Dama Diwan: Difference between revisions

|name          = Dama Diwan

|nativename    = {{Dama Diwan / Dama}}''

|pronunciation = |dʰɐmːä dʰiβäŋ|

It can take a week to learn all the '''Dama Diwan''' vocabulary, but once you know it, you have a treasure:

All the vocabulary (including grammar) comes, through sortition, from the sky, hence the name Dama (or tama) "by the sky" and it is for the people of the whole earth, hence it is Dewan / Diwan (or tiwan) "of the earth".

:In fact, the roots are the phonemes, so Dama is made from 12 roots only; but because it is not always easy to find the meaning of a cVc root from the individual phonemes, it is necessary to memorize the meaning of the 258 higher level roots.

== Dama Diwan as simple as it is / Dama Diwan sanon rure, sanon nibe ==

== Summary of the extended features / jaro jenan juron june ==

:Extra conjunctions: AJ=and so; AW=is; AJN=after first modifier; AWN=question marker.

If you know the meaning of Dama Diwan words and the head-final word order, you don't need to know any other grammar. "Grammar" means things obligatory to express, such as gender, case, number, tense, aspect of verb, mood and so on. All such things are available in Dama, but almost nothing is obligatory to express. In fact, it is better to omit anything that is easily understood without mentioning it. What is obligatory (and therefore, grammatical) in Dama, is that every word must end with one of the 3 vowels, and that vowel presents the word as a noun or adverb or verb; so, '''these 3 suffixes, along with the word order and the possible -n constitute the whole grammar of formal Dama'''.

:Adjectives are indicated by their position (before of a noun as modifiers, or after the noun as predicates), and not by any special marking; all parts of speech can serve as adjectives.

:Genitive and possessive pronouns are expressed through the root S- "to have", the extended suffix -AN, and the word WISO ("one's own") that substitutes all possessive pronouns.

From a purely theoretical point of vew, the main parts of speech are thought to correspond to the main principles that define the world: space (nouns, -O), time (verbs, -E), and causality (adverbs, -A).

An adverb (-A) can substitute all grammatical oblique cases (except accusative) such as dative, locative, comitative, instrumental, similative and (extended as -AN) the genitive and ablative. If more accuracy is needed, numerous postpositions are used. Postpositions are themselves classified as adverbs (-A), e.g. SA "with", KA "in order to; should; must", MA "toward/to", RASA "from", etc..

It is indeed possible to use the Dama language without the suffixed -N. In such a usage, Dama does not lose its ability to express things, but it loses its flexibility: the word order should then be strict SVO, and the subject must always be present (even as a dummy, e.g. TO "person", NO "thing" etc.); some  people may think such a usage to be easier; for me, it is too hard; all my experience shows that the easiest way to start a sentence in Dama is to start with the object. Also, the final -N on verbs is extremely practical in showing different kinds of object (e.g. a whole sentence can be a verb's object), and so, even if you thing that it is easier without the suffixed -N, you may find it much more difficult if you try to use Dama without that -N.

AFTER 2016 MARCH 04, it has been discovered that the most proper use is to abolish the use of PREpositions (except IN, UN, AN) and use only POSTpositions, which, anyway, have always been preferred in Dama. The primordial meaning of the suffix -AN is to form the genitive of nouns, although the genitive can have a connotation of ablative and words marked with -AN may still be marginally used as prepositions.

The very idea of Dama Diwan having an ideal standardized version seems well incongruous to its concept of being the easiest language to all and personalizable in all those ways explained previously; that is why it has a great many allophones to its phonemes, so that each person can use the easiest for him/her. Then why should we define a standardized form? It is not meant to be used by the users of Dama, and even the most enthusiastic promoter of Dama cannot use that standardized form exactly. Still, there may be some usefulness in describing such a standardized form, for that can be the "shopfront display" of Dama; it will help the language appear neat, small and easy, as it really is, before one gets to know the many allophones and alternative usages that may give a false impression that the language is too rich. Also, the ideal standardized form will set a "golden" central form to be targeted, although nobody has to achieve it. This standardize ideal form has been defined by all forms of divination, especially dreams, and by the practical usage of the language during its 3 complete years of use. So, all the phonemes will be presented below with their ideal standardized forms:

The most avoided TJAWAN language makes use of the sound L. It is called TAJA (“slippery”) language. The meaning of words with L is analogous to those with R, but those words with L refer always to deceitful things and deceitful, therefore dangerous, aspects. So, RURO is reality, but LULO is a completely deceitful situation (in Sumerian “LUL” means lie, deception, and in many natural languages too the sound L is used for signifying deception: e.g. English “lies”, German “Lüge”, Turkish “yalan” or “yalan dolan”). Dama Diwan strictly avoids the TAJA forms; they have a very unhealthy effect. Cultures that worshipped truth and sincerity lacked the sound L altogether, like the ancient Persians and ancient Egyptians, in Modern times the Japanese and the Māori, or used L very sparingly, as in Sanskrit where old L is usually altered to R. TAJA language is only for discovering the inner meanings of non-Dama words.

With only one kind of A, the ideal is /ä/; ideally, I is  /i/, E is /ɛ/ or /e/, U is /u/ and O is /ɔ/ or /o/, but these guidelines for reading are not strict, as long as the 3 vowel phonemes are explicitly distinguished from each other.

 

4) http://konlangerz.com/conlang/85/Dama_dewan  for a concise description (good, slightly outdated);