This book was written by Zmavli Caimle, and reviewed by the creator of Eberban, mia entropy, who also provided typesetting help.

This book is a work in progress, and the text may change drastically and suddenly, either due to rewriting or changes in the language itself.

Future topics (subject to change). (N) lessons introduce new grammar, while those without the tag do not introduce any new grammar at all (but may use existing structures in ways not previously shown). (N*) lessons introduce a small amount of new grammar that greatly parallels or reuse previously covered structures.

Phonology

The phonology of Eberban is described in greater detail in the official grammar book. If technical explanations and IPA are desired, refer to it instead. This book will provide a layman's explanation.

Assuming that the reader is a native English speaker, all letters are spoken the same way as their English counterparts, but with a several exceptions. For vowels:

• a is spoken like in "father", never like in "comma".
• o is spoken like in "lord", never like in "boot".
• e is spoken like in "bet", never like in "beet".

Note that the English words used may not necessarily correspond with the canonical or correct pronunciation depending on your accent -- for those, refer to the official book. For consonants:

• c is the "sh" in "shell".
• The sound for j does not exist in English proper, but it's the "ge" in "luge" or the g in "bourgeois". It's the voiced equivalent of the previous letter, c.
• tc is the "ch" in "chime".
• dj is the "j" in "jam".

Names and borrowings

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”

— ender's game orson scott card

In many language courses, the first lesson teaches how one introduces one's self. This book will do something similar. This lesson will cover how names are used in Eberban, as well as the process by which foreign words are borrowed into it.

Suppose that one wants to name one's self dzu (magenta). If one merely says dzu:

One asserts that "something is magenta". That is not what one wants. The exact processes of the grammar will be covered in future chapters.

For now, pay no attention to (E-Xd) -- simply take it to be single parameter which can accept arguments.

What one wants is to say the name "Magenta", not "Something is magenta." To do this, one ought to use the particle za (of the particle family ZI).

From now on, the classes (or parts of speech) that particles belong to will be shown in parentheses. Particles of the same class have the same (or very similar) grammar and are used in similar places. The name of particle class are named by the type specimen of the class in capital letters for historical reasons.

Note for Lojban and Toaq readers: It should be noted that "place structure" in Eberban is different from the way Lojban and Toaq handle places. This is covered in more detail in tba.

The particle za has the following grammar:

za : (E-Xd) is named :

What one want, then, is za dzu.

What if one wants to use a non-Eberbanic name? Suppose one's name is "Anna Livingstone". How does one say that in Eberban? First, one should transliterate the name, obeying Eberban borrowing morphology rules. A simplified explanation is given for now.

Borrowings must start with u. For words that already start with u, add a boundary marker, making the start of the word u'u. Borrowings must end with either a vowel or n, r or l. Borrowings must use only Eberban sounds.

In this case, the transliteration is ana livinsto. In Eberban, non-native words (borrowings) must be prefixed with u, making the borrowing u'ana ulivinsto. Borrowings which are adjacent to one another are treated as being part of the same borrowing. Therefore, u'ana ulivinsto means "Anna Livingstone" rather than "Anna" and "Livingstone". While there is a mechanism for the separation of borrowings, it is covered in a later chapter.

That is not yet what one wants. All borrowings have the place structure (E-Xd) is a/some "borrowing(s)". If one wants to refer to someone named Anna Livingstone, one will have to use za again.

One should transliterate your name or moniker into Eberban, or select words from the dictionary to form one's name, if desired.

It should be noted that any foreign word can be borrowed, not just names.

Exercise 02.1: English to Eberban Transliteration

No mastery will come without work. To learn truly, follow the exercises.

Transliterate the following English words into Eberban.

Transliteration is more art than science -- so long as it resembles the original pronunciation and obeys morphological rules, it is correct. The answers are merely the canonical transliterations.

Exercise 02.2: Eberban to English Transliteration

The reason why particle families are written with capital letters is because Eberban is descended from Lojban. Lojban writes particle families in such a manner, and that is how Eberban does it as well.

Extra credit: full borrowing morphology rules

Reading word definitions

Let us consider transitive verbs and prepositions in English, specifically the word go. This word is a transitive verb, meaning that it takes a subject and an object.

I go there.

SUBJ-1PS go OBJ-there

One may generalize this and define go as such:

go: x1 goes to x2

This is the manner by which Eberban's vocabulary is defined. Each predicate has one to four parameters which can be "filled" by arguments. Let us look at the definition of an Eberban word, usually called a predicate.

fuir : (E-Xd) knows fact [A-P0] from source (O-Xd).

What do the letters and numbers in the parentheticals mean? The first component is a letter -- E, A, O or U, corresponding to the first, second, third, and fourth places of the predicate respectively. The second component refers to the type of argument the parameter accepts.

• X parameters refer to concretes -- specific entities or an events. We shall focus on X parameters exclusively for now.
• P parameters refer to propositions -- a particular abstract concept, property, or relation. These are covered in P chapter
• S parameters (not seen here) refer to sequences -- lists of X, P or S arguments. These are covered in S chapter
• N parameters refer to numbers. These are covered in N chapter

One does not need to worry about the third component as of now, but they will be listed here for completeness. The third component refers to the distributivity or collectivity of arguments for X parameters; the number of variables bound by the proposition in P parameters; or the type of arguments to be listed in S parameters.

We will only cover predicates with X parameters from now until P0 chapter. However, reading predicate definitions should be learned now, even if the other three places will not be covered until later.

"filled" is quite a misnomer as one will see in later chapters, but it suffices for now.

Eberban is based on second order logic -- all root words are predicates.

Do you know why the parameters are labeled such? Ans: it is Eberban's alphabetical order.

Simple definition reading exercise

Extra credit: complex definition reading exercise

Copular sentences and logical translation

In this chapter, one shall finally learn how to say something in Eberban. We shall consider only the simplest type of sentence here -- copular sentences. One will also learn personal pronouns of class MI.

Copular sentences in English are of the form "X is Y", such as "This is an apple," or "I am happy".

Eberban does not have a copula particle like in English, being that it has no distinction between verbs, nouns and adjectives formally. Certain words are used very similarly to how verbs, nouns and adjectives are used in English, yes, but underneath, the grammar is all the same -- they are all predicates. Let us consider the sentence "This is an apple" again. One could define "this" and "apple" thusly:

this: P is this. apple: P is an apple.

And then construct the sentence like so:

this is an apple

• P is this
• P is an apple

One could actually break down virtually all English sentences like this. Here is another, more complex example.

I go to the market.

• P is me (I)
• P goes to Q (go to)
• Q is the market. (the market)

This is the core of Eberban grammar. All root words are predicates. To ensure that it will be understood, we will have an exercise in the middle of the lesson.

Decomposition of English sentences

Decompose the following sentences into the Eberban predicate style, similar to what is shown above.

Eberban treats existential variables as "first-class citizens" -- they are the linchpin from which all other grammar derives. Given that Eberban is a logical language, it makes sense that sentences should be easy to translate into formal logic. Specifically, Eberban uses second-order logic. When one says mei menoe, one is actually saying

Reciprocally, when one says mei menoe, one is not only saying "There is something near (the speaker) that is an apple," but also "There is an apple that is near (the speaker)".

“They were flinty, dull, with inscriptions depicting each of the five Ws of Journalism (What? What! What!? What. Why?).”

“Messages are for the sender, not for the receiver.”
― Joseph Fink, Welcome to Night Vale