Jokelang 2

Jokelang 2
English
Pronunciation[ˈʔɛŋgɫɪʃ]
Created byDillon Hartwig
Date2023

Jokelang 2 (Jokelang 2: English [ˈʔɛŋgɫɪʃ]) is my first and only serious joke language.

Orthography and phonology

Jokelang 2 orthography and phonology are identical to modern General American and Received Pronunciation English, except the General American accent retains /ʍ/ and the Received Pronunciation accent has intrusive R, and a small number of nouns have non-English pronunciations.

See also Accent agreement.

Morphology

Alignment

Jokelang 2 has nominative-accusative morphosyntactic alignment.

Accent agreement

In agreement with their head noun's gender (except see Verbs), all verbs, adjectives, numerals, and measurement units are pronounced with either a General American (for American nouns) or Received Pronunciation (for British nouns) accent.

Nouns

Nouns are gendered American or British. Plural nouns are marked with a preceding particle: a for American nouns and an for British nouns.

Pronouns

Pronouns mark number, gender, and many other categories. Informal plural pronouns in formal are instead singular.

Demonstratives

Nouns and pronouns can be reduplicated with the opposite accent to act as preceding demonstratives.

Verbs

Verbs agree with their subject's accent unless the verb's object is British, in which case the verbs agrees with its object.

Questions

Jokelang 2 has no overt question marking. Questions are asked by stating an affirmative sentence and demanding that the listener answers, usually with "Spillet capiche," "Answer (threatening imperative)."

Negation

Circumpositions

Jokelang 2 has no prepositions or postpositions, only circumpositions.

Numerals

Numerals agree in gender with their noun.

Numerals
1 2 3 4 5
British cocky lua five ha
American beer ick ooch dirt
6 7 8 9 10
British oh no hick wall ewe oomie
American alty yeti seckies dokas on
11 12 13 14 15
British cockimie lumie coalmie hamie
American beer-on ick-on ooch-on dirt-on
16 17 18 19 20
British oh nomie hickmie wallmie ewemie ukalue
American alty-on yeti-on seckies-on dokas-on yermie
30 40 50 60 70
British canoke cow lime on-alty on-yeti
American oats kirk elly
80 90 100 1,000 1,000,000
British on-seckies on-dokas hanele kaukany big
American use bin

Units of measurement

All unit words have paired imperial and metric meanings based on the noun they modify, imperial for American nouns and metric for British nouns. These pairs are not always near-equivalent.

Classifiers

Classifiers are optional in informal speech, but in formal speech must precede nouns when modified by no or a numeral. Classifiers can also be applied to unmodified nouns as honorifics.

Derivational morphology

Part-of-speech modifiers

Syntax

Constituent order

Word order is strictly SVO.

Noun and verb phrases

Possessors, adjectives, and adverbs follow their head. Numerals and demonstratives precede their head.

Dependent clauses

Dependent clauses follow their head.

Example texts

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 1

A murican whizz paw freedombuh ah reddingbuh foo digity bar ah foo diggity bar. Yodel shoob why ah whoe ah forwhittling ation again undlebuh again jon.

A

PL.US

murican

person

whizz

all known and unknown

paw

bear.PASS.US

freedom-buh

free.US-ESS

ah

and

redding-buh

equal.US-ESS

foo

in

digity

dignity

bar

in

ah

and

foo

in

diggity

rights

bar.

in

A murican whizz paw freedom-buh ah redding-buh foo digity bar ah foo diggity bar.

PL.US person {all known and unknown} bear.PASS.US free.US-ESS and equal.US-ESS in dignity in and in rights in


Yodel

3PL.US

shoob

give.PASS.UK

why

reason

ah

and

whoe

conscience

ah

and

forwhittling

do.US

ation

should.US

again

RECP

undle-buh

brother-ESS

again

RECP

jon.

as if.US

Yodel shoob why ah whoe ah forwhittling ation again undle-buh again jon.

3PL.US give.PASS.UK reason and conscience and do.US should.US RECP brother-ESS RECP {as if}.US

Linguifex-hosted translations

Conlang Atlas of Language Structures-hosted translations

Other resources

CALS