overview of the language (skip this part if you`re impatient).
differences of grammar from English
Linguese is an artificial language which (at least I think) is more logical and easier to learn than other such languages that have been developed, such as Esperanto. My main goals in creating it have been consistency, simplicity and brevity. It is the only artificial language I know of in which brevity, or making words as short and compact as possible, is a major goal.
As with other logical artificial languages that have been invented, the rules of Linguese have no exceptions. Linguese has phonetic spelling and no irregularly congugated words.
Unlike many familiar European languages, the rules themselves are as regular as possible -- there are rules to the rules. For instance, in Spanish, even with verbs that aren't irregular, the usual pattern of verb endings among the different tenses is itself rather irregular and patternless. Spanish, along with most of the European languages, is a quite synthetic language. That means that it has arbitrary words and endings that express several morphemes at once. (Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning. For instance, "bigger" consists of 2 morphemes, "big" and "-er", meaning "more", whereas "butter" is 1 morpheme that cannot be split up.) 2 or more morphemes are often combined into 1 arbitrary word or word ending that means both or all of them. For instance, in Spanish, the -amos verb ending arbitrarily means both "we" and present tense. It isn't like it consists of 2 endings, -am for "we" and -os for present tense, or something like that. Such arbitrary combinations can greatly multiply the number of words and endings that must be memorized, needlessly. For instance, Spanish has 10 tenses, each with 6 endings for case (1st, 2nd and 3rd person, singular and plural), plus a few other endings such as infinitive, and there are 3 sets of variations of those endings for different verbs, so it has 189 endings to memorize. (There is some regularity to the pattern, however, enough to condense it down to perhaps 34 things to memorize, though that's being charitable.)
There are 2 other types of languages, agglutinative and analytic, and both of them are much simpler, and logical. Agglutinative languages (such as Esperanto, as well as natural languages such as Turkish, Swahili and Japanese) pile lots of separate endings onto words. In an agglutinative language, instead of 189 verb endings to memorize, there might be endings for perhaps 10 tenses, plus a separate set of 6 endings for case, and no needless complication of different classes of verbs with different endings, so 10 + 6 = only 16 endings to memorize, rather than 10 X 6 X 3 = 180. Analytic languages are just like agglutinative languages, except that they use separate words instead of endings stuck onto other words. Chinese is an almost perfectly analytic language, and English is rather analytic also. For instance, "I will go" expresses 3 morphemes with 3 separate words, whereas other languages might express "I" and future tense as endings on the word "go", so all one word. (Sometimes, however, English is synthetic. For instance, "went" means both "go" and past tense. And the -s ending for verbs means both 3rd person singular and present tense.)
Linguese is a highly agglutinative language. It takes this to an even greater extreme than many agglutinative languages do, breaking up certain concepts into component sub-concepts and indicating them separately rather than synthetically, to reduce the number of things to memorize and show the underlying pattern of meanings. For instance, instead of the 6 cases in Spanish and many other languages (1st, 2nd and 3rd person, singular and plural), in Linguese there is a separate plural ending used in combination with the other endings, so that there are only half-as-many-plus-1 endings to memorize, just the singular endings, plus only 1 plural ending. (That doesn't sound like much of an improvement, 4 endings instead of 6, but Linguese has endings for pronouns rather then cases, and the 3rd person has 5 possible pronouns instead of a single case ending, so altogether it has 7 singular pronoun endings rather than 3 singular case endings. So rather than 14 endings, for both singular and plural, it has only 8, 7 singular plus a plural ending, a bigger improvement.)
So, for instance, while it's difficult to compare exactly, since Spanish and Linguese work on somewhat different principles, in Linguese there are 12 endings plus a separate word to express the equivalent of all those endings in Spanish. (And even those endings are much simpler than the endings in Spanish, as I'll talk about, for each one is just an individual sound / letter, rather than the full-syllable or even multi-syllabic endings in Spanish.)
Linguese takes things to a greater logical extreme in other ways. An important aspect of Linguese is internal consistency. The vocabularies of some other artificial languages, such as Esperanto, are based on preexisting common languages, usually European, and while this makes them obvious and easy to learn for people who speak European languages, to people who speak non-European languages, they would not seem obvious at all. In general such languages are harder to learn because their vocabularies are borrowed haphazardly from other languages, and don`t reflect the patterns of meaning among the words. The solution isn`t to borrow from all the world`s languages, since that would make the vocabulary even more of a hodgepodge, and make the language equally difficult to learn for everyone since for speakers of any given language, the vocabulary would be indistinguishable from random. The solution is to pattern the words in the vocabulary after their patterns of meaning, regardless of whether the words happen to resemble words in real languages, which, at random, some still would. In Linguese, words are chosen for internal consistency, although it borrows from English and the Romance languages where possible rather than coining words completely at random. All words are grouped into those with related meanings. Word bases consist of single syllables, which of course consist of different combinations of letters / sounds, and the beginning part of the syllable indicates which "word group" the word belongs to. Words with related meanings are therefore similar words, and, when alphabetized, fall together, so that a Linguese dictionary also resembles a thesaurus.
The grammar of Linguese is about as simple as possible. (The only complications are a small number of rules for creating short forms of words and making words flow more smoothly in sentences.) For instance, unlike many natural languages, and even Esperanto, there is no such thing as word agreement (also called concordance), where, for instance, when nouns are pluralized, their associated adjectives and verbs must be also, for that is a needless complication. The grammar of Linguese directly reflects the underlying meaning of sentences, and is considerably different from Indo-European languages, which have notoriously weird grammars. In fact, the complications in explaining Linguese grammar come entirely from trying to explain it to people who are used to the complications in English and other languages, and aren`t used to the simple, direct way that Linguese does things. Its grammar resembles many non-Indo-European languages. Unlike most artificial languages I have read about that fellow hobbyists have created, which are deliberately very exotic and experimental, Linguese is as straightforward to learn as I could make it. Some artificial languages go so overboard on being logical, dissecting words into their component meanings, that they are totally unlike any real human languages, and are first insanely difficult to learn because they are so bizarre (I'm thinking of Lojban in particular here). In Linguese, I think I've struck the right balance. There are a number of differences from the grammars of familiar languages, but only where they are an improvement, not just differences for their own sake.
The only problem with agglutinative and analytic languages is that since languages tend to express morphemes as 1-syllable or even multi-syllable endings or words, it can become quite lengthy to express anything. Perhaps synthetic languages evolve in order to create arbitrary words or endings to express things in a shorter way. (However, Spanish has the disadvantage of having very long words even though it is synthetic.) In English, morphemes tend to be short, often 1-syllable, and some endings (the plural -s and possessive -'s endings on nouns, and the present 3rd person singular -s and past -ed endings on verbs) are often individual sounds rather than complete syllables. Add to that many short irregular forms of words, and English is one of the most compact languages on earth, that expresses things in few syllables. One of the most admirable aspects of English is that it takes such a short time to say things in it.
In Linguese I use a better method of keeping things short than irregular forms, by using the shortest possible sound combinations for morphemes so that even combinations of multiple morphemes are still short. All word bases in Linguese are 1-syllable. There are more than 50,000 easily-pronounceable possible syllables (at least, by English speakers), and far more than that if somewhat-less-easily-pronounceable sound combinations are allowed, more than adequate for an entire language, especially since new words can be created by compounding and adding derivational endings. If that weren`t short enough, there are a few rules for further shortening the most common words in the language. For instance, the most common verbs such as "be", "do" and "have", which in real languages are often irregular, have short forms so that even the bases are individual consonants (or blends), which when combined with inflectional endings still come to just 1 syllable. And rather than just a few word endings that are individual sounds as in English, with its -s and -ed endings, in Linguese all word endings are individual sounds. Words can have several endings at once, yet they often combine together to form a single additional syllable. I made Linguese an agglutinative language, that uses lots of word endings rather than separate words, to take advantage of being able to combine multiple endings into a single syllable. (However, even when there are separate words rather than endings, often several words of 1 syllable each can combine to form 1-syllable contractions.) In addition to its logic and consistency, Linguese is the only artificial language I know of that is so compact. English is short as it is, yet it takes 2/3 the time on average to say something in Linguese as in English. Words are combinations of letters, and it does not make sense to use longer combinations when shorter ones are available.
That system of endings that consist of individual sounds also contributes to the language`s simplicity and ease of learning. In languages with 1-syllable endings (-i, -ab, -zo or -steg, let's say, just to make up some possibilities), the learner must memorize what the endings are (out of a vast sea of 1-syllable possibilities), in addition to what they mean. But right away, from what I've said so far, the reader should already be able to guess what word endings there are in Linguese: all the individual sounds such as -m, -l, -a and -o. The learner then need only learn which particular things those endings mean.
Linguese uses the Roman alphabet, with 7 extra letters. (A few of them, computers do not have among their character sets, so I had to improvise for when typing Linguese on a computer.) Its alphabet is:
a, â, b, c, d, ð, e, ê, f, g, h, ı, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, o, ô, p, q, r, s, t, б, u, v, x, z, w, y
The capital letters are:
A, Â, B, C, D, Ð, E, Ê, F, G, H, I, Î, J, K, L, M, N, Ñ, O, Ô, P, Q, R, S, T, Б, U, V, X, Z, W, Y
There are 2 letters for the 2 th sounds in English, which look like an upside-down 4 and its mirror image, but since computers don`t have these characters, I use ð and its near-mirror-image б on the computer instead. The capitals of those letters look like a small d and b with an extra horizontal line sticking out from the top of the vertical line over the loop, and are also mirror images of each other. Computers don`t have the former character, so I use Ð for it, but they do have the latter character, Б (which I stole from the Cyrillic alphabet). Computers also have the characters â, ê, ô and ñ (The marks above those letters can be written any way one feels like. Many people may find simple straight lines easier and faster to write, or dots like over the letter i.). Computers also have ı, an i without a dot (used in Turkish for the same purpose as I use it). The capital of this letter is just a straight line, while the capital of an i with a dot also has a mark over it.
W and y are the last letters of the alphabet for a reason, which is difficult to explain at this point. (The reason is so that when the vocabulary is in alphabetical order, all words in the same word groups fall together. W and y are used to form dipthongs, and while adding any consonants onto a vowel produces different words within the same word group, adding w or y changes the vowel and therefore changes the word to a different word group. Otherwise, words ending in x or z would be sorted separately from the rest of the word group, after w and y.)
Most of the consonants are pronounced as they are in English. The exceptions are:
c - pronounced like sh in English
j - pronounced like j in French, or the g in "beige"
tc - pronounced like ch in English, since this is actually a combination of both sounds
dj - pronounced like j in English, since this is actually a combination of both sounds
ð - pronounced like the th in "the".
б - pronounced like the th in "thin".
ñ - this is the n sound as in "sing" and "ink"
x - this is the ch sound in German and Hebrew, sometimes spelled as kh. Since this is an ugly sound, I've almost entirely avoided using it.
q - this is a similar sound to x, usually spelled as gh, related to it the same way as g is to k. I have not used this ugly sound in Linguese, but I've kept it in the alphabet to spell words with that sound in other languages.
g is always pronounced as in "go", not as in "gene". h is pronounced as in "he", never silent as in "herb". y is always a consonant, pronounced as in "you", not as in "my" or "hymn".
The 1st vowel to learn is the indistinct unaccented vowel as in the 2nd syllable of "little", "bottom", "center" and "closet". It is the vowel you wind up pronouncing when you`re trying not to pronounce a vowel. It is spelled with an i without a dot, so that those words would be spelled "litıl", "batım", "sentır" and "klazıt". This letter is usually used in Linguese when adding a consonant ending onto a base, with no other vowel, is unpronounceable, and it has no meaning in and of itself.
There are 8 other short vowels in Linguese:
a - as in "are" and "on"
â - as in "at"
e - as in "end"
ê - as in "there" and "fan"
i - as in "in"
o - as in "son" and "fun"
ô - as in "or" and "saw"
u - as in "put" and "book"
Long vowels, or dipthongs, are formed by adding either w or y to these vowels, for long vowels are really combinations of these sounds:
aw - pronounced like au in Spanish (not as in "how" in English, which is a combination of â + w)
ay - pronounced like long i in English, or ay in Spanish
âw - as in "how"
ey - pronounced like long a in English, or e in Spanish
iy - pronounced like long e in English, or i in Spanish
ow - as in "low"
ôy - as in "boy"
uw - as in "due" and "too"
Using the letter o for the sound as in "up" and "fun" may seem hard to get used to, since English speakers tend to think of that sound as a u sound, despite many words that spell it with an o, such as "son" and "onion". But notice that the long o sound in English is really a combination of that short u sound plus w, as in "low" ("luh-w"). Before a blend, we don't really pronounce what should be a long o as a long o, but as that short u, as in "old" ("uh-ld").
I`ve also used other combinations, not used in English, to a very limited extent: oy and uy. Other combinations are possible, such as "iw", which many people use to express disgust, but I haven`t used them in Linguese. They are available, however, to possibly be used to expand the number of pronounceable syllables beyond 50,000 if need be.
As for stress, syllables (both within a word and within a sentence) that contain the unaccented vowel are always unstressed. Otherwise, syllables that end in vowels are unstressed, syllables that end in consonants are stressed. However, when a syllable contains an appostrophe, indicating that something has been left out, to differentiate those words from otherwise identical words, the rule is reversed: syllables that end in vowels are stressed, syllables that end in consonants are unstressed. (However, syllables with the unaccented vowel are STILL unstressed. They always occur in situations where there cannot be both possibilities, either an appostrophe or no appostrophe.)
All words are 1-syllable plus possible endings.
There are 2 basic types of words in languages, even above the parts of speech such as nouns, verbs and prepositions that we learn in school: function words, the (usually) little words like "if", "and", "but", "to" and "of" that have little meaning themselves but put the main words in context, and never have inflectional endings, and content words, the main words of a sentence, which can have endings. Those endings are actually function words attached to the main words, and different languages differ in how often function morphemes are word endings or separate words.
Function words are conjunctions (and, or, but, etc.) and prepositions (to, from, of, with, etc.), plus special classes of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs such as pronouns (I, you, it, etc.), helping verbs (can, must, should, etc.), articles (a, the), demonstratives (this, that) and interrogatives (who, what, where, etc.). Content words are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. In analytic languages, where everything is separate words, what are inflectional endings in English, such as verb tenses, are instead separate function words. Just the opposite, in agglutinative languages, where function morphemes are endings upon content words, what are separate words in English, such as the prepositions, are instead inflectional endings on other words.
Since function words tend to be the most common words of all, I use the shortest combinations for them. Syllables consist of vowels, optionally preceded or followed by consonants, so take the forms V, CV, VC or CVC (where V = vowel or dipthong, C = consonant or blend). In Linguese, function words end in vowels (so take the form V or CV), content word bases end in consonants (so take the form VC or CVC).
Content words end in different sounds based on what part of speech they are in, and function words usually do too, with some deliberate exceptions, so in function words the ending V usually tells the part of speech, and in content words the ending C tells it. Content words have a further sub-structure in which the beginning V or CV portion of the base tells which "word group" the word is in, groups of words based on related meanings. In some cases the beginning C of function and content words further groups them by meaning.
Content words then can have inflections added on, which are either vowels or consonants. Several endings can be added onto a word, and yet those endings often amount to only one additional syllable.
The most common function words of all, the personal pronouns such as I, you and they, get the shortest combinations of all, V, just vowels.
(Also, some of the most common content words have short forms, where the VC or CVC base is shortened by leaving off the ending VC. So CVC is shortened to just C, just a consonant or blend, and VC is shortened to no base at all. To that shortened base, inflectional endings are added on, and the words still come to just 1 syllable, instead of 2 syllables as they would otherwise. But more on that later.)
To take advantage of the fact that multiple endings can combine together to form a single additional syllable, I made Linguese a highly inflected language, in which function morphemes are often added onto the ends of words rather than appearing as separate words. For instance, pronouns are usually added onto the ends of verbs as V endings rather than appearing as separate V words. Even the articles, "the" and "a", are noun endings rather than separate words, and all of the common prepositions can be added onto the ends of nouns. However, even when they aren`t attached as word endings, some of the most common function words can form contractions, which shorten things even still.
Function words end in vowels, as I said, so have the form V or CV. The V words are the main, personal pronouns (I, you, they, etc.).
Also, function words with the form dV (a "d" + a vowel) are the related possessive adjectives (my, your, their, etc. -- often called possessive pronouns even though they are adjectives, because they correspond to the personal pronouns).
Those words can end in any vowel though they are all in the same part of speech, but most other function words with the form CV end in different vowels depending on what part of speech they are in. Conjunctions end in u(w), prepositions end in i(y), functional nouns (pronouns) end in o(w) if they are inanimate (oy when plural), ô if animate, functional adjectives end in a, and functional adverbs end in â(w).
(The reason most of those w's and y's are in parentheses is because they can be dropped for easier pronunciation when they come before beginning consonants in the next word, similar to how in English, "an" becomes "a" before a word beginning in a consonant. A, ê and ô are the only short vowels that I have function words (other than the main pronouns and their related possessive pronouns) end in. The rest end in long vowels, which can be shortened to short vowels by dropping the w or y, unless that would shorten them to a or ô. Therefore, the complete list of vowels that function words can end in is: a, aw, ay, â(w), e(y), ê, i(y), o(w), ô, ôy, u(w), 11 vowels, 5 of which can be shortened. Iy can not only be shortened to i, but even further, to the unaccented vowel, the i without a dot, ı.)
However, there are several groups of function words that have to do with time, place and other things that have their own ending vowels regardless of what parts of speech they are in, because their shared subjects seem more important than their parts of speech. Function words tend to have fuzzy boundaries between parts of speech anyway, especially prepositions. (For instance, "than" functions as a preposition in "I'm bigger than you", yet a conjunction in "I'm bigger than you are", yet it seems like being overly fussy to have separate words with different ending vowels for each use.) All of those groups of words that have to do with those several subjects stretch across several parts of speech.
Those that have to do with amount (all adverbs except for 1 conjunction) end in â(w), along with adverbs, time (mostly adverbs, but a few prepositions and conjunctions as well) end in e(y), place (all adverbs except for 1 conjunction) end in ay, method (all adverbs except for 1 conjuction) end in aw, cause (mostly conjunctions, but 2 adverbs as well) end in ôy and purpose (mostly prepositions, but 1 adverb and 1 conjunction as well) end in i(y), along with prepositions.
So to summarize, function word ending vowels are:
a - adjectives
aw - method
ay - place
â(w) - adverbs, amount
e(y) - time
i(y) - prepositions, purpose
o(w), oy - inanimate pronouns
ô - animate pronouns
ôy - cause
u(w) - conjunctions
Then there are the interrogatives (who, what, which, when, where, how, why, and 1 other I will talk about, the generic interrogative), which in turn cut across not only different parts of speech, but those groups of words about those several subjects as well. Each interrogative is in one of the groups with different ending vowels that I just listed above. So now I'll repeat that list, with the interrogatives included:
a - adjectives, which
aw - method, how (method)
ay - place, where
â(w) - adverbs, amount, how (amount)
e(y) - time, when
i(y) - prepositions, purpose, why (purpose)
o(w), oy - inanimate pronouns, what
ô - animate pronouns, who
ôy - cause, why (cause)
u(w) - conjunctions, (generic interrogative)
Interrogatives are used in 2 different ways, in questions, such as "How are you?", and in statements, such as "That is how you are." There is no general term that I know of in linguistics for the interrogatives used in statements ("who" and "what" are pronouns, and the ones used in statements are called relative pronouns, but I don't know any term for the rest of them), so I came up with my own term for them, recursives, because they are used to show recursion, or sentences within sentences. In Linguese, interrogatives used in questions start with r, that is, have the form rV (r + any vowel), while those used in statements have the form wV.
"Who" is an animate pronoun, "what" is an inanimate pronoun and "which" is an adjective, so they get the corresponding ending vowels for those parts of speech, both in their interrogative and recursive forms. But another way of saying it, in terms of which of those groups of several subjects they are in as opposed to which parts of speech, is that "who" has to do with person, "what" with thing, "which" with selection. As for the others, "how" can mean in the sense of amount (as in "How much?") or method (as in "How did you do that?"), "when" has to do with time, "where" with place, and "why" can mean in the sense of cause (as in "Why did that happen?") or purpose (as in "Why did you do that?"), so they get the corresponding vowels for those subjects.
There is a 2-dimensional pattern, with those parts of speech and subjects in 1 dimension, and interrogatives, recursives and a group of functional adjectives (none, some, any, all, much/many, little/few, this, that) in the other, which creates a 2-dimensional series of combinations, such as "always" ("all" + time), "what" (question + thing) and "someone" ("some" + person), and that pattern is the reason I have the pattern of ending vowels for those subjects as well as parts of speech.
There is an odd pattern of which parts of speech the interrogatives are in. "Who" and "what" are pronouns, and "which" is an adjective, both their interrogative and recursive forms, and as I said, they have vowels that show their parts of speech. But the rest are all adverbs in their interrogative forms and conjunctions in their recursive forms. Nevertheless, both forms of each pair have the same vowels in Linguese, showing what subject groups they are in, rather than what parts of speech they are in.
There is another pair of words, one an interrogative and one a recursive. There are 2 kinds of questions, those that must be answered yes or no (as in "Did you do that?") and those that must have some specific answer (as in "What did you do?"). In English, the interrogatives are used for the latter questions, but for the former questions, a helping verb, usually "do", starts the sentence, and is used to show that it is a question. In Linguese, I have another, generic interrogative that just shows that the sentence is a question. So, is there a corresponding recursive for that interrogative? The answer is yes: the word "that", when used as a conjunction (as in "I know that you know"), rather than as a demonstrative, a type of functional adjective (as in "Look at that", opposite of "this"). Note that all the other interrogatives have to do with various subjects such as time, place, etc. (when = what time, where = what place, etc.), but the one for yes / no questions just indicates the bare concept of a question. Similarly, all of the other recursives have to do with time, place, etc. (when = the time that, where = the place that, etc.), and notice that they all involve the word "that", so the word "that" itself just indicates the bare concept of recursion. As usual, the interrogative of the pair is an adverb, the recursive a conjunction, and those pairs always have the same ending vowels regardless of which parts of speech they are in. Since the word "that" is a conjunction, I made both of that pair end in u(w).
Then there are 2 small groups of very important function words, the words "yes" and "no", and the numbers, that it was too important to be able to distinguish the words in each group from each other than to let them have similar sounds, so I deliberately chose CV combinations at random, so all of them have different consonants and vowels, and sound as different from each other as possible.
So, to summarize, here are the different groups of function words, in most cases their corresponding interrogatives / recursives, and their word structure:
| personal pronouns | V | |
| possessive pronoun adjectives | dV | |
| inanimate pronouns / thing | what | Co(w), Coy (plural) |
| animate pronouns / person | who | Cô |
| conjunctions / generic interrogatives | (question) / that | Cu(w) |
| prepositions / purpose | why (purpose) | Ci(y) |
| adjectives / selection | which | Ca |
| adverbs / amount | how (amount) | Câ(w) |
| time | when | Ce(y) |
| place | where | Cay |
| cause | why (cause) | Côy |
| method | how (method) | Caw |
| interrogatives | rV | |
| recursives | wV | |
| yes / no | CV | |
| numbers | CV |
Another way of showing this is in terms of the 2-dimensional array of possible V and CV combinations, and which parts of the array the different groups of function words take up, including how the interrogatives / recursives intersect with most other groups of function words:
| vowels | |||||||||||
| o(w) | ô | u(w) | i(y) | a | â(w) | e(y) | ay | ôy | aw | ||
| c o n s o n a n t s | - | personal pronouns | |||||||||
| d | possessive pronoun adjectives | ||||||||||
| r | what | who | (question) | why (purpose) | which | how (amount) | when | where | why (cause) | how (method) | |
| w | that (conjunction) | ||||||||||
| all others | inanimate pronouns | animate pronouns | conjunctions | prepositions (including purpose) | adjectives | adverbs (including amount) | time | place | cause | method | |
And now for the actual functon words themselves:
Here are the main pronouns, all V words:
| singular | plural | |
| 1st person | I, me - a | we, us - ay |
| 2nd person | you (singular) - u(w) | you (plural) - uy |
| 3rd person | he/she/it, him/her/it (general purpose) - e | they, them (general purpose) - ey |
| it - o(w) | they, them (inanimate) - oy | |
| he/she, him/her - ô | they, them (animate) - ôy | |
| he, him - ê | ||
| she, her - â |
These words are usually verb endings rather than separate words.
Notice that the plural pronouns are formed from the singular pronouns by adding a -y plural ending. The same -y ending makes content nouns plural, as I will show later. (As I explained earlier, the ending dipthongs â(w), e(y), i(y), o(w) and u(w) can drop their w's and y's in function words. But in this case, ey can not drop its y because the y actually means something, plural.)
There are no separate subject and object pronouns (such as I and me); that is indicated either by word order when the pronouns are separate words, or ending order when they are verb endings, or with special prepositions that mark the pronouns as subject or object when they are out of the usual order. (See differences in grammar from English.)
Linguese has a singular neuter pronoun that English sorely lacks, ô. In English, the male pronoun used to be used for this ("Everyone should take his seat"), but that is now considered sexist. Some people say "his or her", while some say "their" meaning singular. Pronouns specifically for he or she might be less often used, as in most non-Indo-European languages, many of which don`t even have a way to specify male or female. Linguese even has a general-purpose 3rd-person singular pronoun, e, that doesn`t specify animate or inanimate, as some languages, such as Hungarian and Chinese, have. Technically there could be plurals for he and she, the weird ugly difficult-to-pronounce dipthongs êy and ây, but I would use the neuter ôy instead, since there seems so little need to specify that a group of people are all male or female. In English, we don't even specify whether they are animate or inanimate, but use "they" for both. Notice that the 3rd person pronouns can be thought of as a little tree of possibilities. First there's the general e. That can be subdivided into inanimate o and animate ô. And then animate can be further subdivided into male ê and female â.
The possessives (often called possessive pronouns, even though they are adjectives) are formed from the main pronouns by adding a "d" before them (from the word diy, meaning "of"):
| singular | plural | |
| 1st person | my - da | our - day |
| 2nd person | your (singular) - du(w) | your (plural) - duy |
| 3rd person | (general purpose) - de | their (general purpose) - dey |
| its - do(w) | their (inanimate) - doy | |
| his/her - dô | their (animate) - dôy | |
| his - dê | ||
| her - dâ |
These words don't just convey possession, but also that the noun being modified is a definite noun. In other words, "my house" doesn't just mean "house of me", but "THE house of me". Similar to English, when the noun is indefinite, you must say the equivalent of "A house of me". In English, you must say "a house of MINE". ("Mine" is a true possessive pronoun, because it stands alone, doesn't modify a noun like an adjective does.)
English has a set of true possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours and theirs. Linguese doesn't have those words. However, a special noun, ın, meaning "one" or "stuff", depending on whether it is countable or uncountable, can be added as a contraction to the adjective form. That word ın can also be pluralized, by adding a -y ending (as I will talk about in the section on noun inflectional endings), or take on any other noun endings. Of course, when it is pluralized, it means "ones", not "stuffs", because only countable nouns can be pluralized.
mine (my one / stuff) - da`n
mine (my ones) - da`nıy
That special noun, ın, can be used with any adjective for the same purpose, so that the adjective functions as a noun, as in, "I have a blue (one)".)
There are also less-important pronouns, which are CV words:
what (question) - row
what (statement) - wow
Already, you could have figured out what these words are, since I already said that interrogatives and recursives start with r and w, and inanimate pronouns end in ow. I've already given enough information for you to figure out what all the interrogatives and recursives are in Linguese. Hey, I'm trying to teach Linguese here, but you already know it -- no fair!
this - sow
that - ðow
These words end in -ow when they stand alone, without accompanying nouns, so act as pronouns themselves (as in "give me these"). In effect, they mean "this thing" and "that thing". They end in -a when they act as adjectives, when used along with nouns (as in "give me these rocks"), as I will talk about in the section on functional adjectives. As pronouns, they can be pluralized the way the main pronouns can be, by dropping the w and adding a plural -y:
these - soy
those - ðoy
"This" and "these" mean that the thing being talked about is 1st person (nearby the speaker). Some languages, such as Spanish, have 2 separate words each for "that" and "those", depending on whether the thing being talked about is 2nd person (nearby the listener) or 3rd person (nowhere near either the listener or speaker). People not used to that distinction might see it as a needless complication, but Linguese could have it as well. In that case, 2nd person could be zow and zoy, 3rd person ðow and ðoy.
nothing - now
something - cow
anything - jow
everything, all (everything) - tow
so (thing) - stow
self (reflexive) - fow (related to fiy, "like")
each other (reciprocal) - flow (related to fliy, "unlike")
The 1st 4 words are derived from the adjectives "no" (in the sense of "none"), "some", "any" and "all", which I will cover in the section on functional adjectives, and later on the 2-dimensional pattern these words are a part of.
"So" in this case means some unspecified but definite thing, as in "I told you so". It is also partially part of that 2-dimensional pattern.
A single reflexive pronoun, indicating "self", replaces the various ones in English, so instead of saying "I love myself", "You love yourself", etc., you say, in effect, "I love self", "You love self", etc. That word is related to fiy, "like" in the sense of "alike", "same", "similar", because each person or thing is doing something to the same person or thing. Similarly, the word for "each other" (which only makes sense to be used with plural pronouns and nouns) is related to fliy, "unlike" in the sense of "different", because each person or thing in a group is doing something to a different person or thing in the same group. (There could be animate versions of these words for use with animate pronouns and nouns, fô and flô, but there is no need for it, any more than there is a need for separate words "myself", "yourself", etc.) Often in English, we use these words not to mean reflexive, but for emphasis ("I myself did that") or to indicate doing something alone ("I'd rather do it myself"). Linguese uses the word for "alone" instead, klâwnd.
who (question) - rô
who (statement) - wô
one (animate) - mô
This is in the sense of "one should do that".
In addition to the all-purpose word for "we", there are words that can be used specifically to indicate whether the person being talked to is included or not, as some languages such as Navajo and Chinese specify:
we (meaning "he, she, it or they and I", not including the listener) - hô
we (meaning "you (singular or plural) and I", including the listener) - yô
and - yuw
or - guw
nor - gluw
either - kuw
neither - kluw
but - puw
except, but not - pluw
if - suw
unless - sluw
whether - cuw (related to "if", suw)
though, although - 6uw
whereas - vuw
as, like, the way that - fuw
unlike - fluw
(because, despite that, since -- see words to do with cause)
(while, as (time) -- see words to do with time)
(where, when, how, why (when used in statements) -- see interrogatives)
Right away you can see a pattern, that words can be negated with the letter l (from the word liy, "not"), which can be added anywhere it's pronounceable. Since that letter can form blends with other consonants (such as in the word "blend"), it can be added almost anywhere.
Linguese uses 2 different words for "as", fuw, a conjunction, when it means the same as "the way that", and is similar in meaning to "like" (as in "I did it as you wanted"), and ziy, usually a preposition, when it means "compared to" (as in the 2nd "as" in "this is as big as that"). But when English uses "as" to mean "the same amount" (as in the 1st "as" in "this is as big as that"), Linguese uses a word ending, in parellel with word endings for "more" and "less", as I will show.
(question) - ruw -- the interrogative for yes / no questions -- see explanation above on interrogatives
that - wuw (when used as a conjunction -- the recursive version of the interrogative for yes / no questions) -- see explanation above on interrogatives
As I explained earlier, "that" as a conjunction means when the word is used to indicate recursive phrases, or sentences within sentences, as in "I know that you did it" ("you did it" is a complete sentence, which is serving as the direct object of the verb "know", rather than just a simple noun), not when it is used as a demonstrative, as in "Look at that sunset." This is an important concept in Linguese, and recursion is indicated in a systematic way, with the letter w, rather than the more haphazard way that it is in English, as I explained. However, these would usually not be used as separate words, especially ruw. Just the r and the w can be added to verbs as verb endings, as I will show in the section on that.
These prepositions show whether a noun is the subject, direct object or indirect object of a verb. They only need to be used when nouns are out of the usual subject - verb - direct object - indirect object order. Also, all other prepositions indicate that a noun is the indirect object of a verb, in addition to their specific meanings, so the preposition here is a generic indirect object preposition, for when none of the others are used.
by (through the agency of), (subject) - ðiy
(direct object, passive voice) - ñiy
(general indirect object, when no other preposition is used) - xiy
Linguese can indicate the equivalent of the passive voice in a straightforward way, unlike English. The passive voice really just means that the direct object of the verb is moved in front of the verb, as if it is the subject, since that is the normal position where the subject of the verb is In English.
In English, there is a verb construction to show this, which is to have the direct object in front of the verb, then some form of the helping verb "to be", inflected for tense, and then the verb, with the passive -en or -ed ending. The subject of the verb can then be dropped, or it can still be there, moved from its normal position before the verb to after the verb, with the preposition "by" just before it, as if it is the indirect object of the verb. For instance, the passive version of "I love you" is "you are loved by me".
In Linguese, since the preposition ñiy is only used when the direct object is out of the usual order, it can be used to indicate the Linguese equivalent of the passive voice, by putting it before the direct object, which has been moved from its normal position after the verb, to before the verb. As in English, the subject of the verb can then be dropped, or it can still be there, moved from its normal position before the verb to after the verb, with the preposition ðiy just before it. So the equivalent of the passive version of "I love you" is "(direct object) you love (subject) I. With pronouns, the prepositions come before the pronouns, and usually form contractions with it, with the -iy part dropped off. In nouns, as I will explain in the section on noun endings, the prepositions can be added as noun endings, just the consonant of the preposition, with the -iy part dropped off.
However, Linguese can also indicate the passive voice in a similar way as English. (The reason for this is so that verbs in the passive voice can then be used as adjectives, as they are in English, as in "the loved person", as I will explain in the section on derivational endings.) In that case, the ñ from the preposition can be added as an ending to the verb rather than added as an ending to the object noun or put before the object pronoun to form a contraction. That verb ending means that whatever noun or pronoun that seems to be the subject, because of its position relative to the verb, is actually the direct object. So the equivalent of the passive version of "I love you" is "you love-(passive) (subject) I".
These prepositions indicate a logical relationship.
because of - pôy diy
despite - plôy diy
because of - pi diy
despite - pli diy
for (for the purpose), in order, so (in order that), pro - piy
anti, con, counter, against (anti) - pliy
why (for what purpose - question) - riy
why (for the purpose that - statement) - wiy
Note that there are 2 different pairs of words for why. Riy and wiy have to do with conscious purpose, such as why a person does something, rôy and wôy have to do with non-conscious cause, such as why an earthquake happens.
of - diy
with (accompanying) - kiy
without (not accompanying) - kliy
with (using) - ciy
without (not using) - cliy
like (similar to) - fiy
unlike - fliy
about (pertaining to) - priy
as (compared to), than - ziy
English uses 2 different words for "compared to", "as" for equal amounts (as in the 2nd "as" in "this is as big as that is") and "than" for unequal amounts (as in "this is bigger than that is"), whereas Linguese uses the same word for both, because they really mean the same thing.
Also, English uses "like" both to mean "similar to", as in "the lawn is like a carpet", and when it's used as a verb, as in "I like the lawn". The preposition is the former of those.
These prepositions indicate a spatial relationship. The left-hand column shows the prepositions that indicate a static spatial relationship, that there is no motion, and prepositions to the right of those indicate a dynamic spatial relationship, that there is motion. Those in the same row are related to each other. (Pairs of opposites in adjacent rows are also related to each other, such as above - below and in - out, as are the groups of words between - amid - among and through - throughout.)
|
(static:) at - tciy by (beside), beside, next to - djiy across (without motion) - kriy above - spiy below - spliy around (encircling) - griy around (all over) - friy along - striy in (inside of), inside (inside of), inside of, within - biy out (outside of), outside (outside of), outside of, - bliy on (upon), upon - giy off (off of), off of - gliy between, amid - miy among - smiy against (touching, leaning) - niy through - 6iy throughout - 6riy |
(dynamic - indicating motion) - hiy to - tiy from - viy by (passing by) - jiy across, over (with motion) - kwiy over (with motion) - skiy under, beneath (with motion) - skliy around (circle, go around) - gwiy around (go all over) - fwiy via - stiy |
(-ward) - driy toward - triy, ti driy away from - vriy, vi driy up - siy down - sliy |
Linguese doesn't have separate words for "between" and "amid". That distinction is indicated by whether there are 2 or more things that something is between or amid.
(before (time), after, during, until, since (time), by (time) -- see words to do with time)
Those dynamic prepositions can be used in combination with static prepositions to indicate motion, such as the way that in + to = into:
into, inside - bi tiy
out from, outside of - bli viy
on, onto - gi tiy
off, off of - gli viy
over (to), over to, across (with motion) - kri tiy
In addition, the dynamic preposition, hiy, can be used in combination with any of the static prepositions to indicate motion. For instance, "between" as in "sit between" is miy, but "between" as in "go between" is mi hiy. But there is little need for this word, because the verb usually tells whether it is static or dynamic.
before (position), in front of, ahead of - bay diy
behind, in back of - vay diy
fore, nearer than - bay ziy
beyond, farther than - vay ziy
The prepositions whose consonants can be pronounced at the end of a word would not usually be separate words, but those consonants would be used as noun endings, with the -iy dropped off. The prepositions of the form Cliy, Criy, Cwiy and Cmiy are the ones that are not pronounceable at the end of a word, so would always be used as separate words.
The articles ("the" and "a") aren't separate words in Linguese, but word endings. I'll cover them in the section on word endings, in the subsection on noun endings.
this/these - sa
that/those - ða
Unlike demonstrative pronouns, as adjectives these words aren`t pluralized themselves. Linguese does not have agreement, where one word`s form must be changed to agree with another word`s form, such as singular/plural, since that is a needless complication. Instead, when a demonstrative is used as an adjective, the accompanying noun shows whether it is singular or plural.
To form demonstratives that stand alone and function as pronouns, the same thing can be done as with the possessive pronouns above:
that (that one (e.g. chair)/ that stuff (e.g. air)) - ða`n
those (those ones (e.g. chairs)) - ða`nıy
which (question) - ra
which (statement) - wa
none, no (none) - na
some - ca
any - ja
all - ta
much / many - ma
little / few - la
other (additional same) - fa
other (additional different) - fla
extra - ka
per - pa
each - tca
every - va
several - ya
enough - ga
not enough - gla
such - dja
both - ba (related to "two", buw)
These, as with demonstratives, possessives and all other adjectives, can have -ın added on, plus plural and other endings.
Another group of function adjectives is the numbers. I decided not to have these all end in the same vowel because they are too important to get confused with each other in everyday speech. Instead, all 10 words for the digits end in different vowels (counting both forms of the ones that can be shortened as the same), so that they sound as different from each other as possible. Those 10 words also all start with different consonants, and the beginning consonant can be used in short forms of the numbers (as I will show):
0 - nê
1 - mow
2 - buw
3 - trey
4 - kwô
5 - pay
6 - zwiy
7 - spa
8 - gôy
9 - ñâw
Then there are the words for ten, hundred and thousand:
ten - djow
hundred - tcôy
thousand - mê
Words for 11, 12, 13, etc. are the equivalent of saying ten-one, ten-two, ten-three, etc. in Linguese, djo-mow, djo-buw, djo-trey, etc. These can be shortened to djo-m, djo-b, djo-t, using just the beginning consonant of the next digit. Words for 20, 30, etc. are the equivalent of saying two-ten, three-ten, etc. in Linguese, bu-djow, tre-djow, etc. These can be shortened to bu-dj, tre-dj, etc. (for those, the entire beginning blends, dj and tc are pronounceable even when shortened, and should be used, not just the beginning consonants, d and t, because just d and t are used for something else, as I will show). Hyphens are used for the multiples of ten, hundred, thousand, etc., and also for the digits at the end. The word for 587, for example, is pay-tcôy gôy-djo-spa, or pay-tc gôy-djo-s for short. The word for 2008 is bu-mê-gôy, or bu-mê-g for short.
After that, words for higher numbers, which in English end in -illion, are formed in a way that's similar to American English, with a new word for each number with an additional triplet of zeros, or power of 1000 (British English uses the same words, but they are used for each additional group of 6 zeros, or power of 1 million). Notice that the word for thousand starts with m, just like the word for 1, but with a different vowel, ê, and that it means 1 triplet of zeros, or 1 power of 1000. The words for each power of 1000 beyond that are formed from the words for the digits by the beginning consonants for the number of triplets of zeros + ê:
million - bê
billion - tê
trillion - kê
quadrillion - pê
quintillion - zê
sexillion - sê
septillion - gê
octillion - ñê
nonillion - djê
Notice that there is a problem with the American English words ending with -illion -- they are all offset by 1 too low in corresponding to the number of triplets of zeros. Million is formed from the Latin word for thousand, milli, + the -illion ending. The rest are formed from the Latin words for the digits starting with 2 (bi, tri, quadri, etc.) + -illion, but, for instance, billion means 3 triplets of zeros, not 2, though it starts with bi-. Linguese corrects this problem.
Beyond the word for nonillion, the system continues, with all vowels changed to ê, so that the word for decillion, with 11 triplets of zeroes, is djê-mê. The system continues up to the number with 999 triplets of zeros, which seems like quite enough, considering that people rarely say the words for the numbers over a trillion. (After that, for the number with 1000 triplets of zeros, the word for thousand is already mê, so the vowel cannot be changed to ê. So could additional -ê's be added on, or perhaps -hê's to be more pronounceable, so the word would be mêhê? That system would then extend forever, with chains of -hêhêhêhêhê's of any length needed.)
Incidentally, there are several C endings which can be added to numbers, which convert them to content words. A -ð is added to convert them from counting numbers to ordinal numbers (first, second, third, fourth, etc.), so that those words are mowð, buwð, treyð, kôð, etc. A -d is added to convert them to fractions (whole, half, third, quarter, etc.), so that those words are mowd, buwd, treyd, kôd, etc. A -k is added to convert them to multiples (single, double, triple, quadruple, etc.), a -g to groups (single, pair, triplet, quadruplet, etc.). -nd is added to convert them to words such primary (or main), secondary, tertiary, etc. The words once, twice and thrice are short for one time, two times and three times. (There are no special English words for four times and beyond.) The word for "time" (in the sense of a particular instance, as opposed to time in general) is eyt, and the words for the numbers can form contractions with that word: m`eyt, dj`eyt and tr`eyt, and beyond.
then (conditional, as in "if --- then") - бâw
also, too (also), additionally, in addition - tcâw
likewise, else (likewise) - fâw (related to "other" (same), fa)
else, otherwise - flâw (related to "other" (different), fla)
instead - hâw
besides - djâw
moreover, furthermore - zâw
however, nevertheless, yet - nâw
together - kâw (related to "with", kiy)
apart - klâw (related to "without", kliy, opposite of "together")
along (accompanying) - strâw (related to "along" (preposition), striy)
on (continue) - bâw (related to "in front", bay -- as in "walk on through the rain")
back (return) - vâw (related to "behind", "in back", vay)
-ward, -wards - drâw
toward - trâw, ti drâw
away - vrâw, vi drâw (from-ward)
onward - bâ drâw (on-ward)
backward (returning) - vâ drâw (back (adverb) -ward)
forward - bay drâw (front-ward)
backward (opposite to the direction you're facing) - vay drâw (back (noun) -ward)
inward - bi drâw (in-ward)
outward - bli drâw (out-ward)
up (upward), upward - si drâw (up-ward)
down (downward), downward - sli drâw (down-ward)
Bâw can be used instead of the verb kiz (keep, continue). For instance, instead of saying "I keep going", you would say in effect, "I continuingly go".
Note that in English, "toward" and "away" are sort of opposites of each other, but "toward" is a preposition, connected with a noun (as in "come toward me", whereas "away" is an adverb, not connected with a noun (as in "go away"). In order to use "away" as a preposition, you must use it with the word "from" (as in "go away from me"). In Linguese, there are preposition and adverb forms of both words that can be used with and without nouns. As I showed in the section on prepositions, triy and vriy mean "toward" and "away from", and are used with nouns. Trâw means "toward" when used without a noun, something we can't do in English. Those words can also be 2-word combinations, as with the other words in English that end in -ward.
(when, where, how, why (when used in questions) -- see interrogatives)
(often, seldom, never, sometimes, ever, always, soon, ago, already, again, etc. -- see words to do with time)
(here, there, nowhere, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, etc. -- see words to do with place)
(therefore, thus, hence, consequentially, so (thus) -- see words to do with cause)
(somehow, anyhow - see words to do with method)
how (amount - question) - râw
how (amount - statement) - wâw
This is in the sense of "how much" or "how big", not "how did you do that".
very - mâw
just (merely), merely, only (merely) - lâw
somewhat - câw
quite - sâw
almost - slâw
just (exactly), exactly - pâw
about, around (approximately) - plâw
enough - gâw
not enough - glâw
too (overabundance) - tâw
even (emphatic) - yâw
so (amount) - stâw
"So" in this case means some unspecified but definite amount, as in "I can only eat so much".
These are the other 2 words, besides numbers, that are so important that I decided to give them different vowels so they sound as different as possible.
yes, do (emphatic) - yow
no, not - liy
The word for "yes" is also used for emphasis. In English we use "do" as a helping verb for emphasis, as in "He DID go there". In Linguese you say the equivalent of "He YES went there". The L in liy is inserted into words and endings to negate them.
when (question) - rey
when (statement) - wey
now (this time) - sey
then (that time) - ðey
often - mey
seldom - ley
never - ney
sometime(s) - cey
anytime, ever - jey
always - tey
just (recently), short time ago - drey
soon, short time from now - zrey
ago - dwey
from now - zwey
already - djey
yet (as of now) - swey
again, over (again) - fey
meanwhile - pey
still (time) - key
no longer - kley
then (next) - 6ey
repeatedly - yey
regularly - zey
"Used to" is the equivalent of "regularly" + past tense.
before (time) - bey
after, afterwards - vey
until ((continuingly) on and before) - brey
since (time) ((continuingly) on and after) - vrey
by (not later than, on or before) - bwey
(not earlier than, on or after) - vwey
during - gey
hey - while (during the same time)
tcey - as (at the same time)
where (question) - ray
where (statement) - way
here (this place) - say
there (that place) - ðay
nowhere - nay
somewhere - cay
anywhere - jay
everywhere - tay
elsewhere - flay
in front - bay
in back - vay
why (cause - question) - rôy
why (cause - statement) - wôy
Note that there are 2 different pairs of words for why. Riy and wiy have to do with conscious purpose, such as why a person does something, rôy and wôy have to do with non-conscious cause, such as why an earthquake happens.
because - pôy
despite - plôy
since (causality) - bôy
thus, hence, therefore, consequentially, so, for that reason - tôy
how (method, way (method) - question) - raw
how (method, way (method) - statement) - waw
This is in the sense of "how did you do that", not "how much" or "how big".
somehow - caw
anyhow, anyway - jaw
so (way) - staw
"So" in this case means some unspecified but specific method or way, as in "I did it just so".
Now we can see that a number of the function words can be arranged into a 2-dimensional pattern. The interrogatives and recursives were spread among the various categories of words. When we put them together, we can drag along the demonstrative adjectives this and that and other functional adjectives none, some, any, all, much/many, little/few and other (additional), and related words that were also spread among the various categories of words. We wind up with a pattern with the interrogatives, recursives and functional adjectives in one dimension (vertical in this table), and the various subjects of the interrogatives (time, place, thing, person and method) in the other dimension (horizontal in this table):
| when (question) - rey | where (question) - ray | what (question) - row | who (question) - rô | how (method) (question) - raw | |
| when (statement) - wey | where (statement) - way | what (statement) - wow | who (statement) - wô | how (way) (statement) - waw | |
| no, none - na | never - ney | nowhere - nay | nothing - now | no one - nô | no way - naw |
| some - ca | sometime - cey | somewhere - cay | something - cow | someone - cô | somehow - caw |
| any - ja | ever (any time) - jey | anywhere - jay | anything - jow | anyone - jô | anyway, anyhow - jaw |
| all / every - ta | always - tey | everywhere - tay | everything - tow | everyone - tô | every way - taw |
| this/these (adjective) - sa | now - sey | here - say | this (thing) - sow | this person - sô | this way - saw |
| that/those (adjective) - ða | then (that time) - ðey | there - ðay | that (thing) - ðow | that person - ðô | that way - ðaw |
| many - ma | often - mey | ||||
| few - la | seldom - ley | ||||
| other (additional) - fa | again - fey |
The table shows how, logically, more words could be generated from that pattern that English has no single words for, such as words for "no way" and "this person". The pattern could be extended to other of those special subjects, so that there could be such words as "that cause / reason".
I can summarize almost all of the function words with these tables. The first shows words with vowels that are only used for some of the pronouns and possessive pronouns (ê is also used for some of the numbers, and aw for words having to do with method, not shown in these tables to save space). These are shown separately so that the other, main table can spread out more across the page. This table is, in effect, a continuation of the lines of the 2nd table that shows V and dV words, but going farther off to the side, showing addtional vowels that the main table doesn't show. (Picture it being stuck on to the right side of the main table.)
| â | e | ê | oy | uy | |
| - | she / her | he / him, she / her or it | he / him | they (inanimate) | you (plural) |
| d | her | his, her or its | his | their (inanimate) | your (plural) |
The next shows how I have used the available possible V and CV sound combinations (actually, there are other possible beginning consonants and blends, but only the ones I've used are shown here), aside from those few ones with vowels only used for some of the pronouns and possessives. The first row has a dash for the C, indicating no C, so that these are the words consisting only of a V. The beginning C's (or lack thereof, in the case of V words in the first row) go down the page and the ending V's go across. The words for most main pronouns and possessive pronouns, and numbers and yes and no are in bold because they do not fit the pattern of parts of speech and special subjects. All the other words have the correct vowels for their part of speech or special subject, so are all in the same columns.
| a | ay | âw | ey | iy | ow | ô | ôy | uw | |
| (adjectives) | (place) | (adverbs, amount) | (time) | (prepositions, purpose) | (thing) | (person) | (cause) | (conjunctions) | |
| - | I / me | we / us | they / them | it | he / him or she / her | they / them (animate) | you (singular) | ||
| b | both | in front | on (continue) | before | in, inside, within | since (causality) | two | ||
| bl | out, outside of | ||||||||
| br | until | ||||||||
| bw | by (time) | ||||||||
| c | some | somewhere | somewhat | sometime | with (using) | something | someone | whether | |
| cl | without (not using) | ||||||||
| d | my | our | their | of | its | his / her | their (animate) | your (singular) | |
| dj | such | besides | already | by, beside | ten | ||||
| dr | -ward(s) | just (time) | -ward (prep.) | ||||||
| dw | ago | ||||||||
| ð | that | there | then (that time) | by, (subject of verb) | that (thing) | that person | that cause | a | ay | âw | ey | iy | ow | ô | ôy | uw |
| f | other (additional) | likewise, else (likewise) | again | like (similar) | self | as, like | |||
| fl | other (different) | elsewhere | else, otherwise | unlike (prep.) | each other | unlike (conj.) | |||
| fr | around (all over) | ||||||||
| fw | around (go all over) | ||||||||
| g | enough (adj.) | enough (adv.) | during | on, upon | eight | or | |||
| gl | not enough (adj.) | enough (adv.) | off, off of | nor | |||||
| gr | around (encircling) | ||||||||
| gr | around (circle, go around) | ||||||||
| h | instead | while | (dynamic) | we (exclusive) | |||||
| j | any | anywhere | anytime, ever | by (passing by) | anything | anyone | |||
| k | extra | together | still | with (accompanying) | either | ||||
| kl | apart | no longer | without (accompanying) | neither | |||||
| kr | across | ||||||||
| kw | over (across) | four | |||||||
| a | ay | âw | ey | iy | ow | ô | ôy | uw | |
| l | little, few | just, merely | seldom | no, not | |||||
| m | much, many | very | often | between, amid | one | one (animate) | |||
| n | none, no | nowhere | however, nevertheless | never | against (touching) | nothing | no one | no reason | |
| ñ | nine | (direct object, passive) | |||||||
| p | per | five | just, exactly | meanwhile | for | because | but | ||
| pl | about, approximately | against, anti | despite that | except | |||||
| pr | about (pertaining to) | ||||||||
| r | which (question) | where (question) | how (amount - question) | when (question) | why (purpose - question) | what (question) | who (question) | why (cause - question) | (yes/no question) |
| s | this | here | quite | now | up | this (thing) | this person | this cause | if |
| sk | over | ||||||||
| skl | under | ||||||||
| sl | almost | down | unless | ||||||
| sm | among | ||||||||
| sp | seven | above | |||||||
| spl | below | ||||||||
| a | ay | âw | ey | iy | ow | ô | ôy | uw | |
| st | so (amount) | via | so (thing) | so (person) | so (reason) | ||||
| str | along (accompanying) | along | |||||||
| sw | yet | ||||||||
| t | all | everywhere | too (excessively) | always | to | everything | everyone | therefore, hence | though, although |
| tc | each | also, too (also) | as (time) | at | hundred | ||||
| tr | toward (adv.) | three | toward (prep.) | ||||||
| 6 | then (conditional) | then (next) | through | ||||||
| 6r | throughout | ||||||||
| v | every | in back | back (return) | after | from | whereas | |||
| vr | away | since (time) | away from | ||||||
| vw | not earlier than | beyond | |||||||
| z | moreover | as, than (compared to) | |||||||
| zr | soon | ||||||||
| zw | from now | six | |||||||
| w | which (statement) | where (statement) | how (amount - statement) | when (statement) | why (purpose - statement) | what (statement) | who (statement) | why (cause - statement) | that (conj.) |
| y | several | even (emphatic) | repeatedly | yes, (emphatic) | we (inclusive) | and | |||
| a | ay | âw | ey | iy | ow | ô | ôy | uw |
Content words also are organized into patterns whenever their meanings follow some pattern. First of all, as in Esperanto, where words end in a, e, i, o or some other letter depending on whether they are adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns or other parts of speech, words end in certain letters in Linguese depending on their parts of speech. However, in Esperanto, because these letters are vowels, aside from a few 1-syllable function words, most words are at least 2-syllable because these endings add an extra syllable. In Linguese, the ending consonant in the 1-syllable base itself tells which part of speech the word belongs to. Verbs end in z, s, j or c, adjectives end in d or ð, and nouns end in any other consonant. So, for instance, live (verb, pronounced with a short i) is zaz, alive or live (adjective, pronounced with a long i) is zad and life (noun) is zat. But content words are not just nouns, verbs and adjectives, but adverbs as well, so what about them? All inflected adverbs are derived from adjectives with a derivational ending, never bases themselves. The only 1-syllable adverbs are function words.
In addition, all content words are organized into groups according to their meanings. For instance, in English, the words see, look, appear, vision, view, glimpse, blind, watch, peer, gaze, scene, image, picture, drawing, show, hide, light, dark, bright, mirror, lens and eye all have to do with sight in some way, yet they don`t resemble each other and have to be learned separately by non-native speakers. In Linguese, these words are viz, vis, vic, vin, vist, vilz, vild, vidj, vidz, vifs, vig, viñ, vok, vob, voz, volz, vuwt, vuwld, vuwð, vowm, vowf and vown. They all start with v, and are subdivided into sub-categories of sight (vi-), pictures (vo-), light (vuw-) and optical devices (vow-). Further sub-categories are related to "light": day (ve-), white (va-), color (vê-) and sources of light (vu-). There are about 480 word groups.
Most word groups, containing most of the words, are in turn grouped into supergroups, each of which starts with a particular C (consonant or blend), most notably: in (b-), good (b-), do (h-), together (k-), go (kr-), around (gr-), little (l-), much (m-), know (ñ-), for (p-), up (s-), hear (s-), start (sk-), stay (st-), long (str-), to (t-), see (v-), water (w-) and exist (z-). These in turn are sub-divided into groups, each of which starts with a particular CV. (Where there are several supergroups with the same beginning C, there's no conflict between them, because the various sub-groups start with different CV- combinations.) In addition, there are some word groups that don't seem related to any others.
The words in each word group consist of syllables starting with some particular V or CV and ending with any of about 50 possible C`s.
The number of words within word groups range from 1, in the case of just a few dozen words that seem unrelated to any others, to so many that they spill over into related beginning CV`s. For example, there are so many words having to do with money that they fall into 2 beginning CV`s, flo- and flô-, plus words having to do with business, somewhat related, begin with flow-. (In fact, the word group having to do with money has the most words of any group - that says something about humans, doesn't it? But even that group has few-enough words that it doesn't need to spill over into a 3rd CV group. However, the distinction between a single word group spilling over into 2 CV groups, and a super-group with a number of CV sub-groups, is blurry. Super-groups can be thought of as giant groups that spill over into numerous CV sub-groups, but where the words can be clearly sub-categorized.)
A number of word groups are related to various prepositions and other function words, and the CV of the function word is the beginning CV- of the word group. For instance, the word for "around" is griy, and all words having to do with circles, spheres, turning, curving, etc., start with griy- (or gri-, since there are so many of them that they spill over into another beginning CV- group).
Several word groups are related to that 2-dimensional pattern of function words, having to do with amount, time, place, thing, person, method, cause and purpose, which end with âw, ey, ay, ow, ô, aw, ôy and iy. The content words for those concepts are âwn, eyn, ayn, own, ôn, ôyn and iyn. Therefore, for example, "anything" can be translated as a function word, "jow", or as "ja own", meaning "any thing", and all of those function words can be thought of as short forms of those 2-word phrases. And then there are other words within those word groups, so that, for instance, the word group having to do with amount not only has the word âwn (amount), but also âwt (number), âws (count), etc.
In addition to the fact that nouns, verbs and adjectives must end with particular consonants, there is a pecking order within each word group in which the most common words get the best combinations. The most common verb in each group ends in -z, noun in -t and adjective in -d. Less common words get other single ending consonants, and still less common words get ending blends. Often, pairs or triplets of words of different parts of speech are strongly related, for instance live (verb) - life - alive, love (verb) - love (noun), long - length -lengthen. In Linguese, these always have pairs or triplets of ending C`s that go together, depending on what is pronounceable. In addition to the most common triplet, z - t - d, there is s - б - ð, and several patterns of blends with those letters. The letters l, r, and n can form blends with all those letters, and form triplets with the patterns Cz - Ct (or just C) - Cd, and Cs - Cб - Cð. The letters m, ñ, b, g and v can only form blends with z and d, and only form triplets with the pattern Cz - C - Cd. The letters f, k and p can only form blends with s and t, and only form pairs with the pattern Cs - C, with no adjectives in the pattern.
The letter l, meaning "not", can be added to the bases in 2 ways to negate their meanings. In some cases, entire word groups mean the opposite of other word groups, and the l is added before the V in the CVC combinations, so that they become ClVC. For example, since all words having to do with "good" start with bi- or bê-, all words having to do with "bad" start with bli- or blê-. Since all words having to do with "hot" start with ga-, all words having to do with "cold" start with gla-. There is also a case where the l replaces the beginning C instead of blending with it. All words having to do with "much" start with m-, "little" with l-. Within word groups, adjectives can be negated by adding the l after the V in the CVC combinations, so they become CVlC. Most adjectives come in pairs, such as big - small, hot - cold, long - short, tall - short, wide - narrow, deep - shallow, thick - thin, strong - weak, light - dark, bright - dim, heavy - light, true - false, alive - dead. Big - small and hot - cold fall in different word groups because there are too many words in those groups, and are mad - lad and gad -glad. But for the rest, the positive of the pair ends in -d or -ð while the negative of the pair ends in -ld or -lð. For instance, long - short is strid - strild, true - false is zed - zeld and alive - dead is zad - zald. Some negative nouns and verbs are also created this way, such as live - die, life - death, conciousness - sleep, day - night. (For nouns, the letter l can also be put in the same place to mean something different, diminutive, or "small" instead of "not".)
Click here for a list of all word groups. (NOTE: I have recently made major changes to the function words, and have not yet changed this web page accordingly, so it is out of date.)
There is a small group of nouns for people that can be neuter, male or female. In English, seemingly unrelated words are used for these, such as aunt and uncle, which adds needlessly to the amount that must be memorized for someone learning the language. In Spanish, there is usually a nice o - a male - female pattern, such as tio and tia for uncle and aunt, though it requires extra ending syllables for male and female, and there are usually no neuter words, so the male word is used for neuter, which is sexist. Thank goodness, in Linguese, as in English, the pattern doesn`t continue over into inanimate objects, as it does with many languages such as the Romance languages, so there isn`t the absurdity of masculine forks and feminine spoons. The only words with gender are for things that really have gender, and all other words can be considered a 4th gender besides male, female and neuter-animate: inanimate. (The pronouns, as we've seen, even have what could be considered a 5th gender: unspecified.) In Linguese, since the pronouns for neuter, he and she are ô, ê and â, those letters form a pattern:
| adult - man - woman | môn - mên - mân |
| child - boy - girl | lôn - lên - lân |
| parent - father - mother | môm - mêm - mâm |
| offspring - son - daughter | lôm - lêm - lâm |
| grandparent - grandfather - grandmother | djiynd-môm - djiynd-mêm - djiynd-mâm |
| grandchild - grandson - granddaughter | djiynd-lôm - djiynd-lêm - djiynd-lâm |
| spouse - husband - wife | kôn - kên - kân |
| sibling - brother - sister | fôn - fên - fân |
| (no such word) - uncle - aunt | fôm - fêm - fâm |
| cousin - (male) cousin - (female) cousin | fôf - fêf - fâf |
| (no such word) - nephew - niece | fôl - fêl - fâl |
| neuter - male - female | nôd - nêd - nâd |
There are patterns here that should make these words easier to learn. In the adult / child and parent / offspring pairs, the m and l tie in with the numerous words in Linguese having to do with big and small and associated adjective endings that I'll show later). The k in spouse ties in with kâw, "together", since these are non-blood-relatives who come together into a family relationship. The f in sibling ties in with fiy, "same" or "alike" (and associated adjective ending that I'll show later), because they are of the same generation, in contrast with parents and offspring. Then the 1st f in the uncle / aunt, cousin, nephew / niece group ties in with sibling, because they all relate to the families of siblings. The last letter follows the m - f - l bigger - same - smaller pattern, since they are the same generations as parents, siblings and children. Similar to how we say 1st cousin, 2nd cousin, etc. in English for more distant relatives, I use the words buwnd- (secondary), triynd- (tertiary), etc. for more distant analogs of the various relatives, including with grandparents, great grandparents, etc.
Finally, there are the most basic, common verbs. In most languages, these have irregular short forms. In Linguese, for all of these verbs, the base ends in -iz, and all of them have regularly-formed short forms. In the short form of these words, the iz is dropped. In writing, an appostrophe is used to show that something has been dropped, and in speaking, the words are stressed differently than usual, always unstressed. (If you want to stress the verb, use the long form for emphasis.) For instance, "do" is "hiz", "have" is "diz" and "see" is "viz", and the short forms of these words are h`-, d`-, v`-, plus verb endings. I will explain all verb endings later, but, for instance, since d is the past tense ending, "did" is "hizıd", or "h`ıd" for short. "I had" is "dizad" (the a in the ending means "I"), or "d`ad" for short. "Be" is the most basic, common verb of all, so it gets the shortest word of all, "iz". The short form is simply an appostrophe plus verb endings. So "I am" is "izas" (the s in the ending means present tense), or "`as" for short.
The complete list of these verbs is:
|
be - iz become, get (become) - biz bring - briz care - ciz have - diz get (obtain), obtain - djiz take - ðiz end - fiz fear - friz like - giz dislike - gliz come - griz do - hiz give - jiz continue, keep (continue) - kiz stop, halt - kliz go - kriz keep (retain), retain - kwiz |
forbid - liz make - miz need - niz know - ñiz put - piz ask - riz hear - siz start, begin, commence - skiz write - skriz stay - stiz talk - tiz say - tciz try, attempt - triz tell - twiz think - бiz see - viz exist - ziz want - wiz allow, let, permit - yiz |
The fact that all of these words form the pattern Ciz should contribute to it being enormously easy for people to pick up a basic knowledge of Linguese, far more easily than any other language I know of. Rather than people having to memorize completely random syllables or longer words for each of these words, they would just have to remember which possible beginning C goes with which word. Some of the words aren't even arbitrary, but tie in with other parts of the language. The d in "have" ties in with the posessives, and diy, "of". The l in "forbid" and the y in "allow" tie in with liy and yow, "no" and "yes". The r in "ask" ties in with the interrogatives starting with r. And while it wouldn't help people who don't know any European languages, most of the rest of the words obviously come from English, either the standard English words, or, in case of conflicts where several English words have the same letters that I might have used, their equivalents that come from the Romance languages. The f in "end" comes from "finish". The s in "hear" comes from "sound". The skr in "write" comes from "script", "scribe", etc. The v in "see" comes from "vision". A few words come directly from the Romance languages. The h in "do" and the g in "like" come from "hacer" (related to "act") and "gustar" (as in "gusto" and "disgust") in Spanish.
While I have created 15,000 words so far (and want to create a total of 20,000 in order reach my goal of having all commonly-used words, so that I can consider the language as essentially complete), it would be impractical to include them all here. But just as Basic English was created to give non-English speakers a large-enough vocabulary to get along (850 words, including many function words), here are lists of the most common content words, alphabetized in English order (good for looking up words quickly) and Linguese order, separated into word groups (good for learning the language, since the reason I picked the equivalent words in Linguese becomes apparent). (NOTE: I have recently made major changes to the function words, and have not yet changed these web pages accordingly, so they are out of date.)
There are 2 types of word endings. Inflectional endings are actually function words added to the end of words. Derivational endings derive new words from old words, usually of different parts of speech. There are also compound words which derive new words from combinations of old words.
There are different groups of endings for each part of speech. Linguese uses individual C`s or V`s for these endings. Since there are a limited number of C`s and V`s, it often uses the same letters for different endings for different parts of speech, but there is no confusion because the different parts of speech are marked by the ending letter of the base these endings are being added to, or by derivational endings which change the parts of speech.
Depending on which endings are added on to the base, the ending syllable can be of the form -C, -V or -VC. When it is of the form -C, either the unaccented vowel ı or the letter i is added as filler to make the ending pronounceable, so the syllable is of the form -ıC or -iC. Either of those vowels then have no meaning, and are only added for pronunciation. As in English, which has -s and -ed endings that get added directly onto the end of a syllable without creating an additional syllable, endings can be added directly onto the base if pronounceable, as long as it does not cause ambiguity.
First, the verb endings. Compared to the elaborate systems of verb endings in the Romance languages and other languages, each of which means various combinations of case, tense and more, these are a pleasure.
Those other languages have endings for the 6 cases (1st, 2nd and 3rd person, singular and plural), which agree with the subject of the verb (always a pronoun for the 1st and 2nd person ("I", "we", "you" and plural "you") (except occasionally, instead of "we" for 1st person plural, either "you and I" or "(3rd person noun or pronoun) and I"), and either a noun or pronoun for the 3rd person. Since, for the 1st and 2nd person, there is only 1 possible pronoun for each case, the pronoun is usually omitted, because the case ending uniquely specifies it. For the 3rd person, since there are many possible subject pronouns or nouns, they are included in addition to the case ending, and the case ending must agree with them as far as singular or plural.
Linguese has something like those systems of endings, but it's not quite the same. It has VC endings, where the V is the subject pronoun, and the C is the tense and other things. Linguese never has agreement, where one word must change to agree with another word, so it does not have case endings. Whatever the case is of the subject of the verb, depending on which pronoun it is, or whether it is a singular or plural noun, that is what case it is. However, when the subject is a V pronoun, it is generally moved from a separate word into the VC ending, and the ending then functions very much like the endings in those other languages, and exactly like them for the 1st and 2nd person. In the 3rd person, if the subject is a V prounoun, it is included in the VC ending, and that's all that's needed (unlike in those other languages that only show the case in the ending, don't specify which particular pronoun). The V part of the ending isn't agreeing with the subject of the verb, it IS the subject of the verb. If the subject is a noun rather than a V pronoun, it remains a separate word, and the verb has no V ending (though may have a C ending, for tense, usually with the unaccented vowel where the V would be, to keep it pronounceable).
There are several types of C endings, which can be added on at the same time to form blends.
The simple tenses are:
past (__-ed) - d
present (__, __-s) - s
future (will __) - z
infinitive (to __) - t
Add in the subject V pronouns, and you have endings such as -as (I, present tense), -od (it, past tense) and -eyz (they, future tense). For example, since pez means walk, you have pezas (I walk), pezod (it walked) and pezeyz (they will walk).
Next come the complex tenses and what in English are helping verbs, but in Linguese are verb endings. The complex tenses, which have meanings similar to the simple tenses of past, present and future, are:
perfect (has __-ed, -en) - b
active (is __-ing) - n
preparatory (is about to __, is going to __) - v
So, for instance, you have pezan (I am walking), pezob (it has walked) and pezeyv (they are going to walk).
The simple tenses can be combined with the complex tenses, and other endings, to form blends, when pronounceable. However, when combined with any other C ending, the present and infinitive s and t endings are no longer necessary:
past perfect (had __-ed, -en) - bd
present perfect (has __-ed, en) - b (-bıs)
future perfect (will have __-ed, -en) - bz
infinitive perfect (to have __-ed, -en) - b (-bıt)
past active (was __-ing) - nd
present active (is __-ing) - n (-ns)
future active (imperfect) (will be __-ing) - nz
infinitive active (to be __-ing) - n (-nt)
past preparatory (was about to __, was going to __) - vd
present preparatory (is about to __, is going to __) - v (-vıs)
future preparatory (will be about to __, will be going to __) - vz
infinitive preparatory (to be about to __, to be going to __) - v (-vıt)
So, for instance, you have pezand (I was walking), pezobz (it will have walked) and pezeyvd (they were going to walk).
The present tense s ending is usually not used. It is dropped when in combination with some other C ending, in other words, when the ending syllable is of the form -ıCs or -VCs (e.g. pezıns or pezans ==> pezın or pezan). It is also dropped when it stands alone in its syllable, with no subject pronoun V ending (aside from the unaccented vowel, ı), when the ending syllable is of the form -ıs (e.g. pezıs ==> pez). However, it cannot be dropped when it stands alone, but the base is one of the common -iz verbs when the -iz has been dropped, since that wouldn't leave a complete syllable (e.g. h`ıs does not ==> h`, or even worse, in the case of the verb "to be",`ıs does not ==> `, leaving just silence!). The only times the present tense ending IS used is in combination with a subject pronoun V ending and no other C ending, since, if there is any ending, it must be of the form VC (to distinguish the V subject pronoun from the V direct object pronoun, as I will show), and in those common -iz verbs when the -iz has been dropped and there is no other C ending.
The infinitive ending is also dropped in the same way. (It is used in ways that do not create confusion with the present tense. It is used in phrases following a verb with tense (e.g. "I want to go", w`as kr`ıt). There are also phrases in English with 2 verbs together, both with tense (e.g. "I know you do", ñ`as h`us), but in those phrases, the conjunction "that" has been dropped ("I know THAT you do", ñ`as WIY h`us). In case of potential ambiguity, when the present tense ending is dropped from the 2nd verb in Linguese, the word wiy shouldn't be dropped for that reason. As I'll show, it can also be added as a w verb ending.)
Additional verb endings, which indicate various hypothetical possibilities, are:
can, be able to - k
could - g
would - f
should, ought to - c
may, be permitted to - dj (this can also be "y`ıñ __-ıt)
might, will possibly - j
be supposed to - tc
must, have to - m
were to (subjunctive) - p
Some combinations of these endings aren't pronounceable at the end of the syllable, so an extra syllable is needed. For instance, "I have been walking" is a combination of active and perfect. It could be pezanıb, with an extra syllable, or the n could be moved to the beginning of the ending syllable, peznab, and then it would still be 1 syllable. Or in the case of "I have been walking it", that could be pezanbo, the direct object allowing for the possibility of adding the b to the beginning of the next syllable without adding an extra syllable.
The direct object preposition, ñiy, can be added as a verb ending, as usual with words ending in iy by stripping off the iy and adding just the beginning consonant. It means that whatever seems to be the subject of the verb, based on its position (either a noun before the verb or a pronoun attached to the verb before the consonant ending), is actually the object, or the thing being acted upon rather than doing the acting. The verb then functions the way the passive voice does in English, aside from that, as usual, everything is done with verb endings rather than helping verbs. Therefore:
passive (be __-ed, -en) - ñ
So, for instance, you have the active pezod (it walked) and the passive pezoñd (it was walked), and the active kweta pez (the dog walks -- kweta = "the dog") and the passive kweta pezıñ (the dog is walked).
Additionally, l means "not", as usual, while r makes the sentence a question (this ties in with all the interrogatives beginning with r). However, these endings can be difficult to pronounce in combination with other consonants, and can be left as separate words, liy for "not" and ruw to make the sentence a question. (If there is already one of the other interrogatives, the verb does not need the r ending anyway, because the sentence is already a question.)
So, for instance, you would have pezald (I didn't walk) and pezard (did I walk?).
The r ending, along with a few other verb endings, can also appear at the beginning of the ending syllable. For example, "esurn" (are you eating?) is difficult to pronounce, but "esrun" is easier. Just as "ruw" can be a verb ending instead of a separate word, so can "wuw", but only at the beginning of the ending syllable because it would cause confusion and be difficult to pronounce at the end of the syllable. So for example, "I saw that you walked here" would be "V`ad pezwud say", the w ending meaning "that", indicating a recursive phrase. The other endings that can appear at either place in the syllable are the additional verb endings listed above that are often found in combination with the other endings rather than only instead of the other endings because their concepts often occur in combination: the f, p and ñ endings that indicate "would", subjunctive and passive, and the complex tense endings. (The l ending, meaning "not", can also appear in both places, but it means "not" in different senses. At the beginning of the ending syllable, it is used as a derivational ending, the equivalent of the English un- or de- prefixes. Therefore, "I undid it" would be "hizlado", while "I didn't do it" would be "hizaldo".) To summarize:
not - l
(question) - r
that (recursive) - w
Commands are formed from the m ending (must, have to) with no subject pronoun (the word "you" is understood). However, in this case, as with the present and infinitive endings, the m ending is generally dropped whenever it can be, and since there is never a subject pronoun, it is dropped much more often. Normally, there is no ending for positive commands, and just an -ıl ending for negative commands. Only in shortened -iz verbs is the m ending used for positive commands, and still just the l ending for negative commands. Also, an i is usually used rather than the unaccented vowel, for emphasis.
So, to summarize commands, "Pez!" means "Walk!", "Pezil!" means "Don't Walk!", and for a shortened -iz verb, "Kr`im!" means "Go!" and "Kr`il!" means "Don't go!"
If a V subject pronoun is in the ending, you need the entire VC ending, including the C, so the present tense and infinitive s and t endings must be included, because that position before the C means that the V is the subject of the verb, rather than the direct object. The direct object of the verb, including the V direct object pronoun, usually comes right after the verb, and when it is a V pronoun, it is even attached to the verb, after the C ending, or directly to the verb stem if there is no C ending. So when the ending is of the form VCV, the 1st V is the subject of the verb and the 2nd V is the object. When the ending is VC, the V is the subject. When the ending is V, the V is the object.
As for the indirect object, and its accompanying preposition, they can be attached to the verb also. When the subject and direct object are already added, with a VCV ending, the C of the preposition (the main prepositions are all of the form Ciy, so the C without the iy) plus the V indirect object pronoun, can be added on, to form a VCVCV ending. To recap, the 3 V's are the subject, direct object and indirect object pronouns, and the 2 C's between them are the tense (and other things) and the preposition. However, when either the subject or direct object preposition endings are missing, there is ambiguity which the remaining V's are. Either the preposition and indirect object should remain separate words (usually forming a contraction, and stressed, so that they can be told apart from the other endings when speaking), or the unaccented vowel can be used to hold the place of the missing V's (similar to how the zero holds the place in our number system, so that you know that the 2 in 203 means hundreds, not tens): ıCVCV or VCıCV or ıCıCV. Usually, it's shorter to keep the preposition and indirect object as a separate contraction.
An important difference between Linguese grammar and the grammar of English and other familiar languages is that infinitives operate like any other tense and can have subject pronouns; infinitives simply mean that no tense is specified. For instance, consider the sentence "they want us to go". In English, "us" is considered the object of the verb "want", so that the sentence consists of 2 phrases, "they want us" and "to go". In Linguese, you say the equivalent of, "they want we to go", where "we" is considered the subject of the verb "go", so that the sentence consists of the 2 phrases "they want" and "us to go". This sentence would be: "W`eys kr`ayt", rather than "W`eysay kr`ıt" as in English. Thus, although it may seem weird to people used to familiar languages, just as there are the various present tense endings, such as the ones equivalent to the 6 case endings in the Romance languages:
I walk - pezas
you walk - pezus
he / she / it walks - pezes
we walk - pezays
you all walk - pezuys
they walk - pezeys
there are the various infinitive endings for the equivalent of the 6 cases:
me to walk - pezat
you to walk - pezut
him / her / it to walk - pezet
us to walk - pezayt
you all to walk - pezuyt
them to walk - pezeyt
Of course, just as a present-tense verb can have no subject, as in "there are 4 people in my family", an infinitive verb can have no subject, as in "they want to go", and then it is the usual infinitive that most people are familiar with.
Examples of conjugated verbs are: (note how only V pronouns are attached to verbs as endings, nouns remain separate words)
we were walking - pezaynd (pez-ay-n-d: walk-we-active-past)
(people) were walking - (ômıy) pezınd (pez-ı-n-d: walk-(filler)-active-past)
you didn't see them - v`uldey (v(iz)-u-l-d-ey: see-you-not-past-them)
you didn't see (people) - v`uld (ômıy)
(people) didn't see (other people) - (ômıy) v`ıld (fla ômıy)
will I have to eat it? - ezarmzow? (es-a-r-m-z-ow: eat-I-question-must-future-it)
you can be loved - giyzuñk (giyz-u-ñ-k(-s): love-you-passive-can(-present))
it is spoken - t`oñ (t(iz)-o-ñ(-s): speak-it-passive(-present))
I'm not going to do it - h`alvow (h(iz)-a-l-v(-s)-ow: do-I-not-preparatory(-present)-it)
stop! - kl`im! (kl(iz)-i-m: stop-(you)-must)
don't go! - kr`il! (kr(iz)-i-l(-m): go-(you)-not(-must))
it has seen us - v`obay (v(iz)-o-b(-s)-ay: see-it-perfect(-present)-us)
I gave it to you - j`adotuw (j(iz)-a-d-o-t-uw: give-I-past-it-to-you)
(I saw) you go - (v`ad) kr`ut (kr(iz)-u-t: go-you-infinitive)
Nouns can end in -a or -ô, depending on whether they are definite or indefinite, the equivalent in English of the words "the" and "a" or "an". However, these endings are optional, as with the tense endings; it is not considered speaking telegraphically to omit these endings. Some languages, such as the Slavic languages, do not even have ways to express this concept, and the people who speak them do not seem to miss it. The ô ending would be particularly rarely used, the lack of an a ending indicating indefinite.
Next come the plural ending, -y (note how this ties in with the -y plural ending for pronouns), the singular countable ending, -m (note the connection with "mow", meaning "one"), and the uncountable ending, -б, which are also optional. In Chinese, for example, people rarely bother to indicate that nouns are plural, unless they specifically want to. The plural ending is always omitted after numbers greater than 1, and the singular countable ending is always omitted after the number 1. Uncountable nouns refer to stuff like air, water or rock which does not come in discrete countable objects, unlike tanks of air, glasses of water or rocks. Note that in English, for definite nouns we feel no need to make this distinction, while for indefinite nouns we feel we must, which makes no sense. The following chart shows the different combinations in Linguese and their strange pattern of equivalents in English, the way the word "a" is only used for indefinite singular:
| definite | indefinite | unspecified | |
| uncountable | __-aб -- the __ | __-ôб -- __ | __-ıб -- __ |
| singular | __-am -- the __ | __-ôm -- a __ | __-ım -- __ |
| plural | __-ay -- the __-s | __-ôy -- __-s | __-ıy -- __-s |
| unspecified | __-a -- the __ | __-ô -- __ | __ -- __ |
When translating the word "a" from English to Linguese, assuming it is indicated at all, sometimes it should be translated as -ô, sometimes as -ım, sometimes both, -ôm, depending on whether it is being emphasized that the noun is indefinite or singular. For instance, in "I have a car", that could mean more that you have one car, as opposed to none, or that you have some car or other, as opposed to a particular car that the person you're speaking to knows about. The easiest way to tell the difference is, if the phrase translates better as "I have some car", use the indefinite ending, if it translates better as "I have one car", use the singular countable ending, and if it translates better as "I have some single car", use both endings. In this case, you could mean either things. But in the case of "I have a headache", that presumably means, "I have some headache", not "I have one headache", since it is impossible to have 2 headaches. On the other hand, "I have a head" presumably means "I have one head", not "I have some head", since you are unlikely to be indefinite about which head you have (unless you're referring to someone else's head, not the one attached to your own neck).
After those endings can come endings consisting of the consonants of any of the prepositions which end in iy, as long as they are pronounceable as endings. For example, "in the houses" is "catayb" (cat-a-y-b = house-the-plural-in). But a preposition such as "across", which is "kriy" in Linguese, cannot be an ending because "catıkr" is not pronounceable.
The d ending, which means "of", is the equivalent of the `s possessive ending in English. However, as with the possessive pronouns, they aren't precisely the same as just saying "of". They also mean that the noun they are modifying is definite. When nouns with that ending function as possessives, they come before the noun they are modifying, just as in English. So, for instance, using "of" instead of the possessive form, "the roof of each house" is "bowfa tca catıd" (roof-the each house-of), but "each house's roof" is "tca catıd bowf", just as in English. (Bowf means "roof" -- in the word group related to bow, which means "over", of course.)
Linguese has an expanded system of adjective and adverb endings compared to English, which only has the -er and -est endings, meaning more and most. They are as follows:
| more, -er - -im | most, -est - -iym |
| as much - -if | closest amount -iyf |
| less, not as much - -il | least - -iyl |
To these, the adverb ending, s, can be added.
In each case, i means comparative, iy superlative, and the consonants mean "greater amount", "same amount" and "lesser amount". The comparative i ending can be left out, the unaccented vowel then used.
Note that in English, we say "more THAN" and "less THAN", yet say "as much AS". Linguese always uses the same word for "than" or "as": "ziy", meaning "compared to". Also note that in the phrase "as much as", the 2nd "as" means "compared to", but the 1st "as" means "same amount". Also, in English, when we mean to say "less big", we usually say "not as big", even though that makes no sense. "Not as big" literally means "bigger or less big, but not AS big"!
So for example, using the word "mad", meaning "big":
| bigger than - madım ziy | biggest - madiym |
| as big as - madıf ziy | closest in size - madiyf |
| not as big as - madıl ziy | least big - madiyl |
There is never a direct way to translate the -iyf ending into English.
All those endings can also be separate words:
| more - im | most - iym |
| as much - if | the closest amount - iyf |
| less - il | least - iyl |
Next, the derivational endings. As with the inflectional endings, these are always combinations of individual sounds. There is no easy way to translate them into English because English has such a confusion of endings, with many endings for the same meaning, and sometimes one ending for more than one meaning. As usual, consonant endings added directly onto bases, which always end in consonants, have the unaccented vowel between them. Here they are, along with which parts of speech they change words from and to, where v = verb, n = noun, a = adjective and av = adverb:
| v==>v | undo, disassemble, deactivate - -l- (as usual, l means negative. This ending is always added directly to the end of the base or other endings as the beginning of the next syllable, before the vowel.) |
| v==>n | action, withdrawal, etc. -iyn (a process) |
| solution (as in "dissolve"), advertisement -iym (thing resulting from a process) | |
| dependence -iyt (state relating to a process) | |
| killer -ı6 (meaning "one that (verb)s"; also -ô6 or -o6 if you want to specify that the actor is animate or inanimate) | |
| employee -ñô6 (or -ôñ6) (a combination of 3 endings meaning passive, animate and -er (meaning "one that (verb)s"); also -ñı6 (or -ıñ6) if you don't want to specify that the actor is animate, as in the English "-ed" ending meaning "one that is __-ed", or -ño6 (or -oñ6) if you want to specify that the actor is inanimate. The ñ is usually moved to the end of the syllable, where it is not as easy to pronounce, only to make way for the l ending at the beginning of the syllable, meaning "not") | |
| employed, chosen -ñı6 (or -ıñ6) (As I said just above, this is the equivalent of the English -ee ending except when the actor isn't specified as animate. The -6 ending can even be left off, leaving just the -ıñ verb inflectional ending, used directly as a noun derivational ending. As in English, this doesn't cause ambiguity; it is clear that the word is being used as a noun (as in "Let's help the unemployed."). What's happening is, the word is being used as an adjective (as in "Let's help the unemployed ones" -- see just below under adjective endings), but the special noun "one" is being left off, so that the adjective is then in turn being used as a noun. As usual in Linguese, and similar to English, an adjective can be followed by the special noun ın, meaning "one" or "stuff". Or that word can be dropped, and then the adjective functions as a noun. To add noun endings, the n in "ın" can be added to the adjective as an ending at the start of another syllable, converting it to a noun meaning "one that is (adjective)", and then the noun endings added on after. For example, since "huwj" means "employ", "unemployed" as an adjective is "huwjlıñ", and "the unemployed (ones)" is "huwjlıñ ınay", or "huwjlıñnay" for short. | |
| given -ıx (a distinction rately encountered, which English does not make. In the sentence "The man gives the baby to the woman", you can then describe the baby as "the given baby" because it is given to the woman, and you can also describe the woman as "the given woman" because she is given the baby. But she should really be described as "the given-to woman", because she is the indirect object, not the direct object. Therefore, the general indirect object prepositional ending, x, should be used in this case, not the direct object prepositional ending, ñ.) | |
| fallen -ıb (the verb inflectional ending used directly as a noun derivational ending -- see just below under adjective endings. As just above, the verb is being used as an adjective, and then, by having no accompanying noun, is being used as a noun.). | |
| advertising -ın (the verb inflectional ending used directly as a noun derivational ending). | |
| v==>a | dependent -iyd (relating to a process) |
| comfortable, literate -ık (meaning "can comfort", "can read", the verb inflectional ending used directly as an adjective derivational ending. To this, the t or s endings can be added on to make the word a noun or adverb, forming -ıkt meaning -ableness and -acy and -ıks meaning -ably and -ately. Note that the -able ending usually means passive + "can", but there are a few exceptions, as in "comfortable", when it just means "can"). | |
| breakable -ıñk (meaning "can be broken", a combination of 2 endings meaning passive and "can". To this, the t or s endings can be added on to make the word a noun or adverb, forming -ıñkt meaning -ability and -ıñks meaning -ably.). | |
| falling -ın (the verb inflectional ending used directly as an adjective derivational ending. Unlike in English, the present tense s ending (which as usual can be dropped) can also be used to make an adjective, so that you say, in effect, "the fall leaves", meaning "the leaves that fall", instead of "the falling leaves", meaning "the leaves that are falling".). | |
| fallen -ıb (the verb inflectional ending used directly as an adjective derivational ending. Unlike in English, the past tense d ending can also be used to make an adjective, instead of the b ending. You say, in effect, "the fell leaves" (the leaves that fell) instead of "the fallen leaves" (the leaves that have fallen). The preparatory and future endings can be used as well. In English, we have the preparatory tense function as an adjective by using the infinitive without the word "going" or "about", as in "the leaves to fall", meaning "the leaves that are going to fall". The preparatory v ending can be used for this. Or the future z ending can be used, so that you say, in effect, "the will-fall leaves", meaning "the leaves that will fall".). | |
| killed -ıñ (the passive verb inflectional ending used directly as an adjective derivational ending. Unlike in English, all the simple and complex tense endings can be added to this, so that you can not only say "the killed soldier", but also "the was-killed soldier", "the has-been-killed soldier", "the is-killed soldier", "the is-being-killed soldier", "the will-be-killed soldier", etc.). | |
| n==>v | befog, computerize - -z- (this ending is always added directly to the end of the base or other endings as the beginning of the next syllable, before the vowel. The unaccented vowel never comes between it and the base) |
| defog, dust - -l- (as usual, l means negative. This ending is always added directly to the end of the base or other endings as the beginning of the next syllable, before the vowel. The unaccented vowel is only used between it and the base if the base ends in l, but I try to never assign that ending letter to nouns that might take on this ending. (The last example should really be undust in English, as in "dusting a room", removing dust, as opposed to "dusting for fingerprints", adding dust.)) | |
| n==>n | brotherhood, friendship -iyt |
| n==>a | solar, industrial, aquatic, daily -ıd (the noun ending for "of" used directly as an adjective ending) |
| lifelike, friendly -ıf (the noun ending for "like" used directly as an adjective ending. To this, the t or s endings can be added on to make the word a noun again, as in "friendliness", or an adverb, as in "friendly"(in this case, the same as the adjective in English)) | |
| rainy, painful, porous, afire -ık (the noun ending for "with" used directly as an adjective ending. To this, the t or s endings can be added on to make the word a noun again, as in "painfulness", or an adverb, as in "painfully". The l ending, meaning "not", can be combined with this ending as the equivalent of the -less ending, as in "painless", usually as the beginning C of the syllable, so -lık, but it can also be the ending C, so -ılk ) | |
| a==>v | whiten - -z- (this ending is always added directly to the end of the base or other endings as the beginning of the next syllable, before the vowel. The unaccented vowel never comes between it and the base) |
| a==>n | stupidity, shyness, warmth -ıt |
| (no ending) - (having an adjective function as a noun by having no accompanying noun, with no word ending in English) - (no ending in Linguese either) or -n-, to which noun endings can then be added | |
| a==>a | infinite, unkind, nonconformist, atypical, impossible - -l- (this ending is always added directly to the end of the base or other endings as the beginning of the next syllable, before the vowel. The unaccented vowel never comes between it and the base. For example, "fitık" means "finite" ("fit" means "end", -ık means "with"), fitlık means infinite. "Esıñk" means "edible" ("es" means "eat", -ıñk means "-able"), eslıñk means inedible) |
| a==>av | boldly -ıs |
To summarize, the main endings are z to convert a word to a verb, t to a noun, d to an adjective and s to an adverb, plus l to negate a word. Most of the other derivational endings are really inflectional endings. For example, "the solar system" really means "the system of the sun", so the -ar ending really means "of", which in Linguese is a noun inflectional ending.
Here are all the endings in the language together, shown in the order they are attached to the bases (italics indicate derivational endings):
| part of speech | base ending C's | C's beginning the ending syllable | V's in the middle of the ending syllable | C's ending the ending syllable |
| verbs | z,s,j,c | l - un-, in-, de-: not (=> V) r - question w - that (recursive) ñ - passive f - would p - subjunctive |
a - I u - you e - (general 3rd person) o - it ô - he or she ê - he â - she ay - we uy - you (pl.) ey - they (general) ôy - they (animate) oy - they (inanimate) |
t - infinitive d - past s - present z - future b - perfect n - active v - preparatory r - question l - not ñ - passive k - can g - could f - would c - should m - must, command dj - may j - might tc - supposed to p - subjunctive |
| ñ - (passive) -en, -ed (=> A) k - (can) -able (=> A) b - (perfect) -en, -ed (=> A) n - -ing (=> A) v - (preparatory) to __ (=> A) |
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| iy - act, process (must be used with endings to the right) |
n - -ion: act (=> N) m - -ion: thing (=> N) t - -ence: state (=> N) d - -ent: related to (=> A) |
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| ñ - -en, -ed (passive) | ô - animate o - inanimate |
6 - -er (one that does) (=> N) | ||
| nouns | t,6,m,n,ñ,b,p,f,v,k,g,r,l,x,q | a - definite ô - indefinite |
y - plural m - singular 6 - uncountable t - to v - from d - of, possessive p - for b - in g - on k - with (accompanying) c - with (using) z - as, than (compared to) dj - by, beside tc - at s - up sk - over sp - above st - via n - against f - like ð - subject, by ñ - direct object x - indirect object |
|
| l - un-, in-: not (can also be ending C) (=> A, V) |
d - (of) -ar, -al (=> A) k - (with) -ous, -ive, -ite, -ful (=> A) f - (like) -like, -ly (=> A) |
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| iy - derivational ending (must be used with endings to the right) |
t - -hood: state (=> N) s - -ly (=> Adv) |
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| z - -ize, -ate, be- (=> V) l - un-, de-: not (=> V) |
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| adjectives | d,ð | i - comparative iy - superlative |
m - more f - as much l - less s - -ly (=> Adv) |
|
| n - one, stuff (=> N) | n - one, stuff (=> N) t - -ity, -ness: state (=> N) |
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| z - -ize, -ate, be- (=> V) l - un-, de-: not (=> V) |
There is a small system of these for nouns:
| small -il | large -im |
| young -el | old -em |
All other endings are added on after these.
Finally, Linguese forms compound words in 2 main ways, from nouns plus attributed nouns or adjectives, and from verbs plus functional adverbs or prepositions added as prefixes. Attributed nouns are nouns that form compound words with other nouns, as in "bookshelf". Adjectives act in a similar way, as in "bluebird". The Romance languages sorely lack the ability English has to form compound words this way. German does this even more than English, and it is makes a language easier to learn because there are fewer words to learn; the same fewer words are used in various combinations that logically mean what another language might use a single word for. It also extends Linguese vocabulary without using up pronounceable 1-syllable words. Linguese, like German, uses compound words more extensively than English. For example, the Linguese word for "stadium" is "blen-blowb", meaning "seat-bowl", or literally a bowl of seats. The Linguese word for "broccoli" is "sted-steb-krôf", meaning "green cabbage flower". German compounds words leaving no trace of separation between the words. In English, compound words historically start out as separate words, then are joined with a hyphen, then completely joined like in German, with no hyphen. Linguese always uses hyphens in this case, because there might be ambiguity where one word ends and the other begins. Some commonly attributed nouns, added onto the end of other nouns, are:
| -man, -person | -ôm | |
| -room | -ayt | |
| -ium | -aym (meaning "place") | |
| -ology | -ñim (meaning "field of knowledge") |
Linguese adds functional adverbs and prepositions onto verbs as prefixes, just as English does. Examples are:
| reunite | fe-mowz (short for fey-mowz, or "again-unite") | |
| cooperate | kâ-his (short for kâw-his, or "together-act") | |
| transmit | kwi-jis (short for kwiy-jis, or "across-send") |
The only difference is that English uses English words when these appear separately, but prefixes derived from Latin and Greek when they appear as prefixes, so someone learning the language has to learn 2 different sets of morphemes. They would only have to learn 1 set for Linguese. A side-effect is that in English, people don't notice the redundancy in phrases such as "transmit across long distances", whereas they would in Linguese, where you say the equivalent of "across-send across long distances". If you leave out the 2nd "across", "transmit long distances" doesn't sound right either, because with no preposition, "long distances" sounds like the direct object of the verb rather than the indirect object. A preposition is still needed, so in this case, the general-purpose indirect object preposition, xiy, is used (or the -ıx noun ending, of course).
Here in one place are the rules for shortening some words.
Function words that end in -âw, -ey, -iy, -ow or -uw can be shortened before a next word beginning with a consonant by dropping the y or w. For example, "but this" is "puw sow", or "pu sow" for short.
In addition, function words ending in -iy can not only be shortened to -i, but they can be shortened to -ı, the unaccented vowel, when the next word begins with a consonant. For example, "of this" is "diy sow", or "dı sow" for short. They can also form contractions with the pronouns by dropping the unaccented vowel entirely. For example, "to me" is "tiy a", or "t`a" for short. Likewise, they can form contractions with the interrogative and relative pronouns. For example, "whose (of who)" is "d`rô" for the interrogative pronoun, "d`wô" for the relative pronoun, "to who" is "t`rô" or "t`wô", and "for who" is "p`rô" or "p`wô".
Content words ending in -iz (verbs) or -id (adjectives) can have these letters dropped when there are endings added on. For example, "I do" is "hizas", or "h`as" for short, and "better" is "bidım", or "b`ım" for short. Shortened forms of the verb "to be" can form contractions with preceding words ending in vowels (function words). For example, "something is" is "cow `ıs", or "cow`s" (or even "co`s") for short.
The present tense, infinitive and command verb endings -s, -t and -m can be dropped when there is any other consonant ending. For example, "I am walking" is "pezans", or "pezan" for short. They can also be dropped if there is no pronoun ending (which is always the case with commands). For example, "the animal walks" is "oma pezıs", or "oma pez" for short. However, in that case they cannot be dropped if one of the -iz verbs is already shortened, since that would leave nothing but the initial consonant (or in the case of "to be", nothing at all). For example, "the animal talks" is "oma t`ıs", and can not be shortened to "oma t`".
There are no separate subject and object pronouns (such as I and me); that is indicated either by word order when the pronouns are separate words, or ending order when they are verb endings, or with special prepositions that mark the pronouns as subject or object when they are out of the usual order, indicating subject (jiy), direct object (ñiy) and indirect object (the usual assortment of prepositions, as in English, but also an all-purpose indirect object preposition, xiy). Normally, the subject, direct object and preposition + indirect object of a verb come in the order S V DO P IO, as in English. Prepositions for indirect objects are always used, because there are more than 1 possible one, but prepositions for subject and direct object are only used when they are out of that normal order.
English has a construction in which direct and indirect objects are in reversed order with no preposition, S V IO DO, such as in "I lent you it" or "I gave you a headache". This indicates that no motion is taking place, merely causing the indirect object to have something, as opposed to "I lent it to you", which indicates the motion of transferring the direct object to the indirect object. Linguese uses the word for "at" in this case, tciy, since that is similar in meaning to "to" but is a static preposition, and it does not reverse the order if the direct and indirect objects.
Another difference between Linguese and English grammar is that when verbs sometimes have no subject, English uses the word "there" to indicate this, as in "there is", "there goes" or "there comes", while Linguese indicates this directly by having no subject. In effect, you say "There are 4 people in my family" as "Are 4 people in my family" in Linguese. This sounds like a question, because English reverses subject and verb to indicate questions, but Linguese does not do this, so there is no confusion. At other times in English, you use the word "it" to fill up the place where a subject of the verb should go, as in "It's raining.", where there's really no need for that word. In Linguese, it can be left out, so that you say in effect, "Is raining", or "There is raining."
The passive voice works in different ways in Linguese than in English. Really, the passive voice means that there is no subject of the verb, that it is unspecified, and what is functioning as the subject (and is in the position in the sentence where the subject usually is, before the verb) is really the direct object. For the passive voice, the direct object preposition, ñiy, can be used along with the noun or pronoun to indicate that it is the direct object, not the subject, even when the pronoun is before the verb, in the position normally for the subject, though there is no subject. For example, instead of saying "I am loved", you would say, in effect, "Me there loves." ("Ñiy a giyz.", or "Ñ`a giyz." for short, where "Ñ`a" means "me", marked as the direct object of the verb because it is out of its normal place in the sentence, and "giyz" means "there loves", because it has no subject.)
More commonly, and closer to the way the passive voice works in English, ñiy can be added onto the end of verbs as a passive ending, -ñ, indicating that the noun or pronoun in the subject position is really the direct object. ("A giyzıñ.", or "giyzañ." for short, since subject pronouns can be used as part of the verb endings.) The verb can then be used as an adjective, in the equivalent of such English constructions as "the demolished house" (fôrzlıñ cata) and "the lovable (able-to-be-loved) person" (giyzıñk ôma).
Another difference between Linguese grammar and the grammar of English and other familiar languages is that infinitives operate like any other tense and can have subject pronouns; infinitives simply mean that no tense is specified. For instance, consider the sentence "they want us to go". In English, "us" is considered the object of the verb "want". In Linguese, you say the equivalent of, "they want we to go", where "we" is considered the subject of the verb "go". This sentence would be: "W`eys kr`ayt", rather than "W`eysay kr`ıt" as in English.
Nouns aren't pluralized after numbers, since that would be redundant. Instead of saying the equivalent of "two cars", you say "two car". On the other hand, instead of saying "a two-car garage", used as an adjective, you say the equivalent of "a two-carous garage", using the -k ending that means either "with" or the "-ous" adjective ending.
Finally, as in some non-Indo European languages such as Chinese, nothing is considered manditory, if you don't feel a need to express it. Plural and tense endings and can be left off, for example, once the listener has gotten the idea that you are talking about something plural or in the past.
Here are some common phrases translated into Linguese, with rough English pronunciation:
To be or not to be, that is the question. `It guw `ıl, ðo`s rita. (it goo ill, dhuss RITTah)
I`d rather do it myself. Gicaf h`ıto klâwnd. (gishAHF hituh KLOUND)
There`s a sucker born every minute. `Is ñôlım skad va beyp. (iss NGAWLim SKAHD vah BAYP)
When in doubt, throw it out. We cêltık, krasow. (weh SHAILTik, KRAHSSoe)
A stitch, in time, saves nine. Zuwstım, vey eyn, saz ñâw. (ZOOSTim, vay AIN, SAHZ ngow)
When it rains, it pours. We blônz, krômz. (weh BLAWNZ, KRAWMZ)
Where is the bathroom? Ray`s wat-ayta? (rice WAHT-ITEah)
Know thyself. Ñ`im fow. (ngim foe)
My name is __. What`s your name? D`a nom `ıs __. Ro`s d'u nom? (DAH NUMM iss __. russ DOOH NUMM)
Do you speak English? T`ur Äñglır? (toohr ANGler)
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Streldiym viyta mı buw aym `ıs strid strimô. (streldEEM VEETah muh boo IME iss STRID STRIMaw)
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. S`en `ıs mowð vena viystad du zatıd. (sen iss MOEDH VENah veestAHD dooh ZAHTid)
And here are some famous passages translated into Linguese. Guess what they mean:
Skitatc, Бeyt zicıd sima yu têra, yu têra `ıd fôrlık yu kliyd, yu vuwlt `ıd guwmag luwtad, yu zowma Бeytıd siyzd watayg. Yu Бeyt tc`ıd, "Y`im `ıt vuwt", yuw `ıd vuwt, yu Бeyt v`ıd vuwta yu tc`ıd wuw `od bid. Yu beyd-velta yu beyd-veta `ıd mowð venad.
Sit, fitık ba-têra. Soy`s krowziynay vul-krogad Hiñksiyn, pay-kren jiciynô, kwi`vipsıt lêd leyd munıy, vipsıt leyd zat, yu leyd côtsiymıy, frildıs kr`ıt way nô kr`ıb bey.
Gôy-djo-s` kren dwey, day be-mômıy skicıd sa ko-têrıg leyd tênô, skitcıñd yitık yu pi-hisıñd zeciynat wu ta mênıy`s skicıñd fiynd.
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