Bumiswen

English•

* this page is currently undergoing some changes*

Classification
Terwene is an IAL (International Auxiliary Language) based in part on Esperanto grammar (with Chinese influence), but with words which originate mainly from the world's five most spoken languages: Chinese (Mandarin), English, Spanish, Hindi and Arabic.

It is an a posteriori agglutinative SVO language, although much more inclined to isolating languages than most agglutinative languages, including Esperanto.

Phonology
Terwene uses letters of the basic Latin alphabet.

The stress is always on the vowel before the last consonant or semivowel.

Phonotactics
Kwo is mostly a CV language, but there are some consonant clusters allowed.

Diphthongs:

Words can end in vowels, semivowels, or the following consonants: m, n, r, w, y''. ''Normal roots (those that mean nouns, adjectives and verbes) must end in a vowel or semivowel. Each vowel can be assigned one semi-vowel when pronouncing a word, not two, for example "yawa" should be pronounced "ya-wa" not "yaw-a".

Pronouns
In the third person there is no distinction of gender, but there is distinction of animate or inanimate things. This can be interpreted in many ways. Usually, one would use "hi" for humans and "so" for any other thing. But more generally "hi" can be used for anything that is capable of communicating, however it can be used for animals, plants or inanimate things for stylistic reasons, such as speaking to or about pets.

Plural pronouns are created adding -ru. "Mi" comes from all the European languages where it appears, such as Spanish, English, Italian, etc.

"Tu" comes from Spanish, and it also appears in other European languages such as "du" in german.

"Hi" comes from the English word "he" and from the Arabic word "hi" which means "she".

Nouns
Normal nouns end in -n in singular form. The plural is formed adding -u. Apart from that, nouns don't change, but they can be combined to form new words.

Adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives end in -ka and adverbs end in -ko. They don't change for number.

Verbs
Verbs end in -ri in infinitive, which is replaced by other endings according to tense or mood. The affix -gu- makes the verb passive voice.
 * Mi cina = I eat
 * Mi ciguna = I am eaten

Verb chains
Just like in most languages, verbs can go chained to create different meanings. In Kwo, the verbs in the chain can have different tense/mood markings to create even more meanings. The verb siri is especially useful for expressing things like progressive and perfect aspects. For example: Verbs have five suffixes which are used to create a lot of different verbs from just a few original verbs
 * Mi sina cina = I am eating
 * Mi sido cina = I was eating
 * Mi sime cina = I will be eating
 * Mi sina cido = I have eaten
 * Mi sido cido = I had eaten
 * Mi sime cido = I will have eaten
 * Mi sizu cido = I would have eaten
 * Mi sina sido cina = I have been eating
 * Mi sido sido cina = I had been eating
 * Mi sime sido cina = I will have been eating
 * Mi sizu sido cina = I would have been eating
 * Mi sina cime = I am about to eat
 * Mi sido cime = I was about to eat
 * Mi sizu cime = I would be about to eat
 * -da means "to continue" and it gives the verb more duration, if the verb means an instant action, then adding this suffix usually makes it mean the result of that action. Examples:
 * xwori = to say --> xwudari = to talk/speak
 * hari = to have --> hadari = to own
 * nari = to see --> nadari = to watch/look at


 * -co means "to start" and it gives the verb a more instantaneous meaning or the beginning of the action
 * pawri = to run --> pawcori = to start running
 * sari = to know --> sacori = to learn (to start to know)
 * zwori = to do --> zwocori = to do suddenly
 * hari = to have --> hacori = to get/obtain
 * dowri= to sleep --> dowcori= to fall asleep/to start sleeping


 * -fi means "to end" and gives it the meaning of the culmination of the action
 * curi = to go --> cufiri = to arrive
 * dowri = to sleep --> dowfiri = to wake up


 * -ze means "to cause" and makes the verb transitive if it wasn't, else it makes it "to cause someone do X-action"
 * dowcori = to fall sleep --> dowcozeri = to make someone sleep
 * dowfiri = to wake up --> dowfizeri = to wake someone up
 * ekar = to begin --> ekifar = to (make something) start
 * folar = to fall --> folifar = to drop


 * -su means "to become" and is only used on transitive verbs to make them intransitive or reflexive.
 * gari = to hold --> gasuri = to hold on to something
 * gacori = to grab --> gacosuri = to grab on to something (to start to be holding on to something)

The conditional mood
This mood has one ending: -zu. In English the conditional mood is expressed with "would" and with the past tense, while the "past" of the conditional mood is expressed with "would + present perfect" and with past perfect. In Kwo, the past is expresed with the structure "sizu -do" but it's not necessary, the normal -zu ending can be used if context allows.

Present/Neutral: Past:
 * Se mi sazu kwene, mi labozu = If I knew how, I would work
 * Se mi sizu sado kwene, mi sizu labodo = If I had known how, I would have worked

Participles
Something similar to participles can be made with the endings of a verb plus an adjective, adverb or noun marker. All examples:
 * Add -na + n to refer to the subject that does the action.
 * Add -gu + n to refer to the object that receives the action.
 * Add -na + ka/ko to make an adjective that means "that does the action"
 * Add -gu + ka/ko to make an adjective that means "that receives the action"
 * -ant:
 * -an: Mi swan mancanta mafes = I am eating apples
 * -el: Mi swel mancanta mafes = I was eating apples
 * -on: Mi swon mancanta mafes = I will be eating apples
 * -ax: Mi swod mancanta mafes = I would be eating apples
 * -em: Mi swem mancanta mafes = I would have been eating apples
 * -os usually makes no sense with -ant, unless -ant forms something
 * -ad: the meaning can vary between present and past depending on the verb and context, for example someone "known" is someone known today, not in the past, on the other hand something "eaten" can be something already eaten (past) or something that is commonly eaten in a place (present). In order to differentiate, one can use words like "hoim" (now).
 * -an: Mafes swan manceda = Apples are eaten (or were)
 * -el: Mafes swel manceda = Apples were eaten (or had been)
 * -on: Mafes swon manceda = Apples will be eaten (or will have been)
 * -ax: Mafes swod manceda = Apples would be eaten
 * -em: Mafes swem manceda = Apples would have been eaten
 * -os: Mafes swos manceda = (Let) apples be eaten!

Adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives end in -a. They can agree in number with nouns adding -s, but it is not mandatory and is only recommended when it can prevent serious misunderstanding, for example when the noun does not appear in the sentence.

Adverbs end in -o and never add -s. As you may notice, no ending uses -u or -i because that would cause problems with roots that end in w or y.

Possession
Possession is shown using the te particle, which comes from the Chinese particle "de" and works pretty much like it works for possession ("de" has other uses in Chinese that Terwene doesn't, though), it's similar to 's in the English language, but also used with pronouns. For example:
 * Mi te awte = My car
 * Hi swan Lukas te penge = She/He is Lucas' friend
 * Dome swan tusu te = The house is yours
 * (Data) womire, xenule te dome swan ega, swan mi te penge = The man, whose house is big, is my friend.

Questions
Yes/No questions (or questions that give you a definite amount of answers) are created adding the particle ma at the end of the sentence.
 * Tu swan bona = You are good

Ma can also be used in negative sentences. Questions that give you the possible answer usually use the "xor" connector which is basically an "exclusive or" from binary logic. Examples: In that sentence it is explicitly stated that you can choose either coffee or tea, but not both. Possible answers: Instead, if the speaker wants to give the option of choosing more than one thing, the speaker shall use "or" which is an "inclusive or". For instance: Other questions are made with xen- correlatives, unlike many languages but like Chinese, the order of the sentence does not change (although it is allowed) when asking questions, the xen- word​ is in the place where the answer will be. For example:
 * Tu swan bona ma? = Are you good?
 * Tu no swan aytire ma? = You're not a father, are you?
 * Tu bolan kafe xor cate ma? = Do you want coffee, or tea?
 * (Ya,) kafe. = (Yes,) coffee.
 * (Ya,) cate. = (Yes,) tea.
 * Naha, xyexe. = None, thanks.
 * Tu bolan late, sukre or otre en tu te kafe ma? = Do you want milk, sugar or something else in your coffee?
 * Ya, late. = Yes. milk.
 * No, nahe. = No, nothing.
 * Ya, amba = Yes, both.
 * Tu mancan xene? = What are you eating? (You eat what?)
 * Tu swan xenule te aytise? = Whose mother are you? (You are whose mother?)

Basic word order
Terwene follows the order SVO, but it is also allowed to use OSV (Yoda's order) and VSO. These three orders are allowed because out of the six possible orders one can only choose three and still be able to differentiate subject from object. The one-phrase rule is "the nearer to the left of the verb, is the subject", in SVO and OSV the subject is already to the left of the verb, and in VSO the subject is closer to the left of the verb than the object.

SVO was chosen because it's the most widespread order in the world, which includes English, Spanish and Chinese, the three most spoken languages.

Apart from order, there is nothing differentiating subject from object, so even pronouns stay the same when they are the object of the sentence:
 * Mi aman tu = I love you
 * Hi aman hi = She/He loves him/her
 * Misu bisel hisu = We saw them

Adjectives and other modifiers
Adjectives are usually placed before the noun they modify, but if it doesn't create misunderstanding, it is allowed to put them after the noun. When there are two adjectives for one noun, they can be placed together before or after the noun, they can be separated by the noun, by the word for and "he" or by nothing at all.
 * Bela fasta womise / Womise bela fasta / Bela womise fasta / Bela he fasta womise / Womise bela he fasta = The/a beautiful, fast woman

In general modifiers are written before what they modify.

Articles
There is no specific definite (the) or indefinite article (a, an) but the number "wan" (one) can be used if necessary as indefinite article, for example there are words which can be either countable or uncountable, adding "wan" states that it is being used as countable: Instead there are words that can't be either countable or uncountable, in those cases "wan" should be avoided: The definite article does not exist because its usage would vary depending on the speaker's mother tongue, it doesn't exist in very important languages such as Chinese and Russian, so for the sake of simplicity Terwene doesn't have it either. For example let's look at comparisons. The words for comparative and superlative are "mas" (more) and "mos" (most), and the word for "than" is "ke": But there is other way to say the superlative:
 * Mi mancan mafe = I eat (the) apple (maybe one, maybe a slice, maybe mashed, maybe many)
 * Mi mancan wan mafe = I eat an apple
 * Mi mancan mafes = I eat (the) apples
 * Mi swan wome = I am a/the person
 * Mi swan mas bona ke tu = I'm better than you
 * Mi swan mas tala ke tu = I'm taller than you
 * Hi swan mas bela ke tu = She's more beautiful than you
 * Hi swan mos bela = He is the most beautiful
 * Hi swan mas bela ke tutules = He is more beautiful than everyone

Numbers
Numbers are combined just like in Chinese: After 999 999 there are words created in a similar way to "million", "billion", "trillion" but more regularly: number + ilye. Terwene follows the same scale English does, each new word adds 3 zeros. Unlike English, the word "wan" can be omitted just like it is done for "deg", "pay" and "mil". It's also allowed to simply read the numbers, like Chinese speakers do for years and phone numbers. This is only when context allows it. For instance: Ordinal numbers are created adding -a. Other endings give other useful meanings:
 * 10: deg
 * 20: dosdeg
 * 30: sandeg
 * 400: kwarpay
 * 800: copay
 * 9 000: naw mil
 * 323 456: sanpay dosdeg san mil kwarpay kwindeg low
 * pay = one hundred
 * mil = one thousand
 * wanilye = one million
 * dos wanilyes = two million
 * sif dosilyes = seven billion
 * 1998 = wan naw naw co
 * 2000 = dos nul nul nul
 * 233445 = dos san san kwar kwar kwin
 * wana = first
 * pay dosdeg coa = one hundred twenty eighth
 * wanao = firstly / in the first place
 * doso = in pair/s
 * dego = in groups of ten

The reflexive pronoun
Terwene has the reflexive pronoun "sey" which is used for all the other pronouns. These are its uses:
 * To make the sentence reflexive for any pronoun (although it's also possible to use te same pronoun twice in the sentence to make it reflexive, for example "mi limpan mi" or "tu tu limpan"):
 * Mi limpan sey = I wash/bath myself
 * Tu mancifan sey = You feed yourself
 * To specify or emphasize who is the owner of something:
 * Hi bisel (hi te) sey te dome = He saw his own house
 * Mi aman (mi te) sey te ermise = I love my own sister
 * As a root for word building:
 * seyaxe = property
 * mortar = to die; morta = dead; morte = death; mortifar = to kill; mortife = an assassination; --> seymortifar = to suicide; seymortife = a suicide

Comparison

 * Comparative: 
 * Hi swan mas bona ke tu = He is better than you
 * Hi swan kimas tala ke tu = He is less tall than you
 * Superlative:
 * Hi swan mos bona inter tutules/fro Argentine/de data oge = She is the best one among everyone/from Argentina/of that group
 * Hi swan kimos tala = She is the least tall
 * Equals: Hi swan (datu) bela xeno tu = She is beautiful like you

Subordinate sentences
Subordinate sentences use either xen- correlatvies, or if no xen- correlative works, they use the particle ke
 * The xen- correlative is usually at the beginning of the subordinate sentence
 * Mi no sian xener hi swan = I don't know where he is
 * Mi komprenan kos xene hi karel date = I understand why he did that
 * Hi swan wome xenule te dome swan blodala = She is the person whose house is red
 * To connect sentences that can't be connected by a xen- word, the particle "ke" is used
 * Mi sian ke hi swan en sey te dome = I know he's in his own house
 * Mi komprenan ke date no swan ibla = I understand that's not possible
 * To connect sentences when the subordinate sentence represents a "ma" question (in English one would use "if" or "whether"), the particle "ma" is used
 * Mi no siel ma hi swel en sey te dome = I didn't know whether she was in her house
 * Mi kwestan ma hi kahadan Terwene = I ask whether she speaks Terwene

Passing from one word type to another
Changing the ending of a word can change its meaning from verb to noun, noun to adjective/adverb, and so on. Let's look what usually happens to the meaning:
 * Adj to verb: the verb usually becomes the transitive verb "to make something Xadj"
 * gara = warm --> garar = to heat
 * Verb to adj: adjective for things that are used or necessary to do or related to the action of the verb
 * mancar = to eat --> manca = for eating/related to eating
 * Verb to noun: this noun usually is the name of the action of the verb, but can also be the process of the verb:
 * mancar = to eat --> mance = a meal
 * dormar = to sleep --> dorme = sleep (noun)
 * Noun to verb: this verb is usually the action that is done with the noun
 * martile = hammer --> martilar = to (use a) hammer
 * Adj to noun: the name of the quality of the adjective most probably
 * bela = beautiful --> bele = beauty
 * kibela = ugly --> kibele = ugliness
 * fasta = fast --> faste = velocity
 * ega = big --> ege = size
 * tala = tall --> tale = height
 * Noun to adj: usually "related to noun" or "for noun"
 * cate = tea --> cata = for tea
 * cata peye = a cup for tea
 * myawe = cat --> myawa = for cats

Correlatives
Correlatives are special words which consist of certain beginnings and endings and are ordered in a table.