Sal!
Anyone else here heard of Slovio? I'm sure there's a preexisting thread, but I can't be stuffed looking for it. I could see this taking off, but (quite unhelpful to the cause of Slovio) there is nearly no sites from where on can hear about this language - apart from the creator's own site, which looks cluttered, rushed and makes Lernu! look like a permium service (not that it already doesn't).

And any testimonials existing about Slovio seem to be on the creator's website which seems a bit biased (mind you, other conlangs are the same, who's gonna publicise their criticisms?)

So what's the general consensus on Slovio?

The site is http://slovio.com/

A similar question exists in the other forums, but I can't use Esperanto well enough to read it all.

EDIT: Also feel free to talk about similar projects...

http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovio

This is the Esperanto wikipedia entry for those who love to 'wiki' it (English article got deleted).

At first glance, it looks interesting. It reminds me of other IALs that try to narrow the source of vocabulary to one major language group (Slavic, in this case), with the corresponding strengths and weaknesses. In the West there's Latina sine flexione and Interlingua for the romance languages.

The webpage on Slovio itself looks like a good advertisement with testimonies from satisfied customers. On the right hand side of the screen are clickable buttons with amounts of money on - I do not know whether this is soliciting funds.

But something is not right. I didn't find anything on its history and the qualifications of the author. The wiki article was deleted. Here's a link to a debate in wiki that preceded its deletion. Among the allegations are that the websites connected with Slovio all seem to be the work of one person.

Moreover this could not be 'Esperanto as it might have been'. Zamenhof designed his language in a a context of conflict between Germans as well as Poles, Russians and Jews in his home town. Therefore a language deliberately restricted to one major language group like Slovio could not be international in the way that Esperanto is.

Mmm, quite true Miland. What gets me is the 'testimonies' and the fact that he is asking for funds (Darij sounds like 'give'). It seems like the poor guy just doesn't know what he's doing. And true, the qualifications are vague, and just about anyone can be called a linguist, so maybe he should just stop referring to himself like that. And yes, most of the websites are his own websites, Panslavic is one I think, but they seem to represent different versions of the Slovio site.

And only the English Wikipedia article was deleted. German, Czech, Swedish, Finnish, and just about all relevent Slavic languages have a page. It seems as if some of these are bot entries to me (Mark Hucko is spelt 'Hutsko' on the Macedonian Wikipedia, maybe the 'C' is meant to be like in Esperanto?), but some are definately legit articles, unless Mark Hucko speaks fluent Dutch, Russian, and Polish, which means he IS a linguist.

Some info about his qualifications:
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Mark:Hucko.htm
http://www.slovio.com/immortology/*

*note this is the same sight as before...

It's hard to place this guy on a scale of profession, but then again, the same speculation would've arisen if Zamenhoff posted Esperanto on the net (but he didn't for certain reasons - like it not existing).

The fact that it works though is a good sign and should blow his professional life into significance, but unfortunately English and Esperanto together seem to be way too popular for anyone to notice. Example:
http://my.opera.com/Munus/blog/show.dml/440586

The Polish blogger believes that it works. However from this it is also clear that a Pole and Serbian can communicate sans an aux lang. So maybe all we need is better resources for learning Slavic languages, rather than an auxlang for Slavic languages especially when English or their own languages are just as good.

Just thought I'd chuck all that stuff out there

EDIT: Interlingua and Co. are all based on Romance languages which are alright for Anglichanins like us but for the other half of Europe and Central Asia they are not as useful.

The 'immortology' website, not to mention his 'cosmology' makes him sound like a complete crackpot to me. I think this would certainly incline me towards giving 'Slovio' a wide berth if I weren't already so inclined.

Miland:The 'immortology' website, not to mention his 'cosmology' makes him sound like a complete crackpot to me. I think this would certainly incline me towards giving 'Slovio' a wide berth if I weren't already so inclined.

Ha ha ha tre prava
There seems to be more recent 'Slavic Auxlangs' cropping up too, debatably more understandable, only they don't have 20 sites all owned by the same guy promoting their cause(s). On that note, they also AREN'T into crazy ideas which detract from the language.

A while back, I did some searching related to Slovio. The testimonials on the websites seemed too good to be true. For what it's worth, if Slovio was really effective, I would consider learning it, as it could be a stepping stone to understanding Slavic languages.

So the focus of my search was people who had learned Slovio, and whether they'd actually been able to use it as advertised. I found very few hits, very few accounts of people who even claimed to have tried to learn and use the language. In general, the results were not too positive. It seemed like it did help some with comprehension of Slavic languages. There was one guy who had learned some, and he said that he tried it out in .... Serbia? I don't remember. A Balkan country though, I think. Anyway, he tried speaking it, and people just shrugged and said they didn't understand. He said that it may have been better if he had been able to tell them something like, "What I am going to speak is not Serbian [or whatever], but if you listen carefully and think creatively, you will be able to understand what I say".

So the main problem was not that speakers of Slavic languages wouldn't be able to figure it out. It was more like, you hear, and you don't really understand, and you can't be bothered to think hard and try to understand. Perhaps like a Spanish speaker communicating with an Italian speaker. They can probably communicate if both of them try hard and think creatively, but if one of them is apathetic and doesn't really care, that person can just shrug and say "I don't understand" and walk away. It takes effort.

So from the one user's account at least, Slovio is a far cry from "I travelled to every Slavic country and they all understood me perfectly", which is the idea you get from Slovio's official website.

Although this is getting off the subject of the thread, I stumbled across a web site describing a recently constructed IAL called Lingua Franca Nova at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Franca_Nova. Just out of curiosity, what do you think of this one? It looks like an attractive language.

The world doesn't need another Romance-based AIL. They already have Ido and Interlingua.

What may be more interesting for us Germanic speakers, is Folkspraak. It's easy to understand if you speak one or two Germanic languages, I think. It's not replacing Esperanto, and since most Germanic speakers already speak English very well it's not gonna help here either, but nevertheless interesting to read.

Rogir:What may be more interesting for us Germanic speakers, is Folkspraak..

Thanks, I was looking for this one - an AIL based on the Germanic group, but I had forgotten its name.

More impressive than Slovio, in that it is the product of a community, and nor a cranky invention. So while this AIL project appears to be 'work in progress' it may become the sort of thing that Slovio might have been!

But I have a question: would the boast of Slovio regarding the Slavic world would be true of Folkspraak - would a speaker of it be readily understood by speaker of the Germanic languages other than English - say throughout Germany and Northern Europe?