Lingua sistemfrater (English: Language of Brotherhood), also referred to as Frater, is an a posteriori international auxiliary language created by Vietnamese translator Phạm Xuân Thái in 1957 as Frater (Lingua sistemfrater): The simplest International Language Ever Constructed. The language uses a largely Greco-Latin lexicon, and an Asian-influenced grammar.
Frater was one of the (comparatively rare) international languages created in Asia, and had a vocabulary of more than 6,000 words.
Frater used an orthography of eighteen letters from the Latin script: five vowels: a, e, i, o, u, and thirteen consonants: b, d, f, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, and t. These letters were enunciated as their pronunciations in the International Phonetic Alphabet, with the following exceptions:
The stress is placed on the last syllable of the word; there are no silent letters.
There is no indefinite article or definite article.
Possessives are formed by adding the preposition ot before the pronoun. Unlike English that distinguishes three genders for the third-person singular pronoun, the pronoun was invariable.
The noun in Frater is invariable. Plurals can be formed by adding -multi (many) to the end of the noun:
mensa (table) - mensamulti (tables)
The adjective in Frater is invariable and is always placed after the noun; except for cardinal numbers.
The cardinal numbers in Frater:
1 - uni 2 - bi 3 - tri 4 - kuadri 5 - kuinti 6 - ses 7 - sep 8 - okta 9 - nona 10 - deka
11 - dekauni 12 - dekabi 13 - dekatri
20 - bideka 24 - bidekakuadri
30 - trideka 40 - kuadrideka
85 - oktadekakuinti
100 - senti 367 - trisenti-sesdeka-sep 600 - sessenti
1000 - mil 1000000 - milion
Ordinal numbers are formed by placing the cardinal number after the noun.
The verb in Frater is invariable in person and in number.
The passive voice is formed by adding the auxiliary verb es before the infinitive: Ilis es trauma (they are wounded).
The syntax in Frater is: Subject - Verb - Object.
Questions are formed by placing the verb before the subject.
Interrogative words include: antropkia (who), kia (what), plaskia (where), temkia (when), prokia (why), kak (how), and multikia (how much; how many).
For comparison the Lord's Prayer is provided in Frater, Glosa (a later auxiliary language with isolating grammar and Greco-Latin vocabulary), Latin and English.