Grammar

And Now, The Good Stuff!

In Bienséance Bokokugo, obviously, Japanese serves as the substrate, and French, the superstrate. There are also in it minor adstrates derived form English, Gaelic, and German (primarily idiomatic contributions). You can more or less speak Bienséance Bokokugo by re-arranging French sentences and conjugating the verb differently.


The coupla is used to express “to be” rather than a regular verb form. However, it’s conjugation is vastly different than the Japanese. Why did this single, irregular verb survive creolization? Expression like “sou desu ka”, so common in Japanese conversation, preserved it.

Very few particles are used in Bienséance Bokokugo, unlike formal Japanese. Rather, as in colloquial variants, most such words are omitted.

There are no articles in Bienséance Bokokugo. However, French articles sometimes appear before shop names.

Forming Questions

The question particle “ka” remains though. To use, simply form a declarative sentence, and place ka on the end.
Ran déjeuner fixai. [Ran did fix lunch.]
Ran déjeuner fixai ka? [Did Ran fix lunch?]

One can also use French AND Japanese interrogative pronouns to form questions. They ALWAYS come first in the sentence [somewhat of Japanese derivation that aspect, where such words almost always begin sentences] and are considered fussy or blunt depending on the context. Questions usually have a “ka” or a pronoun. Not both, unless one is pleading desperately. Such words from French assume the gender of the speaker, USUALLY. The feminine being considered more polite, and the masculine more rude, sometimes, people switch for effect.
Quelle cette rue desu? What street is this? [Speaker is female or polite.]
Quel cet rue desu? What street is this? [Speaker is male or abrupt.]
Doko Aubrey desu? Where is Aubrey? [As you can see, such words in Japanese are gender-neutral (as per the speaker) in Bienséance Bokokugo.]

Demonstratives

Demonstratives, like interrogatives, switch gender with the speaker if French, though both Japanese and French may be used. Some French demonstratives surround the words they modify, and in Bienséance Bokokugo this are written with a hyphen BEFORE the word, just like those which, in French, would come before, not before and after.
ceux-ci gâteausse these cakes [speaker is male or rude]
celles-ci gâteausse these cakes [speaker is female or polite]
koko gâteau that cake
In Terran usage, where one would say “that one” or “this one” in English, one simply announces “That” or “this”.
Koko! Koko! [That one! That one!] [Ref 1C]

No and A

As for the particle “no”, while in Japanese it can be used to express both possession and pertinence, in Bienséance Bokokugo it finds itself limited to a meaning analogous to “ ‘s ” in English.
Ran no livre [Ran’s book] is correct, whereas…
Haiku no livre [Book of poems, if in Japanese grammar] is not.
In situations were “of” or “de la” and it’s many forms might be called for, the word “a” must be used, having come into the language through the Japanese pronunciation of English “of”. So we get…
LIvre a Haiku [book of poems] in the end. Note how "a" works just like the english "of"
Ce je no livre a haiku! This is my book of poems.

Emphatics

Japanese emphatics are used frequently- these are single or double syllable words which function like non-intonation exclamation points. The only one not used is “no”. Due to the gender-bending nature of Terran social customs, these particles have somewhat lost their sex-specificity to most speaks. Just the same…
Ne, No, Wa, Wa yo- typically feminine particles in Japanese
Na, Zo, Ze- typically masculine particles in Japanese
Ran oeilles-violette-belle avoirré wa yo. [Ran has such pretty purple eyes!] [Ref 1B]

Pronouns

Pronouns- French pronouns are used and retain their usage nuances. The complex pronoun switching system of the Japanese, while beautiful and expressive, didn’t catch on. However, the peculiar “iih” for a neuter pronoun did.
Je- I
Tu- you: familiar, casual
Vous- you: formal
Elle- she
Il- he
Iih- it
Nous- we/us
Elles- they, feminine
Ils- they, masculine
Iihs- they, neutral and considered rather rude.
Like in Japanese however, it is acceptable for small children and girls younger than sixteen to use their name as a first person pronoun.
Quand Saffie Ran aimmé ne. [But I like Ran! Correct if Saffie is the speaker, or it’s in third person.]
These can all be made possessive by adding “no” after them, as in the final example for “no”.

Forming Plurals and Counters

Forming plurals is just about the easiest thing in the world to do in Bienséance Bokokugo- French methods were found only semi-suitable, and Japanese doesn’t HAVE plurals.
• If a word ends in a consonant, double it, and put “es” on the end Miroir [Mirror] --> Miroirres [Mirrors]
• If a word ends in a vowel, ad –sse. Kagami [Mirror] --> Kagamisse [Mirrors]
Nothing to it!

And oh, no need to learn those pesky Japanese counters in Bienséance Bokokugo, they aren’t used. To specify a number of something, place the number in question after any adjectives in question and add –em to it. Chat-noir-quatreem. Four black cats. Also, appositives are often used to express number: Chat-noir, quatre a iihs, dans glace tombbé. Black cats, four of them, fell on the ice. [Ref 1B, 1F]

Life With Adjectives

Adjectives and verbs don’t change forms depending on the number of the word or words they refer to. Yay.

As for modifying French adjectives depending on gender: female speakers usually use feminine adjectives, and make speakers usually use masculine adjectives. When writing third person prose, there is no rule whatsoever. Adjectives follow French formation patterns for singular masculine and feminine forms. In other words, “Ran oeilles-violette-belle avoirré wa yo,” is on VERY obviously uttered by a female speaker, say, little Miss Example Saffie. If her brother Aubrey were to exclaim the same thing, it would be, “Ran oeilles-violet-beau avoirré na” the emphatic having shifted as well.

When dealing with nouns which act as modifiers, they, like adjectives, follow the word they modify, but come before any other modifiers. However, they are tagged as being modifiers by adding "a" for words ending in consonants, and "na" for words ending in vowels. This comes to the language by way of the marker "na" being used in Japanese after about 50% of the adjectives in that language.
Ange-Paona Peacock Angel
Passoire-légumena-panku pink vegetable colander [See also Additional Vocabulary]
It is possible to modify a female noun with a masculine noun, and vice versa. In fact, it's considered rather comical.

When using a person’s name in a sentence, it must come at the end or beginning, and is separated from the rest of the words with “ae”. See also “Word Order”. [Ref 1D]

How to Use Those Pesky Derisive Tenses

When dealing with the desirative tense alone, not the gerund, sentences can simply be thought of as including an “[subject] wish[es] that…” or “[subject] wished to…” at the beginning.

Aubrey je adorezrei.

While this would, if the verb were different, be read “Aubrey loves me” or “Aubrey loved me”, the desirative tense makes it into really more of a “I wish that Aubrey loved me”. The desirative tense is always taken to mean something in the present, something one could, but doesn’t theoretically have now. So it wouldn’t ever be taken as, “I wish Aubrey had once loved me” or “I wish Aubrey would someday love me”; it’s an expression of want in the here and now.

Besides expressing want, this form is often used figuratively in Terran prose…

Étoilesse Lune Levezrei.

The Stars wish to see the moon rise, IE, the moon isn’t up yet :P. Probably though, the most common usage of this tense comes when availing onseself of the delights of the Hyacinth Villa, in which it’s quite required to play with it.

The derisive gerund is a little easier to use. It means “wish for [present tense of verb]” and is usually used with “have”. You get constructions like, “I have a wish for skiing” with it. Awkward in English, ne?

Other Useful Sentence Formations

To express a progressive tense, repeat the verb stem before the verb. In the case of the copula, put “de” before feminine forms and “da” before masculine.

Dans matin, je li-liaisé. I was reading all morning.
Ran manquant de-desu. Ran is still missing.

If/then statements are formed like this.

[Statement 1 (if)], si [Statement 2 (then)] [future-conditional tense]
 

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