What's the deal with Jest?

Jest is the name of a constructed language I'm developing. In-universe, it began as a language game spoken by American circus clowns, which involved substituting English words based on semantics, common idioms, and free association. This game evolved into a cant of sorts, before eventually being reworked into a functional language by the mid-20th century, when it was adopted by the wider clown community.

What is it like?

Much of Jest's vocabulary is derived from English in a similar way to the original language game. As a language developed for the clowning profession, it was purposefully made quite silly. False friends and inside jokes abound, as does polisili (silly polysemy). The language's grammatical features demonstrate the sense of humor of its users.

Jest is a relatively analytic language, lacking articles and cases, and favoring auxiliary verbs to complex verb morphology. Grammatical particles are used to structure sentences, so word order is not rigid, but the default order is SVO. It shows some degree of topic prominence, which could perhaps be analyzed as "funny prominence". Particles are also used to denote various kinds of humor.

There are two distinct registers in Jest, the informal Funny Register and the formal Serious Register. Almost all daily conversations between clowns use the Funny Register, and the Serious Register is reserved only for grave matters. The registers are distinguished by differences in vocabulary and pronunciation.

Jest in Action

Jerma Teacher Noise / Jerma Ejubili o Hubalu

English

—quiet down and listen immediately. If there’s—if it’s like, a ton of noise, and a bunch of kids like, “oh, fuck you, uuaaahh, lookehhh PSHHHH!” you just walk in and you just go like, [teacher noise]. And they'll all go “what the fuck is—” and they'll sit down and be like... And then you have their attention. That worked every fucking time. [sip]

Jest

—ch nada ir zibi. Oli tada, ga, hanki hubalu, nada car jococ yadayada bli, “%ö, bbe, whubi, PSH!” Mi öda dan blo ej nada dan yada bli, “[ejubili o hubalu]” nada za je yada bli “Wel—gwu?” Nada za je blõ nada sip bli… Za je daim bli mi. Bai ricwi cada tal. [hic]

Gloss

mime and listen fast. if here-there like endless noise, and many joke~PL say-IPFV DO "hey, aw, sex, PSH!" 2S should simply go in and simply say DO, "[teacher POSS noise]" and next 3P.FUN say DO "what—huh?" and next 3P be.still and be.like DO… next 3P pay DO 2S.FUN. DEM work-PST each point. [sip]

IPA

ʃːː ˈnadə iɹ ˈzibi. oli ˈtadə, ga, ˈhæŋki ˈhubəlu, ˈnadə kaɹ ˈjokok ˈjadəˌjadə bli, ˈ[nose honk]ɔ, r̼ɛ, ˈʍubi, pʃ! mi ˈɔdə dæn blo edʒ ˈnadə za edʒ ˈnadə dæn ˈjadə bli, [eˈdʒubili o hubəlu] ˈnadə za dʒe ˈjadə bli, wɛl — gwə? ˈnadə za dʒe blɔ̃ ˈnadə sɪp bli... za dʒe daɪm bli mi. baɪ ˈɹɪkwi kædə tal. [hɪk]