Version 1.1
The English word “too” is one that seems to confuse many writers on the internet.
It has two common and distinct meanings:
-
It can been “as well”, “in addition”, “besides”, “as well” “along with”, “likewise” or “also”. Effectively it is a synonym for “also”.
-
It can also mean “to an excessive degree”, “more than enough”, “excessively”, “extremely” etc.
We cannot use the word “too” in Diinlang since it is a homophone with “tu”. Its two distinct meanings would also require it to be replaced by two words.
For the first meaning the TV conlang Trigedasleng uses the word “seintaim” from “same-time”. In Diinlang phonetics this would be “saymtiym”. It is a bit long, and does not cover all of the nuances of “also”, for example in the sentence above “it can also mean…”. Perhaps just the word “saym” will serve. The scientific prefix “iso-” means “same”, “equal” or “equivalent” so “iyso” could serve as the Diinlang equivalent of “also”.
For the second meaning, words meaning “overmuch”, “overmany”, “undersize” may serve. We already have “ta” for large quantities, “ko” for small quantities and “taz” and “koz” for large and small numbers. In this use “too” usually accompanies another word so the French word “trop” might be adopted and used with a Diinlang word for quantities. “trop ta”= “too much”, “trop ko”= “too little”, “trop koz”= “too few”.