Ascotian

Ascotian is an unofficial semi-conlang used by some citizens of Random Kingdom.

Purpose and History

Ascotian is an unofficial constructed (some however debate that it is only a heavily modified variant of English, and would be correct) language created as a byproduct of the Ascot Exodus of Random Kingdom. (The Ascot Exodus was, an Underground Railroad-style operation that smuggled RK citizens out of RK, past the closed borders and into Neo Random Kingdom, in order to found a new nation free of the oppression of the new government installed after the loss of the Farmina War). It was originally used by officials of the AE as an elaborate form of code to prevent the Secret Services from working out the drop-off points and other confidential information.

It is incomplete as it was made up on-demand (if a word became needed it was made up and the Ascotian translation was distributed to the officials) but amateurs in Neo RK are constantly extending it, however, the many different extension projects and lack of collaboration mean that Ascotian is branching into many different sublanguages. (for example, one branch lists cat as being "crat", another "gat", another "phelyne") The language is still in its infancy and borrows many aspects from English, however some branches of Ascotian seek to remove the dependancies and make Ascotian a true language.

The Main 3 Forks

Official Ascotian

This is Ascotian as it was used during the Ascotian Exodus. Due to the on-demand process of adding words (if words had to be used before an Ascotian version can be created the English was usually used with a mark, usually an arc over the word, added to denote its incomplete status), it is the least complete. This is why amateur projects attempt to extend the language.

Improvised Extended Ascotian

Improvised Extended Ascotian, or IEA as it is commonly abbreviated, is the most comprehensive of the three forks, and is the one most commonly used by amateurs or hobbyists. It usually gets its words from debased European words.

Random Kingdom Amateur Ascotian

RKAA is used by the majority of the minority of Ascotian speakers in Random Kingdom. It attempts to steer Ascotian away from other languages and truly make it a real aesthetic constructed language.

Structure

Due to its hurried creation and need for an easily understandable (but reasonably undecipherable to untrained personnel) Ascotian is largely based off standard English, retaining most of the Roman alphabet, phonemes, sounds and diacritical grammar. However, it has the following differences (other than verbs, nouns and adjectives):

• There is no Ws, Qs or Xs in any word except in untranslated or proper nouns (eg Richard Wagner).
• Inverted question and exclamation marks like those used in Spanish are used at the beginning of sentences featuring regular question and exclamation marks.
• Untranslated common nouns have been phoneticized and simplified as much as possible (e.g. toast becomes toest, manual becomes manewal) to make Ascotian easier to pick up to literacy-impaired users.
• A Latin-esque endings system has been introduced to verbs.

Nouns

Most nouns in Ascotian are either unique to the language (ie avarge = airport), debased or mispelt English words (airplane = areplen), or imported (usually debased) nouns from other European languages (for example dog = cyen (from the French chien).

Below is a table of examples of nouns in both English and three variants of extended Ascotian (Official Ascotian, Improvised Extended Ascotian (IEA) and Random Kingdom Amateur Ascotian (RKAA):

(NA = not added)

The, an etc. are the same as in English.

Verbs

The nouns in Ascotian aren't very confusing to non-speakers, but the verbs make up for the deficiency. All verbs in Ascotian follow a Latin-style endings system, however, there is only one ending: OR.

For example: beior = to be

There are, however, no irregular verbs. Every verb application consists of the infinitive and the tacked-on ending. (Beia = she is)

The endings are:

Most verbs are the same as in English (some, like Beior, are slightly modified to agree with the -or ending) with the following exceptions (note: not all of the exceptions are listed below):

• To make/do is faror (from the French faire)
• To eat is comor (from the Spanish comer)
• To finish is finador
• To return is volor (from volver)
• To win is victor (not to be confused with the noun victor, which is translated to victire in Official Ascotian)
• To see is visor (not to be confused with the noun visor, which in Official Ascotian is visier)

Connectives etc.

And > a Or > o But > mes If > sif Then > tha

Tenses

The perfect tense is created by adding the auxiliary verb "compractor" which literally means, "to no longer have" (It can only be used to create the past tense), and the infinitive of the verb. I.e. I compractos finador is "I no longer have to finish" which is roughly translated into "I have finished"

The imperfect tense has not been fully implemented in Ascotian, ritual events that started in the past are shown by saying "I/you/he/she/it/we/they started to... in xyz.. and still do." (SUBJECT compractENDING startor to INFINITIVE in TIME a do mantena)

The future tense is created in the same way as the perfect but using the auxiliary "futor" which literally means "to have (in the future) (still not usable outside of the tense) i.e. You futas volor to the cassa = You have (in the future) to return to the house

Subjects, numbers, date and time, direction (and other minor aspects)...

... are the same as in English. With the exception of:

• O'clock, which is inhorre.
• Half, which is semi.
• Quarter (past/to) = quart (pote/ante)

Putting it all together (An example)

In Ascotian

I beios a gran-ascor, a futos gavror you from the avarge at six inhorre.

In English

I am a major official, and (I) have to collect you from the airport at 6 o'clock. (Note: this was an actual note sent from one of the officials in charge of the Ascot Exodus to one of the others, which was on a mission, namely the first ever Ascot Exodus in 2037.)

Ascotian Naming

Mostly unrelated to the main Ascotian Language is Ascotian Naming, which is commonly used as a bank of names for children. This system was created before the language, but as some verbs and other nouns have been based off the names, the bank was named Ascotian after the language.

A notable name are "acoran" (Ascot's real first name), from which the adjective "acorat" (brave) and the verb "acorom" (brave-man) (and the female version, acoress, not to be confused with actress) were born.