Xat

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ko viki gĕu mŭng Xát. chay xa ko phrá vĕi.

Xat is an a priori conlang with rather simplistic grammar and phonology. It tends to be isolating and accusative with little or no tendency towards inflection whatsoever. Most of the words consist of one syllable, which can have four different structures (CVC "làp" big, CV "ko" that/this, CCVC "próm" five, CCV "tlá" grass, VC "ang" I, me).

Phonology

The language has 7 basic vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ŭ, ĕ) which can differ in length and tone. There are, however, only three tones (low, mid and high) which are not used very often (unlike in Chinese).


Close /i/ i /ɨ/ ŭ /u/ u

Close - mid /e/ e /o/ o

Mid /ə/ ĕ

Open /a/ a

Grammar

Xat is very isolating language, which means that grammatical characteristics (such as tenses, moods, numbers, persons) cannot be expressed withing the range of one word and therefore are denoted by adding multiple auxiliary verbs, articles, prepositions etc. If we, for example, take a look at a sentence "I wanted to go to the Beijing"


chay yĕu ang ba mŭng khao làp Beiching.


the gloss is


[want PAST 1sg go to capital Beijing]

We can see, that every word (syllable) in this sentence has it's own unique meaning (except for Beiching, which is phonetically transcripted name of Chinese capital).

TENSES

Xat has three basic tenses (future, past, present) which are expressed through various particles or time expressions (adverbs). For example:

a gey ba mŭng song sãy ang (o).


Yesterdey I went to my office.


[before day go to office 1sg POSS]


ba yĕu (mŭng) song sãy ang (o)


I went to my office.


Where "yĕu" is past tense particle.


Or, for another example


ho gey ba vĕi (mŭng) song sãy ang (o).


Tomorrow you will go to my office.


compare to


ba te vei song say ang (o).

where "te" is considered as future tense particle.



Dai xa phrá yĕu vĕi gĕu viki mŭng Xáth ang!