Author: losophyp

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Language

Turkish Verb Structure

Turkish provides some interesting inspiration as to how the verb system of Diinlang might be developed. Turkish is an agglutinative language so what would be a verb phrase in many languages is represented by a single Turkish word composed of multiple suffixes. These suffixes occur in a specific order so a word can easily be deconstructed by someone familiar with the system. For a natlang, Turkish is relatively regular and consistent system.
In “The Logic of Turkish” the author categorizes verbs as being as stem followed by vocal, dialectical, temporal (or temporal-modal) and personal suffixes. Note that a Turkish verb seems to be constructed backwards compared to English, the pronoun coming at the end.
The vocal suffixes allow a Turkish verb to produce a family of related verbs. The four classes of vocal endings are reflexive, reciprocal, causative and passive.
When more than one vocal ending is applied to a verb stem they will be applied in that order.
For example, a reflexive suffix is placed before the passive. Diinlang already uses the prefix “ge-”, effectively creating a related passive form of another verb. The pronoun “se” is used for “self” and I have considered a system where this can be placed between the subject pronoun and verb rather than after the verb. This is just a small step from using “se” as a prefix to create reflexive verbs. The suffixes discussed here produce several classes of verb from a common root.
https://cromwell-intl.com/turkish/turkish-verbs.pdf
https://cromwell-intl.com/turkish/verbs.html
The dialectical suffixes negate a verb or show potential or impotential. The latter is equivalent of the English verbs “can/ be able”. In Diinlang this is the verb/ auxiliary verb “zhan”.
After the dialectical suffixes we have what in English would be tense, mood and aspect. Tense and aspect in Diinlang are already well developed. Progressive and perfect aspect uses the prefixes “is-” and “ha-” which can be combined as “isha-” as needed. Tense is indicated by the adverbs “gon” and “wen” or the past suffix “-(i)d”. A habitual aspect may also be added.
Verbal moods are something that has not yet had much work in Diinlang. Currently we have the word “zou” which may be used for subjunctive and/or conditional statements. The categories that Turkish uses do prove helpful. As well as simple, we also see subjunctive, conditional, optative and necessitative moods used. Some of these moods can be used in more than one tense. It is likely in Diinlang words that give a grammatical mood will be placed after tense adverbs but before dialectical words. For example “zou zhan VERB” rather than “zhan zou VERB”.
Like Turkish, modifiers for verbs should have a set order. This may be tense, mood, dialectical and aspect (TMDA), which is reverse alphabetical order in English.
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Language

Colours in Diinlang

Version 2

For the last few days I have been considering the topic of colours for Diinlang. The Diinlang word for colour/ hue is “hyu”. Compound “hyu” with a word and you can describe a colour relative to the word you have compounded. “Gold-hyu”, “carpet-hyu”, “cream-hyu” and so on. Obviously some of these are very relative to the conversation ensuing. For Diinlang 2.0 this may be simplified to “hu”.
Also needed are some names of colour hues to use with this and this raises the question of how many colour names are need. Different natural languages vary in the number of colours they lexically recognize. “Orange” was a relatively recent addition to the English language which is why some orange/ brown things such as red deer, red kites and robin red breast have the names they do.
Isaac Newton claimed the visible spectrum had seven main colours and numerous intermediates. Indigo is very difficult to pick out and it may have been Newton wanted seven colours because of the occult significance of the number. It has also been postulated that seven was desired to correlate with the seven notes on a musical scale. It is more practical to treat the visible spectrum as six colours. (Six is the first perfect number and a triangular number, so actually way cooler than seven!)
If we consider the colour wheel it conveniently appears as six sectors: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.
Indigo is somewhere between blue and violet and this suggest we should consider hues that occur between the other sectors. If we mix red and blue we get purple. Blue and green gives us cyan, and important colour in printing. Magenta is purple and red. Yellow-green doesn’t really have its own name in English but is a very common colour in nature. Brown is also common. Technically it is dark orange but it is practical to treat is as a hue and it can range from very red-brown to very light yellow-browns. This line of thought suggested that it was practical for Diinlang to have twelve hues.
Looking at the names of hues in different languages showed no discernible correlations other than historical ones. Romance languages tended to use similar words to each other as did the Germanic and Scandinavian.
In the past I had considered a colour naming sequence based on the word sequence “Doh, Rey Me…” This rather falls down when you recognize six rather than seven main hues, let alone twelve! Many of these note names also resemble words already used in Diinlang. This also gives “sol” as green rather than a more logical yellow or orange.
One of the clearest and simplest colour naming systems was Tok Pisin. This reminded me that much of the world had some familiarity with English and this should be considered when selecting words for Diinlang. Many of the English words were usefully single syllable.
Here are the prototype colour hue names:
Red : Red may change if there is a homophone clash. Adopting “ler/ lert” for “to read” may have avoided this.
Brun : Brun is for brown and dark shades of red-orange and yellow-orange. Brun is considered to encompass both brun and beyj.
Oren : Oren is for the hue orange. This word already has this use in Welsh and Malay.
Beyj : Beyj is for the numerous and commonplace yellow-brown colours such as tan.
Yahn : Yahn is yellow. The Diinlang word is more compact than the English and has some similarity to the French jaune and similar words.
Laym : Laym is the word for yellow-green colours such as olive, pear, lime, chartreuse etc.
Griin (Kwin) : Griin is green and can be taken to encompass the range laym to sian. “Grin” may be selected instead. The word “verd” is likely to find its way into Diinlang but may have a more specific meaning such as “living greenary” or “foliage”. The new spelling system reverts this to “green”. For Diinlang 2.0 this becomes “kwin”, since it is shorter, and more distinct from “gri”.
Sian : Sian the name for blue-green hues, including cyan, an important colour in printing. A number of languages write cyan as cian.
Blu : Blu is blue. The term may encompass sian to viol, depending on individual colour perception.
Viol : Viol is blue-purple and the last visible colour before ultraviolet.
Purp : Purp is purple, the colour formed by mixing blue and red. I’m not entirely satisfied with this name.
Majn : Majn is magenta, the printer colour lying between purple and red.
Pink : Pink is a light shade of red but many languages have a distinct name for this tint. In English pink can cover a range from bluish-red to magenta. It is also the best colour name we have to describe Caucasian flesh. Pink gives us a thirteenth hue name.
Strictly speaking the above words would be combined with “hyu” but this will doubtless be dropped when the context is clear.
The above hues are complimented by the shades “blak”, “gri” and “wiyt/ viyt”, corresponding to the English black, grey/ gray and white. “Grey” and “gray” would both be acceptable Diinlang spellings but to avoid ambivalence Diinlang uses a spelling and pronunciation based on the French “gris”.
Given the trouble “w” poses to some nationalities “viyt” may be the preferred spelling and pronunciation.
The three shades and thirteen hues gives us sixteen colour names.
A case might be made that orange-yellow, often called “gold(en)” in English might qualify as another named colour, “ayen”, giving fourteen hues.
 
Colours : red, brun, oren, bayj, ayen, yahn, laym, kwin, sian, blu, viol, purp, majn, pink, blak, gri, viyt.
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Language

Syllable Structure

In his section on euphony Jespersen (Novial) notes that:

“While all nations find it easy to pronounce series of sounds in which vowels alternate with single consonants, and while almost all nations accept certain groups of consonants that are easily combined (tr, sp, bl, etc., before vowels), there are other and heavier groups which a great many nations find it extremely difficult to pronounce, especially at the end of words”
An example of this can be seen with romaji transliterations of Japanese morae. The majority of morae have the format CV, where C represents a consonant and V a vowel, bearing in mind that some of these consonants are digraphs in romaji. There are also five standalone vowels and one standalone consonant, “n”. There is also a character that doubles the succeeding consonant to act as a standalone. Thus in morae “Nissan” has four parts = “ニッサン” or “ni-s-sa-n”, the second character doubling the following “s” of “sa”.
A native English speaker generally treats “nissan” as two syllables. Interestingly Japanese loanwords tend to end in “n” or a vowel.
A non-Japanese speaker seldom has trouble producing a relatively reasonable pronunciation of long Japanese words such as “wakizashi”, “naginata”, “manrikigusari” and “kusarigama”. One breaks the word into syllables after each vowel or “n” after a vowel.
One of the earliest principles of Diinlang was to attempt to have words of a CVN format, where C was a consonant, V a vowel and N a nasal, specifically “m”, “n” or “ng”. It should be appreciated that each of these represents a phoneme rather than a single letter and may be a digraph or even a trigraph.
How many potential words this offers us depends on which consonant and vowel phonemes are deemed acceptable. English has many more vowel sounds than some other languages. The number of people that manage English as a second language suggests this is not an insurmountable problem. Japanese traditionally noted to have problems with “l/r” sounds. The greater familiarity of current generations with English may be reducing this obstacle. Native speakers of some European languages have trouble with “w”. “sh” seems to have a wide usage but what of “ch”, “th”, “dh” or even “h”?
Readers of this blog may notice that relatively few of the Diinlang words I have suggested so far actually have a CVN format! This is because so far I have mainly concentrated on words that serve as pronouns, articles, conjunctions, affixes and prepositions. These frequently used words serve as the bone and sinew of a language so I have aimed for brevity in creating them. Many are of a CV or VC format. Many of the affixes are VCV. My plan is to use CVN format mainly for the “muscle” words, the nouns and verbs and their derivatives. Even with this restriction there are likely to be numerous nouns and verbs of a CVC or CVCV format, particularly those of an onomatopoeic nature.
An underappreciated trait of English is its large number of single-syllable words. Since compounding words is intended to be an important mechanism of Diinlang it is desirable that the most commonly used and most useful words be single syllable. Many of these English words are widely understood, even by non-native speakers so it is desirable that such words also be used in Diinlang where they are compatible. What constitutes compatible? The native English speaker treats “strength” as a single syllable but this must cause problems to some language students. Jespersen notes that some consonant clusters cause problems and cautions against using them in the creation of Novial words.
If possible, Diinlang “muscle” syllables should be of CVN or CVC. Typically C or V will be no longer than digraphs, although “tsh”, “ayr” and “iyr” are potential exceptions. N will, of course, be either “m”, “n” or “ng”. This gives us a range of single syllable words from three to six letters. In a multi-syllable word the breaks between syllables can be recognized by a vowel or nasal ending or a “non-digraph” consonant cluster. Hence, if encountering the word “fiyrzhan” a reader with a basic knowledge of Diinlang would recognize that “rz” is not a Diinlang digraph but that “zh” is and pronounce the word as “fiyr.zhan” and deduce it means “able to fire/ burn”.
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Language

Prepositions and Directives Part Three

Version 1.2
I read the other day that the basic prepositions in Italian are a closed word class and only eight in number. This gives some insight and inspiration for the prepositions in Diinlang.
“In” in Italian is the same as in English and the same word is used in Diinlang. Italian uses this word for some uses not commonly seen in English. “In” is used as a preposition for travelling to geographical and physical locations. The Italian for “Are you going to France?” is “Vai in Franca?” It could be said this is a contraction of “into” in English. Rather than travelling “on a train” or “by a train” Italian uses the more logical “vado in treno”. These uses of “in” should be acceptable in Diinlang. The former use has some overlap with “ad” in Diinlang.
“To” in Italian is “a” and is obviously derived from the latin “ad”. “Ad” is the word used for “to” in Diinlang. “a” is also used like “at” in English for contexts such as “at 7.00pm”.
“Di” and “da” in Italian have the meaning of “of/from” for the former and “from, since, by” for the latter. These meanings are covered by “del” in Diinlang. Scots uses “o” and this may be adopted in Diinlang instead, forming a nice counterpoint for the possessive marker “vo”. A play is “of/from” Shakespeare rather than being “by” him. A person is of/from Rome. Diinlang also has the word “apo” meaning “from” or “away”. This is more concerned with direction and should be seen as the compliment of “ad”. There is some overlap with “del”. For example “left of (del) ship” or “left from (apo) ship” can sometimes be used interchangeably but may also have distinct differing meanings. The Diinlang word for “near” is “veng” and this can be used instead of “by” in some constructions such as “meet by the café”. “Book del Shakespeare”, like the English equivalent “Book of Shakespeare”, is a little ambivalent. To stress that something is about or by a subject we may use “apo” or “on”.
“Con” in Italian is “kom” in Diinlang and means “with” in English. The usage in all three languages is much the same. In some context “kom” can be used instead of “and (en)”. Jon kom Dean = Jon en Dean. It may also be used instead of “of/from” in some contexts.
“Per” is another word used in Italian, English and Diinlang. Its use in Italian is a little more broader than in English and these applications should also be used in Diinlang. “Per” is used for “for” in uses such as “leave for Rome” or “bus for Milan”. In the past Diinlang has also used “pro” to mean “for” in the context of being in favour of something or inclined towards something. This usage needs to be considered in greater depth.
The Italian words “tra” and “fra” are interchangeable and mean “between” or “within (a time)”. “I get married in two years” is “mi sposo tra/ fra due anni”. I believe “tra” to mean “between” has already found its way into Diinlang so the usage can be extended to mean “within” or “during” too. This also suggests that “tra” can mean “than” in comparisons. Jon eta tra Dean = Jon bigger between Dean = Jon bigger than Dean.
The final Italian preposition is “su” meaning “on” or “about”. “Su” has been already used for another purpose in Diinlang and Diinlang has the word “on” for “on”.  “On” can be used to mean “about” in the context of “a book about …” The literal translation in Diinlang would therefore be “a book on”. Constructions such as “talk about…” could either be “talk of (del)…” or “talk on (on)…”
The above gives us del, in, ad, apo, veng, kom, per, tra and on as prepositions to use with the directives previously discussed.  
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Language

Comparatives and Superlatives Part Five

Once again I have modified the comparative and superlative system. Hopefully this will be the final version!
I have reverted to using prefixes. I hope to have a relatively small number of easily recognizable endings for adverbs and adjectives so using prefixes facilitates this.
The prefixes are based on “ta” and “ko”, which respectivly indicate large and small quantities or numbers of something.­ On their own these words can mean “much/ great” or “few/ little”.
To form a comparative “ta” or “ko” has “e-” placed before it to form “eta” or “eko”. Used on their own these words mean “more” or “lesser/ fewer”. The use of “e-” to indicate more or multiple is an idea I have adopted from Sona.
To form a superlative “ta” or “ko” has “o-” placed before it to form “ota” or “oko”. Used on their own these words mean “most” or “least/ fewest”. This use of “o-” is reminiscent of the formation of some Japanese words, as indeed is “ko” and to a lesser degree “ta”.
For the word “bon” (good) we can therefore form “bon, tabon, etabon and otabon”. If things are not so good we can say “kobon, ekobon or okobon”!
If we decided to have absolute superlatives there are a couple of options. We could add an additional augmentative or diminutive to the end of the superlative. Alternately the definite article can be placed before the superlative. “It bi de otabon!”
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Language

Suffixes that Create Verbs

Many words in Diinlang will serve as verbs or nouns without modification or inflection. This is a feature that Diinlang shares with English. For example the word “hunt” can be used as “a hunt, the hunt” or “to hunt”. Many English verbs are created from the name of a tool or instrument. “Brush” gives “to brush” and spawns the noun “brushing” for the act of the noun. This is not always the case in English. “Stone” has a very different meaning to “to stone”. This verb has two different meanings, one being to throw stones at something, the other to remove a certain form of fruit seed. Adjectives may also be used as verbs.
New verbs, or clearly related groups of verbs may be constructed in Diinlang by use of a small number of suffixes. These suffixes have been adapted from Otto Jespersen’s IAL “Novial”.
Some nouns are not suited for unmodified use as verbs. Jespersen uses nouns denoted from living beings as an example of these. For such words the suffix “-ira” is added. In Novial “king” is “rego”. “to reign” is “regira” and the derived noun “reign” is “regiro”. “-ira” or a similar mechanism may be used in Diinlang for the same purposes.
To create verbs that have the meaning of “transforming into, render” Jespersen offers two suffixes, “-isa” and “-ifika”. Lesson 3 tells us:
“The suffixes –isa and –ifika are used to make verbs meaning to make, make into or render. For example:
  • liberi – liberisa (free – liberate, make free, free)
  • real – realisa (real – make real, realize)
  • kurti – kurtifika (short – shorten, make short)
  • veri – verifika (true – verify)
    Verbs meaning to provide with , cover with are made with –isa(but not with –ifika):
  • alkohole – alkoholisa (alcohol – alcoholize)
  • lume – lumisa (light – light (up))
What is made clearer elsewhere is that while the two suffixes have overlapping roles “-isa” is used for “provide, supply with or cover with” and “-ifika” is used for “make into or cause”. Thus “carbonize” is “karbonisa” and “dormifika” from “dormi” is “lull asleep”.
Interestingly “fika” can be used in Novial as a standalone verb. This echoes my own ideas that suffixed words in Diinlang should be considered to be compound words.
In Diinlang we may use “-isa” and “-ifa”.
Novial has the suffix “-ada” to create a verb for a repetitive (or continuous) action. “frapada” = “to go on beating”, “kantada” = “to keep on singing”, “parlada” = “to keep on speaking”. This resembles many English words adopted from French such as “cannonade”, “fusillade” and “promenade”. Since “to” is “ad” in Diinlang “-ada” seems a suitable word, having within itself a suggestion of repetition.
The final Novial verbal suffix of interest is “-eska”. This is used to create inchoative verbs. Added to a verb it denotes the beginning an action or state. Added to an adjective it means begin to be (become). Therefore “dormieska” = “fall asleep”.
In Diinlang “-eska” is likely to prove very useful. It may possibly be used as a standalone verb with the meaning “begin”.
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Language

Conjunctions in Diinlang Part One

Version 1.2

I have noticed that I have not posted anything on the blog about conjunctions in Diinlang. The section below is taken from a draft I wrote when the project first started. As with most Diinlang, nothing is carved in stone and may be subject to change and modification.
Originally Diinlang was to observe a CVn format for words. I felt that Diinlang conjunctions should not have to follow CVn format but should be phonetically distinct. They should be short -two letters for the most often used, three for the less common.
I did consider that it might be possible to expand on this basic set to allow some more logical constructions such as Loglan does.
Fourteen short words serve most of the conjugate needs in Diinlang. These can be used in combination and for some uses may need to be combined with simple words like “only” or “even”.
The first conjunctions to learn are “en”, “or”, “enor” and “nor”
en means “and” and presents non-contrasting item(s) or idea(s): “Zez gamble en zez smoke.” Following Chinese practice this conjunction may be optional in a sentence if the meaning remains clear. “Kom” (with) is an acceptable alternative. While an English speaker would be inclined to say “Dean en Jon” in Deanlang some nationalities are more inclined to use the construction “Dean kom Jon”.
In the original draft “et” was the word for “and”. Despite its use in French and some other languages a “-t” ending did not seem right for this particular conjunction. Many languages use just “e” but this is not so elegant when “and” is combined into other words, so I have selected “en”, which is used in a number of languages and is phonetically intuitive to English speakers. This may mean the word “enje” for “any” will need changing.  
or means the same as in English and presents an alternative item or idea: “Every day they gamble or they smoke.”
enor means “and/or” and presents options that may be either inclusive or exclusive. This was originally “etor”. Potentially we could have the word “komor” for “with/or”.
“You may have cake enor ice cream!”
nor presents a non-contrasting negative idea (“They do not gamble, nor do they smoke.”)
Del has a role as a non-specific conjunction. If you are unsure of which conjunction to use, use “del”. Scots uses “o”  for  “of/from” and this may be adopted in Diinlang instead, forming a nice counterpoint for the possessive marker “vo”.
dhen, but, yet, ergo, kos
dhen is “then” and is a conjunction that is also a preposition. It is used like and/en when the items being described occur in a sequence. In English we say “They got married and had children” but it is more accurate to say “They got married then had children”.  “dhen” is likely to be changed.
but/yet are both used to presents a contrast or exception. While their use is similar it is not fully interchangeable in English and the distinctions will become apparent when using subordinating conjunctions.
    “They gamble, but they don't smoke.”
    “They gamble, yet they don't smoke.”
Whether it is worth keeping “yet” in Diinlang remains to be decided.
Ergo is “so” or “thus” in English and presents a consequence
“He gambled well last night ergo he smoked a cigar to celebrate.”
It may be more logical to keep the shorter and more versatile English word “so”.
Kos is used for the conjunctions “because” or “for” (freeing "for" for other applications) The use of kos compliments “ergo” since it presents a cause rather than a consequence.
    “We went inside because it rained.” = “Miz pre go intra kos it dunpotsu”.
    “It rained so we went inside” = “It dunpotsu ergo miz pre go intra.

Update

“Kos” is unfortunately a homophone of “koz” (few). The word “per” may serve for many of the applications that we use “because” for in English. For some applications constructions such as “per ke”, “per li”, “per sa” may be needed instead. Possibly the most apt construction will be “per ifa”.
kwah” is used like “than” in English and separates things being compared. Unlike “than” in English it can be used in a statement that things are equal or similar if the rest of the sentence is suitably constructed. “Dean bi taha kwah Jon”, “Ray bi iso kwah Jon” (Dean is much bigger than Jon, Ray is equal/same as Jon).
It may be better to use “as” in this application. Scots uses  “nor” for “than”, which I find logical and is my current preference.
If, as : If is mainly used with correlative and subordinate conjunctions and indicates a conditional statement.
“as” presents an explanation ("He is gambling with his health, as he has been smoking far too long.")  As can mean “the same way” or “at the same time”. It is may be used instead of “than”/”kwah” when the things discussed are even or equivalent or nearly so in some way. Possibly “as” can be used for “too/also”.
“per” is used much the same as in English and can be used as “with respect to/wrt”. It may also mean “for each”, “to each”, “in each”, “in accordance with” or “via the”. Per also serves as a preposition.
 The fourteen basic conjunctions are therefore en, or, enor, nor, dhen, but, yet, ergo, kos, kwah, if, as, per, del.
 

Correlative Conjunctions

Correlative conjunctions are formed using combinations of the above words.
either…or                           (or)…or  The first “or” is optional.
not only…but (also)           but….but (?)
neither…nor                       nor…nor
both…and                          probably redundant! Diinlang has singular and plural, no dual.
whether…or                           if…or
if…or                                       if…or   
if…and                                    if…et
if…then                                  if…dhen
just as…so                               ergo…ergo //if…ergo
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Language

Diinlang Numbers

Version 1.1
Like most of Diinlang the numbering system is a work in progress and subject to change.
Numbers in Diinlang derive from ISV prefixes with some modifications for increased clarity.
1 uni               8 okt               36 triten heks
2 duo              9 niyn             42 tetten duo
3 tri                10 ten             54 pentteni tet
4 tet                11 ten uni       69 hekten niyn
5 pent             12 ten duo     78 septten okt
6 heks             13 ten tri        83 oktten tri
7 sept              20 duoten     99 niynten niyn
The use of deka for 10 would make 20 duodeka and cause confusion with terms such as duodecimal and hexadecimal. The English “ten” has the merit of being one syllable. Likewise “niyn” is clearer than the Latin and Greek derived “ennea” and “nona”.
Larger numbers are hekta (100), kila (1000), mega (1,000,000), tera (1,000,000,000,000 or 1012 ) and yotta (1024). Other numbers are formed from combinations of these: deka kilia is 10,000, kilia mega is 1,000,000,000.
Ordinal numbers (the equivalent of “first”, “third”, “eighty second” etc could be formed by adding “-nd” to the final number word. Therefore “unind”, “trind” “oktten duond”. It may be clearer to use the system where ordinals are formed by placing the number after the thing described. Hence “tri kanisiz” is “three dogs” while “kanisi tri” is “third dog”. This is consistent with the proposed system of placing adjectives after the noun. Cardinal numbers are treated as determiners, ordinal numbers as adjectives
A suffix/ word for “group” could be used to form words such as “dual”, “pair”, “trio” etc.
“Duzn” is an alternate word for 12 and used when working in dozenals. “Elva” (from Swedish) is an alternate for 11. When working with dozenals 144 or 122 is “grohs” and 123 or 1728 is a tsagiir.

Update

Using “ten” may cause confusion with the “ten-” radio code system. “Diis”, adapted from Haitian Creole may be a more suitable word for 10 and  has the advantage that it is closer to the words used in many European languages.
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Language

Interjections

Version 1.
I have not devoted much time to interjections since most interjections are going to arise naturally so it is pointless to try to define them. There are going to be natural sounds like “huh” and “umm”. The Diinlang word “ke” can serve as a verbal marker for questions, the most likely use being to replace the sound “eh?” at the end of a statement.
I would suggest adopting “hey” as the standard greeting. It already fits the pronunciation standards of Diinlang, is already in wide use and is widely understood by the speakers of various languages. It serves to say “hello”, “I am here” and also “I acknowledge you”.
“Tshou” may be used as either a greeting or parting phrase. This is a phonetic rendition of the Italian “ciao” which has come to be used by many other nationalities. Both tshou and hey are time-independent greetings, useful in the modern world where people routinely communicate from different time zones.
“Sori” (sorry) seems like a good word to retain/ adopt for Diinlang. “No” is already in use in Diinlang and widely understood.
“Ya” or “yah” is used for “yes”. This allows us to retain the convention of “Y or N” with computers.
Originally I had the term “pro favori” for “please” but this is too many syllables. The word “miask” (from “I ask”) is used for “please” when making a request. It has been selected for verbal compactness and to remind the speaker that they are making a request, not a demand.
The word “kanen” means “gratitude” and can be used for “please” and for “thank you?” I do not recall how I selected this word but it will do for now.
“Sku”  is used for “apology” or an alternate for “sorry”.
“Skuz” therefore means “many apologies”.
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Language

Comparatives and Superlatives Part Three

Sometimes, I have been known to take my own advice…
I have been thinking further on the topic of comparatives and superlatives. In my last post in this vein I proposed “plu-”, “plust-”, “min-”, “minst-” for the “more, most” and “less, least/ fewer, fewest” sequences. Using words that are common to several other constructed languages can be a mixed blessing. I notice that Interglossa makes considerable use of “plu” but uses it as an article to indicate plurality. A bigger problem is that I have words for the comparatives and superlatives but no related word for the positives: “much/ many” and “few/ little”.
In my post on the “vang, veng, ving, vong” progression I mentioned that when I came up with the concept of relating words by an alphabetical vowel progression I had expected to make more use of it than I had.
Thinking on this I now propose the sequences “mas, mes, mos” and “las, les, los”. The first is easy to remember since some of the words resemble English words such as “mass” and “most”. “Mas” is reminiscent of “mais”, the Portuguese word for more/ most. “Les” phonetically resembles its English meaning, “less”. All of the words have the common theme of ending in “-s”.
Some languages use an “absolute superlative”. To do this in Diinlang use mos– with the augmentive suffix –ta or los– with the diminutive suffix, –ko.
The use of “mes” here means that we can no longer use it for the small/ medium/ large progression. In another recent post I remarked on the tendency to create new words were familiar English ones would do. “Gros” is somewhat ambiguous since it can also indicate a number (144), a quantity or something unpleasant. The English word “big” is, however, widely understood and has surprisingly few alternate meanings, even in other languages. Using “big-“ as a prefix has echoes of various pidgins and creoles but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Those are languages that evolved for clearer communication so have some features worth examining. “Mes” in this progression gets replaced with “mid”, another simple word whose meaning will be clear and logical to many who encounter it.
Small/Medium/Large are now represented in Diinlang by “mik, mid, big”. These may be combined to indicate intermediate graduations using the words “mikmid” and “midbig”.