Belter Creole grammar

This page deals with the grammar of Belter Creole, also known as lang Belta.

Typologically, Belter is an analytic language. Rather than inflections, it primarily uses separate words to build grammatical constructions, such as prepositions and auxiliary verbs, and the meaning of a sentence depends strongly on word order. However, it does use compounding and some suffixes for deriving new words. For example, the -lowda suffix is used to form plural pronouns (see below).

Nouns

Plurals

Generally, nouns are not inflected for number; a singular noun has the same form as a plural one. For example, maliwala can mean either "child" or "children", depending on context. Plurality is determined in other ways: the presence of quantifiers, numerals, or simply inferred from context. The exception is pronouns, which do have distinct plural forms (see Pronouns below).

Compounds

Nouns may be used attributively to modify other nouns, forming a compound noun. Unlike in English, where the modifier typically precedes the word being modified, in lang Belta the head noun goes first and the one modifying it follows afterwards:

diye	beref
day	att.birth
birthday

bap	kuxaku
door	att.vacuum
airlock

Determiners

Articles

The indefinite article is wa:

tenye	wa	diye	beref	gut
have	ndef	day	birth	good
Have a happy birthday!

The definite article is da:

mi	du	mowteng	fo	da	dzhush
1sg	do	need	for	def	juice
I need the juice.

Definite articles are used before a person's proper name, e.g. da Mila for "Miller".

Belter displays definiteness agreement, similar to that found in Greek or Hebrew. That is, when a noun is marked with da, any attributive nouns or adjectives applied to that noun must also be so marked:

livit Belta "Belter life" → da livit da Belta "the Belter life"

setara mali "little star" → da setara da mali "the little star"

Demonstrative

da <noun> de/dédeya	that
da <noun> xiya	this

Lang Belta differentiates between proximal and distal that by using de to denote an object close by and dédaya to denote an object farther away. It also allows for a non-specific this by utilizing ting.

Examples

da ting xiya gut = "this is good"

da diye de = tomorrow/yesterday, lit. "that day (proximal)"

da diye dédeya = some time future/past, lit. "that day (distal)"

Quantifiers

wamali	a little, small amount
walowda	some, few, several
walowda walowda	a lot, large amount

Pro-forms

This is a (possibly incomplete) chart of pronouns, pro-adverbs and determiners, arranged in a convenient table-of-correlatives format.

Pro-forms

	de that	ke which, what	kowl all, every	na no	xi this
mang person	demang that person	kemang who?	kowmang everyone	namang nobody	ximang this person
pelésh place	depelésh there	kepelésh where?	kowpelésh everywhere	*napelésh nowhere	xipelésh here
tim time	detim then	ketim when?	kowltim always	natim never	xitim now
ting thing	deting that thing	keting what?	kowlting everything	nating nothing	xiting this thing
we way, means	dewe that way	kewe how?	*kowlwe every way	nawe no way	xiwe this way

Pronouns

	singular	plural
1st	mi	milowda
2nd	to	tolowda
3rd	im	imalowda, *imim

*Impersonal third person, ie. "You know what they say"

Other Pronouns

sif	yourself
beltalowda	Belters (all), lit. "Belter-all"
inyalowda	Inners (all), lit. "Inner-all"
kedawang	which (singular), lit. "which-the-one"
kelowda	which (plural), lit. "which-all"
dédawang	that one
delowda	those

Adjectives

Adjectives are placed after the nouns they modify:

kapawu fash "fast ship"

setara mali "little star"

Affixes

Prefixes

mo-	"more"; an intensifier, affixed to adjectives
na-	negation; equivalent to English "un-"
teki-	technology-related; cranberry morpheme unable to be used as independent word
tu-	"very"; affixed to adjectives
wa-	"some"; affixed to nouns

Suffixes

-lowda	denotes plurality; only used with pronouns/quantifiers
-mang	associates with personhood, lit. "<noun>-person"
-ting	associates with objecthood, lit. "<noun>-thing"
-wala	person related to or associated with a characteristic, person who works with or does something professionally

Prepositions

afong	out-of (transitive preposition)
asilik	like, as if something were the case without it being so
efa	after
ere	at, on, about (locative preposition)
erefo	into (transitive preposition)
fing	until
fo	for, to, towards, because [of] (transitive preposition)
fode	to-there
fong	from, off
fongi	from-here
fongi fode	away
fore	before
lik	like, in the manner of
nawit	without
pash	than, beyond, past
wit	with

Conjunctions

unte	and
o	or
amash	but

Interjections

fodagut	please
ko	ok
na	no
soyá	sarcastic agreement
ya	yes, affirmative
ya fet	alright, way to go

Verbs

Tense

ta	past tense indicator
gonya	future tense indicator

Aspect

ando	continuous aspect marker
finyish	perfective aspect marker
tili	habitual aspect marker

Modal

deng fo	would, lit. "in-that-case-for"
mogut fo	should, lit. "better-for"

Serial verbs

du <verb>

used to create serial verb clauses from verbs

Light verbs

du <noun>

used to create verbs from nouns and noun phrases

Negation

na

not, a negation marker

Mood Markers

Lang Belta utilizes mood markers that function separately from verbs.

fosho	strong belief
fosho fosho	very strong belief
kang	capable
kang kang	very capable
mebi	unrealistic
mebi mebi	unrealistic and unlikely
mowsh	must, have to
mowsh mowsh	absolutely must
wanya	desire, intention
wanya wanya	very strong desire, intention

Numbers

Below are the words for basic numbers.

number	word	combining form
0	nada
1	wang
2	tu
3	serí
4	fu
5	faf	fáve-
6	sikesh	síkese-
7	seng	sénge-
8	et	éte-
9	nang	nánge-
10	teng
100	xanya

Multiples of 10 or 100 are formed by appending teng or xanya to the combining form of the multiplier, with the stress remaining on the multiplier:

number	word	number	word
10	teng	100	xanya
20	tuteng	200	túxanya
30	seriteng	300	seríxanya
40	futeng	400	fúxanya
50	fáveteng	500	fávexanya
60	síkeseteng	600	síkesexanya
70	séngeteng	700	séngexanya
80	éteteng	800	étexanya
90	nángeteng	900	nángexanya

Numbers with values in both the ones and tens place are composed in little-endian order, joined by un:

18 = et-un-teng ("eight and ten")

81 = wang-un-éteteng ("one and eight tens")

If there is a hundreds place, it comes before the ones-and-tens place terms:

246 = túxanya sikesh-un-futeng

When used attributively, numbers come before the noun they count, as in English.

serí buk – three books

Sentence structure

Word order

SVO

Zero copula

mi		nadzhush
1sg	∅	tired
I'm tired.

Forming questions

Any sentence can be turned into a yes–no question by ending it with the interrogative particle ke:

To showxa lang Belta.	—	You speak Belter.
To showxa lang Belta ke?	—	Do you speak Belter?

The related tag question keyá also makes a sentence into a yes–no question, but one which expects agreement:

Da Rosi im kapawu fash, keyá?

The Roci is a fast ship, isn't it?

Sentences containing the ke-based interrogative words kemang, kepelésh, ketim, keting, or kewe do not need the trailing ke.

Kepelésh shapu to, Mila?

Where's your hat, Miller?

See also

• Belter Creole
• List of Belter Creole individual articles