Mini course: Grammar

Mini is a constructed language created by S.C. Gruget. Its grammar is simple and is designed to be easy to learn and easy to use. This course includes everything you need to start using the language. If at any point you feel lost, you can use the dictionary or ask around in Discord or Reddit. Let’s start:

Contents:

Letters

Mini uses the following letters:

The names of the vowels are the same as its pronunciation and for the consonants just add an “e”:

Pronunciation

Consonants are pronounced like in English and vowels like in Spanish. Stress is always in the second to last syllable:

For examples of pronunciation, check buku-name.

Sentences and word flexibility

Given that in Mini words can function like any other words, it uses particles to mark the role of a word in a sentence:

The order is SVO (subject, verb, object):

Here “manja” does double work thanks to the particles “i”, “a”. The first one is the verb “to eat” thanks to “i” and the second is the noun “food” thanks to “a”.

“vasa” means water, but given that is being marked by the particle “e” it becomes an adjective. There is no “to be” verb, instead one uses “a”, “e”:

Pronouns

There are only three:

To get the rest one adds words to these:

Negation

Just prepend “no” to the thing you want to negate:

Verbs and tense

Verbs don’t specify the tense, this can be understood from context. For example this simple sentence can be in any tense:

Nevertheless, if context is not enough or an explicit tense is needed one uses a multitude of words before the verb to explicitly mark it.

Simple present:

Present progressive:

Simple past:

Past progressive:

Present perfect simple:

Present perfect progressive:

Past perfect simple:

Past perfect progressive:

Future:

Future progressive:

Future perfect simple:

Future perfect progressive:

Imperative:

Conditional:

Optative:

Potential:

Habitual past:

Other examples:

Chaining

Notice that you can just chain verbs after the “i”:

Adjectives and adverbs

For an adjective precede a noun with a word. For an adverb follow a verb with o and a word. In Mini they are just modifiers:

Order

Like verbs, Mini allows to chain modifiers:

Modifiers work by altering everything to its right:

One can introduce the particle “o” to break this altering chain and restart it:

Another example:

Possessives

Personal pronouns used as adjectives become possessives:

You can also use “de”, “e”:

Although the “e” form is very rare.

Prepositions

They are:

A prepositional phrase follows the thing it describes. In the case of a verb being described, it can follow the direct object.

Questions

Simple yes or no questions are formed by adding a “?” or some form of confirmation with either “no?”, “ja?”, “u ke?” at the end:

For open questions one uses “ke” (what) and adds other words to make the other question words:

Numbers

Numbers work as adjectives and are composed from left to right:

Conjunctions

They are:

Some examples:

Subordinating conjunctions

Use the words:

Some examples:

If combined with “de” they make more conjunctions:

Example:

Dependent clauses

Use “ke”:

Comparison

Use the following words:

Some examples:

Compound words

Given the limited vocabulary of Mini, one can create new words by composing them:

These words behave the same as any other word in Mini:

Feel free to compose as many new words as you need. The dictionary already has some that you may find useful.

Other

Compact sentences

If the meaning is clear from context, one can drop the one letter particles:

Establish context

Notice that one can precede or end a sentence with a word to establish context:

Articles

Mini lacks articles. There is no “the”, “a” like in English:

Which one is being used is usually clear from context. If you have multiple things and you need to talk about a specific one, you can use adjectives, position or words like “da”, “di” to point to one.

Singular and plural

Every noun in Mini is both singular and plural:

Plurality is usually clear from context, otherwise you can use number words and quantity words like “mui”, “some”, “meno”.

Days and months

These is how Mini talks about days of the week and months:

Foreign and non-mini words

Proper nouns and foreign words can be written and pronounced as they are in their original language:

Or you can choose to minify the word following this formula:

  1. Prefer to use letters and ortography from Mini: America, Amerika.
  2. If you can translate one or more words directly, do it: New York, Nu York.
  3. If the word has a historic latin or romance-like, use that as base: Deutschland, Germania, Germania.

Then we can write:

Pronunciation is free in this case. You can say it like in its original language or follow Mini rules (stress in the second to last syllable).

Capitalization

On the uppercase and lowercase side, Mini can be written in two ways:

  1. Maintain it simple and use lowercase everywhere. If you want to use uppercase for the first letter of a proper noun or when writting non-mini words, feel free to do it.
  2. Follow the way of English and many languages: Use uppercase when starting a sentence and with proper nouns.

Both are valid Mini.

Mini simplicity

Mini is about simplicity. You can choose to not use tenses, particles or minify words. If just saying “mi favo vere oranje” is enough to understand that you used to really like oranges, then that’s valid Mini.

Notes


Published: 230627 Updated: 231026