ‘ks’ (as in “tax”), and ‘gz’ (as in “exact”).

§ The sound associated with the letter ‘q’ in English (e.g. in the English word “quite”) is transcribed by ‘kw’ in Ubabebi.

o As explained in detail in the next chapter, the Ubabebi vowels often have underlying values that allow words to be structured in relation to each other within the same structured family of affiliated words. And in fact the value of the vowel ‘x’ (the sound transcribed by ‘er’ [EN]) is imprecision, nullity, nothing. It is therefore appropriate (and a useful mnemonic) that the character chosen is the letter ‘x’, like the cross we use to delete or nullify something in a hand-written text.

o The name of the English letter ‘q’ can be transcribed phonetically as ‘kiu’ with the Ubabebi sound-letters, which ends with the ‘oo’ [EN] sound as in “good”. As this sound is quite close to the sound envisaged (‘ew’ [EN]), the relinquished letter ‘q’ has been associated with it. The value of the letter ‘q’ in a structured family of affiliated words is generally the opposite of that of the letter ‘x’: it expresses precision and accuracy, or the whole.

o When the sound-letter ‘q’ is used in a given word, it means that, generally, there is no similar word with a ‘u’ in place of this ‘q’. For the difference between the two sounds ‘q’ and ‘u’ is difficult for people of some cultural origins (notably English-speakers) to distinguish.

3) The nasalized vowels are transcribed by a doubling of their generating vowel (‘a’ for ‘aa’, ‘e’ for ‘ee’, ‘o’ for ‘oo’, ‘u’ for ‘uu’), which facilitates reading by avoiding: a) all use of accents and b) the need to analyze the third letter that follows (like in French where the letters ‘en’ have the nasalized pronunciation ‘en’ [FR] when followed by a ‘t’ in “tente”, but the non-nasal sound ‘eu’ [FR] when followed by ‘u’ as in the word “tenu”).

4) The nasalized vowel ‘uu’ (the sound ‘un’ [FR]) is hardly ever used because this sound is too close to the sound transcribed in Ubabebi as ‘ee’ (the sound ‘in/ein/ain’ [FR]). When the sound-letter ‘uu’ is used in a given word (which is rare), it means that there is no similar word with an ‘ee’ in place of this ‘uu’.

5) The fourteen basic consonants of Ubabebi are grouped into 7 pairs of neighboring consonants because some living languages have few consonants and, in fact, some consonants are very difficult to discern by their speakers (e.g. the sounds ‘p’ [BBB] and ‘b’ [BBB] for Chinese speakers). Therefore, Ubabebi organizes these 14 consonants by pairs of neighboring sounds; at best, Ubabebi restricts usage to the first component of each pair; at worst, it organizes its lexicon in such a way that two words with neighboring pronunciations (in the sense of these pairs of consonants) belong, at best, to very distant conceptual spheres, or, at worst, to different grammatical classes (verbs, adjectives, nouns).

6) The semi-consonants are almost exclusively used to build suffixes for word derivation (see infra) or verb conjugation: they are not used to differentiate the root words (patterns) in the lexicon.

7) The use of the letter ‘h’ is also limited in Ubabebi. Counter-examples: As we want to avoid clusters of vowels, an ‘h’ is inserted after the vowels of the articles, the personal pronouns, etc. and the vowels corresponding to the Ubabebi declensions (when required), 2) the conjugation endings (aspects of Context, Story, etc.).

3. Phonology

As one might expect, the most used concepts are assigned to the shortest words.

In Ubabebi, there are no tones, like those found in Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.

For the sake of simplicity, Ubabebi avoids clusters of consonants and vowels: it therefore favors patterns of words in “CV”, “CVC”, “CVCV”, “CVCVC”, etc. (where ‘C’ represents a consonant and ‘V’ a vowel). Ubabebi therefore has relatively long polysyllabic words compared with other languages, such as English, where words are short (and very difficult to pronounce precisely because of their consonant and vowel clusters). The speaking word rate in Ubabebi must therefore be relatively high as it can be in Hindi, Italian, etc., since the rate of orally transmitted information is essentially the same regardless of the language used. (Languages with a tendency to use monosyllabic words involving more clusters of consonants and vowels, like English, have a lower word rate but their information transmission rate is equivalent.)

4. A lexicon built to be easy to learn and remember

The ease of memorizing the lexicon is based on 2 axes:

- The words are organized in pattern trees whose branches are associated with particular conceptual areas.

- In these branches, words are grouped into structured families of affiliated words:

o which have very similar transcriptions...

o ... only differentiated by one of their vowels (but sometimes also one or more of their consonants) whose different values serve to organize the concepts in relation to each other within the same family.

4.1. Pattern trees

For each of the growing patterns (“CV”, “CVC”, “CVCV”, “CVCVC”, etc.), a tree of words is constructed. The branches of each tree group families of words that are in the same conceptual sphere. An example with the “CVC” pattern:

Pattern	Concept groups
“bVC”	(available)
“pVC”	words related to our primary environment (relief, biomes, weather, continents, etc.)
“cVC”	words related to life (its stages, ages, meanings, relatives, health, etc.)
“jVC”	words related to living beings
“dVC”	basic verbs: to be, to have, verbs of motion, etc.
“tVC”	adjectives related to a measure
“fVC”	verbs related to thinking
“vVC”	adjectives related to feelings
“gVC”	verbs related to social relations
“kVC”	adjectives related to social relations
“mVC”	verbs related to action, activities, etc.
“nVC”	manufactured objects and services
“sVC”	words related to science
“zVC”	the sciences

Example: In the word “paf” (beginning with a ‘p’), we immediately know that its meaning (= the source of a watercourse) is relative to our primary environment (i.e. existing before or independently of humanity).

Thus, words are no longer random assemblies of sounds (and therefore of letters): they are positioned in the branches of a tree of which we can create our own mental topological map.

4.2. Structured family of affiliated words

In addition to the general organization of the concepts in trees described in the previous paragraph, the Ubabebi vocabulary could not be easier to learn because the words are grouped in structured families of affiliated words. Below are some significant examples:

4.2.1. The significant example of numbers from 1 to 5

Ubabebi	Meaning
“ba”	1
“be”	2
“bi”	3
“bo”	4
“bu”	5

We therefore chose the general pattern “CV” as a basis. Then we chose ‘b’ as initial consonant to constitute the particular pattern “bV”. Finally, within this particular pattern, we have varied the variable vowel ‘V’ according to the well-known sequence {‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’}, knowing that in this particular case the sequence of vowels is used to signify steadily increasing intensity. This is a process that allows you to learn almost instantly how to count from one to five in Ubabebi, which no other living language provides since they all have five completely different words for {1, 2 ,3, 4, 5}, which you have to learn by heart. The origin of such a use of the vowel sequence is to be found in the constructed language named Lojban.

4.2.2. General process

The process described in the example just above applies to all Ubabebi words: no word is ever created alone; on the contrary, each word is grouped with other words with which it forms a conceptual family for which we will define a particular pattern with a variable vowel (or a consonant, or a combination of vowels + consonants); and it is mainly the variations in the value (which can mean intensity level, opposition tag, or both) of this variable vowel that will define the different meanings of the words of the family in relation to each other (in the previous case of the numbers from one to five, an increasing intensity). Below is a list giving other examples of vowel organizations providing other meaning effects for associated words:

4.2.3. The example of personal pronouns

Ubabebi	Meaning
“jx”	I
“ja”	you
“je”	he, she
“ji”	we
“jo”	you
“ju”	they

In this case, the variable vowel evolves in the double-sequence {{‘x’, ‘a’, ‘e’}, {‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’}}. Note: when you need to extend the basic vowel sequence, which has only five elements, you add the letter ‘x’ (the sound transcribed as ‘er’ [EN]) at the start to obtain a sequence of six letters; and likewise the letter ‘q’ (the sound transcribed as ‘ew’ [EN] or, more precisely, as ‘u’ [FR]) at the end to obtain seven, if necessary. In the table describing this example, we displace the Ubabebi words as indicated so as to separate the singular and plural pronouns and, for each of the two sub-sequences, to show increasing “intensity”: first person, second person, third person.

4.2.4. The example of adjectives associated with a spatial or temporal measurement

Ubabebi	Meaning
“tab”	tiny
“teb”	small
“tib”	of standard measurement
“tob”	large
“tub”	huge

In this case, the variable vowel evolves in a structured sequence graphically forming a V-shape to signify: 1) an opposition between opposite adjective pairs (and also a central or neutral adjective expressing average, standard, expected size/duration), and 2) the fact that there is also an effect of increasing intensity from small to tiny and from big to huge. This V-shape vowel pattern is systematically used for all adjectives associated with a measurement (and so, beginning with the ‘t’ letter).

4.2.5. The example of prepositions associated with a journey, a route or an itinerary

Ubabebi	Meaning
“za”	from, since (origin of a trip / beginning of a duration)
“ze”	before (place / time)
“zi”	by (step in a journey)
“zo”	after (place / time)
“zu”	for, to, at, in (target of a move / end of a duration)

In this case, the variable vowel evolves in a structured sequence graphically forming a W-shape to signify: 1) internal oppositions within the 2 word pairs: {“before”, “after”} and {“from, since” - the origin -, “for, to, etc.” - the destination - } (“by” being the central / neutral point), and 2) that these two pairs, although both relating to a journey in space (or time), are not in the same conceptual dimension: origin and destination are not conceptually related to anteriority and posterity, even if it is logical to associate them in the same family of prepositions associated with a journey.

4.2.6. The (complex...) example of tense endings in conjugation

Ubabebi	meaning
“...x”	Anterior Past
“...a”	Past
“...e”	Posterior Past
“...i”	Present
“...o”	Anterior Future
“...u”	Future
“...q”	Posterior Future

In this case, the variable vowel evolves in the structured sequence that includes the 7 possible vowels in a complex but very explicit diagram that provides a simple system of conjugation fully allowing the positioning of the tenses of the verbs of the subordinate clauses versus the tense of the verb of the main clause in the time arrow. This is one of the exceptional cases where the ‘u’ and ‘q’ letters are both used in the same time.

4.2.7. Other complex examples: colors and feelings

4.2.7.1. The colors

There is a structured family of words for color adjectives based on the pattern “tVkVbV” in which the 3 vowels represent the 3 intensities of the Red-Green-Blue color-channels with the following intensity levels: ‘a’ = 0; ‘e’ = 64; ‘i’ = 128; ‘o’ = 192; ‘u’ = 255. Examples: “takaba” = black; “tukaba” = red; “takuba” = green; “takabu” = blue; ...; “tikibi” = mid-grey; ...; “tukubu” = white. Remark: this range of color adjectives based on the pattern “tVkVbV” is very complete and precise (125 colors), but it produces trisyllabic words a little bit long to pronounce; so it has been defined 2 other patterns “tVk” and “tukV” for the basic colors which produce only the most common colors but with much more compact words (3 or 4 letters).

4.2.7.2. Feelings

Using Robert Plutchik’s wheel of feelings/emotions, a range of words on the “vVC” and “vVCVC” patterns was defined to capture feelings: in this complex case, there are 4 variable letters: 2 consonants and 2 vowels.

4.2.8. The case of nasalized vowels (‘aa’, ‘ee’, ‘oo’ and very rarely ‘uu’)

Generally nasalized vowels are not used to make or participate in structured vowel sequences as main values to express, for example, increasing intensity or opposition. Rather, their values are associated with the idea of lessening, approximating meaning, blurring, etc. of the vowel from which they derive.

4.2.8.1. Example relating to positional prepositions

Ubabebi	meaning
“sa”	under
“se”	out of
“si”	at
“so”	in
“su”	on
“saa”	between
“see”	at (home)
“soo”	among

The W-structured sequence of the 5 basic vowels allows us to organize the 5 prepositions {under, out of, at, in, on} in the same way as the prepositions associated with a journey in chapter 3.2.5. In addition, the preposition “in” (“so” in Ubabebi) is extended to the neighboring meaning prepositions “between”, “at (home)”, and “among” thanks to the 3 nasalized vowels.

4.2.8.2. Other examples of meaning blurring

Ubabebi	Meaning
“paf”	spring
“paaf”	resurgence (because it is not a true spring…)
“pav”	island
“paav”	peninsula (because it is almost an island)
“pes”	mountain
“pees”	volcano (because it is not a true mountain)
“dab”	to be + attribute of the subject (AOS)
“daab”	to appear, to seem + AOS (weaker in meaning than “to be” + AOS)
“deb”	to be an instance of an entity (object, living thing, profession, etc.)
“deeb”	to look like (weaker in meaning than “to be an instance of an entity”)
“dob”	to be identical to
“doob”	to behave like (weaker in meaning than “to be identical to”)

4.2.9. The value of the letter ‘x’ (the sound transcribed by ‘er’ in [EN])

In the process of creating words from a particular pattern with a variable vowel, the letter 'x' (the English ‘er’ sound) will generally play the following roles (they are rather related to each other):

- Expression of nullity, emptiness. Example: the number '0' is translated as “bx” in Ubabebi (whereas {“ba”, “be”, “bi”, “bo”, “bu”} represent the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). This could also be seen as a 6-item structure linked to an increasing sequence because ‘x’ precedes ‘a’ when a sequence of 6 vowels is needed (before the 1, there is the 0).

- Expression of imprecision, as in the following example relating to the different meanings of the verb “to be”:

“dxb_”	be (in general, imprecisely)
“dab_”	to be + subject attribute	I am happy.
“deb_”	be an instance of a type	I am a doctor.
“dib_”	be identified by	I am Maurice.
“dob_”	be identical to	Marc, I am your father.
“dub_”	be equal to	It's him!
“dqb_”	to be situated	It is there.

Remark: The imprecise verb “dxb” thus allows to speak with a lower level of language than with its other more precise versions. The latter are anyway necessary because they allow to obtain by word derivation (see after) other indispensable words like: quality, qualification, identity, identification, equality, localization, resemblance, behavior, etc.

- Express that a word is the generic notion of other words belonging to this same family, other words which are therefore particular instances of this generic notion. Example relating to the cardinal points:

“pxp”	direction
“pap”	the East
“pep”	the North
“pop”	the South
“pup”	the West

In this example {East, North, South, and West} are indeed particular instances of the generic notion of direction. Mnemonic trick: The sun starts by rising in the East (=> ‘a’) and ends by setting in the West (=> ‘u’), which is its opposite; there are more stars visible in the night sky of the Southern hemisphere (=> ‘o’) than in the Northern hemisphere (=> ‘e’), which is its opposite.

Note: This family of words does not really comply with the standard requirements for combining words in the same family. Indeed {East, North, South and West} are proper nouns while direction is a common noun. This mixing of word types within the same family should normally be avoided, but is acceptable in the particular case of cardinal points.

4.2.10. The value of the letter ‘q’ (the sound transcribed by ‘ew’ in [EN])

When the letter ‘q’ is not used within a vowel sequence of 6 or 7 vowels, it almost exclusively expresses precision, paroxysm, maximization (the opposite of the letter ‘x’ with which it is often opposed).

Examples:

- “pqp” means horizon in the family of words relating to cardinal directions. Mnemonic trick: Looking, in the distance, in one direction, one sees the horizon.

- “jq” is the demonstrative pronoun this, these (precise indication), while {“jx”, ..., “ju”} are the 6 personal pronouns.

- “rq” is the Ubabebi interrogative pseudo-pronoun used in questions implying a (precise) answer by “yes” or by “no”.

4.2.11. Conclusion about structured families of affiliated words

The presentation of the Ubabebi words with shifts in the first column as described in the previous tables-examples bears witness to the fact that this process of constructing the vocabulary makes it possible to constitute “topological mental images” of the organization of the words within the same structured family (increasing intensity, opposition, etc. according to the values assigned to the vowels).

It is these topological mental images that greatly facilitate the learning of Ubabebi vocabulary. Typically the construction of certain words is so “mechanical” that it is possible to find them by ourselves (by construction) even if we have never learned/encountered them before.

In summary, the pattern trees make it possible to structure the vocabulary by conceptual themes step by step (that is to say, with a more and more precision as one follows a ramification of one of the primary branches of the tree). It is on these branches that the structured families of affiliated words are positioned, making the whole system very easy to learn.

5. A lexicon that expands by means of regular word derivations

In the previous chapter on pattern trees and structured families of related words we saw how new words can be created ex-nihilo from patterns in which a vowel is generally varying. Nevertheless, not all words are created in this way (ex-nihilo) because a very large part of words derive mechanically from other words (example: the verb “to walk” gives the nouns: a “walker” - the “subject-noun” of the verb “to walk” -, and a “walk” - the object-noun of the verb “to walk” -): these words are created by word derivation, from the class of the root-word (here a verb) to other classes of derived words (here nouns).

While in many languages the derivation is not regular (for example, in English, “solemnity” (noun) = “solemn” (adjective) + “…ity” (suffix) while (“brightness” (noun) = “bright” (adjective) + “…ness” (suffix)), in Ubabebi, the derivation of a class of words from another class of words is unique, as shown in the following examples of derivations:

source	target	operation	suffix	example
adjective	verb	(...C) >> operating on oneself	“el_”	big >> grow up
adjective	verb	(...V) >> operating on oneself	“l_”	big >> grow up
adjective	verb	(...C) >> not operating on itself	“er_”	large >> enlarge
adjective	verb	(...V) >> not operating on itself	“r_”	large >> enlarge
adjective	noun	(...C) >> concept - be -	“uu”	white >> white color.
adjective	noun	(...V) >> concept - to be -	“wuu”	white >> white color.
adjective	noun	(...V) >> action - becoming -	“luu”	white >> bleaching
adjective	noun	(...V) >> action - make -	“ruu”	white >> bleaching
adjective	noun	(...C) >> subject	“a”	child >> a child
adjective	noun	(...V) >> subject	“wa”	child >> a child
adjective	noun	(...C) >> circumstantial	“o”	royal >> kingdom
adjective	noun	(...V) >> circumstantial	“wo”	royal >> kingdom
adjective	adverb	(...C) >> adverb	“oo”	slow >> slowly
adjective	adverb	(...V) >> adverb	“woo”	slow >> slowly
verb	adjective	present participle	“oo”	lean >> leaning
verb	adjective	past participle	“aa”	lean >> leaning
verb	adjective	...able, ...ible (capacity)	“aafipoo”	break >> breakable
verb	adjective	...able, ...ible (opportunity)	“aafapoo”	try >> tempting
verb	adjective	...able, ...ible (necessity)	“aafepoo”
verb	noun	most common concept	“uu”	walking >> walking
verb	noun	subject	“wa”	donate >> donor
verb	noun	object	“we”	give >> donation
verb	noun	target	“wi”	donate >> recipient
verb	noun	circumstance	“wo”
verb	noun	general concept	“wu”	give >> donation

Remark 1: Verbs in Ubabebi always end with a consonant (in order to be able to directly add the vowels of the conjugation moods or tenses afterwards).

Remark 2: The suffixes used to transform verbs into declined-by-case nouns (subject, object, target, etc.) start with a ‘w’ which is not a vowel, whereas a vowel should be expected after the last letter of the verbal stem that is a consonant as explained in Remark 1 above. To avoid the consonant cluster (“...VC” + “wV” = “...VCwV”), the last vowel of the verbal stem is inserted-by-repeating between the latter and the suffix. Example: The verb “to give” (which is translated as “gef_”) provides the subject-noun “donor” (which is translated as: “gef” + ‘e’ + “wa” = “gefewa”). The same inserting-by-repeating process is also used when 2 words (the first one ending in a consonant and the second one beginning with a consonant) are concatenated together to provide a new concatenated word as explained in chapter 7.

6. Conjugation

In Ubabebi, there are no particular endings relating to the person (= I, you, he/she, we, you, they): in other words, the ending of the conjugations is the same for a given mood/time/aspect regardless of the subject of the verb (while an ending ‘s’ is added to the English verbs at the 3^rd singular person).

6.1. 4 moods

Ubabebi has 4 moods of conjugation:

6.1.1. The Effective mood

The Effective mood of Ubabebi, equivalent to the Indicative mood in other languages, is used for any veritable action (or state) considered as effective, even if, chronologically, this action (or state) has not necessarily taken effect (or been performed) at the time of reference (determined, for example, by the tense of the main clause): what is significant is that the effective character of the action (or state) is not a construction of the mind.

Example: In the sentence: “I arrived before he left”, the verb “to leave” is conjugated in the Effective mood in Ubabebi (whereas it is conjugated in the Subjunctive in French) because, at no time, the action of “to leave” is a thought. On the contrary, the action of “leaving” (in the subordinate clause) has actually taken place, even if it was not yet the case at the time of the action of “arriving” (in the main clause).

6.1.2. Ineffective mood

The Ineffective mood of Ubabebi, equivalent to certain uses of the subjunctive mood in other languages, is used for any hypothetical action (or state) that can be considered a construction of the mind.

Example: In the sentences: “I think he is stupid.” and “I don't think he is stupid.”, the verb “to be” in the subordinate clause is conjugated in the Ineffective mood in Ubabebi because thinking that a person is stupid or not does not make this person actually or effectively stupid: it is a supposition of the speaker, a construction of his/her mind.

Warning: The Ineffective mood is not used to express a condition (although the expression of a condition is indeed a construction of the mind): instead we use the specialized mood to express conditions: the Conditioning mood described below.

6.1.3. The 2 Conditioning and Conditioned moods

These two moods are used in concert within sentences of the type “if..., (then)...”: The Conditional is used in the preposition introduced by “if”; the Conditioned is used in the preposition introduced (optionally) by “then”.

The Conditioned mood is also used where the condition is not even explicitly expressed, as in the sentence: “I would like him to leave.” Indeed, in this case, we could contextualize the sentence by saying: “If I let myself think, then I would like him to leave.”

6.1.4. Endings of the 4 moods

Mood	Ending
Effective	..._ (no ending)
Ineffective	...iy_
Conditioning	...ey_
Conditioned	...oy_

6.2. The 7 tenses of conjugation

Ubabebi has 7 tenses whose endings have been presented in chapter 6.2.4. The main tenses are the Past, the Present and the Future. To each of these 3 main tenses used in the main clause, we can associate, in the subordinate clause, an anterior tense, a synchronous tense, and a posterior tense.

The Anterior Past

The Past The Past (synchronous)

The Posterior Past

The Past

The Present The Present (synchronous)

The Future

The Anterior Future

The Future The Future (synchronous)

The Posterior Future

Example:

English :	“I arrived before he left.”
Ubabebi:	“Jx duza zekx je daze.”

Analysis of the previous example: Let’s locate these two actions on the arrow of time: the action of departing in the subordinate clause is well after the action of arriving in the main clause. The main verb “to arrive” is in the Past tense (because it is in the past of the speaker) and the subordinate verb “to leave” is in the Posterior Past tense (because it is later than an action in the past).

Some examples of time and mood combinations:

English	Ubabebi
“He arrived before I left.”	“Jx duza zekx jx daze.”
“He arrived after I left.”	“Jx duza zokx jx dazx.”
“It will arrive before I leave.”	“Jx duzu zekx jx dazq.”
“It will arrive after I leave.”	“Jx duzu zokx jx dazo.”
“He eats before I get home.”	“Jx cudi zekx jx seeduzu.”
“He eats after I get home.”	“Jx cudi zokx jx seeduza.”
“I think he is in love.”	“Jx fabi kx je dabiyi vibic.”
“I don't think he is in love.”	“Jx fabi kx je cx dabiyi vibic.”
“If my house was bigger, ...	“Vx mx naki dabeyi fu toc, ...”
... then I would be more cheerful.”	... vq jx daboyi fu fib.”

6.3. 2 Aspects: the Context and the Story

The Ubabebi has 2 Aspects that signify the way the verb expresses the action or the state.

6.3.1. The Context Aspect

The Context Aspect indicates that the action (or state) indicated by the verb is part of a certain duration (or repetition) which represents: 1) either a continuous or repetitive generality, or 2) the context in which another action occurs.

The ending of the Context Aspect is a terminal suffix “...hx” (pronunciation in [EN]: “her”) which is added after the mood and tense endings.

Example:

English :	“I was walking down the street when it started to rain.”
Ubabebi:	“Jx cifahx su la nevee tikx joo mqpa pijinnee.”

6.3.2. The Story Aspect

The Story Aspect indicates that the action (or state) indicated by the verb corresponds to a narration, a story. The use of the Story Aspect is useful to underline a psychological distance or detachment between the evoked action (or state) and the narrator: “What is said is just a story”. In English, if we consider the two sentences: 1) “He has left yesterday.”, and 2) “He took his jacket and he left.”, in the first one, the speaker testifies that the action of leaving did take place, while in the second sentence, actions are evoked as belonging to a story that is only told by the speaker.

The ending of the Story Aspect is a terminal suffix “...hq” (pronunciation in EN: “hew”) which is added after the mode and tense endings.

Example:

English :	“He came in the morning after it had finished raining.”
Ubabebi:	“Je dezahq so la pere zokx joo mapxhq pijinnee.”

6.4. Verbal forms without subject: Present Participle (non-adjective) and Infinitive

Nature	Ending
[present participle]	“...innoo”
having + [past participle]	“...annoo”
having had/being + [past participle]	“...xnnnoo”
[infinitive]	“...innee”
have + [past participle]	“...year”
to have had/been + [past participle]	“...xnnee”

7. Words obtained by concatenation of existing words

Some words are obtained by concatenation of existing words. Example: the conjunction “when” is translated as “tikx” which is the concatenation of “ti” (which is the preposition “at”) and “kx” (which is the subordinating conjunction “that”).

It is possible to shorten the strings of the source words before concatenating them in order to obtain a more compact result (if one can accept some loss of meaning).

To avoid the formation of a consonant cluster when concatenating two words (the first of which ends in a consonant and the second one begins with a consonant too – which is the case of all the common nouns –), it is possible to insert-by-repetition the last vowel of the first word to have the internal sequence “...VC” + ‘V’ + “C...” = “...VCVC...”.

8. A few grammar points

8.1. No grammatical gender

The articles express: 1) the type of identification (indefinite, definite, demonstrative), and 2) the number (singular or plural), but 3) not the gender. This is also the case for personal pronouns which are not gendered.

In general, common nouns are not gendered, except for word families for which it is essential. For instance: the names of relatives (mother, father, sister, brother, etc.), the names of domestic animals (chicken, rooster, etc.), the pets, etc.

The adjectives “ceet” (= female) and “coot” (= male) are used to specify the gender when it is really necessary.

Examples:

a female teacher >> “lx ceet moodoowa”

he >> “cootooje” (because it is important to say that he is a man)

she >> “ceeteeje” (because it is important to say that she is a woman)

8.2. No over-determining of the number & person for verbs, adjectives and nouns

As previously explained, the conjugation ending for a given {mood + tense + aspect} is unique whatever the number and person of the subject of the verb.

The article already expresses the number (singular or plural): therefore there is no ending at the end of nouns corresponding to the number (like the ‘s’ that ends nouns at plural in English).

8.3. No declension, except for stylistic effects, word construction and derivations

Ubabebi is a SVO language, which means that the default order of grammatical functions is: Subject – Verb – Object – Target – Circumstances. However, this order can be changed to create stylistic effects: that is, to place the grammatical function (subject, object, and target) that you want to emphasize at the beginning of the sentence. In this case, it is sometimes necessary to decline articles or personal pronouns to ensure the correct understanding of the sentence. The following table gives the declensions in Ubabebi:

Subject (...V)	“...ha”
Subject (...C)	“...a”
Object (...V)	“...he”
Object (...C)	“...e”
Target (...V)	“...hi”
Target (...C)	“...i”
Circumstance (...V)	“...ho”
Circumstance (...C)	“...o”
Hierarchy (...V)	“...hu”
Hierarchy (...C)	“...u”

Example:

English :	“You’re the one I’m giving it to.”
Ubabebi:	“Jahi jx gofi je.”

Note: The declension of Ubabebi also appears logically in the construction of relative and interrogative pronouns, in the derivation of verbs into declensional nouns (“to give” => “donor”, “gift”, “beneficiary”), etc.

8.4. Nominal group, Verbal group

The default orders are: {Article – Adjective – Noun} and {Adverb – Verb} (as it is the case of English).

8.5. Proper nouns, Common nouns

Words that are not proper nouns begin with a consonant; proper nouns therefore begin with a vowel according to the following table:

“A...”	Toponyms and chrononyms
“E...”	Objects of the primary environment
“I...”	Persons (or assimilated)
“O...”	Manufactured objects and services
“U...”	The concepts

Example: the proper name “Ubabebi” is a concept, so it starts with ‘U’. Note: “babebi” means 123; it has been chosen to mean that learning this language is as simple as counting: 1, 2, 3.

9. Ubabebi, a computerized language

9.1. First step

At the beginning of 2021, a first version of the Ubabebi language management software was produced. It is a single-user Microsoft Windows Form application that stores all the information entered by its unique user in the form of a serialized data set (an XML file) that is saved locally on the hard disk of the user's computer.

This Windows application can be download here.

This first version is already quite complete in the sense that:

- It allows to define the letters.

- It allows you to define derivations from one type of word to another.

- It allows the building of Patterns (“CV”, “CVC”, “CVCV”, etc.).

- It allows the building of Words (from pattern, derived, or concatenated).

- It allows translation of texts (to constitute the corpus).

- It provides certain maintenance functions (counting, checking, fixing, etc.).

- Note: this first version is already multi-language, but with only 2 defined languages (French and English), but only French vocabulary has been entered.

Important note: when a change is made to an existing word, to an existing pattern, or to the suffix of an existing derivation, there is a propagation of this modification throughout the whole recorded corpus (only three sentences for the time being…).

At the end of this first stage, only 1866 “basic concepts” have been entered into the application. These basic concepts are derived 1199 times, which gives only 3065 defined words for Ubabebi. Note that the input verbs have not been conjugated to avoid artificial inflation of the number of words. Despite this figure of 1866, which may seem significant (indeed the first 1000 most-used words already make possible the most basic conversations of everyday life), the vocabulary created at the end of this first stage is too incomplete to support a real conversation (or translate Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince).

Only the first 3 sentences of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince were translated (to validate the effective propagation of the modifications in the recorded corpus).

9.2. Next step in the project?

A website should be developed with at least the functionality of the existing Windows application: this would allow several people to work in parallel, in real time, and in a collaborative way to continue to work on the construction of Ubabebi.

Considering the important financial investment related to this new computer development and its maintenance for the future, it would be necessary for a small community of people highly motivated by the construction of this language to gather within a non-profit association (the Association for the Development of Ubabebi) so that the latter takes in charge all the production and maintenance costs of this new collaborative online service.

A contact form is available here in order to indicate your interest in participating in this project by joining this future association.

10. Open questions

10.1. Validation of the founding concept?

Is the structuring of the Ubabebi vocabulary (in trees of patterns associated with particular conceptual spheres and in structured Families of affiliated words) likely to be mentally integrated by potential speakers, or is it a decoy?

If so, would it actually allow Ubabebi to be very easy to learn compared to English or not?

Linguistic specialists should provide answers to these questions.

10.2. What about noisy environments?

Every given advantage is often associated to an induced disadvantage: the Ubabebi is unfortunately not an exception to this rule.

Indeed, Ubabebi is very easy to learn because the words of its vocabulary have been gathered into structured families of associated words. As a consequence, the pronunciations of the words gathered in such families are quite close to each other. But these families very often contain pairs of words that have been put together because of their opposite meaning. Thus 2 words with opposite meanings will have a very close pronunciation, generally only differentiated by one of their vowels (e.g. an ‘a’ versus a ‘u’, or an ‘e’ versus an ‘o’) as explained in several examples given above.

In a noisy environment, it will be much more difficult to distinguish these paired words (such as, for example, the Ubabebi words “tec” and “toc”) than to distinguish their English counterparts (respectively small and tall) which are totally different.

Does this hearing problem represent a dead-end or not?

10.3. Letters too difficult to perceive or pronounce for some cultures?

For some cultures, it might be very difficult to pronounce nasalized vowels? Or to make a clear oral distinction between the 2 members of the 7 pairs of paired consonants (e.g. between ‘p’ and ‘b’, etc.)?

Perhaps it would be better to remove some difficult letters to ensure an easier approach for all cultures?

10.4. Voluntary initial language rules that are not always respected

As mentioned with the example of cardinal directions N-S-E-W in chapter 4.2.9., the initial rules for structuring the Ubabebi vocabulary are not always respected: in this example, a mixture of proper nouns with their generic common noun. Another exception to the initial rules is the joint use of the letters ‘u’ and ‘q’ in the conjugation tense endings (respectively for the Future and Posterior Future tenses).

Are these rule-breakers problems or not?

10.5. The tendency to overload the structured family with associated words

In the process of creating words, there is sometimes a tendency to put too many words in the same family, making the final result unclear, not to say ostensibly bad.

An example among many others, the family gathering the verbs associated with the verb “to be”: isn't it too full?

10.6. The book storage syndrome in a library

Starting with an empty bookcase, it's fairly easy to organize the first few books (depending on your idea of good organization of books in a library). Indeed, there is plenty of room to do so. But, little by little, the remaining spaces on the library shelves get smaller and smaller and it becomes harder and harder to find a place to add a book to its logical place. Sometimes, even worse, a single book to be added can invalidate the previous organization of many-many books already positioned, triggering a huge reorganization of books (with, for example, the moving of many of them from one shelf to another)!

An equivalent phenomenon has been observed when creating Ubabebi words: a task that is easy to start, but obviously very difficult to finish...

10.7. The good human organization?

Aiming for about 32,000 words as the first level of Ubabebi development, how long would it take to reach such a stage of construction?

From experience with the first few thousand words created, it appears that there is an average of 3-4 words per structured family of affiliated words, which leads to the number of 8000 word families. If we assume that it takes one hour to produce a word family, the duration of the word creation task would be 8000 hours. Taking a month of 20 working days of 8 hours of work, we get 50 man-months, which is about 4 man-years of work.

How do you organize such a long task?

· Only rely on a very small number of people who would have their proper genius to accomplish such a task of vocabulary creation (the history of constructed languages has shown that such geniuses have existed...)?

· Or succeed in organizing the collaborative work of only highly motivated people?

10.8. What would be the purpose of the Ubabebi language?

The objective of the Ubabebi language is to replace the English language as the common language on Earth. Indeed, Ubabebi is a language much easier to learn and to speak than English: its learning time could perhaps be 10-20 times shorter?

But, apart from the Esperanto (which is a success limited to a few million speakers), all attempts at constructed languages have been failures in terms of numbers of speakers. What could be the force, the necessity that would push people to use the Ubabebi? It is hard to imagine given the survival issues that the vast majority of people are confronted with... So why devote so much effort to the construction of something that is not sure to be useful for the people, like the construction of the Pyramids, the Palace of Versailles, the National Palace of Mafra, etc.?

Somewhat artificially, one could argue that, as a computerized language, Ubabebi is a true living language since its stored corpus (= its texts recorded in its database) will automatically evolve according to changes in the language in the future (e.g., in France, it is almost impossible to read a French text that is only 450 years old, such as those by Rabelais). Considering the enormous duration of radioactivity and the chemical nuisance of nuclear and industrial waste, it might be useful to document in Ubabebi their storage for the next generations?