Dama Diwan: Difference between revisions

The very idea of Daman 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 Daman 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 standardized ideal form has been defined by all forms of divination, especially dreams, and by the practical usage of the language during its 4 years of use. So, all the phonemes will be presented below with their ideal standardized forms:

In extended Dama, when a vowel is lengthened for intensification, it changes its height: it becomes close if it was open (in monosyllabic words) and it becomes open if it was close (in the stems of disyllabic words). Vowel lenghthening for showing intensification is also accompanied by a higher tone (pitch).

The stressed syllable of words is the first syllable; however, if the second syllable of disyllabic words is lengthened for showing diminution, that second syllable is stressed instead of the first one.

A /h/ is inserted between vowels belonging to different words, and between -N+v- (that is, an /h/ is also pronounced before a vowel that follows a -N of the previous word). The /ʔ/ is inserted between vowels of the same word (occurring only in extended Dama). When a I or U is next to another vowel within a word, it turns to /j/ / /w/ respectively. If there are two successive vowels in a word of extended Dama, the second one is stressed, except if the first one is A, then this A can be stressed.

In extended Dama, WUv- and JIv- (v=vowel) are turned to WOv- and JEv- respectively. Prefixes are never stressed.

M should be slightly longer than N when trying to avoid .