The rule
The verb never changes. Time is shown by one invariant particle placed directly before the verb. The present is unmarked.
| Time | Particle | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| present | — | Mi kula pan. | I eat bread. |
| past | suda | Mi suda kula pan. | I ate bread. |
| future | saufa | Mi saufa kula pan. | I will eat bread. |
That is the whole system. There is nothing to conjugate, no irregular verbs, and no agreement with the subject: mi suda kula, yu suda kula, ta suda kula, kita suda kula — the verb kula is the same word every time.
Where the particle goes
Always immediately before the verb, after the subject.
- Ta suda lai ruma. — She came home.
- Rafiki saufa nomu ca. — The friend will drink tea.
- Anak suda kan sol. — The child saw the sun.
Never after the verb, never at the end of the sentence.
When the particle may be left out
Once the time is clear, it does not need to be repeated. If a sentence has already been placed in the past, the sentences that follow may drop suda until the time changes.
Mi suda go ruma. Mi kula pan. Mi nomu ca. — I went home. I ate bread. I drank tea.
Including the particle in every sentence is never wrong. Leaving it out is allowed only when the time has already been set.
Sources
| Particle | Source | Meaning there |
|---|---|---|
| suda | Indonesian/Malay sudah | already, done — used exactly this way to mark completed action |
| saufa | Arabic sawfa (سوف) | the standard future particle in Modern Standard Arabic |
Two different families, neither already dominant in the vocabulary. Both are semantically transparent in their source: suda literally says “already”, saufa literally says “will”.
Why this and not the alternatives
Why particles, not endings. Design rule 3 forbids conjugation. A particle is a separate word that never changes; an ending would attach to the verb and, in every natural language that has them, eventually breeds irregulars.
Why an unmarked present. It is the most common tense in speech and the one a beginner needs first. Making the default the shortest form is what Chinese, Indonesian, Malay, Thai and Vietnamese all do, and it is the single feature that makes those languages easy to start.
Why two particles, not one. Some languages mark only “not-present” and let context sort past from future. That saves a word but costs clarity, and clarity is cheaper.
Candidates rejected, and why:
| Candidate | Source | Reason rejected |
|---|---|---|
| akan (future) | Indonesian akan | metathesis pair with anak (child) — a-k-a-n vs a-n-a-k |
| ta (future) | Swahili -ta- | ta is already he/she |
| ga (future) | Hindi -gā | minimal pair with go, the verb it would most often stand next to |
| hui (future) | Chinese huì | introduces the vowel sequence ui, not yet attested in the language |
| le (past) | Chinese le | one light syllable, easy to miss in speech; and Chinese le is post-verbal, so the borrowing would misrepresent the source |
| mau (future) | Indonesian colloquial | mau is already “to want”; using it for both breeds ambiguity |
| go (future) | English “going to” | same problem: go is already “to go” |
Open questions
- Whether suda also covers the perfect (“I have eaten”) or whether that needs its own marker.
- Whether a habitual (“I eat every day”) ever needs marking, or whether the unmarked present carries it.