Tetemelayu
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Revision as of 18:02, 18 October 2004 by Tanah Burung (Talk | contribs)
The national language of Tanah Burung. Tetemelayu draws on elements of RL Wikipedia:Indonesian and Wikipedia:Tetum. There are no tenses or verb variations, making the language an easy one to learn. Since Tanah Burung has hundreds of complex indigenous languages and dialects, the simplicity of Tetemelayu made it natural choice for nationalists seeking for an alternative to the colonial language, Dutch.
Tetemelayu is based on root words with the addition of prefixes and suffixes to alter the part of speech and modifiers to express concepts such as past and future. This allows tremendous linguistic economy: where English has tens of thousands of words, Tetemelayu can get by with about 5,000 words and their modifiers. Thus:
- makan == eat (root word)
- emakan = to eat, dine (formal form)
- dimakan = to be eaten (passive voice)
- makanan = food
- pemakan = the person who eats
- pemakanan = dining
- rumah makan = restaurant (lit. eating house)
- sudah makan = already eaten (past tense)
- sedang makan = in the process of eating (present tense)
- akan makan = will eat (future tense)
