The Apostrophe

This will be the hardest post to read on Matish rules. But let me assure you that it's much shorter/simpler than if I had written about the Old Spelling's apostrophe rules. There would also have to be explanations for exceptions such as "its" and "shan't". You'll think these posts are complicated, but imagine if I tried to teach you Old Spelling this fast! And most of these rules I've provided are not even needed when learning from scratch (such as this coming first one). They are just there to undo the Old Spelling ones you're used to. It is the Old Spelling which is to blame (plus my laziness in explaining Matish thoroughly, but I do have exams you know, and a Matish deadline). Teaching Matish to a child will be much simpler/quicker than teaching it to an adult who will have all the old complications still floating around in his head. Besides unusual rules like transliteration, I'm hoping this is the last post on Matish rules. If you see any places I can make Matish simpler or better in any other way, please let me know.

1. The apostrophe is not used in place of the missing part of a word.

Matish	Old
doent	don't
woent	won't
kaant	can't
shaant	shan't/sha'n't
havnt	haven't
iznt	isn't
woodnt	wouldn't
shoodnt	shouldn't

2. The apostrophe is used to join parts of a word together without joining letters into one sound.

So that, for example, the "ng" doesn't blend in "engrave" to go "eng-rave", it is written "en'graev" in Matish.

Oops!	Matish	Old
engraev	en'graev	engrave
cildhood	cild'hood	childhood
foothold	foot'hold	foothold

3. The end-of-word rule applies before the apostrophe

So that "kwi'er" sounds like "choir" not "queer", but this words doesn't need the apostrophe. See if you can spot why these ones do:

Oops!	Matish	Old
kwieet	kwi'et	quiet
terier	tere'er	terrier
sosieete	sosi'ete	society
hapiest	hape'est	happiest

This is good, because it means that the spelling of many words which use the end-of-words rule, such as "hape" ("happy"), need not change when a suffix is added ("hape'est" for old "happiest"). You can use an apostrophe as much as you like for this purpose so that the spelling is not changed when a suffix is added. Although this usually makes words longer:

Matish	Unchanged	Old
ene	ene	any
enimor	ene'mor	anymore
eniwae	ene'wae	anyway
enithing	ene'thing	anything
evre	evre	every
evrithing	evre'thing	everything
mi	mi	my
mieself	mi'self	myself
go	go	go
goeing	go'ing	going

You can also use this rule to make words look more familiar to the Old Spelling and still call it Matish, but it's probably not a good idea.

Matish	Compromise	Old
doent	do'nt	don't
woent	wo'nt	won't
kaant	ka'nt	can't
shaant	sha'nt	shan't/sha'n't

4. The apostrophe is used to join words and letter-words.

Matish	Old
r'nt	aren't
b'ing	being
t'kup	teacup

This rule can be used to shorten words such as "p'pl" for "people" but don't overdo it, as it can cause confusion, and is not "proper" unless you are using authentic letter-words. Here they are updated:

All letter-words in the following table are pronounced as in the second column.

Matish Letter-Words:		Old Spelling
a	ae/a	a
b	be	be/bee
c	se	see/sea
f	ef	(don't use this, it's not nice)
g	je	(or this - Third Commandment)
i	i	I
k	kae	K/OK
o	o	oh/owe
p	pe	pee
q	kue	cue
r	ar	are
t	te	tea/tee
u	ue	you
x	eks~	ex.
y	whi	why
&	and	and
@	at	at
1	wun	one

If this doesn't confuse you, notice that they all sound like the name of the letter except for "a" (unless you happen to be one who says "a" like the name of the letter) which follows the end of word rule as do all the other letter-word vowels except for "u".

All letter-words in the following table are added to the end of a word with an apostrophe and are pronounced as in the first column.

Matish Concatenated Letter-Words:		Old Spelling
'd	wood/had	would/had
'l	wil	will
'm	am	am
'r	ar	are
's	iz/haz	is/has
'v	hav	have
'w	wer	were
'z	iz/haz	is/has

"r" is used in both tables because it is used in both ways.

The following table contains letter-words that are not yet authenticated (by yours truly).

Matish Unassigned Letter-Words:
e	e
h	haec
j	jae
n	en

Here are some examples of concatenated letter-words in action:

Matish	Old
i'd go	I'd go (I would go)
i'd gaun	I'd gone (I had gone)
i'l go	I'll go (I will go)
i'm goeing	I'm going (I am going)
it's goeing	it's going (it is going)
it's gaun	it's gone (it has gone)
she'z gaun	she's gone (she has gone)
u'r	you're (you are)
u'w	you're (you were)
dhae'r	they're (they are)
dhair'r	there're (there are)
heer'r	here're (here are)

You may wonder why "s" is used in "it's" and "z" is used in "she'z". I hope so. The reason is that although both the "s" and "z" stand for "iz" or both stand for "haz", we pronounce them differently on the end of different words. I will say for future reference that we add "z/s", where:

"z/s" refers to using a "z" except after the voiceless consonants "p", "t", "k", "th", "kh", "q" and "qh", where an "s" is used instead.

5. The apostrophe is not used to pluralise.

To pluralise, simply add a z/s (in accordance with the z/s rule), on the end of the word without an apostrophe. This, of course, does not apply for words like "child" (who's plural is "children") unless you want to reform the language rather than just the spelling.

Matish	Old
bagz	bags
bats	bats

z/s is also added in this way for the tense of verbs like "beg", for example, in "begz".

When adding "ed" onto a verb such as "nodded", in Matish you just add "d". So "nod" becomes "nodd" as the "e" in "ed" is a schwa. After "p" and "k", the "d" may become "t", but most people can still pronounce the "d" and should be encouraged to do so for better pronunciation by using "d" every time in spelling. So you should use "taukd" rather than "taukt" (for "talked").

In the same way the "en" suffix also becomes "n". So "fallen" in Matish is "fauln".

Sometimes the end-of-word rule was used in a word and the spelling of the word changes when the "z", "d" or "n" is added.

Matish		Old
koma	komuz	commas (plural of comma)
flo	floez	flowes (does flow)
flo	floed	flowed (did flow)

Do NOT use the apostophie to avoid this, as:

koma'z = koma iz/haz
flo'z = flo iz/haz
flo'd = flo wood/had

6. A z/s followed by an apostrophe is added for possession except for pronouns.

Jesusz'
Mathieuz'
Timz'
Pats'
Buzzz'
its' (see how this is better than "its" and also doesn't get confused with "it's"?)
komuz'

This rule does not apply to possessive pronouns:

Matish	Old
mi	my
yor	Your
our	our
hiz	his
her	her
dhaer	their (dhair = there)

Here is better pronoun table:

	1st Person		2nd Person		3rd Person
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural*	Singular		Plural
Subjective	i	we	u	uez	he	she	dhae
Possessive	mi	our	yor	uezz	hiz	her	dhaer
is/are/am	i'm	we'r	u'r	uez'r	he'z	she'z	dhae'r
has/have	i'v	we'v	u'v	uez'v	he'z	she'z	dhae'v
Objective	me	us	u	uez	him	her	dhem
Possessive	mien	ourz	yorz	uezz	hiz	herz	dhaerz

* Most English dialects don't use these words. If this is the case simply use the words from 2nd Person Singular for both columns.


So do you see that if many dogs own the bone, that by rules 5 and 6 you say "dha dogzz' boen"? Do you see that that is less ambiguous than "the dogs' bone" when reading aloud? I know I've crossed the line here, and that it's a slight change to the language itself... hopefully.

7. Apostrophes and single quotes are not used as quotation marks.

Proper quotation marks are always used. Here is an example, but using Old Spelling:

Tara said, "The Baby said, "And Jesus said, "I am Lord."""

Here is the same in Matish:

Tara sed "the Baebe sed "and Jesus sed "i am Lord.".".".

The same applies to bracket. Do not change to square brackets just because you're already using the other ones. For example, applying this rule to Old Spelling:

I want to go home (as in Heaven (if that's where my citizenship (Philippians 3:20) is)) but I have work to do here.

And in Matish:

i wont tu go hoem (az in Heven (if dhat's whair mi sitisnship (Filipiynz 3:20) iz)) but i hav werk tu du heer.

Possible exceptions to rule 4

Some may be tempted to not separate the letter-word "1" in the following words, seeing as it's a digit and not a letter:

Matish	Old
sum'1	someone
1 dae	one day
ene'1	anyone
evre'1	everyone
no 1	no one

If you do, you may still call it Matish, but keep in mind that it's already a dodgy letter-word in that it looks like "l" and "sum1", "1dae", "eni1", "evri1" and "no1" may look like "suml", "ldae", "enil", "evril" and "nol" respectively. On the other hand, we might get used to spotting the "1" in them as these words don't exist.

1st is an exception, and should not use the apostrophe because it's not using the letter-word "1" or it would be "wunst".

"o'k" may be preferred by some rather than as initials "OK" (from Oll Korrect) or "oekae" and still be called Matish as long as you don't use "ok" which is not the same, but a word with one syllable.
Likewise, "o'klok" may be preferred by some instead of the initial "Oklok" (from "Of the Clock") as long as you don't use "oklok" (with a lower case "o").

Any questions?