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Novial

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Novial [nov-, new + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed language devised by Professor Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist who had previously been involved in the Ido movement. He devised Novial to be an international auxiliary language (IAL), which would facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyone's native language.

It features a vocabulary based largely on the Germanic and Romance languages, and a grammar heavily influenced by English.

The first introduction of Novial was in Jespersen's book An International Language in 1928, with an update in his dictionary, Novial Lexike, published two years later. Further modifications were proposed in the 1930s, but with Jespersen's death in 1943, it became dormant, although in the 1990s, with the revival of interest in artificial language brought on by the Internet, many people rediscovered Novial.

Contents

An International Language

Novial was first described in Jespersen’s book An International Language (1928). Part One of the book discusses the need for an IAL, the disadvantages of ethnic languages for that purpose and common objections to constructed IALs. He also provides a critical overview of the history of constructed IALs with sections devoted to Volapük, Esperanto, Idiom Neutral, Ido, Latino sine Flexione and Occidental (Interlingue). The author makes it clear that he draws on a wealth of earlier work on the problem of a constructed IAL, not only the aforementioned IALs.

Part Two of An International Language describes Novial in detail. Alternative possible solutions for problems in the phonology, orthography, grammar and word-stock are considered. The choices made are explained by comparison with ethnic languages and previously constructed IALs.

Pronunciation

See the [Pronunciation Guide] of the Novial Wikibook.

Grammar

Personal pronouns, subject and object

The personal pronouns are:

The impersonal pronoun ”one, they, you” is on.

The standard word order is, as in English, subject-verb-object, so the object need not be marked to distinguish it from the subject:

The accusative (direct object) is therefore generally identical to the nominative (subject).

An optional accusative ending -m (-em after a consonant) is available but is rarely used. The preposition em is equivalent to this ending.

The personal possessive adjectives are formed from the pronouns by adding -n or after a consonant -en. This is in fact the genitive (possessive) of the pronoun so men means both my and mine (of me):

Possession may also be expressed with the pronoun de: de me, de vu etc.

Verbs

Verb forms never change with person or number. Most verb tenses, moods and voices are expressed with auxiliary verbs preceding the root form of the main verb. The auxiliaries follow the same word order as the English equivalent.

Novial clearly distinguishes the passive of becoming and the passive of being. In English the forms are often the same, using the auxiliary verb to be followed by the past participle. However, the passive of becoming is also often expessed with the verb to get which is used in the examples below.

In Novial the passive voice of becoming is formed with the auxiliary bli followed by the root verb form.

The passive voice of being is formed with the auxiliary es followed by the past passive participle.

Articles

The definite article is li which is invariant. It is used as in English.

There is no indefinite article.

Nouns

The plural noun is formed by adding –s to the singular (-es after a consonant).

The accusative case is generally identical to the nominative but can optionally be marked with the ending -m (pl. -sem) (-em after a consonant; pl. -esem) or with the preposition em.

The genitive is formed with the preposition de or with the ending -n (-en after a consonant). The plural of this case is -sen (-esen after a consonant).

Other cases are formed with prepositions preceding the root form.

Adjectives

All adjectives end in -i which may be dropped if easy to pronounce. Adjectives generally precede the noun qualified but optionally may follow the noun. Adjectives do not agree with the noun qualified.

Adverbs

An adjective is converted to a corresponding adverb by adding -m after the -i ending of the adjective.

Vocabulary

Affixes

See the [Table of Prefixes] and [Table of Suffixes] at the Novial Wikibook.

Novial compared to Esperanto and Ido

Jespersen was a professional linguist, unlike Esperanto's creator. He disliked the arbitrary and artificial character that he found in Esperanto and Ido. Additionally, he objected to those languages' Latin-like systems of inflection, which he found needlessly complex. He sought to make Novial at once euphonious and regular while also preserving useful structures from natural languages.

In Novial:

The most striking difference between Novial and Esperanto/Ido concerns noun endings. Jespersen rejected a single vowel to terminate all nouns (-o in Esperanto/Ido), finding it unnatural and potentially confusing. Instead, Novial nouns may end in -o, -a, -e, or -um. These endings may be taken to indicate natural sex according to the custom in Romance languages. Of course there is no grammatical gender or requirement for adjectives to agree with nouns.

Sample text (The Lord's Prayer)

Nusen Patro kel es in siele,
mey vun nome bli sanktifika,
mey vun regno veni,
mey vun volio eventa sur tere kom in siele.
Dona a nus disidi li omnidiali pane,
e pardona a nus nusen ofensos
kom anke nus pardona a nusen ofensantes,
e non dukte nus en li tento
ma fika nus liberi fro li malum.

See also

External links

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