Pandunia's alphabet consists of the following letters:
a b c d e f g h i j J k l m n ŋ o p r s t u v z
Pandunia's five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are pronounced roughly as in the following English words: father, bet, thief, note, rude.
For the most part Pandunia's consonants are pronounced the same as in English. Observe the following differences:
Pandunia is entirely an analytical language. Words undergo no inflection or agglutination of any kind for any purpose. Consequently nouns do not have separate forms in singular and plural. E.g. jan person, people; fut foot, feet; bazar market, markets.
Modifiers can be placed alternatively on the left or the right side of the word that they modify.
bon fan = good food
fan bon = good food
The modifier and the modified can be bound together with one of the linking particles. (See footnote.)
In addition there are nouns that can be used as modifiers. E.g. Jovan = a youngster, Jovan jan = a young person.
The numerals from 1 to 9 are:
Plurals are formed with addition of ban (group): me ban = we, ni ban = you folks, ta ban = they.
Verbs are not conjugated.
mi kan tele. = I watch the television.
mi kan tele na lai din. = I will watch the television tomorrow.
In Pandunia compounds are simply elements strung together without any markers in speech. In writing the words are linked with a hyphen (-). The order of the elements of a simple noun-noun compound is (preferably) head last. E.g. tele-minara = television + tower = television tower.
Sentence word order refers the order of subject (who performs the action), verb (the action) and object (the undergoer of the action). In Pandunia the order of subject, verb and object is free.
There is a danger that free word order brings about incertainty about which is the subject and which is the object. Usually this concern is unfounded.
Often the meaning of a sentence is clear based on the semantic relationship of the words involved. The meanings of the words yield only one interpretation that makes sense.
batca bol kik.
Literal translation: child ball kick.
Usually it is easy to identify the verb, which is an action word. Identifying the subject and the object is more challenging. Usually it is helpful to compare the two. What are they capable of? Can a ball kick? No, never. Can a child kick? Yes, probably. So the child must be the subject who performs the kick, and the ball must be the object who undergoes the kick.
batca bol kik.
The child kicked the ball.
The ball kicked the child.
Sentences that involve equal actors (that are both capable of performing the action) contain a higher degree of ambiguity. They are ambiguous in the true sense of the word.
poni punda kik.
Literal translation: pony donkey kick.
If the meaning is not obvious from the context, it is necessary to disambiguate the expression. The easiest way to do it is to add a verb next to the subject.
poni kar punda kik.
Literal translation: pony do donkey kick.
A pony did kick a donkey.
This is also the way to create a kind of "passive" sentences.
punda kik kar poni.
A donkey was kicked by a pony.
Prepositions and postpositions are called jointly adpositions.
There is one preposition in Pandunia, ja, which corresponds to English "of".
baner ja rosia = flag of Russia
There is one postposition in Pandunia, di, which corresponds to English genitive "'s".
rosia di baner = Russia's flag
Other adpositions are compounds of the previous and nouns.
kati = between: na kati ja hotel i muze = between the hotel and the museum
A declarative expression is turned into a question by adding ka to the end. It is also possible to add e (yes) or no (no), depending on do you expect an affirmative or a negative response.
tu poses mau, ka? = Do you have cats?
tu poses mau, e? = You have cats, eh?
tu poses mau, no? = You have cats, no?
Answers:
Pandunia's linking particles resemble certain particles found in some natural languages. The right branching particle "ja" is inspired by Persian ezafe (e, je) and Bantu linker, most closely Lingala's and Kituba's "ya". Any Persian adjective and the noun it modifies stand in an ezafe relationship. Similarly any Lingala/Kituba adjective and the noun it modifies are linked with "ya". The left branchin particle "di" is inspired by Mandarin 的 (də/di), which serves as attributive marker, but also Punjabi ਦਾ/ਦੀ/ਦੇ (da/di/de), which serves only as genitive marker.