Lespi/Lezhi/Leshin Beta Topic

Orthography/Pronunciation:
(IPA will be in //, ~ is used for allophones, layman pronunciation based off of General American will be put in () Pronunciation is 100% consistent. If I say a letter/letter combination
is pronounced a certain way, it will always be pronounced that way. It is higly recommended that you know IPA because the English language can not accurately explain how some of the sounds are supposed to be pronounced. Request an audio recording of me speaking Lespi if you are curious.)
a /ɑ~ä/ (pronounced as the a in father.)
ä /æ/ (pronounced as the a in cat.)
b /b/ (pronounced as b)
ch /t͡ʃ/ (pronounced as ch)
d /d/ (pronounced as the d in dog. Not the d in model. If the d in dog/model sound the same then don't worry about it, you probably pronounce d the same way in that case.)
dc /d͡ʒ/ (pronounced as j.)
dz /d͡z/ (pronounced as d and z together.)
e /e~ɛ/ (pronounced as either the a in lake or as the e in bed.)
f /f/ (pronounced as f)
g /g/ (pronounced as g in begin and never the g in giant. In other words, g is never pronounced as the j sound.)
h /h/ (pronounced as h)
i /i/ (pronounced as the ea in beam)
j /j/ (pronounced as consonantal y and not the vowel y.)
k /k/ (pronounced as k)
l /l/ (pronounced as l)
m /m/ (pronounced as m)
n /n/ (pronounced as n)
o /o~ɔ/ (pronounced as the o in home or the ough in bought.)
ö /ø~œ/ (This sound does not exist in English, Exists in French eu or oe or German long ö or short ö.)
p /p/ (pronounced as p)
r /ɾ~r/ (pronounced as the r in red or the Spanish rr.)
s /s/ (pronounced as s in sad. Never as the s in is, sure, or treasure.)
sh /ʃ/ (pronounced as the sh in shore.)
t /t/ (pronounced as the t in tap. Never as the t in petal or faction.)
ts /t͡s/ (pronounced as t and s together. As the ts in cats.)
u /u~ɯ/ (pronounced as the oo in moon.)
ü /y/ (This sound is not in English or most English dialects. Exists in French long u or German long ü.)
v /v/ (pronounced as the v in video.)
w /w/ (pronounced as a w.)
y /ə/ (pronounced as the schwa vowel. The a in comma or the e in begin. Focus on the sound and not the letters.)
z /z/ (pronounced as z.)
zh /ʒ/ (pronounced as the ge in mirage pr the s in closure. Focus on the sound and not the letters.)

Phonotactics:
-All native Lezhi words are (C)CV(V) and do not use ü or ä as vowels.
-Borrowing words have no phonotactical limit.

Syntax:
-On default, word order on declarative clauses are SOV but they can be just about anything due to rigorous part of speech and case marking marking. However, generally one sticks to SOV or OSV when a parsing issue may arise when the declarative sentence is by a relative clause or nominalized clause. Relative and nominalized clauses strictly use SOV or OSV.

Word Stuff:
-There are two kinds of words, Base Words and Derived Words. All derived words are made off the 144
Base words. Bases words are always one syllable and stick perfectly to the phonotactical rules.

-Words regardless of type use a "Cluster System". Basically the word will contain multiple
parts of speech that the word could potentially be but in order to use the definition from
the part of speech, you must either use suffixes in order to draw out that specific meaning.

Ge can mean either "opposite" (as a noun), "opposite" (as an adjective), "oppositely",
"despite", "must not", or "but".

To get the noun "opposite" meaning, you must sufiix ge with -yr, -yn, or -ym.
To get the adjective "opposite" meaning, you must suffix ge with -yz.
To get the "oppositely" meaning, you must suffix ge with -yzh.
To get the "must not" meaning, you must suffix ge with -yv.
To get the "despite" meaning, you must suffix ge with -yl.
To get the "but" meaning, you must suffix ge with -o.

Noun Related Stuff:
-If a word has a noun meaning, then you must suffix the word with -yr, -yn, -ym to use it as a noun.
-There are no articles
-Nouns without marking are ambiguously single/plural
-To mark a noun as singular, use wa (meaning one) by the noun.
-To mark a noun as plural, prefix chu on the noun.

How to use Yr/Yn/Ym:
-Yr, Yn, and Ym are suffixes used to mark that you are using the noun definition of a word. If they are
put after a base/derived word ending in a vowel, then the y goes away. If they are put after a consonant
then the y vowel stays. For example:

Va+yr = Var (meaning person).

-It is important to distinguish the use of Yr/Yn/Ym. Yr is used on nouns to mark for Agent. In simpler terms, it is
used to mark who is one that is actually doing the action. This is usually called a subject in English but I instead
say "Agent" because the language is much more strict when it comes to who is the true actuator. In a sentence like
"I was bitten by the dog", I is still considered the subject of the sentence but Lespi would disagree and instead give
dog, Yr and I as Yn.

Yn is used to mark nouns as Patient or in simpler terms, the being who is acted upon or effected by an action and only
if they are.

Ym is used to mark nouns as what I like to call "Prepositional Case". Basically if a noun is within a prepositional phrase
when you must mark it with Ym.

Yr/Yn/Ym can be used as complementizers

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Adjective Related Stuff:
-If a word has an adjective meaning, then you must suffix the word with -yz to use it as an adjective.
-Adjectives always go before the nouns they describe. Adjectival structures behave the same way.

Adverb Related Stuff:
-If a word has an adverb meaning, then you must suffix -yzh to use it as an adverb.

Verb Related Stuff:
-If a word has a verb meaning, then you must suffix the word with -yv to use it as a verb.
-There is no conjugation.
-Tense in the language is assumed by context. However, there are various tense markers that can be used.
-Lespi uses absolute tense.
-To mark present tense, you use "Trotezh" (Trotezh is an adverb meaning "now".)
-To mark future tense, you use "Dev" right by the verb. It's very similar to "will" in English.
-Marking the past is more complicated because there are two ways and that's because it is past+aspect.
"Niv" is used as past continuous. Basically you use it to indicate that the action you are describing is
either known to not have been finished/over or if it is unknown whether or not it is finished/over. "Bav"
is used as past perfective. It's used to indicate that an action has a beginning and an end and can be
seen as encapsulated countable events. For example:

I skated for a while. (this would use past continuous because the speaker makes it unknown if the skating was
done or not. we could assume one or the other but it's unclear.)
I skated a couple of times. (this would use past perfective because the adverb phrase "a couple of times" imply
that the action had a begging and end especially since another "time" was done in succession implying there were
multiple sessions.)

-Bav can also be used with "Dev" forming "Dev bav" to use the future perfect.
-Fezh is an adverb that can be used to express just doing something. For example:
English:
I just walked.
Lezhi:
Mir fezh shatav.

-Tav can be used to express going to/about to/fixing to. For example:
English:
I'm going to walk.
Lezhi:
Mir tav shatav.

-Most moods in this language are simply expressed using lexical means. In other words, no conjugations are
needed. Just say that you want/wish/need/demand/hope for/etc. something/someone.

Preposition Related Stuff:
-If a word has a preposition meaning, then you must suffix the word with -yl to use it as a preposition.
-Prepositional phrases can be used as adjectives much like in English. You instead have to put the entire prepositional
phase before the noun it is affecting. For example, sentences like "The man on the tv", "The ship in the water", "The cat on the table" would actually be word for word said as "On the tv man", "In the water ship", "On the table cat".
-Prepositional phrases can be used as adverbs much like in English. In order to distinguish it from the adjective
definition, you must put the entire phrase before the verb.

Conjunction Related Stuff:
-If a word has a conjugation meaning, then you must suffix the word with -o to use it as a conjunction.

Forming Questions:
-To form yes or no questions, you must either use the A-not-A construction or add the tag question "neo nezh" at the end of the sentence. The A-not-A construction is basically just saying the verb, saying nezh, and then repeating the same verb. For example:

Lezhi:
Tur len pludwisav nezh pludwisav?
Tur len dev nezh dev pludwisav?
English:
Do you like it?
Will you like it?

Sometimes, verbs can be long so using neo nezh (meaning "or not") is usually nicer.

Lezhi:
Tur len pludwisav neo nezh?
Tur len dev pludwisav neo nezh?
English:
Do you like it?
Will you like it?

As indicated in the example sentences, you will never put the verb before the subject pronoun. The sentence retains the same structure it would have is it were a statement/declaration. This goes for anytime you make a question.

-Here are some question words:

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The Word "So":

So is the known as the relative clause pronoun which is the only way to make relative clauses with. Relative clauses are made by first putting the  contents of the clause which is forced to be in SOV with the relative pronoun at the end of the entire clause. The clause is then used as an adjective and is put before the noun that it is describing which is sort of the opposite of English. Understanding cases and roles in the sentence is crucial to using so properly since so is explicitly marked like all the other nouns in the language. Let's go over some examples:

Pluhev sor var.
Lit. helps that.A person.A
"The person who helps."

Mir pluhev son var.
Lit. I.A help that.P person.A
"The person whom I help"

Pluhev son var.
Lit. helps that.P person.P
"The person whom is helped."

Like in English, you will notice that who as a relative pronoun represents a subject and whom represents an object. You may wonder why var in the second and third sentences do not take on -yn. That's because any actions done within the relative clause have no bearing on the case-marking on the main noun. It's the relative pronoun that you should concern yourself with when it comes to subject/object stuff. Notably sor became son when an action was preformed on it. Sor/son and the contents of their clauses are used as an adjective to ultimately describe var.

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There are no participles in the language, instead those are recreated via using relative clauses.

Present participles are recreated via using a verb + sor onto a noun. For example:

The talking dog/The dog that talks -> Sauspitav sor godör
The floating person/The person that floats -> Vuspav son var

Past participles are recreated via using a verb + son onto a noun. For example:

Torn paper/Paper that is torn -> Plaksev son tsaplar
The bitten person/The person that is bitten -> Mujav son var

Despite this, some words, most typically the adjective definition of words, already have a participle meaning in them thus avoiding the need to do this. You could still use the original relative clause structure if you wish.

A pleasing day -> Padwisaz pater
A pleasing day/A day that pleases -> Padwisav sor pater
Wringed clothing -> Köroz shuvör
Wringed clothing/clothing that was wringed -> Körov son shuvör

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Much like English, relative clauses can take on prepositions. Let's look at some examples:

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(I took break writing this section but if you want to keep on reading, you can go to this link, scroll down, and read the "So" the special relative clause marker: section. Everything as far as I can tell is basically the same. I'm just re-explaining some things in a different way.)

Active voice and Passive voice:

Bo and Zo:

Wev vs Jauv:
-Wev can be translated as to be as Jauv is typically translated as to have. However, there is a particular case where Jauv is used to mean what we would say "to be" in English. Wev is specifically only used to express the existence and position of something/someone. Jauv is used as the to be used for describing things. Consider these examples:

I am a person. (Expressing that you are something. You exist as a person.)
I am at the store. (Expressing position. You are at a store.)
I am happy. (Expressing description. You are happy but not literally existing as happiness itself.)

These would be translated into Lespi as...

Mir van wev (Lit. I person am)
Mir wev gol motago (Lit. I am at store.)
Mir pasan jauv (Lit. I happiness have.)

Notice how jauv is used in the third sentence, if you were to use wev instead, you'd be saying that you are happiness and not just being or feeling happy. This is because wev is used for stating the existence of something.


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Slangs/Phonetical Shortening of Words:

There are some words in the language that I consider too long so some base word when they are right by each other can be said more shortly. You can choose to shorten them or not as there's really no different in meaning, formality, or connotation. The only purpose is to reduce syllables. Here is the list:

Chojo -> Choi
Döjo -> Döi
Floja -> Floi
Gaja -> Gai
Goja -> Goi
Guja -> Gwi
Jawe -> Jau
Joja -> Joi
Pafa -> Pfa
Ploja -> Ploi
Skoju -> Skoi
Shoja -> Shoi
Taje -> Tai

Orthography/Pronunciation:
(IPA will be in //, ~ is used for allophones, layman pronunciation based off of General American will be put in () Pronounciation is 100% consistent. If I say a letter/letter combination
is pronounced a certain way, it will always be pronounced that way. It is higly recommended that you know IPA because the English language can not accurately explain how some of the sounds are supposed to be pronounced. Request an audio recording of me speaking Lezhi if you are curious.)
a /ɑ~ä/ (pronounced as the a in father.)
ä /æ/ (pronounced as the a in cat.)
b /b/ (pronounced as b)
ch /t͡ʃ/ (pronounced as ch)
d /d/ (pronounced as the d in dog. Not the d in model. If the d in dog/model sound the same then don't worry about it, you probably pronounce d the same way in that case.)
dz /d͡z/ (pronounced as d and z together.)
e /e~ɛ/ (pronounced as either the a in lake or as the e in bed.)
f /f/ (pronounced as f)
g /g/ (pronounced as g in begin and never the g in giant. In other words, g is never pronounced as the j sound.)
h /h/ (pronounced as h)
i /i/ (pronounced as the ea in beam)
j /d͡ʒ/ (pronounced as j)
k /k/ (pronounced as k)
l /l/ (pronounced as l)
m /m/ (pronounced as m)
n /n/ (pronounced as n)
o /o~ɔ/ (pronounced as the o in home or the ough in bought.)
ö /ø~œ/ (This sound does not exist in English, Exists in French eu or oe or German long ö or short ö.)
p /p/ (pronounced as p)
r /ɾ~r/ (pronounced as the r in red or the Spanish rr.)
s /s/ (pronounced as s in sad. Never as the s in is, sure, or treasure.)
sh /ʃ/ (pronounced as the sh in shore.)
t /t/ (pronounced as the t in tap. Never as the t in petal or faction.)
ts /t͡s/ (pronounced as t and s together. As the ts in cats.)
u /u~ɯ/ (pronounced as the oo in moon.)
ü /y/ (This sound is not in English or most English dialects. Exists in French long u or German long ü.)
v /v/ (pronounced as the v in video.)
w /w/ (pronounced as a w.)
y /j/ (pronounced as the consonant y, not the vowel y.)
z /z/ (pronounced as z.)
zh /ʒ/ (pronounced as the ge in mirage pr the s in closure. Focus on the sound and not the letters.)

Phonotactics:
-All native Lezhi words are (C)CV and do not use ü or ä as vowels. The only time this rule is broken is when slangs are used where
the phonotactics now are (C)CV(V) or (C)CV(C).
-Borrowing words have no phonotactical limit.

Syntax:
-Word order is SVO. The only time it is OSV is in a specific relative clause case. More on that in the "The Word So" section.

Word Stuff:
-There are two kinds of words, Base Words and Derived Words. All derived words are made off the 139
Base words. Bases words are always one syllable and stick perfectly to the phonotactical rules.

-Words regardless of type use a "Cluster System". Basically the word will contain multiple
parts of speech that the word could potentially be but in order to use the definition from
the part of speech, you must either use syntax/word placement and/or suffixes in order to
draw out that specific meaning. Ge can mean either "opposite" (as an adjective), "oppositely",
"despite", "must not", or "but".

To get the "opposite" meaning, you must ge by a noun.
To get the "oppositely" meaning, you must put ge by a verb.
To get the "must not" meaning, you must suffix ge with -s.
To get the "despite" meaning, you must suffix ge with -n.
To get the "but" meaning, you must suffix ge with -o.

-Some derived words will sound phonetically similar to using a noun attributively/adjective by a noun.
Derived words in this case will be the dominant and assumed meaning. For example:

Betsa means tree even though the two words are be(leg)+tsa(plant). However, we know that betsa means
tree and not literally leg plant. Therefore, in order to express leg plant, you could either, emphasize
the space between the words (saying be tsa instead of betsa) or use the preposition yan and say tsa yan be.
(lit. plant of leg) to distinguish this.

Noun Related Stuff:
-If a word has a noun meaning, then you just use the word as is to use it as a noun.
-There are no articles
-Nouns without marking are ambiguously single/plural
-To mark a noun as singular, use wa (meaning one) by the noun.
-To mark a noun as plural, prefix chu on the noun.

Adjective Related Stuff:
-If a word has an adjective meaning, then you must put the word before a noun to use it as an adjective.

Adverb Related Stuff:
-If a word has an adverb meaning, then you must put the word before a verb to use it as an adverb.
-You'll notice most words do not have any adverb meanings. Most adverb meanings are re-created via
preposition + noun combinations. Very commonly, jen (meaning with) is used.

Verb Related Stuff:
-If a word has a verb meaning, then you must suffix the word with -s to use it as a verb.
-There is no conjugation.
-Tense in the language is assumed by context. However, there are various tense markers that can be used.
-Lezhi uses absolute tense.
-To mark present tense, you use "Tsotes" right by the verb.
-To mark future tense, you use "Des" right by the verb. It's very similar to "will" in English.
-Marking the past is more complicated because there are two ways and that's because it is past+aspect.
"Nis" is used as past continuous. Basically you use it to indicate that the action you are describing is
either known to not have been finished/over or if it is unknown whether or not it is finished/over. "Bas"
is used as past perfective. It's used to indicate that an action has a beginning and an end and can be
seen as encapsulated countable events. For example:

I skated for a while. (this would use past continuous because the speaker makes it unknown if the skating was
done or not. we could assume one or the other but it's unclear.)
I skated a couple of times. (this would use past perfective because the adverb phrase "a couple of times" imply
that the action had a begging and end especially since another "time" was done in succession implying there were
multiple sessions.)

-Bas can also be used with "Des" forming "Des bas" to use the future perfect.
-Jen fe is a prepositional phrase that can be used as an adverb to express just doing something. For example:
English:
I just walked.
Lezhi:
Mi shatas jen fe.

-Tas can be used to express going to/about to/fixing to. For example:
English:
I'm going to walk.
Lezhi:
Mi tas shatas.

-Most moods in this language are simply expressed using lexical means. In other words, no conjugations are
needed. Just say that you want/wish/need/demand/hope for/etc. something/someone.

Preposition Related Stuff:
-If a word has a verb meaning, then you must suffix the word with -n to use it as a preposition.
-Prepositional phrases work like English prepositional phrases.

Conjunction Related Stuff:
-If a word has a verb meaning, then you must suffix the word with -o to use it as a conjunction.

Forming Questions:
-To form yes or no questions, you must either use the A-not-A construction or add the tag question "neo ne" at the end of the sentence. The A-not-A construction is basically just saying the verb, saying ne, and then repeating the same verb. For example:

Lezhi:
Tu jedzisas ne jedzisas le?
Tu des ne des jedzisas le?
English:
Do you like it?
Will you like it?

Sometimes, verbs can be long so using neo ne (meaning "or not") is usually nicer.

Lezhi:
Tu jedzisas le neo ne?
Tu des jedzisas le neo ne?
English:
Do you like it?
Will you like it?

As indicated in the example sentences, you will never put the verb before the subject pronoun. The sentence retains the same structure it would have is it were a statement/declaration. This goes for anytime you make a question.

-Here are some question words:
Tsuti = what (for objects/tangible things)
Tsuye = what (for issues/affair/phenomena/non-tangible things)
Tsuva = who/whom
Tsuju = which (as an interrogative pronoun/determiner and not a relative pronoun)
Ten tsute = when (as an interrogative adverb and not a relative adverb)
Gon tsugo = where (Same thing as what I say in parenthesis for ten tsute.)
Won tsupe = how (Same thing as what I say in parenthesis for ten tsute.)
Jen tsupe = how (Same thing as what I say in parenthesis for ten tsute.)
The difference between won tsupe and hen tsupe really just stems from the difference between won/jen.
Simply put, won tsupe is used to ask by what means/ability/skill someone did or achieved something and jen tsupe is used to ask the
manner how something is done. Let's see an example.

Tu bas rovis won tsupe?
Tu bas rovis jen tsupe?

Both can be translated as "How did you sleep?" However, the difference is that the first sentence is wondering what did the
person do to finally sleep. Like let's say it was really really noisy and the other guy was like "Dude, how the hell did you sleep?"
and the other guy would be like "I just cut off my ears and put them back on, pretty simple."

The second sentence moreso refers to the manner or style of sleep. As in, "How did you sleep? Was it well? Was it bad?" Or something like "How do you exactly sleep? Like you do sleep on floor or the bed? Are you like a bat that sleeps upside down?"

So yeah, I'm pretty sure you innately understand that but now you must be more aware of it.

Yan tsufe = why
Yan tsunu = how much/many
Yan tsuma = how much (specifically of value. ex. How much is this couch?)
Yan tsudo = how much

The Word "So":

The word so is essentially the main relative pronoun (which translates ambiguously as either that/which/who) used to form relative clauses. Word order dictates whether so is a subject or an object. SVO (as in, so is right by the verb.) makes so a subject. OSV (as in, there is a non-verb before so.) makes so an object. For example:

English:
The person that/who helped me.
The tool that/which helped me.
Lezhi:
Va so jehes mi.
Woti so jehes mi.

English:
The person that/who I helped.
The tool that/which I made.
Lezhi:
Va so mi jehes.
Woti so mi kis.

The Word "Yes":

Active voice and Passive voice:

Bo and Zo:

Wes vs Yaus:
-English will typically use the verb to be to state that something is an "adjective" as in, This is red. This is appreciated, etc.