ALPHABET AND PRONUNCIATION
The Xazam language uses the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet.
Consonants:
B as in Boy
C as in CHin
D as in DuD
F as in FluFF
G as in Good
H as in Hat
J as in John, Gem
K as in KinK
L as in LuLL
M as in MiM
N as in NooN
P as in PiP
Q as in siNG
R as in RoaR (Midwestern American or Mandarin preferred, but any 'r' sound will do.)
S as in So
T as in ToT
V as in Victory
X as in SHoe
Z as in Zoo
Vowels:
A as in fAther
E as in bEt*
I as in machIne
O as in bOAt
U as in bOOt
And two semivowels:
W as in We, coW
Y as in You, boY
N.B: *E is a short sound, as in English bEt, rEd, lEg. Remember to keep it short. Do not pronounce it as in English "hooray". That sound is a diphthong and is indicated by "ey."
A few of these are unconventional. This usage of C can be found befoe E or I in Italian. Q was chosen to represent the consonant in siNG because it had no other obvious use, and because the NG sound rarely has a symbol in any language. X is used this way in Pinyin, Portuguese, and Lingua Franca Nova.
W and Y make these diphthongs:
ay - as in frY
aw - as in cow
ey - as in bAthe
oy - as in bOY
ya - as in YArd
ye- as in YEllow
yo - as in YOre
yu - as in YOU
wa - as in WAter
we - as in WEt
wi - as in WE
When juxtaposed, vowels are pronounced separately:
beog - BE-og
xuam - xu-AM
A Xazam morpheme is always stressed on the last full vowel (AEIOU).
WORD SHAPE
All Xazam morphems take the shape nCn(nVC), that is, one or more consonants followed by one or more combinations of any number of vowels (including semivowels) followed by a single consonant.
ORIGINS
Words are borrowed from English as much as possible. After that, appropriate words may be borrowed from any language, with the larger languages getting first try.
GRAMMAR
Compound words are made by simple juxtaposition. Grammar is isolating, like Mandarin. Affixes are stand-alone morphemes in their own right.
PRONOUNS:
Jik I, me (no cases in Xazam) [a word squeezed together from French 'je' and Germanic 'ik.]
tum you (Hindi)
han he, she, it, they (Danish)
'We' is either jiktum (inclusive) or jikhan (exclusive). Plurals can be made with mor, which literally means 'more than', and is from English 'more.'
mortum you (plural)
morhan they
PARTS OF SPEECH
As in Mandarin (and to a great extent in English) a word can be any part of speech.
Jik ten molot. I have a hammer. (Spanish, Russian)
jik molot neyl. I hammer a nail.
Tenses are formed with pas (before), nun (now) and sap (after).
Tum pas vid kat. You saw a cat.
Jik nun pit van. I am drinking water.
kat sap kom maws. A cat will eat a mouse.