Revision 7627199 of "Babyish languages" on enwiki

'''Babyish''' is an [[constructed language|artificial language]] from a child story called "Stories in Babycasèny", which can be viewed as a [[pidgin]] of [[Cantonese (linguistics)|Cantonese]] and [[English language|English]].

Babyish has its own characters, being some geometric shapes, but was not used beyond illustration.  It is transcripted in two ways:

* [[Diacritic|accented]] [[Alphabet|Latin characters]]
* plain [[ASCII]] text

Since Babyish is a pidgin of Cantonese, some words are [[Tonal language|tonal]] and require indication of tones.  Tonal marks from [[pinyin]] is borrowed for tone indication, with an additional mark of "dot below" in indicate "yang" tones.

== Characters used in Babyish ==

Babyish used these characters:

===Vowels===
<table border=1>
<tr><th>Vowels<th>SAMPA<th>transliteration<th>Special note
<tr><td>A<td>a<td>a<td>à = /6/ in SAMPA
<tr><td>Ä<td>{<td>ae
<tr><td>E<td>E<td>e<td>è = /@/ in SAMPA
<tr><td>I<td>i<td>i<td>ì = /1/ in SAMPA
<tr><td>O<td>O<td>o<td>ò = /Q/ in SAMPA
<tr><td>Ö<td>9<td>oe
<tr><td>U<td>u<td>u<td>ù = /V/ in SAMPA
<tr><td>Ü<td>y<td>ue
</table>

Babyish do not have [[dithphong]]s, so when you encounter two vowels placing together, they are pronounced separatedly.

===Consonants===
<TABLE BORDER=1>
<TR><TH>Consonants<TH>SAMPA<TH>transliteration<TH>Special note
<TR><td align=center>B<td align=center>b<td align=center>b<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>P<td align=center>p<td align=center>p<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>M<td align=center>m<td align=center>m<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>F<td align=center>f<td align=center>f<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>D<td align=center>d<td align=center>d<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>T<td align=center>t<td align=center>t<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>N<td align=center>n<td align=center>n<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>L<td align=center>l<td align=center>l<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>G<td align=center>g<td align=center>g<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>K<td align=center>k<td align=center>k<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>&#330;<td align=center>N<td align=center>ng<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>&#292;<td align=center>x<td align=center>kh<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>J<td align=center>dZ<td align=center>j<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>&#268;<td align=center>tS<td align=center>ch<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>R<td align=center>r<td align=center>r<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>H<td align=center>h<td align=center>h<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>&#7824;<td align=center>dz`<td align=center>zh<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>&#264;<td align=center>ts`<td align=center>cz<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>&#348;<td align=center>s`<td align=center>sz<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>&#530;<td align=center>r`<td align=center>rh<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>Z<td align=center>dz<td align=center>z<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>C<td align=center>ts<td align=center>c<td align=center>
<TR><td align=center>S<td align=center>s<td align=center>s<td align=center>Sometimes &Ccedil; is used to represent "S" sound
<TR><td align=center>Y<td align=center>j<td align=center>y<td align=center>
</TABLE>

===Tones===
* Tones: macron for long vowels, acute, hacek, grave, dotbelow.

{| border=1
! Tone sign
! Tone value
! Tone value in Cantonese
! Tone value in Mandarin
|-
| (no sign)
| 33 or 55
| ''yin ping'' or Tone 1
| ''yin ping''
|-
| &macr; (macron)
| 33 or 55 <br>but longer duration
| (no equivalent)
| (no equivalent)
|-
| &acute; (acute)
| 24
| yin shang (Tone 2) or yang shang (Tone 5)
| rising tone
|-
| (hacek)
| 22
| yin qu (Tone 3) or <br>yang qu (Tone 6)
|
|-
| ` (grave)
| short vowels or 51
| (no equivalent)
| qu sheng
|-
| . (dot below)
| 11
| yang ping (Tone 4)
| (no equivalent)
|}

== Some sample text of Babyish ==

===Vocabularies===
{| border=1
!English
!Babyish
!Origin
|-
|Cat
|Uzaza / Miao
|Original / Onomotopaeic
|-
|Dog
|Azaza / Wou
|Original / Onomotopaeic
|-
|Rabbit
|Zaza / D&eacute;ng
|Original
|-
|Sheep
|Me
|Onomotopaeic
|-
|Panda
|Siongmiao
|Mandarin Chinese
|-
|Fish
|&Ouml;r
|Original
|-
|Tortoise (or turtle)
|Wuggw&agrave;i
|Cantonese
|-
|not yet
|m&#464;-
|Cantonese
|-
|full (after meal)
|b&aacute;o
|Cantonese
|-
|hungry (after meal)
|m&#464;b&aacute;o
|Cantonese (= "m&#464;-" not yet + "b&aacute;o")
|-
|used
|Yused
|English
|-
|not used
|M&#464;yused
|Cantonese+English  (= "m&#464;-" not yet + "yused")
|-
|Elder Brother
|(le) gor
|Cantonese
|-
|Younger Brother
|(le) s&aacute;lou
|Cantonese
|-
|Elder Sister
|(la) sis
|English
|"sis" is not pronounced as /sis/, but is pronounced as /dzit/ instead, a pattern occurred in [[Korean langauges|Korean]] as well
|-
|Younger Sister
|(la) mui
|Cantonese
|-
|Father
|Baba
|Cantonese
|-
|Mother
|Mama / Mami
|Cantonese
|-
|Water
|Sui
|Cantonese
|-
|Clear water
|Nanasui
|from "sui"
|-
|Tea
|Cya
|Japanese (Cantonese)
|-
|Tea for guest
|Oucya
|Japanese
|-
|Tea for sheep
|Meorcya
|derived from "me"+"oucya"
|}

===Famous Literatures in Babyish===
* "Sheepness stories" series (''Yö&#331;màn gusi'')
* "The Hero: New R Little Bear" (''Sun R xiuhung daihùp'')

==External link==
* [http://kr.geocities.com/tomchiukc/Language/Babyish/ Some collection of Babyish information]

[[category:Constructed languages]]