Fren'mfen

Setting
Spoken by the people of Ormes. There also exists a major group of speakers to the far south in Ilmaq, with some dialectical differences. Fren'mfen serves as a lingua franca across the region and its use encompasses a long history, resulting in a large corpus of important Fren'mfen texts.

Consonants
* These are the syllabic counterparts:

don [don]

do'n [do.n̩]

ch'm [tʃm̩]

Vowels
Fren'mfen lacks diphthongs, except for some dialects which pronounce a+ɛ as [ai]

Phonotactics
Stops palatalize before i+V:

/dio/ --> [dʒo]

Nouns and Adjectives
Nouns and modified by adjectives or other nouns by adding -e (MODified) to the first segment (usually the head):

"The/a tasty pie" "The/a apple pie" However, it is equally grammatical to reverse the order (resulting in inherent ambiguity):
 * ambroskii.e jel
 * pie-MOD tasty
 * ambroskii.e epol
 * pie-MOD apple

"The/a tasty pie" (or "The/a tastiness of pie") Adjectives may be modified in a similar fashion:
 * jel.e ambroskii
 * tasty-MOD pie

"The/a delightfully tasty pie" To form phrases in which multiple things modify the head, use '-ep' instead of '-e':
 * ambroskii.e jel.e opru
 * pie-MOD tasty-MOD nice

"The/a delightful, tasty pie"
 * ambroskii.e jel.ep opru
 * pie-MOD tastyHEAD.MOD nice

The plural is formed by suffixing -a. Style prefers X-ae Y over Y-e X-a:

"(The) tasty pies" "The/a pie [made from] tasty apples"
 * ambroskii.a.e jel
 * pie-PL-MOD tasty
 * ambroski.ie epol.a.e jel
 * pie-MOD apple-PL-MOD tasty

A collective plural is formed by -arm. -arma conveys a broader notion of 'all':

"All the pies [here] are tasty" (or "The entire pie is tasty") "All pies [everywhere] are tasty"
 * ambroskii.arm jel
 * pie-COLL.PL [null copula] tasty
 * ambroskii.arm.a jel
 * pie-COLL.PL-PL [null copula] tasty

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for number, person, tense, and mood. Here are the conjugations in present (=progressive, habitual):

To form past (=past progressive, perfect), replace 'e' with 'o'. To form future, replace it with 'a'. Note that the plural form is not distinguished between 2nd and 3rd person. Furthermore, the 1st person plural only exists for specification, and will often take the simple plural form itself. The final form is used when the subject is unknown. Generally corresponds to "someone" or the passive voice. The conjugations above are the "referenced" forms, meaning the sentence contains a separate subject. When the verb conjugation alone accounts for this, use the "unreferenced" forms, which are made by repeating the vowel after the consonant in the suffix:

"Bob ate pie" (or "was eating", "had eaten", ...)
 * bob.oriin ambroskii tabel.o.t
 * bob-NAME pie eat-PAST-3P

"(S)he ate pie"
 * ambroskii tabel.o.t.o
 * pie eat-PAST-3P-UNREF

This distinction is important because nouns are not marked as direct objects. (Nonetheless, in casual speech the vowel before or after the person conjugation is often dropped in the unreferenced forms.)

"The/a pie ate"
 * ambroskii tabel.o.t
 * pie eat.PAST.3P

Verbs are modified by suffixing -o (corresponding to the noun's -e):

"He ate quickly"
 * tabel.o.t.o.o forn
 * eat-PAST-3P-UNREF-MOD quick

"You are eating annoyingly quickly"
 * tabel.e.n.e.o forn.e chip
 * eat-PRES-2P-UNREF-MOD quick-MOD annoy

"I always eat pie quickly"
 * ambroskii tabel.e.m.e.o forn.ep sims
 * pie eat-PRES-1P-UNREF-MOD quick-HEAD.MOD always

Example text
'''tahus anok'nkelch om tahus ardae diin tahuse diinjhan tahus atriiof lorm'nep lorm'nek'''

'''arda kartuljhane lorm'nep lorm'nek iirelcheo fon'm iip fob'niisii arda iialn iirelcheo fon iip druv'niisii arda'''

'''niir oglo tahus jhom fniiof oglo ardajhan fob ke iira tahus'n iskilite ugpiisep chishpiisa ardapiis'm enope'm fic'''

The Tao that can be known is not Tao. The substance of the World is only a name for Tao. Tao is all that exists and may exist;

The World is only a map of what exists and may exist. One experiences without Self to sense the World, And experiences with Self to understand the World.

The two experiences are the same within Tao; They are distinct only within the World. Neither experience conveys Tao Which is infinitely greater and more subtle than the World.

buchiiv tiil fiinone siionep jolae iigliiarma:

'''iigliiarma onolko qom forsh ii jhome hesenep jol. erun iip iimal fniiog ii qarmot sodefo lone valesii.'''

Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Also, see the Swadesh list for Fren'mfen.