Franstant — An artificial language built upon French without conjugation

1. Introduction

Franstant (Français Constant) is an artificial language built upon French. "Constant" means that every word keeps an invariable form — verbs do not conjugate, nouns do not take plural forms, adjectives do not agree in gender or number. The goal is to radically simplify grammar while retaining the vocabulary, phonetics, and cultural spirit of French.

The core design principles are:

1. Constant verbs: Verbs always remain in the infinitive. Tense is expressed through markers (passé = past, futur = future, être = continuous).
2. Constant nouns: Nouns stay in the base masculine singular form. Plurality is indicated only by the article.
3. No contractions: All elisions and contractions are removed. Every word is written in full.
4. Fixed word order: Strict Subject-Verb-Object order. Adjectives are always placed after the noun.
5. Unsplit negation: "ne pas" appears together before the verb.
6. Pronunciation adapts to spelling: Pronunciation follows the new spelling without elision.

2. Detailed Rules and Examples

2.1 Articles

Definite articles reduce to le (singular) and les (plural). "la" and "l'" are removed. Indefinite articles reduce to un (singular) and des (plural). "une" is removed. The partitive article is uniformly du (meaning "some"). Note that de le is reserved for "of the" (possession) and never contracts to "du".

Standard French	Franstant	Rule
la maison	le maison	la → le
l'homme	le homme	l' → le (no elision)
une femme	un femme	une → un
Je mange du pain.	moi manger du pain.	du = partitive (some)
le toit de la maison	le toit de le maison	de le = of the (no contraction)

2.2 Nouns

All nouns strictly use the base masculine singular form. There are no irregular plurals. Plurality is indicated only by the articles "les" or "des" — the noun itself never changes.

Standard French	Franstant
les maisons	les maison
les yeux	les oeil
des chevaux	des cheval
les belles femmes	les femme beau

2.3 Pronouns

Subject pronouns use the disjunctive (tonic) form. Word order is strictly Subject-Verb-Object; object pronouns are placed after the verb, not moved before it.

Person	Standard Subject	Franstant Pronoun	Possessive
1s	je	moi	mon
2s	tu	toi	ton
3s m	il	lui	son
3s f	elle	elle	son
—	on	on	son
1p	nous	nous	notre
2p	vous	vous	votre
3p	ils/elles	eux	leur

Examples

Je le vois. → moi voir lui
Elle me parle. → elle parler moi
Nous les aidons. → nous aider eux

2.4 Possessives

Possessive adjectives uniformly use the masculine form. Singular: mon livre (my book). Plural: mon les livre (my books).

Standard French	Franstant
mon livre	mon livre
ma maison	mon maison
mes livres	mon les livre
tes amis	ton les ami
ses maisons	son les maison
nos voitures	notre les voiture
vos chiens	votre les chien
leurs enfants	leur les enfant

2.5 Verbs and Tense

Verbs always remain in the infinitive without any conjugation. Tense is expressed through markers placed before the verb.

Tense	Marker	Standard French	Franstant
Present	(none)	Je mange.	moi manger.
Past	passé	J'ai mangé.	moi passé manger.
Future	futur	Je mangerai.	moi futur manger.
Near Future	aller	Je vais manger.	moi aller manger.
Continuous	être	Je suis en train de manger.	moi être manger.

2.6 Negation

The negation ne pas is placed as a single block before the verb (or tense marker), without splitting.

Examples

Je ne mange pas. → moi ne pas manger.
Il n'est pas venu. → lui ne pas passé venir.
Tu ne partiras pas. → toi ne pas futur partir.

2.7 Adjectives

Adjectives are fixed to the masculine singular form and always placed after the noun. Articles and possessives remain at the beginning of the noun phrase.

Standard French	Franstant
le beau garçon	le garçon beau
une belle maison	un maison beau
les grandes villes	les ville grand
mes beaux enfants	mon les enfant beau
la plus belle femme	le femme le plus beau

2.8 Prepositions

Prepositions never contract with articles. All contracted forms are written separately.

Standard French	Franstant
au restaurant	à le restaurant
aux États-Unis	à les État-Uni
du pain (of the bread)	de le pain
d'eau	de le eau

2.9 Questions

Questions uniformly use être ce que. "Est-ce que" is not used (because "est" is conjugated), nor are hyphens or elisions.

Examples

Est-ce que tu vas au restaurant ? → être ce que toi aller à le restaurant ?
Est-ce qu'il est ici ? → être ce que lui être ici ?

2.10 Passive Voice

The passive voice is expressed by the marker passif. Past passive uses passé passif.

Examples

Le livre est lu. → le livre passif lire.
La maison a été construite par son père. → le maison passé passif construire par son père.

2.11 Reflexive Verbs

All reflexive pronouns are unified to se, placed before the verb.

Examples

Je me lave. → moi se laver.
Ils se trouvent là-bas. → eux se trouver là.

2.12 Existence

Il y a is uniformly replaced by voilà.

Il y a beaucoup d'enfants. → voilà beaucoup de enfant.

3. Sample Passages

The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)

1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

2 As people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

3 And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."

5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.

6 And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech."

8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)

9 Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen!

4. Letters and Pronunciation

Franstant uses the standard French alphabet (26 Latin letters). Pronunciation rules are essentially those of French. However, because elision is removed, there may be hiatus between words (such as "le homme"), where each syllable is pronounced separately. This is an intentional deviation from standard French.

Consonants

B b [b] bon	C c [k]/[s] car, ce	D d [d] dur	F f [f] faire	G g [ɡ]/[ʒ] gare, gel
H h [–] (silent)	J j [ʒ] jour	K k [k] kilo	L l [l] lire	M m [m] manger
N n [n] nom	P p [p] pain	Q q [k] que	R r [ʁ] rouge	S s [s]/[z] sur, rose
T t [t] toit	V v [v] voir	W w [w]/[v] wagon	X x [ks]/[ɡz] taxi, exam	Z z [z] zéro

Vowels

A a [a] avoir	E e [ə]/[e]/[ɛ] le, été, être	I i [i] ici	O o [o]/[ɔ] mot, porte	U u [y] lune
Y y [i]/[j] type, yeux

Common Letter Combinations

ai [ɛ] faire	au, eau [o] auto, beau	ei [ɛ] neige	eu [ø]/[œ] peu, peur	ou [u] pour
oi [wa] voir	an, en [ɑ̃] dans, vent	in, ain [ɛ̃] vin, pain	on [ɔ̃] bon	un [œ̃] un
ch [ʃ] chat	ph [f] photo	gn [ɲ] signe	qu [k] que	th [t] thé
gu [ɡ] guerre	ill [j] fille	tion [sjɔ̃] nation	er, ez [e] manger, nez

Stress

As in French, the stress always falls on the last syllable of the rhythmic group.

Differences from Standard French

In standard French, when a word ending in a vowel meets a word beginning with a vowel, elision occurs (like l'homme, d'eau) and liaison happens (like les amis pronounced [le.za.mi]). In Franstant, these phenomena do not exist. Each word is pronounced independently: "le homme" is pronounced [lə.ɔm], "de le eau" is pronounced [də.lə.o]. While this creates hiatus, it is a deliberate design choice of Franstant to ensure clear word boundaries.

5. Rules Summary

Category	Standard French	Franstant
Verbs	mange, mangera, mangeait	manger, passé manger, futur manger
Nouns/Adjectives	belles maisons, beaux garçons	maison beau, garçon beau
Definite Articles	le, la, l', les	le, les
Indefinite Articles	un, une, des	un, des
Partitive	du, de la, de l'	du
Prepositions	au, aux, du (=de+le), d'	à le, à les, de le, de
Questions	Est-ce que... / Est-ce qu'...	être ce que ...
Passive	est écrit / a été écrit	passif écrire / passé passif écrire
Possessives	mon/ma/mes, ton/ta/tes	mon, mon les ; ton, ton les
Reflexive	je me, tu te, il se	moi se, toi se, lui se
Negation	ne ... pas (split)	ne pas ... (unsplit)
Existence	il y a	voilà
Elision	l'année, d'eau	le annee, de le eau (no elision)