Introduction

Phonology

The phonology aims to be easy for native speakers of most languages, while having enough phonemes and syllables to avoid long or too similar words. Although some languages might not differentiate all the sounds, given the policy to avoid minimal pairs for some pairs of phonemes, it should be enough

Consonants

Here are the consonants. In parenthesis, there's the spelling of the sound

labial dental palatal/velar
m n  
p t k
b d g
f s ʃ (x)
w l j (y)

Vowels

Five vowels: a, e, i, o, u

Phonotactics

A typical syllable structure is CV(C). Any consonant can be used as the onset (including no consonant at all). For the coda, only a subset of consonants can be used, namely:

  • m/n (m is used before labial consonants, n otherwise)
  • s
  • f
  • x
  • y (written as i)
  • w (written as u)
  • l

Given some combinations are not allowed (yi iy wu uw), The total unique syllable count is about 1200

Core words vs loanwords

The words are divided into two main categories: core words and loanwords. Core words are words created a priori for the language, they are meant to represent concepts, and while inspired by natural languages, they are not intended to be thought as an actual borrowings. Loan words are words which try to transcribe the original word as close as possible using the available phonology. They are meant as labels for a particular type of thing, and 95% of the time need a core word as a suffix to describe it. Loanwords should use endonyms instead of English names. Example use cases for loanwords are:

  • Country names: Poska (Poland), Inlan (England), Nipon (Japan), Xonguwo (China)
  • Language names: Poski (Polish), Inlix (English), Italyano (Italian), Nipongo (Japanese), Xonwen or Kanyu (Chinese)
  • Nationalities: Polaka (Polish), Inlix (Englishman), Italyano (Italian), Niponxin (Japanese), Xonguwoxen (Chinese)
  • Food: Piyelogi (pierogi), Fixenxipis (fish and chips), Niyoki (gnocchi), Suxi (sushi), Xawsi (jiaozi)
  • People names: Matewux (Mateusz), Xon (John), Pawolo (Paolo)
  • Brand and product names: Timbalku (Tymbark), Nesle (Nestle)
  • Tons of other things

While for personal or family names everyone should choose the transcription they feel most comfortable with, for other types of loanwords there's an official loanword registry which aims to gather all loanwords. One might raise an argument against this approach, as it includes complexity and requires knowledge about the word. However, the aim is to simplify the language, not the way we think about the world, and loanwords should be considered more like learning about stuff, rather than learning the language. This approach allows for the most culturally neutral way of talking about real life entinties

Minimal pairs

Vocabulary

Grammar

Nouns

Verbs

Verbs always end with [a]. They can be both transitive and intransitive, however they are never bi-transitive. Inside a sentence, verbs can be chained in a following manner: SV¹O¹V²O²…

As an example, let's introduce following words:

ako I; me
saya to be located at; to exist (at)
domo home; house
moka eat; drink; consume
supu soup; stew; any liquid food

Using them, we can create a following sentence:

Ako moka supu saya domo - I eat soup at home (lit. I eat soup be-in home)

Important thing to notice is that while the natural translation suggests a usage of preposition (at home), the actual part of speech used is a verb. More literally this sentence could be translated as (and is equal in meaning to): "I eat soup and am at home"

Particles

Adjectives and adverbs

Suffixes

Example texts

Ako-men

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