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Language

Adjectives Group One

Version 1.1
Adjectives continue to be a challenge. Probably the most logical approach is to break them into smaller bites. If lists of things such as suffixes must be memorized then it seems prudent to break them into “chunks” of seven or less.
Many constructed languages choose to mark adjectives and adverbs with distinct affixes. In fact, some of these only mark descriptive adjectives, using different systems or none at all for other types. Similarly, marked adverbs tend to be adverbs of manner.
In most natural and many constructed languages there are many adjective words that have no distinctive marking. Some of these words also serve as verbs or nouns. Function is indicated by position and context. If the role of a word can be determined in this fashion also marking the word seems redundant and an unnecessary source of errors.
Many adjectives are formed by compounding words.
A large number of adjectives or words that serve as adjectives in English are derived from the active, perfect or passive forms of verbs. Examples include “opening, running, wooden, winged” and many others. For Diinlang I feel it is easier to use these in a single form rather than switching suffix depending on whether the word is serving as a verb, gerund, adverb, adjective etc. In Diinlang these verb-derived “adjectivoids” will end in “-ing/ -ying” or “-d/ -id”. The progressive/ active forms might be termed “adjectives of doing” while the perfect/ passive are probably “adjectives of having/ being”.
The above suggests that it is unlikely that a single suffix can be used for all adjectives, even if it is limited to only descriptive adjectives. More logical is to use affixes only when it is necessary to indicate that an adjective is a particular variant or when adjectival nature needs to be emphasised.
Several conlangs opt to use “-al” as a generic adjective suffix since this is also used by a number of natlangs. In English this suffix is more specific and indicates adjectives “of or pertaining to the root”. The suffix “-ic” has an identical use in English, and some adjectives even have “-ical” as a suffix, although the “ic” may have a non-adjective origin. It is worth noting that the “-al” suffix also produces nouns in English.
For Diinlang I am going to propose that an equivalent of the English “-y/ -ie/ -e/ -ey/ -i-” be used as the generic adjectival marker. This is a very useful and productive suffix in English. Wiktionary notes that this ending or its homophones can be added to nearly any English word to create an “adjectivey” meaning. (Soon after I had made the decision to use “-y” I overheard my girlfriend jokingly use the term “wettie” to describe a rain-soaked friend.)
When used with a noun root “-y” has the meaning of “having the quality of” while with a verb it has the meaning of “inclined to”. Examples being “messy, hairy, sticky, runny, clayey, doggy etc”. This suffix also forms abbreviated/ diminutive/ affectionate nouns without any confusion with it adjective role. The same word often does both duties. Consider “I love granny” vs “you wear granny boots”.
In a previous post I suggested the Diinlang equivalent of “-y” be “-yi”. Both are phonetically very similar to “-i” endings of Diinlang words. Possibly words with an “-i” ending can be treated as having an optional adjectival (or adverbial) use. If so, adding “-i” to the end of a word that lacks an “-i” or “-yi/ -hi” to one that has one creates an adjective. See here for vowel clash rules.
Adjectives equivalent to “-al” or “-ic” in English are formed with “-ali/ -yali/ -hali”.
Adverbs of manner are created by adding “-ili” as a suffix. Many such adverbs will be formed from adjectives that already end in “-i” in which case just “-li” may be added. This gives the phonetic equivalent of the adverbial “-ly” ending in English. “Li”  is already used in Diinlang for constructions such as “ke li?” meaning “what manner/ how?” This needs some fine tuning. Were a root ends in an “-i”, “-u” or non-vowel just “-li” may acceptable. Should “-a”, “-e” and “-o” take “-hli” or “-hili”?
Adjectives specifying time intervals (daily, monthly, etc) are formed in Diinlang using “-re” or perhaps “-ire”. This is obviously related to “-adre”, the verbal suffix for a repetitive action.
Many “adjectives of similarity” in Diinlang are likely to be compounds; the equivalents of English suffixes such as “-like”, “-ish”, “-oid”, “-ful”, “-esque”, “-ous”. “-osi” is an adjective of similarity that is grouped here since it resembles –i/ -yi, -ali, -ili. “oso/ osa” is used in a number of languages to mean “-ous/ -ose”. Therefore Diinlang has “-osi” meaning “having an abundance or characterised by the root”. “-osi” also means “-ful” in the adjective sense. “-osi” can therefore be used to create the Diinlang equivalents of “hateful”, “bulbous”, “golden”, “wooden”. Nouns of measurement such as “handful” or “bowlful” are made in Diinlang by compounding with “-fu” (full).
“-able/ ible” is a very productive suffix in English and a number of other languages use it or a direct equivalent. As previously noted, it has a wide range of uses and a decision needed to be made as whether to embrace this fuzziness for Diinlang, or how much to. My original idea was that such adjectives be created by compounding with “zhan”; “to be able”. Most of the uses of “-able/ ible” appear to be passive, however. In the definitions on the wiktionary page “to be” can be replaced with “to get” with no change of meaning. For Diinlang I am going to suggest “-ibel” as an equivalent suffix. Note that the “-i” at the start has a short sound.
This group of adjective/ adverb suffixes are therefore:
    • -i/ -yi Generic adjective suffix: “inclined to” or “having the quality of”.
    • -ali “of or pertaining to the root”.
    • -ili/ -li Adverbial suffix meaing “in the manner of”.
    • -osi Forms adjectives which mean “having or possessing, especially in great quantity, apparently made of”.
    • -ibel Denotes “what is susceptible to the root”.
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Language

New Thoughts on Progressive and Perfect Aspects

Version 1.1

I have had some further thoughts on how progressive/ continuous (PROG/ CONT) and perfect (PERF) aspects are marked in Diinlang. I have been looking into adjectives and realize many of the active and passive adjectives will be formed from progressive or perfect aspects of verbs. Currently the prefixes “is-” and “ha-” are used, when necessary used in combination. If the passive prefix “ge-” is used the aspect prefixes are placed before. The euphony of “ha-” in particular may be problematic.
In English the progressive/ continuous aspect of a verb is formed with an “-ing” suffix. Rather unusually for English, this seems a consistent rule. I cannot think of any English verb that does not use this form. A three letter suffix for this seems a little long, unless “ŋ” is available as a character, but obviously this is not in practice a problem. Diinlang will have many words that end in “-ing” that will not be PROG/ CONT as has English. Again, this does not seem to be a problem in practice. Most root words in Diinlang will be relatively short so the length of a word should make it obvious it has been suffixed. Since Diinlang does not drop terminal vowels “-ing” will become “-hing” or possibly “-ying”. It may therefore be more managable to use “-in/-hin” for PROG/ CONT, verbal nouns and present participles.
In English the PERF aspect of a regular verb takes an “-ed” ending, as does the simple past. Their use is distinguished by one or more auxiliary verbs. For Diinlang it would be desirable for the two forms to be distinct without resorting to auxiliaries.
In a previous post I proposed that a simpler way of marking past tense verbs might be useful. My initial draft proposes “-d/ -id”, the phonetic equivalent of the English system. In an update I propose simple past be marked by “-t” as had already been proposed for the duoverbs. Logically this frees up “-d/ -id” for the marking of perfect aspect forms, although “-nd/ -ind” may be more workable. The use of “-ing” and “-d/ -id (-nd/ -ind)” in Diinlang results in active and passive adjectives very similar to those of English. This is useful since many users of Diinlang will have English as a first or second language. These adjectives can, of course, produce nouns.
Perfect Progressive/ Continuous aspects may be constructed using the suffix “-ind/ -hind”. Past tense of such a construction is probably best marked with “wen”.
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Language

Suffixes Creating Verbs : Part Two

I have been thinking further on the affix system for Diinlang. I decided to start with the verb suffixes since these were likely to be the smallest category. Many Diinlang words become verbs simply by using them as verbs, as in English. The verbal suffixes create particular meanings.
The first two suffixes are “-ika” and “-ija”. Both of these convert attributes (adjectives or adverbs) into verbs.
-ika creates a verb meaning the action of making, causing or rendering into the root or causing an object to gain the characteristic of the root. –ika verbs are causative. For example, “redika”, from “red” means “to cause to turn red” and “duika” from “du” means “to have something done”. In the latter case the verb is formed from another verb. “ika” (or possibly “ka”) on their own mean “to cause, make or render”.
-ija means to become or begin to be in the state described by the root. It forms inchoative/ inceptive verbs. Using the same examples “redija” means “to become red” (“to blush” perhaps?) and “duija” “to start doing”. “Ija” means “to become”, “to begin”. Note that -ija verbs are likely to be intransitive. For more complex statements “ija” can be used as an auxiliary verb with other verbs. For example, the English construction “I began to cause something to be red” is simply “Mi ija redika je”.
-ika and –ija may be considered equivalents to Esperanto’s “-ig-/ -igi” and “-iĝ/ –iĝi”. In Esperanto these affixes also have the function of converting intransitive verbs into transitive (igi) and transitive into intransitive (-iĝi). Consideration of this mechanism for Diinlang needs to be made.
The next verb suffix for Diinlang is “-iza”. This creates verbs from nouns.  –iza forms a transitive verb meaning: to “cover with, add to, supply with or ornament with”. Some of its applications may overlap with –ika, as was noted for Novial’s “-isa” and “-ifika”. “to fletch” something is to add feathers, so the Diinlang verb would be created from the word for feather with an “-iza” ending. Likewise, salting something would be an “-iza” verb.
“-ifa” also creates verbs from nouns. “-ifa” means to generate or produce the root or produce as the root. For example, the Diinlang verb for “to bleed” would be created from the word for blood (“blud”, “sang”?) with an “-ifa” ending. Ifa on its own can be taken to mean construct, fabricate, generate etc. The word for blood with an -ika ending would mean “to wound drawing blood”.
“-imu” creates verbs from nouns with the meaning of turning something into the root. “mu” or “imu” have the meaning of changing or transforming. In many cases nouns can be turned into verbs without the need of a suffix. For example “the heat” becomes “to heat”. -imu can be used when clarity or emphasis is needed. Some uses of -imu may overlap that of -ika or -ija.
To create a verb that indicates something is repetitive the earlier suggestion of “-ada” is replaced by “-adre”, formed by combining “ad” (to) and “re” (repeat). For some verbs this suffix may be used before the other suffixes listed above. For example, a verb meaning to produce a constant hammering would end in “-adreifa”.
For an equivalent to Novial’s “-ira” I am going to suggest “-adu”, created from “ad” and “du” (do).
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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.
Categories
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.