Phonology

Vowels

a   as in father (not as in cat)
i   as in marine (not as in bit)
u   as in rule (not as in cut)

Diphthongs

ai   as in tie
au   as in bow
ia   like Japanese Yamaha
iu   like you
ua   as in waah!
ui   like we

Consonants

Most consonants are the same as English, but there are some exceptions:

g   always g as in get, never g as in gem
c   sh, as in shirt
j   zh, as in the z in azure or j in French jour
q   a glottal stop as between the o's of co-ordinate

Alphabet

a b c d f g h i j k m n p q r s t u v z

The names of these letters are:

qabu ba ca da fa ga ha qibu ja ka ma na pa qa ra sa ta qubu va za

Syllable Structure

A syllable always has the form consonant+vowel (CV) or consonant+diphthong (CD). So a syllable is always open, never closed by a final consonant. See the Vocabulary to get an idea of how words are structured. The stress in a word is always at the second-to-the-last (penultimate) syllable in a polysyllabic word.

Grammar

Basic Sentence

The basic sentence is of the form: {predicate} {argument1} {argument2} {argument3} ...

This is like in math where we have function(arg1, arg2, arg3, ...).

From the Vocabulary, we have the word dakai which means "walk":

dakai: x1 walks/strides/paces on surface x2 using limbs x3

Using this, we can come up with a sentence like:

dakai da janu di fiuga.
walk {article} John {article} road.
John walks on the road.

The article da marks a proper argument (like a "proper noun") and di marks a common ("non-proper") argument.

Modification

Modifiers come before the modified. An example:

zuiqui dakai da qaipua janu.
slowly walk {article} short John.
Short John slowly walks.

I have lots of ideas for this language, but having seen the grammar for Lojban, I think it would be an enormous undertaking to follow suit with a more simplified language based on predicate logic, but I do believe it is possible to do so. For now, I will leave it to your imagination. Lojban is already a comprehensive, well-conceived project...

Vocabulary