Hey, my Squids! I’m back with another lesson on Abaroguian. This time we’ll talk about Particles, those things that help link subjects and objects together in a sentence. Some particles are stand ins for prepositions that exist in English but most of them act similar to Japanese particles, coming after the word they affect. Let’s talk about them!
Particles are words that indicate a directional act towards a word. These words are typically called prepositions in English but not all of them are apparent. They share more in commonality with Japanese particles, indicating directions such as “towards” or “inside”. For instance, in the sentence “I’m going to the store” “to” would be considered the preposition as it is indicating the direction, that the Subject is going “to the store”.
In Abaroguian, particles come after the word they affect, so that the word is known and then the action applied to it is described. Direct translation to English of the sentence “Esatoi giresnotta iotaja parsa” is “I going not store to” as it describes the subject – the self – is not doing an action – not going – to the object – to the store.
The list of Particles and their usage is below:
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Of (part of / denotes ownership) – à – (pronounced hoo-ah, who-ah, or hu-ah) – this particle acts as both the word “of” and as an apostrophe at the end of a word. It is applied after the originating word and used to link a second word. For instance, “The Carnival of Cryptids” is “Cryptid à Carnivale” since à is describing what type of Carnivale exists. Alternatively, it can be used to say “Leira’s Apple” as “Leira à apol”. It can also sometimes be used as a fully stand alone sentence, for instance “It is green” being shortened to “Reh à giorio”
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Of (combines two words) – ì – (pronounced yee-eh) – this particle works differently than à and is responsible with combining two words that are not necessarily the same. For instance, a train and a car are two separate words but can be combined with ì to be “locae ì automo” (read: there are separate words for a train car in Abaroguian, which is “locomota” but locae ì automo is still widely understood if you use that word combination instead). It does not have a separate meaning, so it is primarily used to combine words. Thousands of loanwords appear in other languages because of Abaroguian’s ability to combine words using this particle.
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To (indicates the direction a subject and verb are going) – parsa – (pronounced par-sah) – this particle indicates what object is having the verb applied to it. For instance, “going to the store” indicates that the store is the destination, so parsa would be used to indicate the store is the destination, such as “gires iotaja parsa.”
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From (indicates the direction the subject is coming from) – kaura – (pronounced kow-rah) – this particle indicates what the subject is coming from. For instance, “Are you coming from Abarogue?” lists a place that the subject would be coming from, written as “¿Douto elmaudoes Abarogueginna kaura deh?” The literal translation for this sentence is “You coming Abarogue (city) from?”
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On (indicates that something is upon or near the subject) – onnà – (pronounced on-hua) – this particle indicates that the object is on or near the subject. For instance “It is on your left” would be written as “Reh leh douto à hejose onnà” or literally “It is your left on”
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With (indicates that something is accompanying the subject) – tau – (pronounced tah-oo) – this particle is used to indicate what will be accompanying the subject. For instance, “I’m going to the store (now) with Cora” would be “Esatoi gires iotaja parsa Cora tau” or “I going store to Cora with”.
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About/Around (indicates that something is approximately around the subject or object) – otoresa – (pronounced oh-toh-reh-sah) – this particle is used to state something is an approximation. It can be used with anything including numbers, people, landmarks, time, etc. For instance, to say “It is about 1 O’Clock” you would say “Reh leh oneo vejà otoresa.” Or to say “The store is around the school” you could say “Iotaja leh escoveha otoresa.”
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In (indicates that something is inside another thing) – ental – (pronounced enh-tahl) – this particle is used to state that the object is in the subject.
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Beside (indicates that the subject is near something) – holado – (pronounced ho-lah-doh) – this particle is used to state that an object is next to the subject.
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Between (indicates that a subject is between two objects) – biocalanoda – (pronounced bee-oh-cah-lah-noh-dah) – this word is used to state that an subject is between one or more objects.
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For (indicates that an object is intended for a subject) – persar (pronounced peh-ruh-sah-ruh) – this particle is used to indicate an object is intended for a subject i.e. This money is for Leira is “Teh cascalope leh Leira persar.”
This list of particles is not exhaustive but there will be others you may encounter in your studies. We’ll talk about some of those in future lessons!