/r/conlangs Chat Network Relay Game - Discord Conlangers Fifth Relay

#3Maf by Shedinja
MafEnglish

vim kad myd jan ded tis jyd dif tud vim begdom doh nem dif
vim viń ridmydvad ded kud nem jan vyg dif kyd vim viń redmydvad ded kud nem jan vyg dif
sog vim venfym konkad ded kud nem tis nuń dif sog jaf hom vim vim kud bis ded din nuń dif

With a girls enjoyable mothernature happening, her tenth birthday takes place.
Mother nature can colour the thing's white flower as well as the thing's red flower.
Thus the prebirthed queen is coloured this way, that is the colourer freely chooses the color.

Dictionary:

(since Maf doesn't distinguish nouns, adjectives and pronouns, they're all marked as "noun" here)

begdomnoun - tenth
bisnoun - decision
dedpostposition - marks the topic
diftense - present tense
dinnoun - freedom
dohnoun - year
fymnoun - birth
jannoun - nature
jydpostposition - at
kadnoun - female/girl/woman
konkadnoun - queen
kudnoun - colour
kydconjunction - and
mydnoun - something enjoyable/beautiful
nempostposition - into
nuńpostposition - instrumental
redmydvadnoun - red flower
ridmydvadnoun - white flower
sogconjunction - thus
tisnoun - this/this place/here
tudconjunction - while a, b
vennoun - before
vimpostposition - marks the agent
vińnoun - thing
vygpostposition - what can make this possible, to be able to

About Maf's grammar:

So Maf is an interesting language. It is definitely NOT naturalistic, and doesn't aim to be.

Maf is an analytic language. It doesn't use verbs. Some constructions could be analyzed as such, but most are really truly different.

Instead Maf likes postpositions. These mark the roles of the sentence, and replace the role of the verb in other languages.

For example a sentence like "I'm eating cake", would be "rin nem mydboh ded dif"

  • rin = 1sg
  • nem = into
  • mydboh = cake
  • ded = topic(ish) marker
  • dif = present tense

Since rin is the first noun phrase, it is the agent in the sentence. nem means that something is going into rin, and ded marks that that something is mydboh. dif means that the sentence is present tense.

And yes, the sentence could also be parsed as "I'm sticking cake up my arse", but you know, context is important.

Now, what if you want to construct a sentence where there is no agent? Well, then you start of the sentence with the word "vim". vim is also used to mark the agent, so by putting it at the beginning of the sentence, you're sort of saying that it has already been used, and therefore the next noun phrase is not the agent.

Maf doesn't destinguish adjectives, nouns and pronouns, and it doesn't destinguish genitive either which is done the same way as adjectives.

For example, the meaning of "rin mydboh" is "my cake", and rin is used like an adjective here.

A red cake would be "red mydboh", red meaning red.

"someone who does x"/"an x'er" constructions:
Since maf doesn't have verbs, you can't just do stuff like in english where you take a verb like "run", and turn it into "runner". Instead it uses a construction like this:

jaf nog ned hom vimded
"a runner"/"someone who runs"

  • nog = somewhere
  • ned = towards
  • vim = marks agent
  • ded = topic marker

jaf is a word that initiates the relative clause. in a relative clause the first noun phrase is NOT inherently the agent. So nog ned simply means that whatever is marked with ded is moving somewhere. hom is the person actually doing the thing, this works like a noun phrase, and also marks that the relative clause ends after the following postposition(s). hom is marked with both vim and ded, when two postpositions are used for a single noun phrase, they combine into one word. so hom(the person in question) is what's moving, and causing the moving, i.e. a runner.

This could be used in a sentence like such: "jaf nog ned hom vimded nem mydboh ded dif"
meaning "The/a runner eats cake". Maf doesn't mark definiteness.