Fuano

Fuano
fuano, lan fuan
Pronunciation	[fwano]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2024
Native to	Fuano Island
Ethnicity	Fuano Creole people
Native speakers	600,000 (2024)
Language family	French-Spanish Creole Fuano
Official status
Official language in	Democratic Republic of Fuinoa
Regulated by	Academy of the Fuano Language

Fuano is a French and Spanish mixed language(with some grammatical elements of Portuguese) spoken natively on Fuano Island by around 600,000 Fuanos.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial/ Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Palatal
Plosive	p b	t d		k g
Nasal	m	n		ŋ	ɲ
Fricative	f v	s z	ʃ ʒ	x
Approximant	w	l			j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Open		a

Sound changes

From French

/ʁ/ after a consonant becomes /w/ (borrowed from Haitian Creole)

• (fromage > fuomaj)

intervocalic /ʁ/ becomes /r/

• (fréro > fuero)

(applies to both spanish and french) /ʁ/ before a consonant is often deleted

• (barbu > babu)

/ʁ/ in any other position is usually deleted (apart from rue which becomes ru)

• (racine > asin)

/ə/ and /ø/ become /e/

• (feuilleté > feyte, œuf > efe)

/ɛ/ and /ɔ/ merɡe with /e/ and /o/, /wa/ becomes /we/

• (forêt > fore, soirée > suere)

From Spanish

/oj/ becomes /uj/

• (estoy > estuy, doy > duy, soy is an exception and remains the same)

/tra/ becomes /ta/ (trabajo > tabaho > baho)

/v/ and /b/ merge, /θjon~sjon/ becomes /son/ (revolución > reboluson)

/ks/ becomes /ʃ/ (contradicción > kontadixson > kontadixon)

(applies to both spanish and french) /r/ before a consonant is often deleted (barba > baba)

Grammar

Nouns

Number

Fuano nouns can be turned plural in two ways, usually based on the origin of the word. If the word is of Spanish origin, such as mesa "table", an -s is simply added at the end to become mesas "tables". However, if the word is of French origin, an -i(if ending in a consonant) or a -y(if ending in a vowel) is concatenated, e.g. tapet "slap" > tapeti "slaps", dwa "a right" > dway "rights".

Articles

Fuano has no indefinite particles. Singular definite particles are derived from French while plural definite particles are derived from Spanish, though they bear resemblance to the Portuguese plural definite particles due to the dropping of the initial /l/.

	Masc.	Fem.
Sing.	le	la
	l'
Pl.	os	as

With de

When de is combined with an article, a new preposition is formed. These bear resemblance to their counterparts in Portuguese, though they are inherited from Spanish.

	de
le	del
la	da
os	dos
as	das

With possessives

In French and Spanish, possessive pronouns are not preceded by articles. However, in Portuguese, they are. So Fuano combines these by not including articles if the possessive is singular, but including them if they're plural.

			ma	ta	su	notue	votue	luere
Word	sapato "shoe"	Sing.	ma sapato	ta sapato	su sapato	le notue sapato	le votue sapato	le luere sapato
		Pl.	me sapatos	te sapatos	se sapatos	os notues sapatos	os votues sapatos	os lueres sapatos
	bolsa "handbag"	Sing.	ma bolsa	ta bolsa	su bolsa	la notue bolsa	la votue bolsa	la luere bolsa
		Pl.	me bolsas	te bolsas	se bolsas	as notues bolsas	as votues bolsas	as lueres bolsas

Pronouns

Demonstrative

Fuano demonstrative pronouns are entirely inherited from Spanish, though the purposes of esto/eso and este/ese are swapped, while the distal demonstratives are entirely dropped.

		Masc.	Fem.	Neut.
Prox.	Sing.	esto	esta	este
	Pl.	estos	estas	estes
Medial	Sing.	eso	esa	ese
	Pl.	esos	esas	eses

Personal

Person	Singular		Plural
	nom.	acc.	nom.	acc.
1.	yo	me	nos	nu
2.	tu	tue	vos	vu
Masc.	el	lue	os
Neut.	iel
Fem.	ea	eya	(as)

as is bracketed to show that it is rarely used even in appropriate context. For example, though it would be grammatically correct to refer to a group of women or girls as as, a native speaker is realistically more likely to still refer them to as os out of convention.

vos holds the same purpose as French vous, in which it simultaneously acts as a plural and a formal second-person pronoun.

iel is a more modern pronoun borrowed from French to act as a gender neutral singular pronoun, similar to singular they in English. However, unlike its country of origin of France, iel has been widely embraced in common speech in Fuano, even by older native speakers.

The accusative forms are also used as vocative forms, as in Y lue, k'el pansa? "And him, what does he think?"

Possessives

Person		Number (n.)
		Singular	Plural
1	Sing.	ma	me
	Pl.	notue	notues
2	Sing.	ta	te
	Pl.	votue	votues
F.Sing M. N.	Sing.	su	se
	Pl.	luere	lueres
F.	Pl.	(luare)	(luares)

Luare and luares are once again bracketed to show that they are rarely used in even correct context.

The possessives can also be used as dative forms when placed after the noun, e.g. don la luere mesa "give their table" vs don la mesa luere "give the table to them"