Post by Ayu on Oct 11, 2008 22:34:58 GMT -5
Some Basic Notes On The Grammar of Meiese
Firstly, it is by no means true that Meiese lacks structure. It’s just kind of…un-English structure.
To start with, Mei is not familiar with the changing of verbs depending on the subject. Hence ‘having’, for example, is always used with no variation. Thus, “he is having”, “She is having”, “You is having”, “I is having”.
The only time this structure changes is to change tense. In the past tense, “He has having”; in the future, “He is to having”. There is no concept of a ‘maybe’, so if she wants to say “you should be”, “you might be” or “you could be”, it will always be “you is to being”. At a stretch, to say “he should have”, one might say “he has need to having” or “he has want to having” (or “he has having …, would has being more good”).
The lack of change in words is typical of the Mei language. As well as the obvious, the lack of knowledge of shifting words can lead to some very awkward sentences. Meiese has no negative forms of words, so ‘dishonour’ is rendered as ‘no honour’ and ‘quiet’ as ‘no loud’. The selection of which antonym is used is basically random, but if any adjective, adverb or verb has ‘no’ before it, in most case it automatically renders that word negative. For example, “no dark” = “bright”.
It’s also important to note that Meiese has no system of making adverbs from adjectives. Whereas in English we would change ‘loud’ to ‘loudly’, in Meiese it remains ‘loud’. Where we would say ‘it is loud’ but ‘she spoke loudly’, Mei would say “it is being loud” and also “she has speaking loud”.
Similarly, Meiese lacks possessive adjectives. As in English, Meiese sometimes uses alternative sentence structures, for example “the father of the bride” is “father of marrygirl”. But for all other usage, there is no differentiation between possessive adjectives and nouns, as shown here representing the ownership of a dog.
“I dog”
“You dog”
“He/she/it dog”
“They dog”
“We dog”
In Meiese there is also no differentiation between singular and plural. “Person” could be either ‘person’ or ‘people’, ‘cat’ could be ‘cat’ or ‘cats’. Similarly, there is no change between the names of countries, languages and races. Thus, “I is in England living”, “I is speaking England”, “She is being England girl”
If in doubt, if no word is available, Mei will make one up. Thus, ‘lovegirl’ is ‘girlfriend’ and so on. To decrypt these words, just use its component words to work out what the hell she’s on about.
Now, go and speak Meiese!
Or…
YOU IS TO SPEAKING ENGLAND AS I IS DOING!
Firstly, it is by no means true that Meiese lacks structure. It’s just kind of…un-English structure.
To start with, Mei is not familiar with the changing of verbs depending on the subject. Hence ‘having’, for example, is always used with no variation. Thus, “he is having”, “She is having”, “You is having”, “I is having”.
The only time this structure changes is to change tense. In the past tense, “He has having”; in the future, “He is to having”. There is no concept of a ‘maybe’, so if she wants to say “you should be”, “you might be” or “you could be”, it will always be “you is to being”. At a stretch, to say “he should have”, one might say “he has need to having” or “he has want to having” (or “he has having …, would has being more good”).
The lack of change in words is typical of the Mei language. As well as the obvious, the lack of knowledge of shifting words can lead to some very awkward sentences. Meiese has no negative forms of words, so ‘dishonour’ is rendered as ‘no honour’ and ‘quiet’ as ‘no loud’. The selection of which antonym is used is basically random, but if any adjective, adverb or verb has ‘no’ before it, in most case it automatically renders that word negative. For example, “no dark” = “bright”.
It’s also important to note that Meiese has no system of making adverbs from adjectives. Whereas in English we would change ‘loud’ to ‘loudly’, in Meiese it remains ‘loud’. Where we would say ‘it is loud’ but ‘she spoke loudly’, Mei would say “it is being loud” and also “she has speaking loud”.
Similarly, Meiese lacks possessive adjectives. As in English, Meiese sometimes uses alternative sentence structures, for example “the father of the bride” is “father of marrygirl”. But for all other usage, there is no differentiation between possessive adjectives and nouns, as shown here representing the ownership of a dog.
“I dog”
“You dog”
“He/she/it dog”
“They dog”
“We dog”
In Meiese there is also no differentiation between singular and plural. “Person” could be either ‘person’ or ‘people’, ‘cat’ could be ‘cat’ or ‘cats’. Similarly, there is no change between the names of countries, languages and races. Thus, “I is in England living”, “I is speaking England”, “She is being England girl”
If in doubt, if no word is available, Mei will make one up. Thus, ‘lovegirl’ is ‘girlfriend’ and so on. To decrypt these words, just use its component words to work out what the hell she’s on about.
Now, go and speak Meiese!
Or…
YOU IS TO SPEAKING ENGLAND AS I IS DOING!
