Category: Language

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Language

Transitional English

In a previous post I suggest that it is logical that English have a greater contribution to IALs than many current systems use. One possible approach is to “fix” English to address many of the less useful features, such as the numerous irregular verbs, eccentric spelling, numerous homophones, multiple affixes with the same meaning, single affixes with multiple uses and so on.
An idea of what this may resemble may be gained from “Transitional English” (TE). TE is intended as a learning tool. A stepping-stone for non-English speakers on the way to more traditional standard English.
TE represents its “long” vowels by single letters with umlauts rather than macrons (bars). Their system is a little different to that which I proposed for Diinlang on a previous post.
ä appears to be uses as an “o” sound being uses in häu (“how”) but also ¥än (“John”).
ë seems more like an “ah” sound, bëk (“back”).
ï is a long e sound such as in sï (“see”) and bï (“bee”). Diinlang previously used ii for the long e, a convention it got from SaypYu. “ee” and “ii” are phonetically very close and the former is easier to distinguish graphically.
ö is “oh” as in toast (“töst”).
ü is a long u as in june or blue.
TE has a symbol for “schwa”, but oddly uses “û” with a circumflex rather than IPA’s “ə” or SaypYu’s “ɘ”.
Short vowels (and some consonants) are marked with an acute accent if stressed.
TE also uses “¥” for the sound “dzhi”, said to be the voiced equivalent of the unvoiced “ch”. This is a phoneme absent from most other phonetic systems for English.
Diphthongs in Transitional English are described as short vowels with the “semiconsonants” y and w. This includes in “ay” pronounced like “eye”, “uy” 'as in' “bouy” (American pronounciation, highly variable as it often is for this word!) and “aw” 'as in' “how”. I do not think these are the best choices, phonetically, but they may have been chosen to introduce some of the more eccentric phonemes of standard English.
Transitional English makes all verbs regular. Possession is indicated either with an apostrophe/apostrophe S or by adding “av-” to the dependent noun/pronoun. This is similar to the use of “vo” in Diinlang and suggests “vo” can be used to mark a dependent noun/pronoun when both before and after a head noun.
Interestingly, TE uses a relatively short list of major affixes:
an- (un-) 'produces a contrary meaning to the word to which it is attached:
  • bilïvabl (believable, ' '), anbilïvabl (unbelievable, ' ')
  • huk (to hook, ' '), anhúk (to unhook, ' ')
[Many of the uses of un-/an- are probably better rendered as dis- or not-/nat-/no-/non-]
dis- (dis-) 'is similar to an- (un-), indicating separation or undoing:
  • asémbl (to assemble) ' ', disasémbl (disassemble)
  • agrï (agree) ' ', disagrï (disagree) ' '.'
eks- (ex-) 'indicates a former condition:
  • eksprézidûnt (ex-president)
  • eksházbûnd (ex-husband)
get (get) 'is a very versatile verb, which among other things means 'reach, acquire, obtain, receive,' and which can be combined with almost all prepositions, adjectives, adverbs and nouns in the language in order to indicate an action that approaches the meaning of the preposition, adjective, adverb or noun: get ap (get up) ' ', get dawn (get down) ' ', get fët (get fat) ' ', get awéy (get away) ' ', get gift (get gift)
grup- (group-) 'signifies a group or collection of things:
  • gruptíchrs (faculty), 
  • grupshïps (flock of sheep)
  • grupbrds (flock of birds)
  • gruppïpls (multitude)
  • gruptrïs (woods, forest)
  • grupbïs (swarm of bees) ' ', etc.'
[A similar construction would be useful for Diinlang]
nat- (not-) 'negates the idea that follows, and it can also function similar to an- or dis-, producing a opposite idea of the original meaning of the word to which it becomes attached:
  • klowz (close) ' ', natklówz (open)
  • rich (rich) ' ', natrích (poor)
  • byútifl (beautiful) ' ', natbyútifl (ugly) 
  • pr'ti (pretty) ' ', natpr'ti (homely) ' '.'
[In Diinlang this is more likely to be served by no- or non-]
mis- (mis-) 'to do something incorrectly:
  • print (print) ' ', misprínt (misprint)
  • reprizént (represent) ' ', misreprizént (misrepresent)
ri- (re-) 'to repeat an action:
  • kam (come) ' ', rikám (come back, return)
  • print (print) ' ', riprínt (reprint)
[Diinlang may use the more traditional “re-”. I like “rekum” to mean “return”. ]
-abl, -ûbl (-able) Possibility:
  • sï (see), ' '; sïûbl (seeable)
  • bilïv (believe), ' '; bilïvûbl (believable)
-er, -r (-er) 'When joined to an adjective, it serves to form the comparative of the adjective, and is equal in sense to 'more":
  • gud (good), ' '; gúdr (better)
  • grïn (green), ' '; grïnr (greener)
  • töl (tall), ' '; tölr (taller)
-est, -ûst (-est) 'Converts the adjective into a superlative form, equivalent to the meaning of 'most…": Although it is written -est the ending may be heard with the neutral vowel -ûst:
  • gúdest (goodest, best)
  • tölest (tallest)
-fl (-ful) 'Adjectival suffix which denotes fullness':
  • byútifl
  • saksésfl
  • kërfl
[Scots uses “fu” instead, which may be more compatible with Diinlang.]
-i (-ey, -y) 'Diminutive which denotes affection':
  • ¥ow (Joe), ' '; ¥ówi (Joey)
  • dëd (dad), ' '; dëdi (daddy)
  • dog (dog), ' '; dógi (doggey)
  • hors (horse), ' '; hórsi (horsey)
-ing (-ing) 'A participial ending which converts the verb into an adjective or into a noun; while, when preceded by the verb bï , it produces the PROGRESSIVE TENSE which describes an action in progress:'
  • stënd (stand), ' '; stënding (adj. standing)
  • wrayt (write), ' '; wráyting (writing)
  • hi bï wráyting (he be [is in the process of] writing)
-ist (-ist) 'Profession or occupation':
  • mashïn (machine), ' '; mashïnist (machinist)
  • art (art), ' '; ártist (artist)
  • piëno (piano), ' '; píanist (pianist)
-lö (-law) 'Indicates a relationship contracted by marriage':
  • san (son), ' '; san-in-lö (son-in-law)
  • brádhr (brother), 'hermano'; brádhr-in-lö (brother-in-law)
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Language

New Vowel Phonemes for Diinlang

As has been seen in previous posts, English has a considerable number of vowel phonemes. Languages such as Spanish and Italian have considerably less. If Diinlang is to be accessible to persons other than native English speakers the number of basic vowel phonemes it will use needs to be considered.
To this end. I propose a system of twelve vowel phonemes for Diinlang. These correspond to the traditional short and long vowels of English, with a logical addition.
The short vowels are a, e, i, o, u pronounced as in the English words bat, bet, bit, bot and but. [bæt, bɛt, bɪt, bɒt, bʌt] “e” also serves as schwa.
The long vowels are ay, ee, iy, oh, uu pronounced as in bait, beat, bite, boat, bute, which are rendered phonetically as bayt, beet, biyt, boht and buut. [beɪt, biːt, baɪt, bəʊt, buːt] The long vowels correspond to the phonemes sometimes rendered as ā, ē, ī, ō, ū. English learners are often taught the long vowels “say their name”, although in Diinlang ū will be more “uu” than “yu”.   It will be observed that two long vowels are written with “-y” and two are doubled. “ō” is the “exception”, being written as “oh”. “o” also combines with –y to give the basic vowel phoneme “oy” as in “boy” [bɔɪ]. “ou” is the phoneme [aʊ] as in “cow”, kou.
This system has some modifications to that used on earlier pages. “ee” replaces “ii”, creating words closer to more traditional English spelling practice.  It is pronounced like the “ea” in “east” [iːst]. The ambiguous “oo” of English is still avoided, being replaced with “u” or “uu”. “aa” will probably have an “ah” sound and should be respelled accordingly.
The “short” vowels and “-y” vowels combined with –r or –h create a number of vowel-like sounds.
When used in a terminal position the pronounciation of some short vowels may be modified in Diinlang:
“–o” is pronounced “-oh”, regardless of whether the final “-h” is written.
“-i” and “-e” will probably retain their short form pronounciation. Possibly these may be thought of as “–ih” and “–eh”
“-a” will probably be pronounced “-ah” in the terminal position, as in the Spanish “señora”.
“-u” will probably be pronounced as “-uu” in the terminal position, as in English words such as “kudzu”.
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Language

Lojban Attiudinals

Dipping once more into “Mindhacker” by Ron Hale Evens revealed an interesting section on Lojban “attitudinals”, effectively spoken or written emoticons. Probably a system as used in Lojban will not be in Diinlang. Simple words for concepts such as permission and obligation will obviously prove useful for constructing the modal verbs for Diinlang. The Lojban words resemble paired letters, although the dot and apostrophe represent a glottal stop and a “h” sound. By employing a few simple rules the attitidinals are easily converted into Diinlang words, many of them proving to be very onomatopoeic!
“yah” for “belief” clashes as a homophone of “ya” for “yes” and I do not like “yu” for “love”. “Togetherness” will more likely be the abstract noun derivation of “kom” (with) and hence “komeso”.
Note that not shown below are the neutral and negative variants of the attitudinals which may prove productive for Diinlang words once how to handle opposites and related issues is settled.
 
.ai “eye” Intent iy
.au “ow” Desire oh
 
.a’a “AH-ha” Attentive aha
.a’e “AH-heh” Alertness ahey
.a’i “AH-hee” Effort ahii
.a’o “AH-ho” Hope aho(h)
.a’u “AH-hoo” Interest ahu

.ei “ey” Obligation ey

.e’a “EH-ha” Granting/ Permission eha
.e’e “EH-heh” Competence ehey
.e’i “EH-hee” Constraint ehii
.e’o “EH-ho” Request eho(h)
.e’u “EH-hoo” Suggestion ehu

.ia “ya” Belief yah!!!??
.ie “yeh” Agreement yey
.ii “yee” Fear yii/ ii
.io “yo” Respect yo(h)
.iu “yoo” Love yu ???

.i’a “EE-ha” Acceptance iiha
.i’e “EE-heh” Approval iihey
.i’i “EE-hee” Togetherness iihii (komeso)
.i’o “EE-ho” Appreciation iiho(h)
.i’u “EE-hoo” Familiarity iihu

.oi “oy” Complaint oy

.o’a “OH-ha” Pride ohha
.o’i “OH-hee” Caution ohhii
.o’e “OH-heh” Closeness ohhey
.o’o “OH-ho” Patience ohho(h)
.o’u “OH-hoo” Relaxation ohhu

.ua “wa” Discovery wa
.ue “weh” Surprise wey
.ui “wee” Happiness wii
.uo “wo” Completion wo(h)
.uu “woo” Pity/ sympathy wu

.u’a “OO-ha” Gain uuha
.u’e “OO-heh” Wonder uuhey
.u’i “OO-hee” Amusement uuhii
.u’o “OO-ho” Courage uuho(h)
.u’u “OO-hoo” Repentance uuhu

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Language

Speedword Inspired Correlatives

My first ever post on this blog was inspired by Dutton Speedwords. Today’s post draws on a evolution of the system taken from this page. This, in turn, is from the book Mindhacker, which acknowledges that this table is inspired by a system used in Esperanto. Other IALs use a similar system, including Glosa. The Glosa table has a number of additional categories that are worth looking at.
Below is the system given on the technical geekery page, to which I have added some suggested Diinlang words. Some of these are words used in previous posts, some are just “placeholders”. Nothing about Diinlang is yet set in stone!
First parts:
  • q- what/which; ke
  • c- this; si/ vang
  • u- some; je
  • j- every; pan
  • n- no; no/ non
  • jj- any; enje/ eje
  • k- that;   su/ ving
Second parts:
  • -p place; pa/ loh
  • -m thing; mu
  • -d way; du/ li
  • -k kind; ka/ kin
  • -y reason; ju
  • -z time; zu/ tem
  • -r one (person); ze/ jhen/ ore
  • -t amount; morl/ metri
I have seen it suggested that “any” is an more indefinite version of “some”. Following this logic and the system proposed here, “any” becomes “eje” rather than “enje”.
There is more than one candidate for the word “way” in Diinlang. “-li” is used to make adverbs meaining “in the manner of” and has been used for constuctions such as “ke li” for “what way? (how?)” and “per li” for “ because”. “du” from “do” does seem logical, however.
Diinlang offers a number of valid alternatives for the English use of “one” including the pronoun “ze” or the word for person, “jhen”. “ore” is derived from the agent noun suffix so could possibly be applied to something that is not a person, as can the inanimate pronoun “it”. Some of these words can be gendered with “-o” or “-a” endings.
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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

Past and Perfect

Currently in Diinlang the tense of a verb is marked by proceeding it with the words “gon” for future and “wen” for past. Perfect aspect is marked by preceding the verb with “dun”, which is placed after a tense marker if present. Continuous/ Progressive aspect is indicated by the prefix “is-” being added to the verb itself. A similar system is used by a number of other conlangs and in many creole languages.
In many conlangs such markers are called “particles” but it may be more accurate to consider them as adverbs.
My recent attempt at novella writing made me look deeper into the subject of tense. Some novels are written in present tense but the majority are written in past tense, usually simple past, past perfect and past progressive.
Some creoles, such as Hawaiian, have a considerable body of printed material but constantly having to write “wen” (or some other tense marker or auxiliary verb) in each sentence seems inefficient. A good case can be made for having a more compact indicator of a past tense.
Jespersen reached a similar conclusion and selected the suffix “-d” for this purpose. I cannot fault his logic in this choice so propose that past tense in Diinlang can be marked with the suffix “-d”. Most verbs in Diinlang end in “-m”, “-n”, “-ng” or a vowel, so this is phonically compatible. In the rare cases where a word already ends in “d” then “-id” will be used. A word ending in “t” may take either the “-d” or “-id” suffix, as the writer prefers. Pronounciation will be much the same. This system is used in parallel with the use of “wen” as an adverb. In Diinlang one can write the past tense as:
“wen VERB”, “VERBd” or “wen VERBd”, although the last is, of course, somewhat redundant.
The “duoverbs” discussed elsewhere use “-t” for their past form. For the moment I will keep this variation, it being more desirable for the past of “riy” (write) to be “riyt” rather than “riyd”. Logically it might be better to use “-t” for all past tense marking.
The progressive aspect of a verb is created using “is-” as a prefix. A past progressive verb may therefore be written as “wen isVERB” or “isVERBd”. It seems logical to drop “dun” as an adverb and revert to the earlier system of having perfect aspect marked with a prefix. Rather than “dun-” I propose to emulate Jespersen by using “ha”, but as the prefix “ha-” rather than as an auxiliary. The perfect progressive can therefore be formed as “isha-”, the perfect passive as “hage-” and the perfect progressive passive as “ishage-”.
Present perfect is “haVERB”.
Past perfect is “wen haVERB” or “haVERBd”
This system also gives us a single word form that can be used as an active past participle.
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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

Duoverbs of Communication

Version 1.1

Back when I first drafted down some ideas for Diinlang I proposed that there should be two types of verbs. The majority of verbs would be “lexverbs”.
Lexverbs evolved into the verbs that have been encountered in previous  posts on this blog. Lexverbs are mainly uninflected. The prefixes “is-”, “ge-” and “isge-” are used with them as are the markers “gon”, “wen” and “dun”. There is still some work to be done with respect to mood, volition and potential but I am happy with the basic system as it now is. The small number of suffixes permit the creation of new but obviously related verbs.
The second type of verbs are called “duoverbs” since they have two basic forms rather than one. Originally auxiliary and modal verbs in Diinlang were duoverbs. Some of these verbs became lexverbs. The role of auxiliary verbs currently seems to be met by the marker and prefix system. Modal verbs will be worked on at a later date.
The second group of duoverbs are what might be termed “verbs of communication”. Verbs that have meanings such as “say/said” or “write/wrote”. Such verbs would see frequent use and there is an obvious economy in using alternate single syllable words rather than multiple words.
Talking of economy, consider a conversation such as:
“So he was like “No way!” and I go “Why not?” And he went all “Don’t ask” and I’m like “Why?” Then he goes crazy!”
Whatever else you may feel about such English, it is certainly fluid!
Of note are the use of the verbs “like” and “go/went” to introduce statements or reactions. Verbs for similar purposes in Diinlang should have equal brevity, versatility and fluidity.
How many duoverbs of communication are needed remains to be seen. As two possible starting candidates I will suggest “la(h)/la(h)t” for “to say” and “riy/riyt” for “to write”. “Tok/tokt” for “to talk” is another possiblity although “tok” is a good onomatopoeic word for a clock. La or Lah is a verb for general communication while riy and tok specify methods. The Portuguese verb “to read” is “ler” and this might make a nice complimentary duoverb to “la(h)/la(h)t”.
As can be seen, duoverbs have two tenses, the past form created regularly by the addition of a terminal “-t” (or possibly -d instead). Tense regarding verbs of communication is interesting. Traditionally in English we would use “I write/am writing to you” (present tense) in a letter, well aware that by the time the reader sees those words our action will be in their past. Nowadays communication by written word is often real time. My inclination is to think of the two tenses of duoverbs as being “past” and “nonpast”.  Should you need to use a duoverb in the future tense the lexverb marker “gon” is used. In fact any of the lexverb markers can be uses with duoverbs, the past form being a convenience of economy. “Mi laht..” and “mi wen lah/laht…” all mean “I said…”
Potentially the duoverb system will lead to attempts to form past forms of lexverbs with a -t (or -d). The success of this will depend on the individual euphony of the resultant word. Notably, some versions of Novial allowed the past form of a verb to be formed by either the auxillary verb or a “-d” suffix.
It is quite possible that “gon”, “wen” and “dun” might be used as standalone verbs themselves, serving as contractions of “gon du”, “gon bi” etc. Statement of the actual verb may be unnecessary where the following statement makes it clear that the subject was doing or saying something.
Human communication has undergone considerable change in the last few decades and natural languages have lagged behind in some fields. This must be addressed in Diinlang. To me, “phoning” someone implies vocal communication; talking to someone or at least leaving a message on their voice mail. “Texting” implies a written communication sent between phones. My Brazilian girlfriend considers the term to be more generic and if she promises to “text me” the message is most likely to appear on my computer and may have been sent from either phone or laptop. If an interviewer promises to “write to me” this could mean either email or snail-mail. “I’ll talk to you later” could mean a variety of methods or devices.
Diinlang needs a system that can be specific without losing versatility or brevity. For example “fohnlah” would mean communication by phone without specifying the format. “Fohntok” and “fohnriy” would indicate vocal and text communication by phone.
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Language

Clashes with Compounds and Affixes

Version 1.1

A common feature in many natural languages is to drop or change a vowel when two words are combined or a word is suffixed. This tendency is also seen in a number of conlangs. This complicates the process of determining what root or stem word a word has been created from.
This is a convention that is to be avoided in Diinlang. This does pose the problem that the combination of words or the use of an affix might create unintended diphthongs. Let us consider some possible cases.
Diinlang has relatively few true suffixes and the words that may serve this purpose tend to begin with “-i” or “-e”. “-sio” is an obvious exception. For a word that ends in a consonant adding a suffix beginning with “-i”, “-e” or “-s” poses no problems. This leaves vowel endings. “-s” works with any vowel ending. “-i” potentially could form “ai”, “ei”, “ii”, “oi” or “ui”. “ui” poses no problems and “ai”, “ei” and “oi” are not vowel diphtongs in Diinlang, the constructions “ay”, “ey” and “oy” being used instead. For “ai”, “ei” and “oi” a Diinlang reader would know to insert a syllable break before the “i”. Terminal “o” and “a” in Diinlang tend to have the “oh” or “ah” sound. Terminal “-e” is pronounced in Diinlang so can be rendered as “eh”. Therefore when the joining of words results in “-ai-”, “-ei-” and “-oi-” they may be written as “-ahi-”, “-ehi-” and “-ohi-”. “-ii-” is a vowel digraph in Diinlang and for this we have the “rule of y and i”:
“When a word that begins in “i” is being added as a suffix or compound to a word ending in “i” a “y” is added between the two “i”s.”
For “-e” we see a similar situation. “ae”, “ee” and “oe” are not Diinlang vowel digraphs but can be written as “-ahe-”, “-ehe-” and “-ohe-” to avoid confusion.  “ie” and “ue” should pose no problems but can be written as “-iye-” and “-uye-” if desired.
There are a few suffixes that begin in “a-” and words or suffixes begining in “o-” or “u-” are possible. Where there is a conflict, or where it makes things clearer add a “-h-” to words ending in “-a”, “-o” or “-e” and “-y-” to “-i” and “-u”. The same process is used with prefixes that end in vowels. Perhaps the rule should be:
“U and I go with Y.”
It may, however, be simpler to adopt the universal rule that suffix endings take an initial “h” where a word ends in a vowel.
If it is desirable to break up an unwelcome consonant cluster between joined words the obvious remedy is to add a vowel. Esperanto uses “-o-” for this purpose but for Diinlang this may accidentally gender some words. Therefore “-u-” is suggested instead.
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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”.