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Novelatine is a language, spoken by a few thousand people in two remote mountain valleys in Central Italy. Its speakers call their own language Sa lêgwa syar dwar valyô, The language of the two valleys, or simply Sa lêgwa (nob), The/Our language. It is a direct descendent of Latin, and it retained a more conservative grammar, morphology and syntaxis than the other Romance languages. Its lexicon retains many more words directly from Latin than other Romance lexicons.

Apart from its conservatism, the main feature is the presence of two distinct dialects, one for each valleys, with some definite differences.

Noun morphology

Novelatine retains the complex system of Latin declensions, but the six cases of Latin language have merged in a three-case system: Nominative, Genitive and Accusative. Nouns are grouped in four declensions, but as phonological changes modified some endings, each declension group has more subgroups.

First declension

The first declension has both feminine and masculine nouns, but no neuter nouns. Most nouns (more than 90%) are feminine, and there is no difference in the endings between both genders. The endings are:

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-a	-e
Genitive	-e	-arô
Accusative	-ô	-es

• Example: Rosa, rose, feminine

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	rosa	rose
Genitive	rose	rosarô
Accusative	rosô	roses

• Example: Êcola, inhabitant, masculine

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	êcola	êcole
Genitive	êcole	êcolarô
Accusative	êcolô	êcoles

Even if both genders share the same endings, nouns agree with adjectives, articles, pronouns and verbs according the real gender:

• Se bone poeta: the good poet
• Sa rosa pulcra: the beautiful rose

Second declension

The second declension has only masculine and neuter nouns. Each gender forms a different subgroup. There is also a -er subgroup:

Masculine subgroup

The endings for the masculine second declension are:

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-e	-yi
Genitive	-yi	-erô
Accusative	-ô	-es

• Example: Lupe, wolf

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	lupe	lupyi
Genitive	lupyi	luperô
Accusative	lupô	lupes

Neuter subgroup

The endings for the neuter second declension are:

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-ô	-a
Genitive	-yi	-erô
Accusative	-ô	-a

• Example: Pomô, apple

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pomô	poma
Genitive	pomyi	pomerô
Accusative	pomô	poma

-er subgroup

The -er subgroup contains only masculine nouns whose nominative singular form ends with -er. They add the usual second declension endings in other cases, losing the -e:

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-	-yi
Genitive	-yi	-erô
Accusative	-ô	-es

• Example: Ager, field

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ager	agryi
Genitive	agryi	agrerô
Accusative	agrô	agres

Fourth declension

The fourth declension has masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. There are two subgroups the -e subgroup and the -o subgroup.

-e subgroup

The -e subgroup contains both masculine and feminine nouns. Most nouns are masculine (more than 95 %), but the few feminine nouns are very used. These are the endings.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-e	-os
Genitive	-os	-wô
Accusative	-ô	-os

• Example: Pase, step, masculine

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pase	pasos
Genitive	pasos	paswô
Accusative	pasô	pasos

• Example: Dome, house, home, feminine

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	dome	domos
Genitive	domos	domwô
Accusative	domô	domos

-o subgroup

The -o subgroup contains only neuter nouns. These are the endings.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-o	-wa
Genitive	-os	-wô
Accusative	-o	-wa

• Example: Geno, knee

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	geno	genwa
Genitive	genos	genwô
Accusative	geno	genwa

Articles, Adjectives and Pronouns

Articles

Novelatine has a definite article, se. The western dialect has an indefinite article, the numeral une, while the eastern dialect usually uses no indefinite article. The article une declines as a normal first class adjective.

Definite article

The definite article se has an irregular declension:

	Singular			Plural
Case	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	se	sa	sô	syi	se	sa
Genitive	sies	sies	sies	syor	syar	syor
Accusative	sô	sô	sô	ses	ses	sa

The nominative singular masculine and neuter forms usually lose their vowel before another vowel and get an apostrophe, while the nominative neuter singular and all accusative singular forms become son before another vowel:

• S'agricola son agrô si col: the farmer cultivates his own field

In the eastern dialect the nominative plural masculine form, syi, gets shorter too:

• W: Syi agricole ses agres si col - E: Sy'agricole ses agres si col: the farmers cultivate their own fields