Bumiswen

English•

* this page is currently undergoing some changes*

Classification
Bumiluga is an IAL (International Auxiliary Language) with a mostly isolating grammar (thought there are affixes and word combination, each part remains independent and unchanged). It's phonology is relatively simple. Words originate mainly from the world's five most spoken languages: Chinese (Mandarin), English, Spanish, Hindi and Arabic.

It is an a posteriori isolating SVO language.

Phonology
Bumiluga uses letters of the basic Latin alphabet plus the macron diacritic for vowels.

Writing System
Their names are a, be, ce, de, e, fe, ge, he, i, ke, le, me, ne, o, pe, se, te, u, xe.

The names of the Latin letters foreign to the language are: j (ha), q (ka), r (la), v (fa), w (ua), y (ia), z (sa).

Stress
Stress falls on the second to last syllable.

Phonotactics
I was inspired to make Bumiluga mostly by CV languages, but it's not one of them, there are some consonant clusters allowed for the onset and some codas, and also gemination like in Italian and Japanese.

Onset:

 * b, c, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, x, -

Nucleus:

 * a, e, i, o, u

Coda:
The coda is limited to what the following onset is, only the following combinations can happen (ignoring that nucleuses containing diphthongs can cause palatalization or labialization):
 * l, m, n, s, -
 * lf, lp, lq, lt, lb, ld, lg, lm, ln, ls, sp, sc, st, nf, mp, nc, nt, mb, nd, ng, ns, nx

Gemination
The consonants m, n, l, s, p, t, k can be short or long, and are represented repeating the letter (mm, nn, ll, ss, pp, tt, kk). They have their own names: emme, enne, esse, elle, eppe, ette, ekke.

Diphthongs
Diphthongs are not phonemic in Bumiluga. The letters i and u might be pronounced as the nucleus of their own syllables, palatalizing/labializing the previous consonant, or forming a diphthong with another vowel. When u and i come after one of the other vowels (a, e, o), they cannot take the stress, instead the strassed is moved to that other vowel (if i is preceded by u or viceversa, the stress doesn't move).

For instance something like "alia" might be pronounced in several ways: /'a.li.a/, /'al.ja/, /'a.lʲa/ (all vowels on their own, i as a consonant to a, or i palatalizing l). Similarly "pauta" would be pronounced /'pa.u.ta/ or /'paw.ta/. Note that stress doesn't move however you pronounce i and u.

Roots
Apart from respecting the phonotactics described above, all roots must follow two more rules:
 * They must end in a vowel (even if it's an i or u that can be interpreted as /w/ or /j/)
 * They must NOT start with i or u.

Pronouns
Plural pronouns are created adding -me.

Nouns
Nouns do not express number, but plural number may be shown adding -me.

Adjectives and adverbs
Unchanged words can be used as adjectives without change if context is clear, otherwise adjectives end in -na and adverbs end in -mo. They don't change for number.

Verbs
There are some particles that can clarify meaning in time, mood or voice, but infinitive verbs may be used instead of them whenever it's clear. Aspect particles can go after one of the tense particles or the conditional particle: Particles and their combinations should not be overused when context allows the use of the bare verb.
 * Perfective aspect + tense
 * Mi nau le kome = I have eaten
 * Mi di le kome = I had eaten
 * Mi ba le kome = I will have eaten
 * Mi bu le kome = I would have eaten
 * Prospective aspect + tense
 * Mi nau po kome = I am about to eat
 * Mi di po kome = I was about to eat
 * Mi ba po kome = I will be about to eat
 * Mi bu po kome = I would be about to eat
 * Habitual aspect + tense
 * Mi nau sue kome = I usually eat
 * Mi di sue kome = I used to eat
 * Mi ba sue kome = I will usually eat
 * Mi bu sue kome = I would usually eat
 * Progressive aspect + tense
 * Mi nau sai kome = I am eating
 * Mi di sai kome = I was eating
 * Mi ba sai kome = I will be eating
 * Mi bu sai kome = I would be eating