Dama Diwan

Dama Diwan
Template:Dama Diwan / Dama
Created by	–
Native to	the whole earth
Native speakers	3 billion (2016)
Language family	ProtoHuman Dama Diwan
Early form	ProtoHuman language
Dialect	informal Dama

It took me 5 days to learn all the Dama Diwan vocabulary. It can take a week, but once you know it, you have a treasure: the International Auxiliary Language, minimal but all efficient, artistic and perfectly logical, flexible and permanent. It is not based on any human language. All the vocabulary comes from the sky, hence the name Dama (or tama) "of the sky" Dewan (or tiwan) "with the earth". It allows wonderful freedom of word order within the frame of the head-final syntax. Well worth to devote one week to learn it.

Grammar

If you know the meaning of Dama Diwan words and the head-final word order, you don't need to know any other grammar. Every stem can take one of the 3 affixes o / a / e, which can be further expanded to on, an, en. So we have 6 possible suffixes, which have the following native names (with examples in brackets):

-o : ruro. (to, taro, no, wano…). It means a nominal word, something existing in space.

-a : jeno. (rasa, taba, na, kuka…). It means an adverbial word, expressing some notion of causality.

-e : bo. (be, ne, bibe, nuje…). It means an active verb, something realised in time.

-on : suto. (ton, taron, non, wanon…). Marks an object placed not after its verb.

-an : nujo. (rasan, taban, nan, kukan…). Marks an adverb used as a preposition or conjunction.

-en : raso. (ben, nen, biben, nujen…). Marks a verb which is going to be followed by its direct object.

-a / -an adverbials

The difference between -e / -en, -o / -on, has been sufficiently explained.

Adverbial words are very often used as postpositions, prepositions or conjunctions.

The suffix -an is used when the adverb is used as a preposition or conjunction, or more generally to show that the adverb connects primarily to the following word and not to the previous.

The suffix -a is used when the adverb is used as a postposition, or more generally to show that the adverb is connected primarily with the previous words before the meaning is joined to the following.

If there is no question whether the adverb joins primarily to the previous or to the next, -a is taken to mean "of" or "in relation to" the word it marks, while -an is taken to mean "with" or "by having" the word that follows -an.

Informal Dama Diwan

Informal Dama Diwan can use the "vrddhi" function which is formed as "vrddhi" in Sanskrit; that is, an "a" is added immediately after the first consonant of the word, so e.g. "niwo" becomes "naiwo" and "wajo" becomes "waajo".

The meaning of the vrddhi (augmented vowel) word is primarily to express a color, e.g. tino =a blue gem, taino =blue; if the original word cannot be used for its color, the vrddhi is used for its similarity, e.g. buso =a dog, bauso =an animal similar to a dog, e.g. the Tasmanian tiger; or for outer appearance, as in nuro =normal, nauro =something that seems to be normal, ordinary.

Formal Dama does not use the vrddhi (augmented vowel) function; instead, it uses "buwo" for color, "rano" for similarity, and "kawa" for outer appearance.

Informal Dama can also lengthen (double or triple) the first or only vowel of a word in order to show enlargement, and the second vowel (that of the suffix) to show a diminutive; if an "a" is lengthened in this way, there must be a separatiting mark (') after the first "a". E.g. ba'ako =a big body (bako), ta'aamo =the huge sky, muuko =a big volume, wiiiwo =huge water (ocean), raboo =small tree (rabo), taroo= a small animal, jutooo is a tiny piece of skin, and so on. Formal Dama uses no enlargement / diminutive devices unless adjectives as miwo (big) and sano (small).

Another feature of informal Dama is its possibility to omit a weak o / u of words, except a final o / u preceded by nasal (n / m).

Informal Dama is only to be used in spoken language when one has to be very quick in expressing something. In written texts, informal Dama may appear in order to render accurately some informally spoken phrases, or in poetry for metric reasons.

Correctness, personalization and limitations

The whole Dama Diwan language has already been described. Everything expressed according to the above rules is considered perfectly correct, as long as it can be understood.

Although so simple, the Dama Diwan language can be personalized in as many ways as there are people on earth. There are two main styles of using Dama: the oriental style, and the western style.

By the oriental style disyllabic words use open vowels in the first syllable and closed vowels in the suffix; by the western style, closed vowels are used in the stem and open ones in the suffixes of disyllabic words. E.g. “space, room” is “biro” (western style) or “beru” (oriental style). None of these is objectively better than the other, although personally i mostly use the western style.

Apart from these two, the user of Dama can choose between k/g, t/ts/d, o/u, e/i depending on many factors that can influence one’s choice; such factors are:

• differentiation: a user may choose to use open vowels (o/e) with /n/ and closed vowels (u/i) with /m/; or (o/e) with /t/ and (u/i) with /k/.
• dissimilation for taboo reasons: e.g. those who have Turkish as their first language, may choose to pronounce sek or sig instead of sik which in Turkish means "penis". While Greeks can prefer "mon" (door, window, gate) to "mun" which reminds of the Greek word for "vulva".
• facilitating the memory; e.g. an English speaker may prefer to pronounce "godu" instead of "kuto" (high), so as to connect the word to "God" in memory; while a Turkish speaker may find it better to pronounce the same "kuto", so as to be reminded of "kut" (divine favor).
• influences of the speakers' first language: e.g. if the speaker has no /w/ sound in his/her native language (as happens with Germans, Greeks, Italians, Turks, and others), can pronounce ɸ / β / f / v / ʋ in the place of /w/. Hungarians may pronounce a Hungarian "a" in the second syllabe and a Hungarian "á" in the first syllable.

Some languages make the vowels e/o when stressed and i/u when unstressed, while other languages do the opposite.

• simply personal taste: a user may prefer "tsawo" instead of "tawo" (sharp / acid / sour), just because the "tsawo" sounds more "acid" to his/her ears.
• facilitating word division in oral use: so, for example, it is preferable to pronounce the final /n/ as /ŋ/, and /h/ (or similar sounds) can freely be pronounced before word-initial vowels, while /x/ can be freely added to the end of monosyllabic words ending in vowels.

Of course, there must be some limitations in such personalization, so that the Dama can function as an international auxiliary language: It is strongly recommended that the dissylabic words have different stress / pitch / length / vowel openness (height) on their two syllables, or at least monosyllabic words should take as much time as disyllabic ones in pronunciation. Only the 16 letters a b d e g i j k m n o r s t u w (including the combination ts) may be used when writing Dama with the Latin alphabet. The sound /p/ should be avoided, at least by making it emphatic or ejective, and lateral sounds should not be accepted in Dama.

Invitation

Here is the invitation to Dama Diwan language, and if interested you can be a member of the open group.

Phonology and phonotactics

Dama has 3 vowel phonemes: a, i/e, u/o

and 9 consonant phonemes: k/g, t/d/ts, b, n, m, j, r, w, s.

There are many possible allophones, such as /v/ or /ɸ/ for w, but the use of "p" and especially of "l" (lateral sounds articulated with the tongue) is not acceptable. The word final -n is best pronounced as /ŋ/ if possible, or it must conform to the articulatory position of the following consonant.

Writing system

The aforementioned 16 letters of the Latin alphabet are permitted to be used for Dama.

Words, mainly proper names, inserted from other languages, follow their original spelling and are written with only their first letter capital, while the true Dama words use only lower or only upper case letters.

Every other writing system can also be used for writing Dama; however, the Latin alphabet is preferred.

Dama can also be written by using only the 10 numerical digits, as follows:

1 =I, i, e, j

2 =N, n

3 =M, m

4 =A, a

5 =S, s

6 =b, B

7 =T, t, d

8 =R, r

9 =g, G, k

0 =O, o, u, w.

So the 10 digits are quite enough to write the 12 phonemes of Dama Diwan language. Such a small number of indispensable digits to represent Dama means we can use only those for Morse code, so if we symbolise a dot by “i” and a dash by “I”, the necessary Morse symbols (by order of brevity, the shorter for the more frequent) are:

i =0 =O, o, u, w.

I =1 =I, i, e, j

ii =4 =A, a

Ii =2 =N, n

iI =3 =M, m

II =8 =R, r

iii =7 =T, t, d

Iii =5 =S, s

iIi =9 =g, G, k

iiI =6 =b, B

(In Dama, the difference between i/e, u/o is not phonemic. J and W as phonemes are different, but Dama words only start with CONSONANTS (including j, w), and then there is always a vowel after each consonant with the exception of final n (which is better, but not strictly, to be pronounced as ŋ). Therefore, 14102 can only be jajon or jajun, both correct in Dama; and the same happens with all other Dama words: they can be rendered totally correctly by the use of only the 10 digits, that is with a pad of only 10 digits. The connection of the 10 digits to Latin letters is obvious, based on similarity of shape.)

Links and tools for learning the Dama Diwan language

1) http://users.sch.gr/ioakenanid/kuba%20no%20reja.pps to start discovering by yourself;

2) http://users.sch.gr/ioakenanid/selfteach.pdf for discovering the whole Dama Diwan language.

3) http://users.sch.gr/ioakenanid/dama%20diwan.xls for getting random texts and interpreting them;

4) http://konlangerz.com/conlang/85/Dama_dewan for a concise description;

5) http://konlangerz.com/conlang/85/Dama_dewan/texts for texts to read;

6) http://lingojam.com/Damadiwan for quick reference;

7) http://lingojam.com/tolearnDamaDiwanwords for an online dictionary (input words other than suffixed with -n).

There are also some documents in the files of the group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/omado.sosti.matiko/files/ and in https://crete.academia.edu/GiannhsKenanidhs/Dama-Diwan-Language

A sample text

[johuwax]

jetu wanu nomu bomu rora / jito wano numo bumo rura / 1170 0420 2030 6030 8084

nomu tesu rora / numo tiso rura / 2030 7150 8084

nomu tesu man jetu / numo tiso man jito / 2030 7150 342 1170

i jetu boma nomu ma jetu / i jito buma numo ma jito / 1 1170 6034 2030 34 1170

[ooomm]

this is a translation of the most sacred text of the ancient Persian monotheistic religion:

“Honesty is the most complete good

(honesty) is happiness

happiness to the honest

who is honest for the sake of the best Honesty”.