Makapi

Makapi is a proposed international auxiliary language. It was mostly made for fun. It attempts to straddle the line between international intelligibility and simplicity.

Phonology
Makapi has 15 consonants, 3 vowels and 2 diphthongs. The stress of all words is on the first syllable.

Phonotactics
In most basic words, the maximum allowed syllable structure is (C)(A)V(N), where A is one of the approximants and N is one of the nasals. However, only certain consonants can pair with each approximant.

In more complex words, such as months, country names and scientific words, syllables can end in a plosive word medially. The syllable structure for these words is more like (C)(A)V(C). Finally, in one-syllable particle words, words can end in /l/, /f/ or /s/.

Allophony
There are two types of allophones in Makapi. The first are allophones that only occur under certain conditions. Although it is encouraged to be avoided these, if pronouncing a word is to hard these changes can be made to ease pronunciation. Here are the allophones that only occur under certain conditions: The second type of allophone is in free variation with its official counterpart. It is used to help people who cannot pronounce one of the less common sounds in Makapi. It is assumed that any variants of the fricatives or affricate can be voiced in the same positions that the standard pronunciation is voiced.

Orthography
The following are listed in alphabetical order. The diphthongs are not part of the ordinary alphabet If a combination of two vowels is not a diphthongs, the two vowels are written with the semi-vowel that corresponds to the first vowel between the two. For example, /ia/ is written as iya, /ua/ is written as uwa etc.

Vocabulary
The vocabulary of Makapi is derived from the following languages, in order from most words taken to least:      Common Romance, English, Latin, Esperanto, German, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Turkish and Japanese. When borrowing from source languages, the following phonological changes are commonly made:

Basic Grammar
Makapi is a highly analytic language, meaning that it has no word inflection at all. All nouns have one form, and all verbs have one form, although some new words are derived from existing words. Basic word order is SVO, and all adjectives follow the nouns and verbs they modify. There are no articles and there is no copula.

Parts of Speech
Like Esperanto, the way a Makapi word ends indicates its part of speech. As a general rule, nouns end in -a and verbs and adjectives end in -i, because adjectives behave much like intransitive verbs. Other parts of speech, such as pronouns and particles can end in anything but a plosive and h, w and y. This includes a and i.

When adding -i to a noun-based word, the only way to know whether it will become a verb or adjective is to memorize it. When changing an adjective or verb into a noun form, usually replacing -i with -a is enough.

There are seven parts of speech in Makapi: Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions and particles. Adjectives also act as adverbs do in English without changing form.

Nouns
As stated above, nouns in Makapi always end in -a. They do not inflect for number or case. There are only two nouns which have an inherent gender, mama and papa meaning "mother" and "father" respectively. All other nouns have no inherent gender, and if you want to specify the gender you need to use a suffix. As there is no copula, to say that a noun is another noun, simply stick them together. The sentence papa umana, for example, means "father is a person."

Pronouns
The basic personal pronouns are the only thing in Makapi that are distinguish between singular and plural. They are as follows:

Unlike English, the third person pronoun does not change for animacy or gender. Living or not, and no matter the gender, the third person pronoun is li in the singular and di in the plural.

The possessive version of these pronouns can be made in one of two ways. Both are equally valid, though the first is more ambiguous. They can simply act as adjectives and follow the noun, or the possessive preposition da can be used.

The indefinite pronoun, wi, although sometimes translated as "one" or "they," is used which more often than either of those constructions. Since Makapi lacks a passive voice, wi does not imply a person, but a completely unknown agent. For example, the phrase "the bread is being eaten" would be translated as wi iti pana, or "one eats the bread."

The reflexive pronoun is used wherever a -self word would be used in English. For example, the sentence pana iti si would be translated as "the bread is eating itself."

There are three demonstratives in Makapi, they can act as either adjectives or nouns. hi which means "that," ci which means "this," and ki which means "which." They can come before a noun and act like adjectives, or they can act like nouns themselves. The sentence hi iti pana hi means "that thing is eating that bread."

Finally, there is the relative pronoun ku. It translates as "which" or "that" in English, and is used to separate the noun and verb in a relative clause. For example, the phrase papa ku iti pana means "the father who eats bread."

Prepositions
Prepositional phrases can be placed anywhere in the sentence, but generally they are placed after the verb but before the object. Several cases are expressed with prepositions instead of inflectional morphology. Here is a list of common Makapi prepositions and their English equivalents.

Unlike English, there are only two prepositions that indicate physical location at, in and sul. In is used only for when one object is within another, and sul is used for all other purposes. Neither is used for expressions of time, where dum is used instead.

Verbs
Verbs, like nouns, only have one form. They do not decline for tense, number, gender, mood or aspect. These functions can be replicated by the use of particles. The main tense particles used are ha and la, which indicate the past tense and the future tense, respectively. They go in the same place that adverbs go, and they always come after all adverbs. In the case of the zero copula, ha and la go where the copula would. For example, papa ha gudi means "father was good."

A verb can be either transitive or intransitive. Whether a specific verb is transitive or intransitive has to be memorized, though it is usually obvious. The verb igi is used to mean cause. The sentence pana insindi, for example, means "the bread is burning." The sentence papa igi pana insindi means "father is burning the bread." Notice that in this type of sentence, the second verb comes after the object.

There is no conditional mood, like the mood expressed with English "would." In conditional statements, made with the conjunction if, the conditional mood is implied. The sentence if papa afami, li iti pana, means "if father were hungry, he would eat bread."

A mood similar to a subjunctive mood can be expressed with the auxiliary verb ibli, which means "may" "please" or "let." papa ibli iti means "may father eat" or "please eat father."

Adjectives/Adverbs
Adjectives, like verbs, end in -i. They always come after the thing they describe. The place of an adjective is especially significant, as its placement determines whether it acts as an adjective or adverb. The difference between the sentences papa gudi iti and papa iti gudi is very significant, with the former meaning "the good father eats" and "the father eats well."

To negate an adjective or verb, the particle na is used. It is placed before an adjective or after the verb, but before any tense particles. papa na gudi, means "the father is not good." Also, take the sentences papa iti na pana and papa iti na ha, which means "father does not eat bread" and "father did not eat bread."

Any adjective can be made into a transitive verb with the suffix -isi. For example, gudisi means "to make good." There is no intransitive version of this, with the verb bikami meaning "become."

Conjunctions and Comparisons
The following are the common conjunctions, and they should be placed exactly between the words, phrases or clauses they modify, or at the start of a sentence Comparisons are made with either kwam or tam, and the adverbs pli (more) and liplu (most)''. ''These adverbs are an exception to the rule, as they come before the adjective they modify. tam comes before adjectives and kwam before nouns. Take the following example sentences:

mi iti tam guti kwam ti = I eat as well as you                                                                                                                      mi pli guti kwam li = I am better than him                                                                                                                           pana ci liplu guti = This bread is the best

Number System
The cardinal numbers act as adjectives, though they do not end in -i. The number system is base 10, and the number system is written with spaces in between all the numbers. The number eleven, for example, is written dis un, twenty one is written as du dis un etc.

Beyond these basic numbers, the number miliyun is used, followed by -liyun/-iliyun with numerical values. To create ordinal numbers, the adjectival ending -i is added to the numbers, and -yi added to the ones that end in vowels. uni means "first," duyi means "second," etc.

Questions
The word ki, meaning "what" or "which," is used to form most questions. It also comes at the very beginning of a sentence to form a yes or no question. Here are some common question words formed by ki:

Word Formation
In Makapi, there are a number of suffixes that can form new words from old ones. Here is the complete list:

Lexicon
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NEBnv6zz, bvvUvbth2sMMWOQIKaIGeqmxHQXoHNHezx8/edit?usp=sharing

Lord's Prayer
Papa ni in cila, wi ibli santisi nama ti. Kingiya ti ibli andi, wi ibli agi fula ti. Ti ibli dali a ni pana tutidiyi ni dum diya ci. I ti ibli paduni ni ca pika ni,                                                                                                                                                  tam ni paduni pikada ni a ni. I ti ibli na kunduki ni a tinta,                                                                                                                                                nu ti ibli libilisi ni aus mala. Kas tina ti kingiya, fima i glula, itini. Amin.