What's Special about Neo Patwa?

Last updated July 26, 2006

There are many proposals for international languages out there. What's special about Neo Patwa? There are three defining features. None of them are strictly original, but Neo Patwa brings them together in a unique way.

A Simple Phonology

Neo Patwa has an extremely simple phonology, which makes it easy for people of different language backgrounds to pronounce it.

A Simple and International Vocabulary

The words used in Neo Patwa are all taken from existing languages. So when you learn Neo Patwa, in fact you are learning words that are already in use by people from different cultures around the world.

A Simple Grammar

The grammar of Neo Patwa is in large measure taken from languages such as Tok Pisin, Bislama, and Singlish. What distinguish the grammars of these languages is that they are basically Western grammars adapted by non-Western people. They are international.

Some Simple Technical Details

Some of the basic features of Neo Patwa are as follows:

Neo Patwa has no singular/plural forms of nouns or adjectives.

Neo Patwa has no grammatical gender.

Negation and tense are expressed by unchanging preverbal particles. There is no conjugation.

There are no articles.

Neo Patwa has a limited number of prepositions with a wide range of meaning.

Neo Patwa has gender neutral pronouns (no he/she/it distinction).

There is no inversion for questions.

The mood of a sentence is shown by sentence ending particles.