History: Viku: An Art Language

Source of version: 1 (current)

Viku (pronounced "VEE-koo") is an art language, created as an expression of my personal philosophy of minimalism, simplicity, and xenophilia. It is for serious fun only. One of my motivations for creating Viku is to provide a beautiful platform for writing poetry. Inspiration for Viku arose from Japanese and Polynesian languages. We could imagine people living on a tropical island speaking it. Lojban, a language based on predicate logic, has a great influence on Viku grammar. The Viku script is based on Inuktitut, a language spoken in the Arctic. Viku is a crucible for blending primitivism with modernism. In Papua New Guinea, there is a natural language called Rotokas spoken by about 4000 people. It has only 11 phonemes (sounds), consisting of 5 vowels and 6 consonants. This is the smallest known phonemic inventory in the world. In Viku, my ambition was to beat Rotokas in being even smaller. I wanted only 10 phonemes: 3 vowels, 7 consonants. The whole Viku alphabet is: a, i, k, l, n, p, s, t, u, v. The whole language description is attached to the page.