Nauradi

Nauradi is a language isolate spoken in the Nauradi Republic of Eastern Europe. It is written in the Latin alphabet but as the republic was once part of the Soviet Union, it was also written in Cyrillic. As the Nauradi people wish to distance themselves from the Soviet era, Latin is the sole alphabet recognized by the Nauradi Language Institute and the Nauradi government.

Nauradi Verbs

Nauradi has no tenses and conveys all meaning based on aspect and mood. One must rely solely on the context to determine when the action takes place. Accordingly, Nauradi verbs have a wide variety of subtle nuances in meaning.

Aspect

Pefective: Perfective verbs are used to express an action that takes place and ends at one particular point in time. They indicate the finality of the process. Perfective is formed by a prefix to the imperfective verb, by ablaut or a combination of both. If the context does not indicate time, the speaker of Nauradi would understand that the action takes place at the time of speaking.

Imperfective: The imperfective aspect is used to describe an action that covers an unspecified time. It indicates the durative, continuous, or unstarted nature of the process. The imperfective verb is the “dictionary form” of the word. As with the perfective, if the context does not indicate time, the speaker of Nauradi would understand that the action takes place at the time of speaking.

Mood

Realis: This is used for statements of fact, certainty or reality.

Irrealis: Irrealis covers a broad spectrum of meanings that cannot be assigned to the realm of real time. This mood is used to express statements of uncertainty or conditionality.

Participles

Participles exist for all inflections of the verb and are formed by adding the participle suffix. They can be used as nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

Nauradi Verbs Used in Sentences

Declaratives

Realis Perfective: Actions that are complete or perceived as such. “I went to school last week.” “I’m fixing the car for the last time.” “Tomorrow I will get up at 7:00”

Realis Imperfective: Actions that do not show an actual start or end but still represent statements of reality. “I’m walking to the store at this moment.” “I will buy a house.” “I used to live in New York.”

Commands

Any of the four verb inflections can be used as a command. They are most commonly expressed in the irrealis. Irrealis pefective: used as a direct command or order Irrealis imperfective: used as suggestion. Can often be translated with “perhaps.” Also used in intimate settings to ask someone to do something (“Kiss me”)

If expressed in the realis form, the command would convey a stronger sense, with realis perfective being the stongest sense.

Queries

Queries can be made in either realis or irrealis, and would most commonly appear as realis perfective (where the answer is already known) or irrealis imperfective (where the answer is unknown).