Viossa is a constructed pidgin, originally derived from a smattering of around a dozen European languages, plus Japanese, Ainu, and others. It has today come to include vocabulary and grammatical features from many more.
Viossa is taught and learned exclusively through immersion. No translation! Learning is done by having conversations with other speakers, usually on discord in text or voice calls; and using immersive resources like the Davi Hanu! podcast.
To emphasize: asking for Viossa translations to/from any language is forbidden as it breaks immersion. Exceptions to this rule are “The Big Four” starting words, and artistic projects outside of the teaching-learning cycle such as songs and poems.
Viossa is semisolid. Most core concepts have set words and don’t change, but if you want to talk deeply about a topic, you may find missing words and thus have an opportunity to coin words. However with this increased opportunity to create comes increased responsibility to teach: Viossa is only Viossa if other speakers can understand it. So, when you add words, you are responsible for making sure that they can be understood by others.
When teaching using comprehensible input, it’s important to immerse learners in the language through meaningful, contextualized examples that align with their current understanding of the world.
Speaking in another natural or constructed language is not the same as Viossa. Since Viossa is an existing semisolid language with vocabulary and structure, only Viossa is used to learn Viossa. Using a non-English language such as Spanish or Toki Pona still breaks the immersion process.
The general rule of Viossa is “If you are understood, then you are speaking correct Viossa.” This does not, however, mean that you can start saying random words from random other languages. Viossa is still a set language. The “if you are understood rule” means that if your usage of the language is understood, then you are speaking correctly.
As mods of the Viossa Discord Server, we can’t tell people what to do outside the server, but translation in private messages is generally frowned upon in the community.
Discussing etymologies is similar to translation, so avoid discussing the etymology of Viossa words during the learning process. Keep in mind that words often change in meaning when borrowed into another language, so the etymological meaning of a word might be different than the Viossa meaning.
Yes, just don’t share them on the server. Many learners of Viossa choose to keep a personal dictionary, and that’s fine as long as they are kept private.
There are a couple ways to get roles:
Some channels are available to all users or viewable depending on roles they select (see 1.), and some channels are reserved for the privileged roles (see 2.).
There is a long history of not using copula words (words meaning “to be” , like “is” or “are” or “was” ) in Viossa, or using them to the very minimal extent possible. Try using it less! See what other ways you can make it clear what you mean! Remember, if other people can understand you, it works!