In 2002, I started a sketch of a fictional Astronesian pidgin, reflecting a then emerging obsession of mine: conlangs that used all 26 Latin letters. I wouldn’t return to Pidanjinu until 2021-2022, working on it 15+ minutes a day, at which point it became the conlang that I am the most proud of: Muna Lingi. Here are its humble beginnings.

Vowels

Pidanjinu has just five vowels, each written by a single letter.a – as in ‘father’e – as in ‘pet’i – as in ‘pizza’o – as in ‘Poe’ or ‘poet’u – as in ‘tutu’ 
The Pidanjinu vowel system can be schematically represented as fitting this shape in a human mouth:

i       u
  e   o
    a

Vowel clusters are pronounced as in Japanese, where each vowel in a cluster has equal weight and is pronounced as if it were a simple vowel.  Vowel clusters are not pronounced like diphthongs.

Consonants

Voiceless               Voiced 
Stops       p – as in ‘pot’ b – as in ‘bought’ 
t – as in ‘tot’d – as in ‘dot’ 
k – as in ‘cot’g – as in ‘got’ 
Fricativesf – as in ‘fought’v – as in ‘vote’
s – as in ‘sought’z – as in ‘zit’
h – as in ‘hot’    j /zh/ – as in ‘de jure’
Clusterscy /ky/ – as in ‘cute’
qu /kw/ – as in ‘quote’
xs /ks/ – as in ‘tux’
Liquidsl – as in ‘lap’
r – as in ‘rap’
Nasals                              m – as in ‘map’
n – as in ‘nap’
Semivowelsw – as in ‘whap’
y – as in ‘yap’

Phonotactics

The basic syllable patterns of Pidanjinu are:
CV
CVm
CVn

C = any Pidanjinu consonant or consonant cluster (e.g., ‘cy’, ‘qu’ and ‘xs’)
V = any Pidanjinu vowel

Possible vowel clusters, where each vowel is pronounced distinctly, include ai, au, ei, ie, io, iu, oa, ou, ua.

The second syllable is stressed for interjections: xsi-GO! “Damn!” I’m currently uncertain of stress for other words.

Guidelines For English Speakers

As an experienced English speaker, you will need to get use to the following:

  • The letter ‘j’ is always /zh/ as in ‘de jure’. The /zh/ sound does occur in English, but it written many different ways — none of them ‘zh’! The regular ‘j’ sound, as in English ‘just’, is in fact actually a /d/ sound followed by /zh/, a combination rarely permitted in other languages. Since the /dzh/ (English ‘j’) combination isn’t used in Pidanjinu, the letter ‘j’ has been pressed into service for /zh/ (which, like /sh/, never occured in Latin).
  • The letter ‘x’ has the same value as in English (/ks/) but in Pidanjinu only begins syllables. This will take some practice to pronounce correctly: xsepofi, /ksepofi/; xsigo, /ksigo/, “destruction”.

Design Notes

The phonology was designed to use all 26 letters in a manner that seemed fairly natural to English speakers [but failed?—2026] while keeping the number of sounds to a minimum.

Parts of Speech

Root nouns are one of these forms: CV, CVCV or CVCVCV.

Adjectives and adverbs append -n to the noun.

Verbs append -m to the noun.

Pidanjinu has two main pronouns:
na [< Proto-Oceanic *[i]-[n]au, “first person pronoun {independent form}”] first-person pronoun; I; me; we; us.
ko [< Proto-Oceanic *[i]ko[e], “second person pronoun {independent form}”] second-person pronoun; you.

The demonstrative pronouns “this” and “that” are the adjective forms of these pronouns:
nan – demonstrative pronoun; this, these.
kon – demonstrative pronoun; that, those.

Two derived pronouns are:
konna – first-person inclusive pronoun; these of us.
nanko – second-person exclusive pronoun; those of you.

Pidanjinu only has two prepositions:
pu – n. possession; prep. of, from
so – n. location, place; prep. in, at, on

These are also both used in metaphorical nominative compounds. Contrast the following:
fiwu-pu-wono [“grass belong mouth”.] n. beard, mustache
hodan-fiwu [“rope grass”.] n. munj, munja, Saccharum bengalense, Saccharum munja — tough Asiatic grass whose culms are used for ropes and baskets

If the compound is a type of the modified noun (e.g., rope grass is a type of grass), then the adjective form of the modifier is fused to the noun: e.g., hodan-fiwu. If the compound is only metaphorically a type of the modified noun (e.g., a beard is not literally a type of grass), then the preposition pu is inserted between two noun forms: e.g., fiwu-pu-wono.

Prejunctions are words like conjunctions and prepositions that relate one noun to another.
Can’t say, “the red and blue berries” have to say “the red berries and the blue berries”

Syntax

Sentence = Interjection + “!”
Sentence = Name + “!”
Sentence = (Noun Phrase Series) + Verb Phrase + (Complex Noun Phrase) + Punctuation
Noun Phrase Series = {Extended Noun Phrase + Conjunction} + Extended Noun Phrase
Complex Noun Phrase = Noun Phrase Series + (Complex Verb Phrase + Extended Noun Phrase)
Complex Verb Phrase = {Verb} + Verb
Simple Verb Phrase = (Negation) + (Aspect) + (Mood) + (Tense) + {Adverb} + (Augdiminutive Adv.) + (Evidential) + Verb
Extended Noun Phrase = Simple Noun Phrase + {Prepositional Phrase}
Prepositional Phrase = Preposition + Simple Noun Phrase
Number Phrase = ((Number) “four and”) Number
Simple Noun Phrase = (Determiner) + (Number Phrase) + {Color} + {Adjective} + (Augdiminutive Adj.) + (Gender) + Noun

Compounding
Noun = Root
Noun = Root + Infix + Root
Noun = Adjective + Root
Noun = Verb + Root

A passive sentence is formed by omitting the subject: Put out fire. “The fire was put out.”

Word Sets

count one to four on fingertips
then count one to four on middle part
then count one to four on lower part
then count one to four at base of fingers

one
two
three
four
four and one
four and two
four and three
four and four
two fours and one
two fours and two
two fours and three
two fours and four
three fours and one
three fours and two
three fours and three
three fours and four, one hand, sixteen

Colors: black, red, yellow, blue, white

These words are about color and aspects of growth:

green, young, unripe, immature
yellow, ripe, mature
red, uncooked

Photo Credit: Alexander Mills on Unsplash+.