Epajan
Epajan is an isolating conlang used in Narawan.
Phonology
The Epajan "alphabet" is actually an abugida, similar to Devanāgarī script (used to write Sanskrit and Hindi). Each character represents a consonant, and a diacritcal mark indicates a vowel following it. A solitary vowel may only occur at the start of a word (e.g. the 'e' in Epajan), and two vowels cannot occur together. In addition, 'm' and 'n' may appear at the end of a word instead of a vowel (e.g. 'n' in Epajan).
Consonants in Epajan are fairly simple and are only pronounced in one way. Apart from 'j', which is pronounced like the s in "treasure", they are all pronounced as in English.
Consonants: b, d, f, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, z
By contrast vowels are variable, not always pronounced in the same way.
Vowels: a, e, i, o, u, ū
- a: as in "attic" or "father"
- e: as in "met"
- i: as in "tin"
- o: as in "on", or like the 'a' in "about"
- u: as in "bun", or like the 'a' in "about"
- ū: as in "zoom" or "book"
Note: a word cannot end with 'i'.
Grammar
Like Chinese, Epajan is an isolating language which has no case system, instead relying on word order to determine the subject, object or verb in a sentence.
Number
There are no plurals in Epejan, so the words for a single and a plural of something are the same.
Mood
There are a number of grammatical particles used to express the "mood" of a sentence (i.e. if it is a command, a question, if the speaker is unsure of something, etc.), occuring after the word it refers to. Questions are asked like a normal statement, with one of these particles after the word being questioned. Below is a list of the particles which describe the grammatical mood:
| Particle | Meaning |
|---|---|
| sū | statement of fact |
| gu | expresses opinion |
| te | expresses a plea or a wish |
| je | expresses uncertaintity |
| ke | used in a question to determine what the speaker is questioning |
| ra | expresses a command |
| pa | negates a word |
| zu | expresses a generalisation |
| kū | expresses sarcasm |
| le | indicates the speaker likes something |
| ne | indicates the speaker dislikes something |
Pronouns
Epajan is a null-subject language, so unless needed pronouns in the subject are usually dropped. Note that like nouns, pronouns in Epajan have no case declensions and no plurals, so the word for "I" is also the word for "we".
- First person (I, we): ba
- Second person (You): bu
- Third person (He, she, they): bū
Word order
Epajan uses Subject Object Verb word order. Because it is an isolating language, it relies heavily on this to distinguish subjects from objects.
Time
There are no tenses in Epajan. Instead the time an event took place can either be stated explicitly as an adverb or just not mentioned. Notably, the Epajan language has many different words for expressing time, something considered important in Narawan culture.
