Novial
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| Novial | |
| Spoken in: | various countries |
| Timeline/Universe: | international auxiliary language |
| Total speakers: | ca. 1000 |
| Genealogical classification: | a posteriori
|
| Basic word order: | SVO |
| Morphological type: | agglutinating > isolating |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | accusative |
| Created by: | |
| Otto Jespersen | 1928 |
Novial is an international auxiliary language designed by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, published in 1928. Novial is thus the only major auxlang designed by an academic linguist. It is a moderately naturalistic a posteriori language based on the major languages of Europe, mainly the Romance languages.
Novial never had a large speaker base, but a small international community exists.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | p b | t d | tʃ~ʃ dʒ~ʒ | k g | |
| Fricatives | f v | s~z | h | ||
| Nasals | m | n | |||
| Liquids and Semivowel | l r | j |
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
Morphology
The grammar of Novial largely follows Standard Average European patterns. Nouns are inflected only for plural (suffix -s, -es after consonant). Nouns denoting males end in -o, nouns denoting females end in -a, nouns denoting beings of either sex end in -e.
The definite article is an indeclinable li. The personal pronouns are:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | me | nus |
| 2nd person | vu | vus |
| 3rd person, masculine | lo | los |
| 3rd person, feminine | la | las |
| 3rd person, common | le | les |
| 3rd person, neuter | lu | lus |
| Impersonal | on | |
Verbs form tenses with auxiliary verbs:
| Tense | Auxiliary |
|---|---|
| Past | did |
| Future | sal |
| Conditional | vud |
| Perfect | ha |
The past tense can also be expressed by a suffix -(e)d.
There are two passives. The "become" passive is formed by the auxiliary bli and the uninflected verb. The "be" passive is formed by the auxiliary es and the past participle (suffix -(e)t.
External link
- Novial-Informatione by James Chandler, in Novial and English.
| This article is part of a series on International Auxiliary Languages. Romance-based Auxlangs: Aercant * Atlango * Interlingua * Latin Nov * Novial * Occidental (Interlingue) * Panroman * Romanal |
