Leshing

A free language
Hei bu!

This project began in summer 2021, after many languages which I never completed cause there wasn’t the time to create enough words. Said that, this language is still in progress.

Leshing is mostly derived from English, many words are in fact a kind of english Verlan or anagrams of english words, some words have other origins and many other have no similarities with any language. It is designed to be simple to learn and to have many short words. Everything in the way I like it to be, and I hope other people would like it too.

Alphabet
The names of the consonants are represented by the consonant sound plus a schwa, while the vowel are represented by their respective sound preceded by a glottal stop. For the letters Cc, Qq and Xx they're called respectively /ʧə/, /kwe/ and /iks/.

Consonants
Consonants are pretty similar to english ones, the major difference in this language is that any consonant phoneme correspond to one letter and don't change with position or anything.


 * W and Y can only occur word initially or between two vowel.
 * digraphs TS and NG can appear initially but there are fewer words than with other sounds.

Vowels
Vowels are quite different from the english ones and probably speakers of other languages would have less challenges than english speakers.


 * Letter A it's preferably open-front but can be pronounced closer or more in the back.
 * Letters E and O can be pronounced either close-mid or open-mid (/ɛ/, /ɔ/) depending on the speaker or the word, and I don't exclude a mid pronunciations (/e̞/, /o̞/).
 * The letters I and U differently from other letters, do have to change in pronunciation, they can become semiconsonants (/j/, /w/), it happens whenever they are preceded or followed by another vowel in the word or in the sentence. Alternatively the sound can change into /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, which are easier for some speakers.
 * The schwa sound it's not represented by any letter, instead it appears between consonant sounds that doesn't go well together, for example: "I quite like him" which is mo nil kel hu /mo nil kelə hu/. The appearance of this sound avoid the elision of final consonants or the fusion of sounds (between the two words) and should appear naturally between words, more natural it is, the better. The same can happen between consonants forming clusters, but again it is done for fluidity or because of speaker capacities. Words without vowels like single consonant words (16 of them), or the word sh can take this sound more often, for example, when final in the sentence, which doesn't happen with longer words. The schwa sound can even appear at the beginning of a word (really rare), one notable case is the interjection mm /əm/.

Glottal Stop appearance
Vowels different from the ones in diphthongs don't occur together, so when a word beginning with a vowel is preceded by a word ending with a vowel (if the two vowels don't form any of the diphthongs) a glottal stop appear at the beginning of the second word. This sound appearance is reflected in the text (differently from the schwa sound) by adding an apostrophe, for example: "I love you" which is mo 'aim o. That's the reason because there are no words starting with an apostrophe at the beginning of any sentence, so none has to worry on how to capitalize an apostrophe, but just in case you wonder: is the vowel to become a capital letter.

Nouns
Leshing nouns do not decline for gender, number or cases. Definiteness too is not marked, this language is in fact ambiguous on whether a noun is definite or indefinite. In the case you really need to specify it, you can use respectively the demonstrative be (that) and the number eno (one).

Number
Leshing can be ambiguous on number too, you don't need to specify if something is singular or plural, moreover, many times is understandable by the context. Plurality can be easily expressed by numbers or by the determiner n, which stands for "many", "much" or "a lot" depending on the noun it's referring to. Another determiner indicating plurality is p, which means "some", "few" or "a few".

Male and Female Determiners
Leshing nouns do not have gender, but there are two adjectives/determiners to express feminine and masculine nouns, those are f and m. These determiners are used to specify the sex of living things and can be easily left out, especially when the gender is understandable by the context.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Leshing go before the noun they're referring to, just like in English, so you would have: doli f nam which means "a beautiful woman".

Comparatives and superlatives
Adjectives don't change to create comparative and superlative forms, so you use the words en (more) and eu (than) to form the comparatives, like in Hu en lo 'eu o "he is older than you". You can also compare to a lesser degree using the word ef (less). Comparative sentences can be also formed in an alternative way using wa "as for", like in the sentence Wa mo lo 'enu mo which literally translates as "as for me old more-than you" and means: "I'm older than you".

If you want to say two things are equal you can use za (as), one example can be Wa'o tuke za ma'o which means "dogs are as cute as cats", but notice that you use it just once.

Superlatives are formed using in "the most" or if "the least", for example A bi 'in di lani which means "it is the biggest animal".

Order
English has an order to put adjectives in sequence, which, if not respected, can create strange sounding sentences, in Leshing however there is not such thing as a correct order to put sequential adjectives, probably the best way is the one sounding better to the speaker.

Verbs
Leshing verbs don't conjugate, this means pronouns has to be specified. You can avoid it when the subject is obvious.

Copula
The verb "to be" doesn't exist as in English. When you want to relate adjectives to nouns, like for example to say "this water is cold", you don't use any verb, you say: Ar lu lok "this water cold".

When you want to use "to be" to express the position of something you use g, this word can also translate as the preposition "at" when it indicates the state in place of the subject, for example: Reng g bu "people are there".

When "to be" expresses the fact that two things are identical, equal or that something is included in a group, you use the verb bi as in the example sentence for the superlative.

When "to be" is used for existence there's the verb ai, as in Ai 'i k ai "to be or not to be". This verb is also used to say "there to be". While to express the state of something you use the verb lef "to feel" as in Bob lef do "Bob is good".

Tenses
Verbs in Leshing don't change to express time on their own, instead time can be expressed by adverbs present in the sentence or be understood by the context. The sentence Mo yu ba can be translated as "I go home (usually)" or "I went home" or "I'm going home", this last one can mean that it will happen in the near future, it only depends on the context. Using adverbs permits you to be more specific on the time it happens, so you can say: Mo yu ba yan "I usually go home", Mo yu ba japa "Yesterday, I went home", Mo yu ba nus "I'll go home soon". Near future can also be formed using gon "going to" as in Mo gon wam "I'm going to eat". Moreover there are some particles and other verbs expressing time, together with aspects and moods.

Progressive/Particle ING
Progressive aspect is used to express incomplete action or state, if the action is also happening in the present time you can simply use ge "now" as in Hu ge shau "He now wash". The particle ing express this aspect and can easily do it in the past and future too, for example Hu ing shau japa "He was washing yesterday".

Imperfect/Particle UN
Habitual and repeated actions in the present don't need any particle, but some adverbs can help specify the frequency of the action. The imperfect is only in the past and it can be expressed by the particle un, which can be translated as something like "used to", for example Mo un yu bu "I used to go there".

Perfect/Particle S
Perfect indicates a completed action, adverbs like imi "already" or verbs like shin "to end/finish" can alone give a verb a perfect aspect. Another possibility is the usage of the particle s. Perfect express both the english simple past and present perfect, so that "I made dinner" and "I have made dinner" are both translated in Leshing as Mo s has nika.

Past perfect/Particle TSE
It is used for completed action in relation to an action that occurred prior in the past. It can be formed using the particle tse, for example: Fu mo s vera bu hu tse yu ba "when I arrived there he had gone home".

Future with auxiliary verbs
Some verbs can express future tense, those are the modal verbs:


 * ru means "can" and is used for "will", "can", "could" and "shall", it is the most common way to express future in a quite certain modality, note that "will" can also be translated as nau when it means "to want".
 * ve means "would", it is used for imagined situations and other conditional meanings.
 * yem means "may", it is used for hypothetical events (with certainty).
 * him means "might", it is used for hypothetical events (less certain).
 * dul means "should", it is used to express responsibilities and duties.
 * sum means "must", it is used to express unavoidable requirement or obligation.

In addition to these verbs we have resh, which means "sure", to express that an event is certain to happen, you simply use it as an adverb.

Conditional
The conditional mood is formed using the particle l meaning "if", this particle is sometimes accompanied by the already mentioned ve, as in Mo ve ke 'en, l mo t meit "I would have done more, if I had the time".