How is the vocabulary developed?
The Ayola Research Group is always at work on the Ayola dictionary. At present, we are diligently compiling the Basic Vocabulary which will be published to this website along with the upcoming revised grammar later this year.
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Ayola’s vocabulary is designed to be recognizable to speakers familiar with one or more of the Western European languages. Researchers first determine the principal meanings of a word and then look up the translation of each meaning in as many as possible of the seven major groups of the Indo-European languages. In order to be selected as an Ayola root, the root must (1) satisfy Ayola phonology; (2) not start with a syllable which is an Ayola word such as ke, la, lo, or no in order to avoid oronyms. (International words such as keroseno, laguno, logaritmo, and nobeliumo are allowed.); (3)not be the root of an international combining form such as elektro-, filo-, and nano-, or the root of an important Linnaean term such as kan- (canis) or fel- (felis).Â
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In addition, the root should (1) occur frequently in the natural languages; (2) have a unique meaning in its languages; (3) be compact.
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The majority of roots are selected from the Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages because these are more recognizable to most speakers of Western European languages; however, Ayola has significant contributions from other languages such as Albanian.
 For example, when choosing the Ayola word for ‘water,’ researchers identify four potential roots occurring in the Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages, i.e. ‘vod-’ (Slavic), ‘vatn-’ (North Germanic), ‘vatr-’ (West Germanic), and ‘akw-’ (Romance). They select vod- because akwi- is an international combining form and ‘vod–’ is used in the greatest number of languages (eight).
 Words for species and genera of plants and animals are not chosen by the above method but instead closely follow the Linnaean system of nomenclature.