Garmone

Garmone (natively Garmone ['garmonə]) is a language used only by the country called Garmial ['garmial].

Garmone is standardized by Perlume Seusgo Garalmi (The Language Bureau of Garmial).

Garmone is fusional, but is developing towards analytic.

Classification and Dialects
Garmone hardly have cognate words with other languages. Its declinations and conjugations is not similar to any language known. Thus, Garmone is regarded as language isolate.

Because of an standardizing action of The Language Bureau of Garmial in 2003, Garmone does not have any dialects yet. Researches show that there were several dialects before the action, all of them are intelligible.

Orthography
Most phonemes have the same form as their IPA symbols. Those do not are listed below: 'E' is read as /e/ if and only if it is the first vowel in the word.

The pronunciation of 'w', 'eo' and 'nm/mn' can be chosen freely.

If there are more than 1 vowel after 'x', or it is at the end of a word, then it should be pronounced as /ks/; otherwise, it is 'k'.

'R' is not shown above. R can be read as any phoneme, if it does not collide with another existing phoneme.

Nouns
Nouns are split into 3 segments. The declination of nouns are completed by switching the order of the segments and/or adding prefixes or suffixes. Thus, the order of declination is important.

Segments are not always a complete syllable; it can contain only consonants.

The words given in dictionaries are neutral and singular, in its basic form, and in the present tense.

There aren't any articles in the language.

Personal pronouns (always 2 segments) can add a -k as their 3rd segment, and then be a noun.

Gender and Number
Nouns does not have a fixed gender. The gender of a noun can be adjusted to express judgement or subjective feeling of the noun. If the noun stands for a living thing, its gender should be the thing's gender. To change the gender of a noun, the vowels in the first and the second segments should be changed:

For masculine: i -> o; u -> e; ie -> ae; eo -> ou.

For feminine: a -> i; o -> e; ao -> eo; ou -> ie.

The gender change should be completed before any other declinations.

A noun have 3 numbers: null, singular, and plural. To change the number of a noun, add a suffix to the first segment. It is -i when changed to null, and -l when plural.

The number change follows the gender change.

Case and tense
Nouns only have 2 cases: basic and possessive. The possessive case is used to express possession and to switch a noun into an adjective. A noun in any other uses should be in its basic form.

To decline a noun into its possessive case, swap the second and the third segment.

Tense is expressed by nouns. Only subject and object (not including clauses) should be declined. Notice that a noun in possessive case will not change its tense.

The tense of the sentence is the combination of the tenses of the subject and the object.

To change the tense of a noun, re-order the segments as:

For past tense, 2 - 1 - 3;

For future tense, 3 - 1 - 2.

Example
Arish (person, human) is split as a/ri/sh.

Masculine: arosh (man)

Feminine: irish (woman)

Null: airish (no one)

Plural: alrish (people)

Possessive: ashri (of person; person's)

Past: riash (person in the past)

Future: shari (person in the future)

Verbs
Most of the verbs are split into 5 segments. There are two exceptional verb: imes(to be) and abte(to have). The two verbs conjugated irrationally.

Verbs can be turned into nouns by combining the 1st and 2nd, the 3rd and 4th segments.

The infinitive of a verb is formed by adding a zu before it. Infinitives do not conjugate according to person and number, but still aspect and voice. You can abbreviate zu to z', and even z without the apostrophe (but not encouraged).

Person and number
Verbs conjugate according to person and number. This conjugation should be executed first.

This conjugation only influences the 1st, 4th and 5th segment of a verb. In the chart, 1-e means add a suffix of -e to the first segment.

Aspect and voice
There are 17 aspects and 2 voices in the language. They are:

The verb conjugation influences the 2nd - 5th segment AFTER THE FIRST CONJUGATION. * When a verb needs to conjugate 2 or more than 2 aspects, put an auxiliary verb (imes or abte) in front of it, and conjugate both the auxiliary verb and your verb. Specially, when one of the aspects is mizen, just add un- before the 4th segment.

To say 'be able to ...', put an -ek after the 3rd segment BEFORE ANY OF THE CONJUGATIONS.

Young people sometimes use auxiliary verb conjugations instead of conjugating the word itself. This is discouraged.

Mood
There are 6 moods. They influence the 1st, 3rd and 4th segments. They are:

Note that different ways of conjugation may result in the same output. That is to say, the meaning of a conjugated verb is sometimes related on the context.

Example
Umalin (to speak) is split as um/a/l/i/n.

Its 2nd person, plural, continuous, command form is acumianl (to order you[plural] to speak continuously).

First, umalin is conjugated to nialum, according to the "5 4 1" order of 2nd person, plural.

Then, nialum is conjugated to niumal, following the order of "2 5 3 4" of the continuous aspect.

Finally, niumal is conjugated to acumianl, added ac as shown above, switching the order as "3 4 1".

Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs are split into 2 segments. The rule is simple: if you put an adjective or an adverb AFTER the noun or verb, leave it unchanged; if you put it BEFORE the noun or verb, swap the segments.

All adverbs end with -ont. Delete that to make it an adjective. Similarly, an adjective can change into adverb by adding -ont to the 2nd segment, while changing into noun by adding -t as its 3rd segment.

You can make verbs by adding pr-. For example, if you ad pr- to ali (good), you'll get prali, which means to make something good. This kind of verb do not conjugate. Aspects and moods, even the subject, need to be guessed from the context.

Personal pronouns can behave like adjectives.

To form the comparative, add -e at the end of 1st segment.

To form the superlative, add -es at the end of 2nd segment.

To negate an adjective or an adverb, simply add an -in to the end of the first segment.

Narrative Sentence / Question
Narrative sentences and questions share the same structure.

[Subject]   [Direct Object]  [Indirect Object]  [un + Position]  [im + Time]  [es + Noun + Adverbial Clause]

[] means the part can be omitted; <> means the part is always needed.

In everyday conversations, un is usually abbreviated to ' n, as im to ' m, es to 's. But when im is combined with other words, the i cannot be abbreviated.

If and only if the subject is a personal pronoun, it can be omitted.

For wh-questions, place a lar- before the word you want to ask.

Es is usually followed by these words:

* Abbreviation: here all the initial e are omitted; you can add them, but skriml will change to esgriml, and sto will change to esdo.

** Auf: auf is not a noun, but a special mark. It is used in passive voice, marking the actual subject. That is, auf is equivalent to  'by' in passive sentences in English.

When es is followed by zu, it can be abbreviated into ez, though not common. This is usually used in very casual conversations.

There are also some combinations for im. They are words for direction and the infinitive mark zu.

Remember: all the abbreviated forms are followed by possessive case.

In formal texts, do not make any of these abbreviations. Don't change zu to z', ilus to lus, ci to c' or le to l' , either.

Exclamatory Sentence
Exclamatory sentence is used when you want to emphasize a special part of a sentence.

To emphasize any nouns, place a ci (usually abbreviated to c ') before it. Don't forget c pronounces as /x/.

To emphasize any verbs, place an abte before it.

To emphasize any adjectives, change it into a noun, get it to the first word of the sentence and add a ci before it, then get the verb to the second word. Don't forget to make a le (abbreviated to l') mark for the noun it used to modify.

To emphasize any adverbs, read it in an exclamatory way.

Clauses
Nominal clauses are either led by infinitive of verbs or by the particle apas. Apas can be declined as normal nouns. It is split as a/pa/s.

Attribute clauses are either led by infinitive of verbs or by the particle ilus(often abbreviated as  'lus, and  'us when the previous word ends with -l; apostrophes can be and are usually omitted).

Example
Elmki Baaki’m wifta’s griml carnogio. (lit. go-want-1st.sing. Akiba-future  (in)tomorrow  (as purpose)go shopping)

(I) want to go shopping in Akiba tomorrow.

Kmeli Baaki’m wifta’s griml carnogio? (lit. go-want-2nd.sing.-question Akiba-future  (in)tomorrow  (as purpose)go shopping)

Do (you) want to go shopping in Akiba tomorrow?

Kmeli lar-tumlu’m wifta’s griml carnogio? (lit. go-want-2nd.sing.-question question-place-future  (in)tomorrow  (as purpose)go shopping)

Where do (you) want to go shopping tomorrow?

C’lerek lapcaeirh glotsa. (lit. emphasize-he-past break-3rd.sing.  window)

It's HE who broke the window.

Lapcaeirh c’glosat. (lit. break-3rd.sing. window-past)

What he broke is a WINDOW.

Abte lriak pmaloeil. (lit. emphasize-do-1st.sing.-perfect homework-past)

(I) HAVE DONE my homework.

C’alit emis arotaro l’mito. (lit. emphasize-good-noun is-3rd.sing.  today  mark-day)

What a good day is it today!

Griml nameli relul emis zu irlomefe takid reak farnloi.

(lit. aim project-pos.  1st.pl.pronoun-pos.  is-3rd.sing.  to improve  speed  2nd.sing.pronoun-pos.  read-noun-pos.)

The aim of our project is to improve your reading speed.

Segni paas asom beaekeunrti. (lit. say-3rd.sing. apas-past  aux.-continuous  work-ability-mizen-perfect)

He said that he no longer can continue working.

Vlinbama ufilcol z’laphiraec. (lit. throw-2nd.sing.-suggestion vase-past  to break-3rd.sing.-passive)

Throw away that broken vase.

Fmil alies’lus tmois kssahem lar-emaxita? (lit. film-past good-superlative  (clause)see-2nd.sing.-perfect  be called-3rd.sing.-question  name)

What's the name of the best film you've ever seen?

Numbers
Garmone uses base 17. Values: 172= 289; 173=4913; 174=83521; 175=1419857; 176=24137569.

In Garmone, numbers are written as letters. A-Q represents 1-17, R for 172, S for 173, T for 174, U for 175, V for 176, Y for 1712, Z for 1718.

To change a number into ordinal, change the -o to -it. Numbers can be used as adjectives, the first segment is the first syllable.

Floating point is represented by inkt. All the decimal part are written as one word without all the -o, expect for the last one. A large number should also be written in this way. Usually, all h are omitted.

An example of large number:

1,000,000,000

= 414 * 176 + 7046434

= (172 + 7 * 17 + 6) * 176 + 4 * 175 + 16 * 174 + 6 * 173 + 4 * 172 + 2 * 17 + 2

= (munaro + nazo * quro + paro) * kejamo + vano * abgirno + deno * mabero + paro * dekaro + vano * munaro + hato * quro + hato = munarnazqurparkejamvanabgirndenmaberpardekarvanmunaratqurato (Written as RGQFVDUPTFSDRBQB.)

Lexicon
Currently, there are 186 words in Garmone, not including numbers.

I am enlarging lexicon by translating texts. All the translated texts will be shown here.

Lexicon will soon be downloadable as .xls or .db.

Example text
For more example texts, click here.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Koartin A. Arish jed zu znador emis gako, imote filonac ud chlilk. Arlish atbe gangam ud alwkim, okomiah sakliont es banedem elimnat.

Koartin B. Arish jed dalinet chlilk ud gakot seb es milit kiacnez brofel, raneli kioen, jundir, segous, relichen, nalexai ov wkin mora, kaluna ov quinol, inhenlit, lakome. Ud iteamliunl es hast buruget totman nalaiex, juritondic ov karimeml kalemir ov kyiln ilus arish furtni, opaqu kynil imu emis ikindo, valatro, islinento ov zu liopano soverin zu tneuiol.

Apples (Ultra-long Attribute Clauses)
Z'fathome sat wkilen sobenr brsoilus inemsn valapell hato zu zminod halitont slic zonim skriml afliona reak sef arosh z'amido rele.

Arosh z'fathome esat wkilen, zu sobern sobrilus inemsn valapell hato zu zminod halitont eslic zonim es griml afliona reak sef arosh z'amido rele, zu sneinm apell z'unelyt 'm omtell'us okellem Dihonamerika int gesla-opev secafh.

--Translated from this website (in Chinese).