Lingua Franca Nova (pronounced [ˈliŋgwa ˈfraŋka ˈnova]), abbreviated as LFN and known colloquially as Elefen,[3] is a constructed international auxiliary language originally created by C. George Boeree of Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania,[4] and further developed by many of its users.

As most creole languages, Lingua Franca Nova has an extremely simplified grammatical system that is easy to learn.

[21] On May 15, 2020 on the Web and on May 10, 2021 in printed form[22] the first original literary novel written in Lingua Franca Nova was published: La xerca per Pahoa,[23] by Vicente Costalago.

LFN vowels (a, e, i, o and u) are pronounced as they are in Spanish or Italian[dubious – discuss] (approximately as in bar, bait or bet, beet, boat or ball, and boot).

The letters a, e, and o may vary in pronunciation with possible allophones being [ɑ], [ɛ] or [eɪ], and [ɔ] or [oʊ]/[əʊ] respectively.

The lexicon of Lingua Franca Nova is primarily founded on Italo-Western languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan.

[25] Lingua Franca Nova does not derive the word form in a strictly logical way, but lexicon creators also consider sound beauty and other subjective factors.

For example: But when the Latin form does not agree to the phonotactic rules of Lingua Franca Nova, its spelling is adapted (similarly to modern languages, especially Italian): The lexicon of Lingua Franca Nova can accept foreign words being internationally important (for example names of modern nations, main languages, seas and other international geographic entities, important entities from various world cultures).

A lot of exceptions are possible, especially when the pronunciation is uncertain; in such a case, orthography is preferably followed (for example, word "English" is transcribed as engles and not *inglix to retain a more recognizable form).

Nouns are usually preceded by articles (la or un) or other determiners such as esta (this, these), acel (that, those), alga (some), cada (every, each), multe (many, much), and poca (few, little).

The indefinite pronoun on is used when the referent is an unspecified person, or concerns people in general, similar to the generic you in English.

Other tenses and moods are indicated by preceding particles: Adverbs such as ja (already) and auxiliary verbs such as comensa (begin to) are used to add precision.

For example: Other prefixes include pos- (post-), pre- (pre-), supra- (super-), su- (sub-), media- (mid-), vis- (vice-), inter- (inter-), and auto- (auto-, self-) Compounds of verbs plus objects create nouns: Two nouns are rarely joined (as they often are in English), but are linked with de or other prepositions instead: A rich literature in Lingua Franca Nova with both original and translated texts exists.

The first original literary novel written in Lingua Franca Nova was La xerca per Pahoa,[23] by Vicente Costalago, published on May 15, 2020 on the Web and on May 10, 2021 in printed form.

[30] The flag is made up of five color strips (blue, green, yellow, orange and red) starting from the bottom-left angle and extending to top and right borders.

It is similar to the flag of Seychelles, a country that has adopted Seychellois Creole as its official language, but uses the colors of a rainbow symbolizing peace.

In the past other flags existed: the first one, originally designed by Boeree and jokingly called "europijon" from the word pun between "pijon" (dove) and "europijin" (europidgin), was inspired by Pablo Picasso's drawing.

[citation needed] Tota umanas es naseda como persones libre e egal en dinia e diretos.

Los ave razona e consiensa e debe trata lunlotra con la spirito de fratia.