Southern Asian Languages and Arusian - Typological Comparison Part 1
This post is the first out of a series of posts on which we will compare Arusian to some Asian languages to test and seek features that might be similar. In this post, we will be comparing Arusian to Vietnamese by taking into consideration five main features:
- Morphology and word building
- Topic-Comment syntax
- Adpositions
- Relative Clauses
- Copula
Morphology and Word building
Both Arusian and Vietnamese are highly analytic and form words by putting two or more roots side by side to create more complex words. Also, the concept of what might be a word in those languages may differ significantly from what is a word in English.
Let's compare how those languages form words:
Example 1:
- Vietnamese: Xe đạp ("bicycle" < vehicle + pedal)
- Arusian: Vek-jeg ("bicycle" < vehicle + leg)
Example 2:
- Vietnamese: Sách giáo khoa ("textbook" < book + teaching)
- Arusian: Juwa-tek ("textbook" < book + study)
Topic-Comment syntax
We will be dwelving first into the realm of Topic-Comment. What is topic-comment afterall? Well, it is nothing more than a way of organizing elements in a sentence, based on what are we talking about and then commenting about that thing. This structure is found in several languages, out of which we can name Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Hungarian, Portuguese, etc.
In both Arusian and Vietnamese, elements can be moved to the left periphery of the sentence (aka the beginning of the sentence, in less technical terms) to be focused and become the topic of the sentence. Let's see an example:
Arusian
Vietnamese
Adpositions
Arusian and Vietnamese use verbs to express the same notion expressed by prepositions in English. As such, prepositions don't really exist in either language.
Arusian
Vietnamese
Relative Clauses
In Vietnamese, relative clauses follow the noun they modify, but there is often no connector or relative pronoun. In Arusian, connectors such as u, sa, or wei are used as relative pronouns or linkers.
Arusian
Vietnamese
Copula
In Arusian, the word trmr serves to link two nouns and convey a sense of equivalence,
much like the verb to be in English. Similarly, Vietnamese uses là for the same purpose.
This cannot be used for "adjectives", just nouns.
Arusian
Vietnamese
Conclusion
"Vietnamese and arusian share an analytic grammar and syntax, as in both languages, morphemes are put together like Lego to build more complex words. The grammar differs slightly, as Arusian employs more linkers and relative pronouns. Despite these minor differences, both languages organize information in a similar way and also build sentences similarly," Juweya.