Re: Kew, a new modified English

1.    One of the obvious issues that your future English brings up is future
history.   Under what future circumstances will German, Italian, and Tok
Pisin influence English enough to affect its syntactic fundamentals?   How
will these three languages affect Kew's vocabulary?   What kinds of words
will we want to borrow from German, and why?   Same question for the other
two languages.

2.    Synchronically, Kew looks pretty interesting.    How do you mark
number on the nouns?   Do you mark number on the nouns;   you probably
already know you don't have to.   What tenses, aspects, and moods do you
mark?

Jim G.

Here's another future variety of English, more drastically modified than
Mârshen. I call it Kew, pronounced [kEw]. I don't know where the name came
from, but that's what it's called. See how much you can recognize.

Maws i smol. Maws i no big, aba yelfant i big.
Yelfant i grey eza maws, a big eza haws.
Greya maws i manchi yelwa chiyz.
Sem i zeti howm, aba Pet i zeti worka pleys. Wer a yu zet?
Mi da kam, a mi da siyit, a mi da konkarit.
Wene yumi bi gowi howm?
Mi josta manchit. Ka yu no yeta manchit?
Rowla rok i gedari nona mos.
Dir i gresa manchar, aba wulf i miyta manchar.

It might sound at first like just a distorted version of English, but
there's actually a lot going on here. Note that words with an -i suffix
(not counting the pronouns "i" and "mi") are all transitive verbs. The -t
suffix is an antipassive ending, which lets you omit the direct object. The
-a suffix is a general modifier, allowing one word or phrase to modify the
following word. The -e suffix modifies the entire clause. Noun and verb
roots all begin and end with a consonant. Conjunctions begin and end with a
vowel. There are some obvious borrowings from pidgins and creoles (Tok
Pisin "yumi", the use of "i" before verbs, particles before the verb to
show tense and aspect). Influences from other languages are less obvious,
but there's "aba" from German "aber" ("but"), and "manch" ("to eat")
influenced by Italian "mangia" and English "munch". In normal word order,
all word boundaries have a consonant on one side and a vowel on the other
side, which leads to a smoother pronunciation.

Wot a yu tink? Ka gud? Ka yu laykit o no?

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