6 Key Phrases for Testing/Creating Your Conlang

He doesn't want dem apples.

I got some cool ideas last week from Tim Ferriss. For any readers who haven't heard of him, look him up - he is an amazing guy who likes to find ways to beat the game, rather than play the game. I was watching this video and I wondered if I could apply any of his ideas to conlanging. Hestarts talking at the 6:35 mark about learning languages and he mentioned that using the following phrases helped one better understand the grammar and mechanics of a language (10:02 mark):

The apple is red.

It is John's apple.

I give John the apple.

We want to give him the apple.

He gives it to John.

She gives it to him.

I thought that it makes sense that the reverse must be true as well - that you should be able to use these as a way of testing out/creating the grammar and mechanics of your conlang! I wanted to try this out in a couple of simple ways to illustrate the concept, but we'll just do one per post.

First, let's use the "English as a conlang" concept I used once before.
Phonology: b, d, g, k, l, v, z, th (as in "the"), zh (as in "mirage"), w, ee, ay, aw, o, oo.
Morphology: (VC)CVC(I) (V=vowel C=consonant I=inflection, and parentheses means "optional") for nouns, verbs, and adjectives; (V)V(C) for everything else.
Syntax & grammar: OSV (Yoda syntax). Inflection is -ee: future tense (will be doing), -ay:  plural , -aw: descriptive/adjective, -o: past tense (was doing), -oo: present tense (is doing).
Vocabulary: the = ayth, apple = awbbul, red = wayd, John = Zhawn, give = geev, want = wawn, I = Eeawt, we = eezh, he = eeoz, him = ayoz, she = eeov, her = ayov. Is/be doesn't work in this morphology so I'm changing it to "bawz."

Red the apple is-being. = Waydaw ayth awbbul bawzoo. (add the -aw inflection to make red/wayd an adjective)
John's apple it is-being. = Zhawnaw awbbul eed bawzoo. (Rather than using apostrophe s to connote ownership as in English, John's name becomes an adjective here)
The apple to John I am-giving. = Ayth awbbul od Zhawn Eeawt geevoo. (I becomes Eeawt - pronounced like "yacht")
The apple to him we are-wanting to be-giving. = Ayth awbbul od ayoz eezh wanaw geevay. ("want to give" is shown by the current tense wanting and future tense giving)
It to John he is-giving. = Eed od Zhawn eeoz geevoo.
It to him she is-giving. = Eed od ayoz eeov geevoo.

As I was generating these translations I learned things. For example, I originally made the morphology (C)V(V) for everything else, but realized that with the inflections I noted, the last vowel of every word becomes important. So I reversed it to make the rest of it work. Look out for things like this as you test your conlang rules with these phrases.

And now you're a Four Hour Conlanger.