New Lang, but Just For Fun

This is a very silly language I made up this morning at school and am
deciding to share with you.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I thought
one of the Latin combinations sounded really funny, and, tada, this is

Raatingo

the long-lost Latin-Japanese pidgin (or creole?  I don't really know my
terms here) spoken by Japanese sailors who ventured out of the Pacific
and into the Mediterranean to trade with the Romans.  We all know that
Japanese trade with the Mediterranean was absolutely booming and that
Japanese sailors would definitely have had to acquire a minimal
knowledge of Vulgar Latin in order to get by in Roman colonies.  Only
recently discovered, here is a (quick-quick) sketch of what they spoke:

Phonology:
Since it's written in Hiragana, Raatingo has to conform to the normal
Japanese phonological conventions, etc. which I don't really think I'll
outline here.  Suffice it to say, however, that some Latin words (Latin
was the lexifier) sound pretty funny with that limited phonology.
(read:  Latin -->  Raatin).  (This propery of Japanese is what led me to
start this lang at all -- I knew it would be so silly to here all those
familiar Latin roots after they'd been twisted to meet phonological
conventions)

Grammar:
Nouns:
The three vulgar latin declensions (sort of) stay with the language,
although the plural is thrown out, so we have (using Ray's example from
before):

        1st declension          2nd declension          3rd declension
nom     kapura                  murosu                  furoresu
oblique kapura                  muro                    furore

So that the endings are -a,-a; -osu, -o; and -esu, -e.
The nominative/oblique distinction is retained to some extent.  The
Japanese particle system is used (just as it is in Japanese now), and
the nominative form is used when the particle is <wa> or <ga>, and the
oblique is used in all other instances.  (For those not familiar with
Japanese particles, <wa> and <ga> indicate the subject of a sentence).

Verbs:
The present first person form of all Latin verbs is changed so that it
ends in <ru> instead of <o> (I know this goes against the actual changes
made in vulgar latin, but, really, how serious about this do you think I
am? ;) ).  For example:

opto > oputsuru
impleo > imupureru
duco > zukuru
incipio > inkipiru
sentio > senchiru

This is because the simplest form of Japanese verbs ends in <ru>, the
Ichidan verbs.  This verb class has fewer changes made to the stem than
the rest of the classes, especially in regard to the most common tense
constructions.
The Japanese verb declination system is used, so

        Non-Past                Past

Aff.    -masu                   -mashita
Neg.    -masen                  -masen deshita

Adjectives & Adverbs:
I'm not yet sure how I'm going to work these, I'll have to research it a
bit more...any suggestions?  But really, don't take this seriously...

Example:

Fuemina o bidemashita.
(I) saw a woman.

Ringua o amamasu.
(I) like language(s).

Not as pretty as Jennifer's Romance lang, but amusing enough.  Really,
though, I harbor a secret desire to make a Romance lang spoken in the
east, maybe somewhere between Romania and Russia, so it can use the
Cyrillic alphabet.  That would be fun, yeah, it would have lots of
Slavic inflences too (read:  retention of case inflection).  Oh well,
midterms start tomorrow, and I'd better get to work!

Nicole </silly post>
--
nicole.eap@snet.net
http://nicole.conlang.org
--
"They look like white elephants," she said.
"I've never seen one," the man drank his beer.
"No, you wouldn't have."