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What is Awgzing?
v1.0


Many years ago I read John W. Campbells short story Twilight. One of the things I
most remember about this story is how the names of the places the time traveller mentions
had changed over the centuries. This got me interested in the possible evolution of the
English language.
Later on I came across this light-hearted passage on the Future Language page of the
Atomic Rockets Webpage.

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k"
or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be
retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling,
so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing
it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with
useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist
konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x"
-- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius
xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

A Brazilian girlfriend who taught herself fluent English in just the space of a few
years (and speaks three other languages too!) further increased my interest in the structure
and eccentricities of English. I got interested in the SaypYu Project and at about that time I
learnt about Charles Ogdens Basic English teaching system, which helped me understand a
lot about how verbs got used in English. All of this lead to the article that you may be about
to continue reading.
Awgzing is a future language, a suggestion on how English might evolve under
certain conditions. It is not a prediction, it was just a fun thing created to amuse myself and
some friends.
Most constructed languages forget that language is phonetic. The distinction between
ze, se, zi, xe and xey is perfectly obvious to a reader but may be unnoticeable to a
listener. Many constructed languages expect the user to have an in depth knowledge of
formal grammatical structure. One can be a fluent speaker of a language without being able to
define if a verb is intransitive or modal. We learn new words by how they are used with little
thought as to whether they are adverbs, adjectives or proper nouns.
One friend has expressed an interest in possibly using Awgzing in a story he is
writing. If you are a science fiction artist, modeller or writer feel free to use Awgzing and its
associated alphabet in your works. Id love to see what you come up with. Awgzing I believe
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strikes the right balance in being different but still comprehendible if you know its simple
vagaries. The letter shapes have the advantage that the most commonly used ones are very
easily formed, often with just one stroke.
Awgzing is a work in progress. I will update the article version number as I make any
changes. At the end is a vocabulary of about 1,000+ words based on Ogdens Basic English
Wordlists converted into modified SaypYu and rendered in the Awgzing letterforms.
Awgzing uses a different character for Shwaa than modern Saypyu. Most of these words have
not been changed to represent the possible evolution and simplification they may or may not
undergo. If you pull a word from the lexicon later bear in mind it may need additional
changes. Unnecessarily long words such as Advertisement and Miscellaneous might
become Advur and Misk, for example. For inspiration on possible changes see this
article on some suggestions on how American English might change.
The Awgzing-speaking world/universe continues to be fleshed out. There is a as yet
unpublished article on place names and locations that gives some hints on how the world has
changed. There is also a useful list of Awgzing profanity that I may make available too. I
would like to see a TTF font file for Awgzing but that is beyond my computer abilities and
budget.
In the meantime..
Nou it bi tim yulun Awzin



Awgzing.
v.1.0


The Early History of Awgzing.
Awgzing, the language that was destined to be spoken
throughout the Human Galaxy, traces its origins back to the Third
Great Breakdown.
The recovery from the Great Breakdown was mainly
centred on the Asian-Pacific region. English had already
established itself as the international lingua franca of the region.
To most speakers, however, English was a second language and
one of irregular construction. Over the centuries the English used
was to undergo considerable simplification and evolution. Words
and grammatical constructions considered to be incorrect for
traditional formal English became the standards. Words such as took, kept and made
were replaced by more logically derived alternatives such as taked keeped and maked.
The spelling of such words became more phonetic and logical too, these respective words
becoming eykd, kiip and meykd.
Awgzing derives from an assimilation of English, European and Asian-Pacific
languages which developed over many centuries in the North American, European and
Asian-Pacific regions of Uh during the breakdown. It is spoken as a first language by
many and as a second language by almost everyone.
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To the modern listener Awgzing would be difficult to follow. While the grammar and
structure of Awgzing is very similar to English Awgzing has a broad and rich vocabulary and
many of the words are derived from languages other than English. Some of the words of
English origin will have undergone modifications. l/r, p/b and g/k phoneme swapping has
occurred in some words. The majority of examples of Awgzing on these pages may be
thought of as Anglicized Awgzing since the vocabulary is limited to words of English origin
that can be understood by a modern speaker. An Awgzing speaker listening to an audio-file
of traditional English can usually understand enough words to grasp the basic meaning even
if they are not familiar with every word.

Representation of Awgzing.
Awgzing is written in Romji and uses 25 characters plus punctuation symbols. X, C
and Q are not used in spelling Awgzing words but / is used to represent the Schwa
vowel sound, called Shwaa in Awgzing. Shwaa is also written as or . > can be
used for quick informal typing and writing. The phoneme rendered as aw, ore or oor in
English uses the letter U or u in Awgzing. ow as in show is written oh and ow as
in now is written ou.
U
u
Several of the most widely used letters have evolved in form to make them easier to
write. Lower case a, s and t are commonly written as , and . Variants of
these are or for s and , or for t. Capital I is rendered as to
distinguish it from small case L. Capital O has a dot added to its centre to distinguish it
from zero. Small case g is usually formed as and f as . Lower case k can also be
written as the alternate . Small case r is formed as , making it easier to distinguish
when written beside certain letters. The character may be used as a substitute for -ing.

The capitalization of the first word in sentences in Awgzing is optional. It is not
required to capitalize the first person pronoun. Proper Names are capitalized only if they
are the names of persons, places or ships. Words derived from these are not capitalized. A
proper noun is a noun refers to a unique entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah but may
have more than one possible referent: there are many places named London; Jupiter may refer
to a planet, a god, a ship, or a symphony; and many persons have been named Sarah. Nouns
other than proper nouns are common nouns, which usually refer to a class of entities (city,
planet, person, corporation), or non-unique instances of a certain class (a city, another planet,
these persons, our corporation). Proper Names cannot normally be modified by an article or
other determiner (such as any or another) unless it is the.

Full stops are used to separate consecutive sentences, rather than to finish every
sentence. Their use at the end of a sentence is optional where a line break occurs or where
text is terminated by a quotation mark instead. If a sentence ending in a quotation mark
needs to be separated from a consecutive sentence the full stop is always placed after the
quotation mark.

The letters for C, Q and X are used for other purposes, as are a number of symbols
and glyphs derived from the Greek, Korean, Japanese and Chinese writing systems. For
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example, the symbol is called no and is used to replace the word no in signs and
written text. The symbol Tshe or may replace the word Dh or dh (the) in
written text. The Ampersand & has fallen into disuse and is regarded as archaic. The
addition symbol + is used in its place. The symbol is used for the word for and
used to mean many or multiple. substitutes for the the word to/u while w/ and
w/o may be used to replace with/widh and without/widhou. The use of such
shorthand symbols for words is very common and such symbols and their use is collectively
called Kwiki.

dh the
e ey a/an
mi I/me
+ n and
tu to
u for
no no
meni many/multiple
w/ widh with
w/o widhou without
dzn dozen

Many commodities are handled in multiples of twelve so it is quite common, for
example, to describe a cargo or quantity as two dozen and seven or 2 +7.

Other standardized symbols are commonly used for signs and notices. These include
which means inner, central, middle or during. is person or human.
is entrance and is an exit. , or in a denote male, female or
generic toilets, respectively. Other useful symbols are food/provisions , restaurant/food
vendor , water (H2O) , fire , the Earth and Fire Brigade . Some visual
symbols are derived from the Blissymbolics system.


Awgzing Grammar.

1. Awgzing is a Subject-Verb-Object orientated language. Pronoun or Subject dropping
may occur. The omission of a pronoun or the subject of a sentence is more common in
Awgzing than in traditional English.

2. Plurality. Plurals are formed in Awgzing by adding the suffix -zi. Generally the
plural is based on the singular form taken from a root language so books is bukzi,
men is mnzi, children is hildzi and knives is nizi. The -zi is
optional if the sentence contains an alternate qualifier such as a number, measures or a
word or phrase such as meni, diiz. dohz or bok v.

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3. Possessives. The English heritage of Awgzing allows possession to be indicated in two
ways, either by the preposition v (of) in a thing v owner form or by the
possessive particle vo.
A book belonging to Caroline would either be described as Dh buk v
Krlin or Krlin vo buk.
vo becomes optional in cases where possession is clear such as proper
nouns.

4. Personal Pronouns.
Awgzing uses a smaller selection of personal pronouns than traditional English
but they are sufficient. The same pronoun is used for both subject and object.
Possessive pronouns and directives are formed by the addition of the possessive
particle (vo)

Person Singular Reflexive Plural Reflexive
First
person
Mi
I, me
Mi vo
my, mine
mi elv
Wi
we, us
Wi vo
our, ours
wi elvz
Second
person
Yu
you
Yu vo
your, yours
yu elv
Yu
you
Yu vo
your, yours
yu elvz
Third
person
Hi
He, him
Hi vo
his
hi elv
Zey, (Zem)
they, (them)
Zey vo
their, theirs
Zey elvz

Shi
She, her
Shi vo
Her, hers
hi elv



Ni
Neuter-animate
Ni vo
nielv




Neuter-inanimate
vo
i elv



Zey
they, them
Zey vo
their, theirs
zey elv



Hu
who, whom
Hu vo
whose




W n
one
W n vo
one's
w n elv



Zem is used only for an objective case. While it is not a standard pronoun it
is commonly used and understood. Zey and Zem may use the older spelling dhey or
dhem. While Zey is used in the singular form Ni is more common.

Some dialects utilize other pronouns, the most extensive being those used by
the Furansu. Furansu pronouns include ji, u, il, el, nu and vu and le, l and lur for
objects.
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Traditional English pronouns such as I, His and Ours are encountered in
some dialects and generally understood but to most Awgzing speakers these are as
archaic as Thee and Thou are today.
Mi is often written as a dotted M or .
5. Negation.
Negation is expressed by no in front of the verb, adjective etc. Terms such
as dont, did not, would not and wont are not used in Awgzing. The word
no is used instead and is generally placed before the word which it negates. I do
not love you would therefore become Mi no du lv yu or Mi no lv yu. Words
such as none or nobody take the form no wn or no bodi. The negative
word nu is used, however, in constructions such as no iidh XX nu YY.

6. Gender
Awgzing uses the third person singular pronoun Ni for persons or creatures
of indeterminate, unknown, neutral or dual gender. Words of neutral gender that
require a gender to be assigned use the prefix fem- or ml-.

Fem- Prefix indicating female gender.
Ml- Prefix indicating male gender.

Hence Femdok , a female doctor, mlnu a male nurse, mlpey n a
father, mlio and emio are uncle and aunt and emgn and mlgn a
grandmother and grandfather.
This convention has caused several traditional words to shift in meaning.
Originally this was humorous but the usage has now become wider. Mlodouou
now means smelling like men, Mldju id refers to acting like a man or can
humorously refer to a man adjusting his clothing.

7. When questions are formed words such as Hu, Wi and Wo can occur at
either end of the question. Hu keym bk? or Bk keym hu?

8. All verbs form continuous forms by the addition of in (or -`)to the base infinitive and
future tenses by the inclusion of wil, wil bi, wil hv or bi oin. Modification
of verbs in Awgzing is mainly by auxiliary and modal verbs. This means that even
irregular verbs can be learnt by learning just two words, the infinitive and the Tid or
past Form (qv). Irregular verbs have a different past form or one the same as the
present.
For regular verbs the base infinitive conjugated with -d,- or -id indicates a
completed action and it is used for the simple past and simple perfect tenses. The Tid
from also forms the passive I bi did although this may also be achieved using the
infinitive and a suitably tensed auxiliary.
wil/wud, shl/shud and mey/mi create a future form, mey being used
to indicate possibility.

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Modifiers for Awgzing verbs.

to be (including been) bi/bin
to have hv/hd (hvd)*
du/did
wil/wud
mey/mi
hl/ hud
on
e/o
no
en

The various tenses are formed:-

Simple Mi help Mi help Mi wil help
Mi bin help Mi bi help Mi wil bi help
Simple Perfect Mi hd help Mi hv help Mi wil hv help
Mi bin/had en help Mi (bi/hav) en help Mi wil (hav) en help
Continuous Mi bin helpin Mi bi helpin Mi wil bi helpin
Mi helping Mi wil helping
Continuous Perfect Mi hd bin helpin Mi hv bin helpin Mi wil hv bin helpin
Mi had en helping Mi (hav) en helping Mi wil (hav) en helping

Most verbs in Awgzing undergo very little inflection, the bare infinitive and
continuous/progressive forms serving most needs. Tense and aspect are mainly
set by the auxiliary verbs and particles such as en.
All tenses of the Simple aspect can be formed with the bare infinitive and an
appropriately tensed auxiliary. The Simple past may also be formed using the
Tid form of the verb.
hv/hd with the Tid form (VerB-d/-/-id) creates the Simple Perfect aspect.
Alternately the particle en is used before the present form/ bare infinitive to
indicate a completed action. en VerB is therefore a form of the Past
Participle.
hv u indicates necessity.
bi/bin VerB-in creates the Continuous/Progressive form.
hv/hd bin XX-in or en XX-ing creates the Continuous Perfect form.
wil hav/hav/had en VerB-ing forms Perfect Continuous aspect, the en
particle denoting a completed action. For this aspect bin may be substituted
for en.
gon is used interchangeably with wil except for the Simple Future tense
where it specifies a plan or a prediction on present evidence. I on reyn,
Mi on get drunk.
Conditional aspect is created using wud/mi/ hud with the unconjugated
verb (Simple Present form).
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The passive form of the verb is made using either the bi/bin VerB-d/-/-id or
bi/bin en VerB form. e/o may be used in place of bi/bin.

Verbs may optionally be dropped when the meaning of the sentence remains
clear, for example Dhi pley ni .
The present form of a verb may be used for past and future tenses when the
sentence contains an alternate indicator of time. This is often due to consonant
dropping of a -d or - ending. It is possible to say T moroh mi wwkin or
Yest rdey mi wwk. Tense of the auxiliary verb(s) is often used to set the tense of
the phrase and in this case the bare infinitive form of the main verb may be used.
Operator Verbs in Awgzing.
Historically a number of the most commonly used verbs in Awgzing are
known as the Operator Verbs. They include some of the verbs uses to modify other
verbs. The highly protean traditional verb to be has been regularized into just two
forms bi and bin. am is, are, were and was are seldom now used in
everyday speech.

Modifiers for Awgzing verbs.
to be (including been) bi/bin
to have hv/hd (hvd)*
du/did
wil/wud
mey/mi
hl/ hud
e/o
on
no

The other operator verbs are:-

Regular Operator Verbs:

hv/hvd (hd)*
oh/ohd
iv/ivd
eyk/eykd
kiip/kiip
meyk/meykd
end/ endid
ey/ eyd

The diphthong ow as in low is alternately written as oh. ow is sometimes spelt
o so this verb may exist in three different spellings, ow oh or o. on is also
derived from this verb.

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Irregular Operator Verbs
le
pu
Le and Pu use the same bare infinitive for present and past forms.
The following Operator verbs are irregular in that they use a different form for the
past. Other tenses are formed as normal.
du /did
hv /hd (havd)*
k m/ keym
e/o
ii/ iin
*Both hd and hvd are used for the past tenses of hv. In some sentences the two forms
may occur together:- If mi hvd hd n dh en min !
Modal and Semi-modal verbs are irregular but each only consists of a pair of words
and the tenses are differentiated by a vowel shift and hard ending.

wil/wud
mey/ mi
kn/ kud**
hl/ hud
also
di, m , niid, uru
Whilst the words kn and kud are used occasionally it is more common for
Awgzing speakers to use the verb be able as bi eyb l or bin eyb l.
9. Many Adverbs are formed by adding -"-li" to a qualifiers but an adverb is determined
by its use and context rather than its form. Often the basic word is used and it becomes
an adverb by its context of modifying a part of speech other than a noun. dhq dog iit
kwikli and dhq dog iit kwik are both correct.

10. Degree is usually expressed with preceding words such as mu , moh , le ,
lii rather than suffixes such as -"ER" and -"EST.

11. Opposite adjectives are formed with "un-". Most words of traditional English that did
not obey this convention have been regularized:- unpo ib l uneyul .

12. Other affixes are used to alter adjectives. -ful, -qbl, -les, -ing, -ish, -ic, eks-, ohvq-.

13. Word Modification in Awgzing.
Many words in Asviknost can be verb, subject, object, adjective or adverb and
this is usually defined by context and a small number of word affixes.
For example, the root word eyl is a noun when written as ey eyl, dh
eyl or dh eyl. Mi eyl and Mi wil eyl are simple present and future verb
forms. Seyl{ describes a continuous action/tense or is an adjective. Dh eyl or
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Ey eyl denotes someone or something that performs an action. Seyld would be
a completed action or past tense. A completed action could also be written en eyl.
The word can combine with operator verbs to create other meanings, such as Mi
mi eyl.
-in creates a continuous or progressive form or a gerund. Word ending in -in
may be verbs, adjectives or nouns. This is known as an In form in Awgzing.
-d, - or id creates Simple Past, Passive and Simple Perfect tenses, the suffix
used depending on the sound of the word. This modification usually denotes a
completed action. Words so modified are known as Tid forms in Awgzing.
en before a verb is an alternate way to indicate a completed action. With an
In form of the verb it creates a Perfect Continuous form. With the basic verb it makes
the Simple Perfect or Passive.
- denotes someone or something that does an action or has a property.

14. The compounding of words is very common is Awgzing. Awgzing has a very large
vocabulary with many words acquired from European or Asia-pacific languages. Many
things have several alternate names and compounding of words creates even more
terms. The Awgzing speaker does not really think in terms of the right or wrong term
for something other than in terms of comprehension. While there is a word for
bridge (brij) it is just as likely for the speaker to use a term such as overgantry
(ohv ni), river-crossing road (iv r-ko in ohd) or upperwalkway
( p wukwey). Where two or more words are creates a noun the components are
written together without spaces or hyphens, such as wukin tik or spidemonki.
Therefore a muuvin vn is a van in motion while a muuvinvn is a vehicle for
moving things.

15. Verbal Particles.
Verbal particles are optionally placed at the end of some sentences to emphasise or
change their meaning. They are most commonly used on interrogative, imperative and
declarative sentences and are sometimes considered to be verbal manifestations of
exclamation and question marks. Some readers will add a verbal particle to a sentence
with a ! or ? even when one is not written. A verbal particle is sometimes replaced by a !
or ? when transcribing a sentence.
Widely used particles are eh,yh, no and huh. For example:- Bk keym
hu eh?, Yu pey, no?, Yu pey, huh?, Yu pey, yh!
Other particles used include Sh! which is used for amazement, surprise, envy
or anger.

Demonstrative Pronouns
this, that, such, these, those (dh has been simplified to z in many commonly used
pronouns).
dhi , dh, h, diiz, dohz

Interrogative and Relative Pronouns
who, which, what
hu, wi h, wo

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Indefinite Pronouns
each, either, some, any, many, few, all
ii h, iidh , m, eni, meni, yu, ul

Articles
The definite article dh is often written as the symbol or . Ey is used for
the singular indefinite article, irrespective of the form of the following word. Ey is usually
written as a single character combining the two letters that resembles C.

Conjunction
for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, only, whether
fu, n, nu, bqt, yet, o, soh, ohnli, wedhq

Either ... or,
iidh . . . u,

Neither ... nor
niidh . . . nu

Preposition
from, toward, in, about, over, above, under, at, below
r m, word, in, bou, ohv , b v, nd , , biloh

Linking Verbs
be, look, become
bi, luk, bik m

Verbs

BE / AM/ IS/ ARE/ WAS/ WERE
COME / CAME / COMES
DO / DID/ DOES
GET / GOT/ GETS
GIVE / GAVE / GIVES
GO / WENT / GOES
HAVE / HAD /HAS
KEEP /KEPT/ KEEPS
LET / LET / LETS
MAKE / MADE/ MAKES
PUT / PUT/ PUTS
SAY / SAID /SAYS
SEE / SAW / SEES
SEEM / SEEMED/ SEEMS
SEND / SENT / SENDS
TAKE / TOOK / TAKES
MAY / MIGHT
WILL / WOULD

Relationship.
ABOUT bou
ACROSS
ko
AFTER
AGAINST en
AMONG m n
AT
BEFORE
biu
BETWEEN biwiin
BY bi
DOWN doun
FROM
m
IN in
OFF o
ON on
OVER ohv
THROUGH hu
TO u
UNDER nd
UP p
WITH widh

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Below are several lists of useful words derived from Ogdens Basic English Lexicon.
They have been converted into modified SaypYu and written in Awgzing characters but
should not be taken as being full-blown, definitive Awgzing. Some of these words can be
used as Awgzing, others may need some further modification. SaypYu uses a non-rhotic
pronunciation while several of the varieties of English that were likely to influence Awgzing
would have been rhotic. Where conversion into SaypYu resulted in an - ending I have
made it - where it is a word modifier as described above or for words where I expect the r
sound would be softened or dropped. For words such as copper, water, humour or measure I
have retained the - ending since it makes the word clearer. For several words I have
simplified nd or ld by dropping the d where I think this would occur.
If you need a word not in the following tables convert it to SaypYu and modify it as
described in this article.

13

u

u
u

14

u
u
u

15

u
u

16

17

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Other Words
ABBREVIATION
abiv
DARLING bao bey
HANDSOME swai
HURRY UP! DO FASTER
jalo o jalojo
INGENIOUS jing zi
MISCELLANEOUS misk
UNCLEAR, CRAZY, CONFUSED
blu
VOCABULARY vokab
ZERO jilo