Van Narvadæsi Primer
I'm trying to light a fire under my ass to work on Van Narvadæsi a bit more (I have a little over three months to meet my "v0.2.0 in six months" goal), and I have become unhappy with the way my working document is looking, so I decided to start fresh (kinda) and write a quick and dirty primer on the language with the very basics that have been nailed down. I've tried to make this as plain as possible, it's definitely not exhaustive, and the formatting may be a little janky with some of the lists (all this was done using LJ's "visual editor"), but all the basic info is there from sounds to simple sentence construction. Also, this was done quickly and a lot by memory alone, so there may be errors. As I said: quick and dirty. I'm hiding it behind a cut to reduce clutter as it is a bit long.
Phonology:
Most consonants are very similar to those in English: t, d, k, g, s, š(sh), v, č(ch), j, l, m, n
There are two different main "R sounds" in Van Narvadæsi. The first is the "initial R" romanized with a dot over it - Ṙ / ṙ. This is a "tapped R" similar in many ways to the Japanese R, and occurs at the beginning of a syllable. The second is the "final R" which occurs at the end of a syllable and is much more similar to an English R. There is also the "tr", which is the consonant T followed by a short alveolar trill or "rolled R."
Double consonants such as in anna (people) are drawn out. Compare in English "pen knife" (drawn out) with "penny" (not drawn out). In some locations, some double consonants have altered sounds, such as a palatized N (kinda like the Spanish Ñ) for a double N and a trilled double R, but these are not standard (even if they are becoming more and more prevalent in the city of Altræa itself).
Compared to English, the Altræali vowels are very simple. They only have one version (no "long" or "short" vowels here).
a - "ah" as in bra
e - "eh" as in etch
i - "ee" as in seed
o - "oh" as in code
u - "oo" as in food
There is also the single diphthong æ, generally pronounced like the "ay" in day.
Lip movement for both vowels and consonants is very minimal and none of the vowels are rounded.
Stress is place on the next-to-last syllable always. Unstressed syllables retain their clear vowel sounds. Stressed and unstressed syllables take up the same amount of time, so don't spend too long on stressed syllables.
EX: kania is pronounced ka-NEE-ah
Derivational Morphology:
-no and -na (masculine and feminine) names a person who does an action or is related to the noun.
EX: ama -> amano šamas -> šamasna
art artist heal healer
-mu and -mi are masculine and feminine diminutives.
EX: eta -> etami davi -> davimu
female girl father dad
-li forms adjectives.
EX: kania -> kaniali lonis -> lonisli
mother motherly hunger hungry
oš- is an augmentative.
EX: evantoli -> oševantoli
sunny very sunny
-vi defines a period of time related to the root (from the word mavi meaning "time").
EX: ila -> ilavi avanso -> avansovi
moon night attack battle
ez- expresses negation.
EX: avansoli -> ezavansoli
martial peaceful
Nouns and Noun Phrases:
The only major inflection for nouns is the plural form. To create the plural form, first change any ending a to æ and add the suffix -si.
EX: narvada → narvadæsi
word words
Noun phrases require an article, demonstrative or pronoun. Each of these categories are split into ERGATIVE and ABSOLUTIVE form. These are the two basic noun cases, which work differently than English's NOMINATIVE and ACCUSATIVE cases. Subjects of intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs use the ABSOLUTIVE case while subjects of transitive verbs take the ERGATIVE case.
The first person plural pronouns have an inclusive and exclusive forms. These denote if the speaker is including the person being spoken to (inclusive) or not (exclusive). Third person pronouns are divided by sex as in English. (Van Narvadæsi has no grammatical gender.)
Personal Pronouns:
Absolutive Case Singular Plural Ergative Case Singular Plural
1st Inclusive ans annsi 1st Inclusive ano anosi
Exclusive anæsi Exclusive anisi
2nd ins innsi 2nd ino inosi
3rd Masculine ers ersi 3rd Masculine eṙo eṙosi
Feminine ars arsi Feminine aṙo aṙosi
Neuter irs irsi Neuter iṙo iṙosi
Articles and Demonstratives Absolutive Ergative
Articles Definite (the) ons ono
Indefinite (a/an) its ito
Demons. Proximal (this) evs evo
Medial (that, close) avs avo
Distal (that, far) igs igo
Verb phrases begin with the pronoun, article or demonstrative. In very formal speech, proper nouns require a pronoun (denoting the case), but this is usually omitted in normal conversation and correspondence.
EX: ons soṙa its soṙa its soṙæsi
the cat a cat some cats
Possession is denoted by the possessive particle e. Alternatively, one can use the genitive particle na (which is usually translated as "of") or by using an adjective. Generally, which form is used is determined by the focus of the noun phrase. The adjective form is often considered impolite or improper by Altræali high society.
EX: ans e narvadæsi narvadæsi na ans narvadæsi ansli
my words words of mine my words
If there are modifiers such as adjectives or a possessive noun, they come after the noun.
EX: ons soṙa vatoli ons soṙa e kania ons soṙa vatoli e kania
the black cat the cat's mother the black cat's mother
Noun compounds are also often used. In these cases, the modifying part comes before the root. A combination of compound and adjective to put the focus on different qualities of the noun.
EX: ons vatosoṙa ons vatosoṙa unzoli ons unzosoṙa vatoli
the black cat the old black cat the black old cat
Van Narvadæsi has a class of particles called postpositions that function much like English's prepositions, though they are placed at the end of of a noun phrase (hense postpositions).
Some of these postpositions:
ešt - to/towards
ezešt - from/away
iz - before
eziz - after
tir - by means of
etir - without the means of
doza - into
edoza - out of
nas - in front of
tot - behind
mus - at/on
Verbs and Verb Phrases:
There is no inflection for verbs. Instead, they use verb particles to denote tense, aspect and mood. The order is: tense verb mood aspect.
Tense Particles Mood Particles
Far past: ajis Subjunctive: teše
Near past (today/tonight): avin Potential: tumo
Yesterday: evan Dubative: tuto
Last night: ilin Imperative: traka
Present: em Aspect Particles
Immediate future: imi Progressive: vol
Near future: ala Perfect: vet
Far future: ijis Habitual: var
Tense denotes when the action is happening, but there is more granularity than English's simple past/present/future.
Progressive aspect denotes something that is ongoing, perfect is something that has been done or completed, and habitual is something that is recurring.
Moods are a little more difficult to explain. Subjunctive mood is for things which may or may not be real, things which English uses the modal verbs like should, may, might, etc. Potential mood conveys that the speaker believes it to be true, to have happened, or will happen. Dubative is the opposite of potential. Imperative is used for commands. [Note: Verbal moods are still very much in flux,]
Syntax:
The only hard rule with word order in a sentence is that the verb phrase comes last, but in formal speech, letter writing, et cetera, the accepted parameter order is Object-Subject-Verb (contrasted to English's Subject-Verb-Object). In common speech and less formal settings, the order can be changed to SOV. Parts of a sentence are often omitted if that information can be inferred. This omission is very common.
Putting it all together:
Let's translate some sentences. We'll begin with a simple sentence: "Jaime writes." First, let's "Altræa-ize" that name: Jæmi. Technically, there is no capitalization in the written forms of Van Narvadæsi, but for this romanization, we'll use capital letters. Now let's take a look at the sentence itself. It has a subject and verb. The verb is intransitive (no direct object), so the subject will be in the ABSOLUTIVE case. The verb is also in the present tense, so it will use the particle em.
In casual speech, we could say:
Jæmi em issir.
Jaime writes.
In formal speech, we would say:
Ers Jæmi em issir.
He, Jaime, writes.
If it has already been established that we are talking about Jaime, we can simply say:
Em issir.
[He] writes.
If we want to say that Jaime is currently writing, we would use the progressive aspect of the verb.
Em issir vol.
[He] is writing.
Second, a slightly more complex sentence: "Jaime is writing a note." Here we have a direct object, making the verb transitive. Jaime is now the subject of a transitive verb, and thus will take the ERGATIVE case. The direct object (a note) takes the ABSOLUTIVE case on the indefinite article. The word for note is sio, therefore we can say:
Its sio ero Jæmi em issir vol. - The full, formal sentence using the standard Object-Subject-Verb order.
Its sio Jæmi em issir vol. - Less formal without the pronoun with the proper noun.
Jæmi its sio em issir vol. - Here Jaime is fronted in the sentence, bringing the focus to him. If, for example, we were already talking about a note and wanted to mention who was currently writing it, this would probably be what we would say.
Third, let's introduce a postpositional phrase. "Jaime is writing a note in the White Book." Just as before, Jaime is the subject of a transitive verb (so, ERGATIVE case), the other noun phrases are in the ABSOLUTIVE case. Because the White Book is the name of the book, we will translate it using a compound noun instead of an adjective. The word for white is tanis, the word for book is gamin. Therefore:
Ons Tanisgamin doza its sio eṙo Jæmi em issir vol. -Without omissions.
Ons Tanisgamin doza em issir vol. - With omissions.
For the sake of example, if we were simply talking about a book that was white, we would say:
Ons gamin tanisli doza its sio eṙo Jæmi em issir vol.