Asa'pili
Asa'pili is a constructed language created by the pseudonymous author P.M. in his book Bolo'bolo. On the one hand, it is an artistic language, intended to explain his concepts for a sustainable future in an original way. On the other hand, it is a neutral auxiliary language intended for use in the quasi-utopian bolo-based global community which he describes in the book. Asa'pili is not a full language, but a basic vocabulary of about thirty words, which can be used to refer to cultural institutions and concepts.
The complete list of the basic words is as follows:
| Glyph | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
 | ibu | "individual, person" |
 | bolo | "community, village, tribe" (basic autonomous social unit of 300-500 persons) |
 | sila | "hospitality, tolerance, mutual aid" (includes individual rights to taku, yalu, gano, bete, fasi, nima, yaka, and nugo) |
 | taku | "personal property, secret" (right of each person to keep a footlocker of 0.25 cubic meters for inviolable storage of personal possessions; everything else is ultimately communal) |
 | kana | "household, hunting party, family, gang" (close-knit group of 15–30 people within a bolo) |
 | nima | "way of life, tradition, culture" (also, the right to practice and advocate for one's chosen way of life) |
 | kodu | "agriculture, nature, sustenance" (predominantly local — many bolos are to be self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs) |
 | yalu | "food, cuisine" (predominantly prepared in units larger than nuclear-family households from locally grown supplies) |
 | sibi | "craft, art, industry" (oriented towards skilled handicraft methods, rather than mass production, with frequent personal relationships between individual makers and those who use their products) |
 | pali | "energy, fuel" (local self-sufficiency lessens the need for high resource consumption) |
 | suvu | "water, water supply, well, baths" |
 | gano | "house, building, dwelling" (isolated single-family dwellings will be replaced by less wasteful buildings for kanas or bolos) |
 | bete | "medicine, health" |
 | nugo | "death, suicide pill" (every ibu has the right to commit suicide at any time, or to request aid in committing suicide if unable to do so on their own) |
 | pili | "communication, education, language, media" (no centralized educational curricula or one-way mass-media) |
 | kene | "communal work" (localized initiatives to mobilize labor to accomplish necessary public tasks) |
 | tega | "district, town" (loose self-governing affiliation of from ten to twenty bolos) |
 | dala | "council, assembly" (forum for discussion and settlement of issues larger than a single bolo) |
 | dudi | "foreigner, observer" (external delegates who participate in dalas outside their own district or region) |
 | vudo | "city, county, trading area, bioregion" (about 400 bolos) |
 | sumi | "region, linguistic area, island" (about twenty to thirty vudos, the "largest practical unity") |
 | asa | "earth, world" |
 | buni | "gift, present" (informal exchange of goods which largely replaces commercial trade) |
 | mafa | "depot, warehouse" (organized reserves of basic items in case of collective or individual need) |
 | feno | "barter agreement, trade relation" (more strictly reciprocal than gifts) |
 | sadi | "market, stock market, fair" (commercial trade for high-value or non-local items, has a limited role in the overall economy) |
 | fasi | "travel, transport, traffic, nomadism" (the right to travel everywhere at will; however, most travel will be local by low-energy methods) |
 | yaka | "disagreement, war, duel" (the right to challenge other individuals or communities to a duel or melee under specified terms) |
| munu | "reputation" (more important than money in being able to cooperate productively with others) |
All these terms (except munu) are accompanied by corresponding abstract glyphs,[1] so that the concepts can be represented visually independently of any specific writing system. These words can be combined into modifier-modified compounds (with the two elements separated by an apostrophe), so that asa'pili means "world language", fasi'ibu means "traveler", vudo'dala means "county-level assembly", etc. Doubling a noun changes it into a collective or abstract noun, so that bolo'bolo means "all bolos, the system of bolos".
References
Bibliography
- 1983: bolo'bolo (8th ed. 2003) ISBN 3-907522-01-X; English edition ISBN 0-936756-08-X