Romavian

Romavian is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula and it is only spoken in Keltsvia, where it is a co-official language in the region of Romavia along with Keltsvian. Within the Indo-European macrofamily, Romavian language is derived from the following branches: Indo-European > Italic > Romance > Western Romance > Ibero-Romance > West Iberian > Romavian. Sharing most of its characteristics with Spanish, Portuguese and Astur-Leonese but it continued evolving far from other Romance language from the end of the 15th century. It received most of its vocabulary from Latin, and it also has some Germanic and Arabic influence and after the migration of its speakers towards Eastern Europe it started to receive also some Slavic influence.

General information
Romavian is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Romavian come from mid-north-western Iberia in the 10th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Eastern Europe at the end of the 15th century, where arrived after the Second Keltsvian migration or the Romavian migration.

Along with Spanish, Romavian vocabulary has been in contact with Arabic from an early date, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula and having an important percentage of its vocabulary with an Arabic lexical root. Romavian has a strong influence from other Romance languages in Western Iberia like Spanish, Portuguese, Galician and Astur-Leonese. Due to the migration of its speakers to Eastern Europe, the language also received influence from Keltsvian and from Slavic languages as Russian or Polish.

Romavian has co-official status in the Keltsvian region of Romavia along with Keltsvian.

Names of the language and etymology
Today in Keltsvia and internationally the language is known as Romavian (the autoglotonym is romàvica or lìngua romaviana), but the language received different names during its history.

The name of the language came after the name of its speakers and the Romavians were known as "Romance-speaking Keltsvians", that expression lately evolved to Romavians. During the Roman domination of the Iberian Peninsula, the Keltsvian people was divided into two groups: the first one was the warrior class who kept the Old Keltsvian as their language and the second group was the aristocrats who were more assimilated to the Roman culture, even speaking their language. That adopted language was a version of Vulgar Latin who became the Romavian language with time. The Romans knew the language as lingua optimatium Caeltsvianorum, roughly translated as "better language of the Keltsvians".

After the fall of Roman Western Empire and the awakening of Vulgar Language varities is when the language had for the first time its current name, Romavian. After 1492, the Catholic Monarchs expelled the Romavians who refused to adopt Christianity (they still worshipped ancient Keltsvian elemental gods). Romavian language disappeared from its place of origin then and its speakers went to meet with the other Keltsvians who migrated around a thousand years before and arrived to Eastern Europe.

When the other Romance-speaking Keltsvians met with the other Keltsvians, its language was known as Latin or Roman by the other Keltsvians and Latin Keltsvian by the Russian, Poles and the other Eastern European peoples. It was not until the first Russian scholars from the Russian Empire studied the language that this recovered its current name, in the 19th century.

Evolution
The development of the Romavian sound system is kind of conservative compared to other Ibero-Romance languages. The original Latin vowels, in this aspect the language would be closer to Sardinian. Romavian is a stress-timed language, so stressed syllables are slightly longer than the others, but there are also some long vowels represented by a duplicity of vowels, like in Finnish.

The Romance languages are written with the classical Latin alphabet of 23 letters – A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Y, Z – subsequently modified and augmented in various ways. In particular, the single Latin letter V split into V (consonant) and U (vowel), and the letter I split into I and J. The Latin letter K and the new letter W, which came to be widely used in Germanic languages, are seldom used in most Romance languages – mostly for unassimilated foreign names and words. Indeed, in Italian prose kilometro is properly chilometro. Romavian and Catalan eschews importation of "foreign" letters more than most languages.

The letters used in Romavian language are A, B, C, Ç, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, Ň, O, P, Q, R, S, Š, T, U, V, X and Y. W and Z are only used for loanwords. This language retained from Latin the long vowels, represented graphically with a macron: Ā, Ē, Ī, Ō and Ū.

Spelling of results of palatalization and related sounds
Regarding palatalization, Romavian language followed the same evolution as Portuguese, but the spelling of Romavian is very different and it would not be intuitive for the natives of other Romance languages how to pronounce Romavian words in some cases.

Selected list of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin words
In the following table we can observe the evolutionary trends of Romavian language from its origin Latin and Vulgar latin. Some characteristics are: Romavian language experimented many changes from its origin in Latin, most of them regarding the consonants /b/, /d/, /g/, /p/, /t/ and /k/:
 * Between vowels:
 * /d/ and /t/ are dropped, even in spelling. The Latin tōtus evolved to the Romavian tou ("all").
 * cl becomes y:
 * The Vulgar Latin oricla evolved to the Romavian oriya ("ear").
 * /b/ and /g/ are strengthened, becoming /p/ and /k/. Examples:
 * The Latin rogāre evolved to the Romavian rocar ("to beg").
 * The contact with /l/, /m/, /n/ and /r/ weakens /p/, /t/ and /k/, becoming /b/, /d/ and /g/ (excluding tl, it is not an accepted consonant cluster). Examples:
 * The Latin pulcher evolved to the Romavian pulgru ("neat").
 * The Latin altārium evolved to the Romavian aldàr ("altar").
 * The Latin interrogāre evolved to the Romavian inderrocar ("to interrogate").
 * The Latin comparāre evolved to the Romavian combrar ("to buy, to compare").
 * The Latin charta evolved to the Romavian carda ("map, letter, card").
 * The contact with /s/ weakens /p/, /t/ and /k/ becoming /b/, /d/ and /g/, respectively. For example:
 * The Latin spathae evolved to the Romavian esbà ("sword").
 * The Latin rōstrum evolved to the Romavian rosdru ("face").
 * Simplification of diphthongs:
 * The Latin caseus evolved to the Romavian casu ("cheese").
 * The Latin iānua ("door") evolved to the Romavian iana ("window").
 * Simplification of triphthongs:
 * The Latin quaerere ("to seek") evolved to the Romavian kerer ("to ant") [Note that a is not pronounced in the Romavian, in this case ca is a digraph representing the phoneme /k/.
 * Simplification of double consonants (exceptions: ff becomes p, nn becomes gn):
 * The Gaulish Vulgar Latin beccus evolved to the Romavian becu ("beck").
 * The Latin bellus evolved to the Romavian beyu ("handsome").
 * The Latin passer evolved to the Romavian pàsaru ("bird").
 * Infinitives lost their ending -e.
 * Words with -er ending change their ending to -ru:
 * The Latin pulcher evolved to the Romavian pulgru ("neat").
 * The Latin passer evolved to the Romavian pàsaru ("bird").
 * Words with -is ending change their ending to -e:
 * The Latin grandis evolved to the Romavian grande ("big").
 * The Latin avis evolved to the Romavian ave ("bird").
 * Words ending with -ce or -x change their ending to -ç:
 * The Latin rapace evolved to the Romavian rapàç ("lad").
 * ti + a become ça:
 * The Latin cominitiāre evolved to the Romavian cominçar ("to begin").
 * Reduction in the number of syllables when there are many syllables carrying the same vowel and when the Latin word has its stress in the antepenultimate syllable (in this case the vowel in the penultimate syllable is dropped):
 * The Latin cominitiāre lost two syllables when it evolved to the Romavian cominçar.
 * The Latin ungula lost having the stress in the antepenultimate syllable, dropped the vowel of the penultimate syllable, resulting in ungla ("nail").
 * Consonant clusters ct, nct and pt become bd, in a similar way, sc becomes sg and st becomes sd:
 * The Latin lūcta evolved to the Romavian lubda ("fight").
 * The Latin accaptāre evolved to the Romavian acabdar ("to respect [a rule]").
 * The Latin escribere evolved to the Romavian esgripir ("to write").
 * Initial fl and pl become bl, as in the Latin flūmen evolving to the Romavian blume ("river"). In a similar way, initial pr becomes br but this is already regarded by the rule of the contact with /r/.All these rules are made compatible with each other, for example:
 * The Latin sufflāre became the Romavian sublar ("to blow"). In this case the following rules were applied:
 * ff becomes p: from sufflāre we would obtain suplāre.
 * Infinitives lost their ending: from suplāre we would obtain suplār.
 * Romavian spelling has no long vowel letters: from suplār, we would obtain suplar.
 * Contact with /l/ weakens /p/ becoming /b/: from suplar we then obtain the actual Romavian word sublar.

Grammar
Most of the grammatical and typological features of Romavian are shared with the other Romance languages. Romavian is a fusional language. The noun and adjective systems exhibit two genders and two numbers. In addition, articles and some pronouns and determiners have a neuter gender in their singular form. There are 3 tenses: past, present, future; 2 aspects for past: perfective, imperfective; 4 moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative; 3 persons: first, second, third; 2 numbers: singular, plural; 3 verboid forms: infinitive, gerund, and past participle. Verbs express T-V distinction by using different persons for formal and informal addresses.

Romavian syntax is considered right-branching, meaning that subordinate or modifying constituents tend to be placed after their head words. The language uses prepositions (rather than postpositions or inflection of nouns for case), and usually —though not always— places adjectives after nouns, as do most other Romance languages.

The language is classified as a subject–verb–object language; however, as in most Romance languages, constituent order is highly variable and governed mainly by topicalization and focus rather than by syntax. It is a "pro-drop", or "null-subject" language —that is, it allows the deletion of subject pronouns when they are pragmatically unnecessary. Romavian is described as a "verb-framed" language, meaning that the direction of motion is expressed in the verb while the mode of locomotion is expressed adverbially (e.g. supir correndu or salir volandu; the respective English equivalents of these examples —'to run up' and 'to fly out'— show that English is, by contrast, "satellite-framed", with mode of locomotion expressed in the verb and direction in an adverbial modifier).

Subject/verb inversion is not required in questions, and thus the recognition of declarative or interrogative may depend entirely on intonation.

Verbs
As in Spanish, every Romavian verb belongs to one of three form classes, characterized by the infinitive ending: -ar, -er, or -ir —they are known as called the first, second, and third conjugation groups, respectively.

A Romavian verb has nine indicative tenses with more-or-less direct English equivalents: the present tense ('I walk'), the preterite ('I walked'), the imperfect ('I was walking' or 'I used to walk'), the present perfect ('I have walked'), the past perfect — also called the pluperfect ('I had walked'), the future ('I will walk'), the future perfect ('I will have walked'), the conditional simple ('I would walk') and the conditional perfect ('I would have walked').

Each tense has six potential forms, varying for first, second, or third person and for singular or plural number. In the second person, Romavian maintains the so-called "T–V distinction" between familiar and formal modes of address. The formal second-person pronouns (vosè, vosē's) take third-person verb forms.

The characteristic that makes Romavian language unique amongst the other Romance language is the inexistence of irregular verbs, some linguists believe that this simplification is due to the contact with Keltsvian but this is still discussed.

Person and number
Romavian verbs are conjugated in three persons, each having a singular and a plural form. Because Romavian is a "pro-drop language", subject pronouns are often omitted.

First person
The grammatical first person refers to the speaker ("I"). The first person plural refers to the speaker together with at least one other person.
 * (Eo) só: "I am"
 * (Nós) semo: "We are"

Second person
The grammatical second person refers to the addressee, the receiver of the communication ("you"). Romavian has different pronouns (and verb forms) for "you," depending on the relationship, familiar or formal, between speaker and addressee.
 * (Tu) ses: "You are"; familiar singular, used when addressing someone who is of close affinity (a member of the family, a close friend, a child, a pet). Also the form used to address the deity.
 * (Vosè) sé: "You are"; formal singular; used when addressing a person respectfully, someone older, someone not known to the speaker, or someone of some social distance. Although it is a second-person pronoun, it uses third-person verb forms (and object pronouns and possessives) because it developed as a contraction of vosa mersè (literally, "your mercy" or "your grace").
 * (Vós) sei: "You (all) are"; familiar plural; used when addressing people who are of close affinity (members of the family, friends, children, pets).
 * (Vosēs) sen: "You (all) are"; formal plural where vosotros is used; both familiar and formal plural elsewhere. Where it is strictly formal, used when addressing people respectfully or addressing people of some social distance. Like vosè, it uses third-person verb forms, for the same reasons.

Third person
The grammatical third person refers to a person or thing other than the speaker or the addressee.
 * El sé: "He/it is"; used for a male person or a thing of masculine (grammatical) gender.
 * Ela sé: "She/it is"; used for a female person or a thing of feminine (grammatical) gender.
 * Elu sé: "It is"; used to refer to neuter nouns such as facts, ideas, situations, and sets of things; rarely used as an explicit subject.
 * Ēs sen: "They are"; used for a group of people or things that includes at least one person or thing of masculine (grammatical) gender.
 * Elas sen: "They are"; used for a group of people or things that are all of feminine (grammatical) gender.

Mood
Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive forms that are used to signal modality. In Romavian, every verb has forms in three moods.
 * Indicative mood: The indicative mood, or evidential mood, is used for factual statements and positive beliefs. The Romavian conditional, although semantically expressing the dependency of one action or proposition on another, is generally considered a tense of the indicative mood, because, syntactically, it can appear in an independent clause.
 * Subjunctive mood: The subjunctive mood expresses an imagined or desired action in the past, present, or future.
 * Imperative mood: The imperative mood expresses direct commands, requests, and prohibitions. In Romavian, using the imperative mood may sound blunt or even rude, so it is often used with care.

Tense
The tense of a verb indicates the time when the action occurs. It may be in the past, present, or future.

Impersonal forms
Impersonal or non-finite verb forms refer to an action or state without indicating the time or person. Romavian has three impersonal forms: the infinitive, the gerund, and the past participle.

Infinitive
The infinitive is generally the form found in dictionaries. It corresponds to the English "base-form" or "dictionary form" and is usually indicated in English by "to _____" ("to sing," "to write," etc.). The ending of the infinitive is the basis of the names given in English to the three classes of Romavian verbs:
 * "-ar" verbs (brimu grupu ["first group"]). Examples: fablar ("to speak"), candar ("to sing"), dançar ("to dance").
 * "-er" verbs (secundu grupu ["second group"]). Examples: beper ("to drink"), leker ("to read"), combrender ("to understand").
 * "-ir" verbs (terçu grupu ["third group"]). Examples: vivir ("to live"), sendir ("to feel"), esgripir ("to write").

Gerund
Although in English grammar the gerund refers to the -ing form of the verb used as a noun, in Romavian the term refers to a verb form that behaves more like an adverb. It is created by adding the following endings to the stem of the verb (i.e. the infinitive without the last two letters):
 * -ar verbs: -andu. Examples: fablandu ("speaking"), candandu ("singing"), dançandu ("dancing").
 * -er verbs: -endu. Examples: bependu ("drinking"), lekendu ("reading"), combrendendu ("understanding").
 * -ir verbs: -indu. Examples: vivindu ("living"), sendindu ("feeling"), esgripindu ("writing").

The gerund has a variety of uses and can mean (with fasendu, for example) "doing/while doing/by doing/because of one's doing/through doing" and so on. It is also used to form progressive constructions, such as esdo fasendu ("I am doing"). The gerund cannot be used as an adjective and, unlike in most European languages. The now-mostly archaic present participle, which ended in -ande, -ende or -inde today fills this function, surviving as an adjective (e.g. dorminde ["sleeping"], inderesande ["interesting"]).

Past participle
The past participle corresponds to the English -en or -ed form of the verb. It is created by adding the following endings to the verb stem:
 * -ar verbs: -au. Examples: fablau ("spoken"), candau ("sung"), dançau ("danced").
 * -er verbs: -eu. Examples: bepeu ("drunk"), lekeu ("read"), combrendeu ("understood").
 * -ir verbs: -iu. Examples: viviu ("lived"), sendiu ("felt"), esgripiu ("written").

The past participle, ending invariably in -o, is used following the auxiliary verb faper to form the compound or perfect: (Eo) fapo fablau ("I have spoken"); (Ees) fapian fablau ("They had spoken"); etc.

When the past participle is used as an adjective, it inflects for both gender and number – for example, una lìngua fablà na Europa ("a language spoken in Europe").

Voice
In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice. When the subject is the patient, target, or undergoer of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice.

Verbal aspect
Verbal aspect marks whether an action is completed (perfect), a completed whole (perfective), or not yet completed (imperfective).
 * Perfect: In Romavian, verbs that are conjugated with faper ("to have [done something]") are in the perfect aspect.
 * Perfective: In Romavian, verbs in the preterite are in the perfective aspect.
 * Imperfective: In Romavian, the present, imperfect, and future tenses are in the imperfective aspect.

Conjugation
In the examples the verbs dar ("to give"), ser (the two forms of verb "to be") and ir ("to go") will appear. Romavian language has no irregular verbs or forms but some verbs may use diacritical accent marks (´). Verb ir has no stem, so the conjugations can be misleading.

Indicative
The indicative mood has five simple tenses, each of which has a corresponding perfect form. In older classifications, the conditional tenses were considered part of an independent conditional mood. Continuous forms (such as esdo fablandu) are usually not considered part of the verbal paradigm, though they often appear in books addressed to English speakers who are learning Romavian. Modern grammatical studies count only the simple forms as tenses, and the other forms as products of tenses and aspects.

Simple tenses
Present

The present (bresende) tense is formed with the endings shown below:

Uses

The present is used to indicate the following: Maria fabla cun Ioàn pur telèfonu = "Mary is speaking with John on the telephone" Eo vivo in Brusela = "I live in Brussels" U museu exipe as obras de Picasso = "The museum is exhibiting works by Picasso" Maria é au cambu tous us sabdus = "Mary goes to the countryside every Saturday" Dos maes dos sen quadru = "Two plus two equals four" Us blaneas diiran nu derreòr du sol = "The planets revolve around the sun" Fernandu Macayanes desgubre as Filipinas nu 15u de marçu de 1521 = "Ferdinand Magellan discovers the Philippines on March 15th, 1521" Esde iuň'u, ambulo ā' Amerga = "This June, I am travelling to America" Acora es e pēs desgulbas au seňòr Roerikes! = "Now go and ask pardon from Mr. Rodericaes!"
 * Punctual present: This expresses an action that is being done at the very moment.
 * Continuous present or durative present: This expresses an action that is being done from the moment of speaking, extending into the past and future.
 * Habitual present: This expresses an action that is regularly and habitually being done.
 * Gnomic present: This expresses general truths that are not bounded by time.
 * Historical present: This expresses an action that happened in the past but is accepted as historical fact.
 * An inmediate future: This expresses an action that will be done in the very near future with a high degree of certainty.
 * Imperative value: The present can be used (with an exclamatory tone) with an imperative value.

Imperfect

The imperfect (pasau imberfebdu) is formed with the endings shown below:

Uses

The imperfect is used to express the following: Quandu sia š'icu, fablapa romàvica cuna mea ava = "When I was young, I spoke Romavian with my grandmother" Brendiam a ianda quandu indrò Edvardu = "We were having dinner when Edward came in" ''Tou esdaba drangilu esa nobde. Ioàn mirapa u iocu de vudbal cunu seu amicu Alexandru. Comian unas porçaes de pidsa.'' = "Everything was calm that night. John was watching the football match with his friend Alexander. They were eating some slices of pizza."
 * Habitual action in the past: This use expresses an action done habitually in an indefinite past. It does not focus on when the action ended.
 * An action interrupted by another action: This expresses an action that was in progress when another action took place.
 * General description of the past: This expresses a past setting, as, for example, the background for a narrative.

Preterite

The preterite (pasau indefiniu) is formed with the endings shown below:

Uses

The preterite is used to express the following: Aièr, ingondrè a blore que tu disde-me = "Yesterday, I found the flower that you gave me" Brendiam a ianda quandu indrò Edvardu = "We were having dinner when Edward came in" As Filipinas sero parde du Imberu Hisbanu = "The Philippines were part of the Spanish Empire"
 * An action that was done in the past: This use expresses an action that is viewed as a completed event. It is often accompanied by adverbial expressions of time, such as aièr ("yesterday"), andaièr ("the day before yesterday"), or a sebdimana pasà ("last week").
 * An action that interrupts another action: This expresses an event that happened (and was completed) while another action was taking place.
 * A general truth: This expresses a past relationship that is viewed as finished.

Future

The future (fūru simbel) tense uses the entire infinitive as a stem. The following endings are attached to it:

Uses

The future is used to express the following: U aň'u sequinde, visiarè Mosgova = "Next year, I shall/will visit Moscow" Quen esdarà glamandu ā'' porda? — Serà Andrei'' = "Who (do you suppose) is knocking at the door? — It must be Andrew". (An analogous use of the future tense occurs in English, as in "That'll be Andrew").''' Non blicaràs aese home ā mea casa = "Do not bring that man to my house" or, more accurately, "You will not bring that man to my house"; this form is also used to assert a command, prohibition, or obligation in English. The biblical Ten Commandments are commonly expressed in the future tense in Romavian (e.g. Non mabdaràs).''' Imbordarà-te insender a televiš'à? = "Would you mind turning on the television?"
 * A future action: This expresses an action that will be done in the future.
 * Uncertainty or probability: This expresses inference, rather than direct knowledge.
 * Command, prohibition or obligation:
 * Courtesy:

Another common way to represent future time is with a present indicative conjugation of ir, followed by an infinitive verb: Ó ambular' 'ā A'š'a na vera'' ("I'm going to travel to Asia in the summer"). The difference between the use of the two forms varies according to dialect, but the "ir + [infinitive]" construction tends to be more colloquial. Also, this construction —unlike the simple future form— is not used in the "probability" sense to express conjecture.'''

Compound tenses
All the compound tenses are formed with faper followed by the past participle of the main verb. Faper changes its form for person, number, and the like, while the past participle remains invariable, ending with -u regardless of the number or gender of the subject.

Present perfect

In the present perfect (bresende perfebdu), the present indicative of faper is used as an auxiliary, and it is followed by the past participle of the main verb. The tense has an additional use —to express a past action or event that is contained in a still-ongoing period of time or that has effects in the present:
 * Fapo-te disiu a mea opiň'à = "I have told you my opinion"
 * Esde mes fape bloveu muldu, mas hoi fase bon dia = "It has rained a lot this month, but today is a fine day"

Past perfect or pluperfect

In this tense (pasau perfebdu), the imperfect form of faper is used as a modal, and it is followed by the past participle of the main verb: Uses
 * (eo) fapia + past participle
 * (tu) fapias + past participle
 * (el/ela/elu/vosè) fapia + past participle
 * (nós) fapiam + past participle
 * (vós) fapìai + past participle
 * (ē's/elas/vosē's) fapian + past participle

The past perfect is used to express the following: Eo fapia esberau dres horas quandu el blicò = "I had waited for three hours when he arrived"
 * A past action that occurred prior to another past action:

Past anterior

The past anterior (pasau anderiòr) combines the preterite form of faper with the past participle of the main verb. It is very rare in spoken Romavian, but it is sometimes used in formal written language, where it is almost entirely limited to subordinate (temporal, adverbial) clauses. Thus, it is usually introduced by temporal conjunctions such as quandu. It is used to express an action that ended immediately before another past action: For example:
 * (eo) fapì + past participle
 * (tu) fapisde + past participle
 * (el/ela/elu/vosè) fapiò + past participle
 * (nós) fapemo + past participle
 * (vós) fapìsdei + past participle
 * ('ē's/elas/vos'ē's) fapero + past participle

It is often replaced by either the preterite or the pluperfect, with the same meaning:
 * Quandu fapero blicau tous, cominçò a seremoň'a = "When everyone had arrived, the ceremony began"
 * Quandu Maria fapiò terminau a cançà, u seu padre indrò = "As soon as Maria had finished the song, her father came in"
 * Quandu Maria terminò a cançà, u seu padre indrò
 * Quandu Maria fapia terminau a cançà, u seu padre indrò

Future perfect

The future perfect (fūru comboneu) is formed with the future indicative of faper followed by the past participle of the main verb: For example: It is used to indicate a future action that will be finished right before another action:
 * (eo) faperè + past participle
 * (tu) faperàs + past participle
 * (el/ela/elu/vosè) faperà + past participle
 * (nós) faperemo + past participle
 * (vós) faperei + past participle
 * ('ē's/elas/vos'ē's) faperàn + past participle
 * Faperè fablau = "I shall/will have spoken"
 * Quandu eo blike ā' fesda, faperàn-se iu tous = "When I get to the party, everyone will already have left"

Simple conditional
As with the future, the conditional (condišonàl) uses the entire infinitive as the stem. The following endings are attached to it: Uses

The conditional is used to express the following: Seň'òr, poeria dar-me una copa de vinu? = "Sir, could you give me a glass of wine?" Kereria vier u filme esda sebdimana = "I would like to see the film this week" Si eo sia ricu, ambularia ā' Amerga Merionàl = "If I were rich, I would travel to South America" ''Quandas personas asisdero 'ā' inaucuraçà du Bresidende? — Non sapo-u; faperia unas 5.000 = "How many people attended the President's inauguration? — I do not know; there must have been about 5,000") Quandu sia š'icu, pensapa que gusdaria-me ser mèicu = "When I was young, I thought that I would like to be a doctor" Eo que tu, obliaria-u combleamende'' = "If I were you, I would forget him completely"
 * Courtesy: Using this mood softens a request, making it more polite.
 * Polite expression of a desire (using caerer):
 * In a then clause whose realization depends on a hypothetical if clause:
 * Speculation about past events (the speaker's knowledge is indirect, unconfirmed, or approximating):
 * A future action in relation to the past: This expresses future action that was imagined in the past.
 * A suggestion:

Conditional perfect or compound conditional
The conditional perfect refers to a hypothetical past action.

For example:
 * Eo faperia fablau si faperian-me dau a oporduňà = "I would have spoken if they had given me the opportunity to"

Imperative
The imperative mood has three specific forms, corresponding to the pronouns tu and vós. These forms are used only in positive expressions, not negative ones. The subjunctive supplements the imperative in all other cases (negative expressions and the conjugations corresponding to the pronouns nós, el/ela, vosè, ees/elas, and vosees).

The imperative can also be expressed in three other ways:
 * Using the present or future indicative to form an emphatic command: Comeràs as hordalesas ("You will eat the vegetables")
 * The first person plural imperative ("Let's...") can also be expressed by Imo + infinitive: Imo comer!
 * Indirect commands with que: Que glame-u u segrearu ("Have the secretary call him")

Affirmative imperative
The positive form of the imperative (imberaivu posīvu) mood in regular verbs is formed by adding the following to the stem:

Negative imperative
For the negative imperative (imberaivu necaivu), the adverb non is placed before the verb, and the following endings are attached to the stem:

Emphasizing the subject

If one wishes to place emphasis on the subject of a command, it is placed after the verbal word:
 * Fase-u tu = "You do it"
 * Non disa-u vosè = "Don't you [polite] say it"

Subjuntive
The subjunctive mood has a separate conjugation table with fewer tenses. It is used, almost exclusively in subordinate clauses, to express the speaker's opinion or judgment, such as doubts, possibilities, emotions, and events that may or may not occur.

Simple tenses
Present subjunctive

The present subjunctive (bresende du supiundivu) of regular verbs is formed with the endings shown below: Imperfect subjunctive Future subjunctive

Compound tenses
In the subjunctive mood, the subjunctive forms of the verb faper are used with the past participle of the main verb.

Present perfect subjunctive Pluperfect subjunctive (blusguamberfebdu du subiundivu) Future perfect subjunctive (blusguamberfebdu du subiundivu)
 * Quandu eo fapa fablau... = "When I have spoken..."
 * Si eo fapira fablau... = "If I had spoken..."
 * Quandu eo fapire fablau... = "When I shall have spoken..."

Continuous tenses
In Romavian grammar, continuous tenses are not formally recognized as in English. Although the imperfect expresses a continuity compared to the perfect (e.g., esberapa-te ["I was waiting for you"]), the continuity of an action is usually expressed by a verbal periphrasis (perìfrasi verbàl), as in esdo lekendu ("I am reading"). However, one can also say sequo lekendu ("I am still reading"), ó lekendu ("I am slowly but surely reading"), ando lekendu ("I am going around reading"), and others.

"True" passive
The "true" passive is formed with ser + the past participle, which in this case behaves like a normal adjective. Thus:
 * Eo só amau = "I [masc.] am loved"
 * Tu sias amà = "You [fem.] were being loved"
 * Nós semo amaus = "We [masc.] will be loved"
 * Elas faperian seu amaes = "They [fem.] would have been loved"

The "true" passive is used in a variety of situations, but its use is somewhat more limited than that of its English counterpart.

"Se" passive
In the third person, reflexive constructions are often used to express ideas that could also be expressed in the passive. In such constructions, the recipient of the action is said to do the action to itself. Thus:
 * Fabla-se (na) romàvica = "Romavian is spoken" (lit. "Romavian speaks itself")
 * Diò-se-me u libru = "The book was given to me" (lit. "The book gave itself to me")
 * Perdero-se us daus = "The data were lost" (lit. "The data lost themselves")
 * Poe-se faser [elu] = "It can be done" (lit. "It can do itself")

The se passive is very common in the third person, but equivalent constructions cannot be used for the first and second persons: Eo amo-me always translates to "I love myself" and never "I am loved".

Nouns
The Romavian language has nouns that express concrete objects, groups and classes of objects, qualities, feelings and other abstractions. All nouns have a conventional grammatical gender. Countable nouns inflect for number, singular and plural.

Gender
All Romavian nouns have one of two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine (mostly conventional, that is, arbitrarily assigned). Most adjectives and pronouns, and all articles and participles, indicate the gender of the noun they reference or modify.

In a sentence like "Large tables are nicer", the Romavian equivalent, As mensas grandes sen maes formosas, must use words according to the gender of the noun. The noun, mensa ("table"), is feminine in Romavian. Therefore, the article must be feminine too, and so a instead of u, is required. However, mensas is plural here, so we need as rather than a. The two adjectives, whether next to the noun or after the verb, have to "agree" with the noun as well. Grande is a word which is invariable for gender, so it just takes a plural marker: grandes. Formosu is a word that can agree for both gender and number, so we say formosas to go with mensas. A student of Romavian must keep in mind all these features when making sentences.

Noun gender
In general, most nouns that end in -a, -çà and -š'à are feminine; the rest of the nouns, which usually end in -u or a consonant, are masculine.

Nouns can be grouped in the following categories:
 * Applied to persons and most domesticated animals:
 * Declinable nouns. The feminine form adds a or replaces the final vowel by a, e.g. u brofesòr/a brofesora, u minisdru/a minisdra, u can/a cana. Often, nouns that refer to positions that are traditionally held by men are declinable.
 * Invariant nouns (in Romavian, susdandivus de jenru comune). The feminine form and the masculine form are identical: u ardisda/a ardisda, u vendende/a vendende, u esduiande/a esduiande.
 * Nouns with a unique grammatical gender. The noun has a fixed gender, regardless of the sex of the person it describes: u rol, a visia.
 * Applied to wild and some domesticated animals:
 * Nouns where the two sexes of animals have different words to describe them: u tàuru/a vaca, u capayu/a equa.
 * Epicene nouns. The gender of the noun is fixed and sex is indicated by masglu ("male") or femna ("female"). Examples: a jirafa masglu, a jirafa femna, u rinoseronde masglu, u rinoseronde femna.
 * Applied to things:
 * Masculine, e.g. u pan.
 * Feminine, e.g. a mandeca.
 * Vacillant nouns (called susdandivus ambicū's in Romavian) accept either gender, e.g. lìmie ('boundary') and tesda ('animal's forehead'). Internet causes speakers to hesitate between making it masculine like other loanwords from English, or making it feminine to agree with re, 'net'. Meanwhile, açucar ('sugar') can be masculine with u or feminine with a. Romavian is predominantly a masculine-based language. As such, the determiner seems to go in the masculine in standard use: u, esde, ese, tandu, especially when referring to cases where gender is not specified. Mar ("sea") is normally masculine, but in poetry and sailors' speech it is feminine. Arde is masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural, though it can be feminine in the singular when it means "art-form" and masculine in the plural in the expression us ardes de pesga, "fishing gear".
 * There is a pattern with words with an initial stressed /a/ sound, such as aqua ("water"), that makes them seem ambiguous in gender, but they are not. Such words take the masculine article, both definite (u) and indefinite (un), in the singular form; they also take the singular modifiers alicū (instead of aliqua) and necùn (instead of necuna) when those modifiers precede the nouns. Similar words include u anma/un anma ("soul"), u ala/un ala ("wing"), u àquila/un àquila ("eagle"), and u ave/un ave ("bird"). Still they are feminine and, as such, they take feminine modifiers (except those cases previously mentioned) in both singular and plural forms, and they take feminine articles in the plural form as in as aquas frìjias.
 * Sometimes, two homonyms will differ in gender, e.g. u capiàl ("funds") and a capiàl ("capital city"); u cura ("the priest") and a cura ("the cure").

Determining gender from endings
Nouns ending in -u are masculine, with the notable exception of the word manu ("hand") and a few words. Reduced forms of longer words can be misleading but they alwayshave the same gender as the long word, as: f'ō ("photo") from fō'grafia, and m'ō ("motorcycle") from mōsiglea; -a is typically feminine, with notable exceptions; other vowels and consonants are more often than not masculine, but many are feminine, particularly those referring to women (a madre) or ending in -çà/š'à (a naçà, a televišà, a solià, a liberdà, a senebdia).

A small set of words of Greek origin and ending in -ma, -pa, or -ea (-eta in the original Greek) are masculine: problema ("problem"), lema ("lemma, motto"), tema ("theme, topic"), sisdema ("system"), telegrama ("telegram"), poea ("poet"), blanea ("planet"), etc.

Words ending in -isda referring to a person can generally be either gender: u ardisda, a ardisda, "the artist, the female artist". The same is true of words ending in -ande, -ende or -inde.

Words taken from foreign languages may:
 * take the gender they have in that language, with neuter or no gender taken to be the same as masculine (so English nouns are made masculine).
 * take the gender it seems to be (e.g. a Coca-Cola because it ends in -a).
 * take the gender of the closest-related Romavian word (e.g. a Guinness because of a serveça or a birra).

Names of people
People's names agree with the sex of the person, even if they appear to be the opposite:
 * Maia sé formosu.
 * Ambaru sé formosa.

Names of settlements
Usage for places varies. You can choose between making them: With examples like New York, the Nova is a fixed part of the name and so cannot be made masculine, but New Mexico is translated as Novu Mèxicu and considered masculine, since Mèxicu is a masculine noun.
 * Feminine if they end in -a, otherwise masculine:
 * A Barselona de Gaudí.
 * U Parìs de Monet.
 * Agree with the underlying noun u poblu or a sivià
 * Nova Iorke (city)
 * a andiqua Cardaco (city)
 * Iersiš'ica sé šicu (small town/village)

Rivers
Rivers are masculine because of the underlying masculine nouns rivu (for non-navigable) or blume (for navigable). The ancient Roman belief that rivers (amnes) were male gods may also influence this.
 * u [blume] Denebru = The Dnieper river
 * u [rivu] Colorau = The Colorado River

Vestiges of a neutral gender
While Romavian is generally regarded to have two genders, its ancestor, Latin, had three. The transition from three genders to two is mostly complete; however, vestiges of a neuter gender can still be seen.

Most notably, this is seen in pronouns like esdu, esu, aquilu, and elu, which are the neuter forms of esde, ese, aquìl, and el, respectively. These words correspond with English "this", "that", "that" (more common than aquilu), and "it". Also words such as ná, pàucu, alicū, and muldu can be used as neuters in some contexts.

Number
Romavian has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. The singular form is the lemma (the form found in dictionaries or base form), and the plural of the majority of words is formed by adding -s if the lemma ends in a stressed vowel or consonant is formed by -es. The addition of -es to certain nouns produces changes in the placement of stress, thereby affecting the presence of accent marks (cançà → cançaes, rupì → rupies) or causes the appearance of double vowels which are pronounced like a long vowel (vosè → vosēs). The only exception are words finished in -l, in this case there are two ways to make the plural depending on the stress syllable:''' The masculine gender is inclusive and is used for plural forms of groups of mixed gender (literally or otherwise): us niňus, grammatically masculine, may mean "the children" or "the boys". The feminine gender is exclusive in the plural: as niňas = "the little girls". When male sex needs to be shown exclusively in the plural, phrases such as us niňus varones are used. Feminists (and their satirists) try to reverse the pattern with phrases such as as personas humanas iùvenes varones ("the young male human people").'''
 * When the stress syllable is the last one, they drop the l and add -es (locàl → locaes).
 * When the stress syllable is not the last one, they drop the l and add -s (simbel → simbes).

Some words are formally always grammatically plural: pandalones "trousers", tonsoras "scissors".

In expressions with an indefinite determiner, singular forms are used (unlike English, where "some" and "any" tend to modify plural nouns). Forms of necùn ("no") always take singular noun phrases, even where plurality might be intended: The determiner qualguera has a plural form (quaesguera).
 * Si fape alicū' arbor, deriparemo-u = "If there is any tree, we will tear it down"
 * Pur qualguèr mèiu = "By any means"
 * Necun obsdaglu inderbone-se = "No obstacle is in our way", "There are no obstacles in our way"
 * Non vī' a necuna muyèr = "I saw no women", "I did not see any women"

Diminutives, augmentatives and suffixes
A very productive set of suffixes can be added to existing nouns and adjectives to form new Romavian nouns. This usually just slightly modifies the meaning, but sometimes it creates something new entirely.

The most common subset of such suffixes are the diminutives, which convey the idea of smallness, delicateness, etc. (also for endearing terms). The most common diminutive in Romavian is -iy-. It is added to the root of the noun, and in actual usage, it takes the proper agreement for gender and number. In other cases, this ending can be pejorative or belittling.
 * blanda → blandiya / blandaca ("plant" → "little plant" / "big plant")
 * copu → copiyu / copacu ("glass" → "little glass" / "big glass")
 * niňu → niň'iyu / niňacu ("small boy" → "little tiny boy" / "big (little tiny) boy")
 * seňòr → seňoriyu ("Sir/Mister" → "little sir/mister" (mockingly) compare seňora → seňoriya ("Madame/Mrs." → "Miss/Ms."))

Other suffixes
Some suffixes helpes to the creation of new words: Another suffix that can either denote a blow with is -açu:
 * borsu "handbag" → borsiyu "pocket"
 * gerra "war" → gerriya "hit-and-run warfare"
 * porda ("door") → pordaçu ("slam of a door")
 * manu ("hand") → manaçu ("a hit with the hand")
 * saea ("arrow") → saeaçu ("arrow shot" / "arrow wound")

Adjectives
Romavian adjectives are similar to those in most other Indo-European languages. They are generally postpositive, and they agree in both gender and number with the noun they modify.

Inflection and usage
Romavian adjectives can be broadly divided into two groups: those whose lemma (the base form, the form found in dictionaries) ends in -u, and those whose lemma does not. The former generally inflect for both gender and number; the latter generally inflect just for number. Frìjiu ("cold"), for example, inflects for both gender and number. When it is used with a masculine singular noun, the masculine singular form fridiiu (the lemma) is used. When it is used with a feminine singular noun, it becomes frìjia; -a is generally the feminine singular ending for adjectives that inflect for gender. When it is used with a masculine plural noun, it becomes frìjius, and when it is used with a feminine plural noun, it becomes frìjias; -s is the plural marker for both the masculine and feminine with adjectives that inflect for gender. Thus: Adjectives whose lemma does not end in -u, however, inflect differently. These adjectives almost always inflect only for number. -s is once again the plural marker, and if the lemma ends in a consonant or a stress vowel, the adjective takes -es in the plural. The rule of nouns ending with -l is also applied to adjectives (always l is dropped, and if last syllable is stressed -es is added, if not -s is added). Thus: Romavian adjectives are very similar to nouns and are often interchangeable with them. Bare adjectives can be used with articles and thus function as nouns where English would require nominalization using the pronoun one(s). For example: Romavian adjectives are generally postpositive, that is, they come after the noun they modify. Thus u libru longu ("the long book"), a casa grande ("the big house"), us homes aldus ("the tall men"), etc. There are, however, a small number of adjectives, including all ordinal numerals as well as words such as aldru ("other") and tou ("all"), that must be placed before the noun they modify. There are also a small number that can be placed both before and after the noun and that change meaning according to that positioning, and some adjectives, especially those that form something of a fixed phrase with the noun (e.g. obsgura nobde ("dark night"), alda mondaňa ("high mountain")), can be placed before or after the noun with little change in meaning.
 * frìjiu ("cold") = frìjiu, frìjia, frìjius, frìjias
 * š'icu ("small") = š'icu, šica, šicus, šicas
 * vermiyu ("red") = vermiyu, vermiya, vermiyus, vermiyas
 * virde ("green"): virde, virde, virdes, virdes
 * formàl ("formal"): formàl, formàl, formaes, formaes
 * simbel ("simple"): simbel, simbel, simbes, simbes
 * U vermiyu á ekì, no? = "The red one goes here, doesn't it?"
 * Fapemo tirar as rumbeas = "We have to throw away the broken ones"

Words that change meaning
Several adjectives change meaning depending on their position: either before or after the noun. They are:

Comparatives and superlatives
Comparatives are normally expressed with the adverbs maes ("more") and minus ("less") followed by the adjective; the object of comparison is introduced with the particle que ("than"). For example, X sé maes grande que Y ("X is bigger/greater than Y"). Superlatives (in the cross-linguistic, semantic sense) are also expressed with the adverbs maes and minus, but this time with a definite article preceding the noun: a persona maes inderesande ("the most interesting person"); the object of comparison is introduced with the preposition de ("of"). The adjectives bonu ("good"), malu ("bad"), iuven ("young"), and vèulu ("old") have irregular comparative forms: meiòr ("better"), peiòr ("worse"), minòr ("younger"), and maiòr ("older"), respectively. Meiòr and peiòr are placed before the nouns they modify: a meliòr càusa, ("the best thing"), u peiòr libru ("the worst book"), etc.

Because the definite article is, along with maes or minus, the superlative marker, the comparative is grammatically indistinguishable from the superlative when used with it; an additional qualifier phrase such as dus dos ("of the two") must therefore be used to indicate that the adjective is the comparative and not the superlative.

The superlative
Instead of putting muldu, "very" before an adjective, one can use a special form called the superlative to intensify an idea. This consists of the suffix -ismu. This form derives from the Latin superlative, but no longer means "the most ...", which is expressed in the ways explained above. Nevertheless, the name is retained for historical reasons. There are also some irregulars:
 * muldu ràpiu → rapī'smu
 * muldu formosas → formosismas
 * muldu rica → rikisma
 * muldu lendu → lendismu
 * muldu andicū → andiquismu
 * muy inferiòr → ìnfimu
 * muy superiòr → subremu
 * muldu bonu → òbdimu
 * muldu malu → pesmu
 * muldu grande → màximu
 * muldu siicu → minmu

Suffixes
In Romavian, adjective suffixes were merged in one. For example, the Latin suffixes -tor and -trix which in other Romance language became -tor, -teur, -dor, -tore, -dora, -tora, -driu, triu, -triz, -trice were absorbed by the present participle suffix, used in this language for adjective creation from verbs. For example: Examples:
 * As danças sieron aquandes = "The dances were exhausting"
 * Una biografia insbirande = "An inspiring biography" (or lit. "A biography that inspires")

Determiners
The Romavian language uses determiners in a similar way to English. The main differences are that Romavian determiners inflect for gender and always inflect for number as well.

Demonstrative determiners
Romavian has three kinds of demonstrative, whose use typically depends on the distance (physical or metaphorical) between the speaker and the described entity, or sometimes it depends on the proximity to the three grammatical persons. Old English also used to have a three-way system: "this hill (here)", "that hill (there)" or "yon hill (yonder)"; in Romavian, "esda colina", "esa colina", "aquila colina". Standard English lost the third level, so that the "that, there" series covers the ground of "yon, yonder".

Esde usually refers to something near the speaker (the first person). Ese usually refers to something nearer the listener (the second person). Aquìl usually refers to something away from both the speaker and the listener.

The demonstrative determiners can also be used as pronouns, with the addition of the neutral singular forms esdu, esu, aquilu.

A similar three-way system of demonstratives is found in Spanish, Portuguese as well as Slavic languages, Japanese and Turkish.

Definite article
The definite article in Romavian, corresponding to "the", is u. It inflects for gender and number as follows: Thus: The usually masculine form u is used instead of a before feminine nouns that begin with a stressed a sound: a is used, however, when u would imply a masculine noun: Feminine a is never used, however, before feminine adjectives that begin with a stressed a: As in French, names of countries, islands and regions (not cities) are accompained by articles:
 * u home = "[the] man"
 * us homes = "[the] men"
 * a muyèr = "[the] woman"
 * as muyeres = "[the] women"
 * u àquila (š'ica) = "the (small) eagle"
 * u aqua (bresga) = "the (fresh) water"
 * u àula (vèula) = "the (old) classroom"
 * a agrā (because u agrā would be a male anarchist)
 * a àrape (because u àrape would be a male Arab)
 * a alda mondaň'a = "the high mountain"
 * a àmblia cai = "the wide street"
 * u Reňu Uniu (m.sg.) = "United Kingdom"
 * a Ru'š'a (f.sg.) = "Russia"
 * us Paises Basus (m.pl.) = "The Netherlands"
 * as Filipinas (f.pl.) = "The Philippines"

Indefinite article
The indefinite article in Romavian, corresponding to "a/an", is un. It inflects for gender and number as follows: Thus: Near synonyms of unus include unus quanus, alicū's and unus pàucus.
 * un home = "a man"
 * unus homes = "some men"
 * una muyèr = "a woman"
 * unas muyeres = "some women"

The same rules that apply to feminine u apply to una and un:
 * un ala = "a wing"
 * una àrape = "a female Arab"
 * una alda mondaňa = "a high mountain"

As in English, the plural indefinite article is not always required:
 * Fape [unas] càusas na mensa = "There are [some] things on the table"

Possessive determiners
These are often known as possessive or genitive determiners. They are used before the noun they possess (and before the rest of the whole noun phrase, for example when an adjective precedes the noun). They inflect for number and in some cases gender as well. In Romavian, determiners have to be used after the definite article, like in Catalan language (Catalan also has a different set of determiners that they are allowed to be used without articles but this is not the case of Romavian). For example:
 * Esde sé u meu can = "This is my dog"
 * Esda sé a tea camiš'a = "This is your shirt"
 * Esdus sen us nosus librus = "These are our books"
 * Esdas sen as seas casas = "These are his/her/your/their houses"

Combining demonstratives and possessives
Demonstrative pronouns can be combined with possessives as follows: It is also possible to use the long adjectival form. In this case, it goes after the noun and it does not use the definite article:
 * Esda a nosa terra = "This Earth of ours"
 * Esde u meu amòr = "This love of mine"
 * Esda terra nosa = "This Earth of ours"
 * Esde amòr meu = "This love of mine"

Miscellaneous determiners
There are many more words that can be used as determiners in Romavian. They mostly end in -u and have the usual four forms (-u, -a, -us, -as) to agree with the noun.
 * ¡Aldra serveça, pur favòr! = "Another beer, please!"
 * Mulda jende pasa pur ekì = "Many people pass through here"
 * Non fape tanda jende quomu na vera = "There are not as many people as in summer"
 * Serdus vinus sen muldu dulses = "Certain wines are very sweet"
 * Fapo saliu cun vàrias rapaças = "I have gone out with several girls"

Pronouns
Romavian pronouns in some ways work quite differently from their English counterparts. Subject pronouns are often omitted, and object pronouns can appear either as proclitics that come before the verb or enclitics attached to the end of it in different linguistic environments.

Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns in Romavian have distinct forms according to whether they stand for a subject (nominative), a direct object (accusative), an indirect object (dative), or a reflexive object. Several pronouns further have special forms used after prepositions. Romavian is a pro-drop language with respect to subject pronouns. Like French and other languages with the T–V distinction, Romavian has a distinction in its second person pronouns that has no equivalent in modern English. Object pronouns are generally proclitic, and non-emphatic clitic doubling is most often found with dative clitics.

Demonstrative pronouns

 * Near the speaker ("this"): esde, esda, esdu, esdus, esdas (from the Latin ISTE, ISTA, ISTVD )
 * Near the listener ("that"): ese, esa, esu, esus, esas (from the Latin IPSE, IPSA, IPSVM )
 * Far from both speaker and listener ("that (over there)"): aquìl, aquila, aquilu, aquies, aquilas, aquilus (from the Latin *ECCVM ILLE, *ECCVM ILLA, *ECCVM ILLVD )

Relative pronouns
The main relative pronoun in Romavian is que, from Latin QVID. Others include u qual, quen, and dunde.

Que
Que covers "that", "which", "who", "whom" and the null pronoun in their functions of subject and direct-object relative pronouns:
 * A carda que inviè-te sia longa = "The letter [that] I sent you was long" (restrictive relative pronoun referring to direct object)
 * A carda, que inviè-te, sia longa = "The letter, which I did send you, was long" (non-restrictive relative pronoun referring to direct object)
 * A jende que non sape leker nec esgripir glama-se analfapea = "People who cannot read or write are called illiterate" (relative pronoun referring to subject)
 * Esa persona, que coň'osdo muldu ben, non sé fiande = "That person, whom I know very well, is not to be trusted" (non-restrictive relative pronoun referring to direct object)

U que
When que is used as the object of a preposition, the definite article is added to it, and the resulting form (u que) inflects for number and gender, resulting in the forms u que, a que, us que and as que. Unlike in English, the preposition must go right before the relative pronoun "which" or "whom":

In some people's style of speaking, the definite article may be omitted after a, cun and de in such usage, particularly when the antecedent is abstract or neuter:
 * Ela sé a persona ā ' que di-e u denaru = "She is the person [that/whom] I gave the money to"/"She is the person to whom I gave the money"
 * Sé u caminu puru que caminàpai = "It is the path [that] you all were walking along"/"It is the path along which you all were walking"
 * A asbreça cun[a] que trabdapa-a = "The harshness with which he treated her"
 * Non teno ná' n[u] que greer = "I have nothing to believe in"/"I have nothing in which to believe"
 * Fasisde-u da mesma forma na que fasiò-u el = "You did it [in] the same way [that/in which] he did it"
 * A casa na que vivo = "The house in which I live"

U qual
The pronoun u qual can replace [u] que. It is generally more emphatic and formal than [u] que, and it always includes the definite article. It is derived from the Latin QVALIS, and it has the following forms: u qual, a qual, us quaes and, as quaes. It can be used as a formal, emphatic replacement for que in non-defining clauses, for both subjects and direct objects, and it can also be used as a formal, emphatic replacement for u que as the object of some prepositions. Moreover, it is often preferred to u que entirely in certain contexts. In non-defining clauses, the fact that it agrees for gender and number can make it clearer to what it refers. The fact that it cannot be used as the subject or direct object in defining clauses also makes it clear that a defining clause is not intended: When used as a personal direct object, personal a must be used: In such situations as well as the object of monosyllabic prepositions, the use of u qual is generally purely a matter of high style. This is used sparingly in Romavian, and foreigners should thus avoid over-using it: In more everyday style, this might be phrased as:
 * Us niň'us e as seas madres, as quaes sian de Bebros, imbreš'onaro-me = "The children and their mothers, who were from Bebros, impressed me" (los cuales would have referred to the children as well and not just their mothers)
 * Esa persona, ā qual co'ň'osdo eo muldu ben, non sé fiande = "That person, whom I know very well, is not to be trusted" (note how prepositional a merge with the article a)
 * Sé u asumbdu au qual referia-se vosè = "It is the matter to which you were referring"
 * Sé u asumbdu au que referias-te = "It is the matter to which you were referring"

After multisyllabic prepositions and prepositional phrases (apensar de, basu de, acàusa de, etc.), however, u qual is often preferred entirely: U qual is further generally preferred entirely when, as the object of a preposition, it is separated from its antecedent by intervening words. The more words that intervene, the more the use of u qual is practically obligatory:
 * Un rèjimen bas ū ' qual sé imbosipel vivir = "A régime under which it is impossible to live" (here basu merges with the article, as always Romavian prepositions do)
 * Esdas glàuslas, sin perjuiçu das quaes ... = "These clauses, notwithstanding which..."
 * Sé un biyè cunu que poe-se ambular [...] mas puru qual paca-se solamende 4 margus = "It is a ticket with which you can travel [...] but for which you pay just 4 marks"

Qual
The bare form cual is used as the relative adjective ("in which sense", "with which people", etc.), which only inflects for number:
 *  qual càusu = "which case"
 *  quaes càusas = "which things"

Quen
The pronoun quen comes from the Latin QVEM, "whom", the accusative of QVIS , "who".

It too can replace [u] que in certain circumstances. Like the English pronouns "who" and "whom", it can only be used to refer to people.

It is invariable for gender, and was originally invariable for number. However, by analogy with other words, the form quenes was invented.

For subjects
It can represent a subject. In this case, it is rather formal and is largely restricted to non-defining clauses.

Unlike u qual, it does not inflect for gender, but it does inflect for number, and it also specifies that it does refer to a person:
 * Us niň'us cunas seas borsas, quenes sian de Bebros, imbreš'onaro-me = "The children with their bags, who were from Bebros, impressed me" (the use of quenes makes it clear that us ni'ň'us is referred to; que could refer to the bags, the children, or both, us quaes would refer to either the children or both, and as quaes would refer only to the bags)

As the object of a preposition
Quen is particularly common as the object of a proposition when the clause is non-defining, but is also possible in defining clauses:
 * Ela sé a persona ā ' quen di-e u denaru = "She is the person to whom I gave the money"
 * Iosè, graças au quen teno u denaru, sé muldu jenerosu = "Joseph, thanks to whom I have the money, is very generous"

Dunde, aunde, quomu and quandu
Dunde is ultimately from a combination of the obsolete adverb unde ("whence" or "from where") and the preposition de. Unde is from Latin VNDE, which also meant "whence" or "from where", and over the centuries it lost the "from" meaning and came to mean just "where". This meant that, to say "whence" or "where from", the preposition de had to be added, and this gave d'unde. The meaning of d'unde once again eroded over time until it came to mean just "where", and prepositions therefore had to be added once more. This gave rise to the modern usage of dunde for "where" and aunde for "to where", among others.

Quomu is from QVOMODO, "how", the ablative of QVI MODVS , "what way".

Quandu is from QVANDO, "when".

Location and movement
Dunde can be used instead of other relative pronouns when location is referred to. Aunde is a variant that can be used when motion to the location is intended:
 * U locàl nu que / nu qual / dunde esdo = "The place where I am"/"The place in which I am"
 * Ó a[u locàl]  unde esda el = "I am going [to the place] where he is"
 * É [au locàl] aunde bliken-me / É au locàl au que bliken-me = "I will go wherever they take me" / "I will go to whatever place to which they take me"

Manner
Quomu can be used instead of other relative pronouns when manner is referred to: Note that mesmu tends to require que:
 * A forma/manera na que / quomu reaxonàsdei = "The way that/in which/how you reacted" (nu/na que is the most common and natural, like "that" or the null pronoun in English; but quomu is possible, as "how" is in English)
 * Diso-u du mesmo mou que dise-u eo = "She said it the same way [that] I did"

Time
Quandu tends to replace the use of other relative pronouns when time is referred, usually in non-defining clauses.

Non-defining Defining
 * Nu aucusdu, quandu a jende tene vacaçaes, a sivià esdarà vasiva = "In August, when people have their holidays, the town will be empty"
 * Solamende salo us dias [nus] que non dripayo = "I only go out the days that I am not working"

Note that just que, or at the most in que, is normal with defining clauses referring to time. Quandu are rarer.

Quiu
"Quiu" is the formal Romavian equivalent for the English pronoun "whose." However, "quiu" inflects for gender and number (quius (m. pl.), quia (f. sg.), or quias (f. pl.)) according to the word it precedes. For example:
 * Alexandru sé un esduiande qui as qualificaça es sen sembre bonas = "Alejandro is a student whose grades are always good"

"quiu" in this example has changed to "quias" in order to match the condition of the following word, "qualificaçaes" (f. pl.)

In Old Romavian there were interrogative forms which are no longer used. De quen...? is used instead.

In practice, quiu is reserved to formal language. A periphrasis like Alexandru sé un esduiande que tene unas qualificaçaes sembre bonas is more common. Alexandru sé un esduiante que as seas qualificaçaes sen sembre bonas can also be found.

Quiu is from CVIVS, the genitive (possessive) form of QVI.

Adverbs
Romavian adverbs work much like their English counterparts, e.g. muldu ("very, much, a lot"), pàucu ("a little"), laxus ("far"), quasi ("almost"), etc. To form adverbs from adjectives, the adverbial suffix -mende is generally added to the feminine singular of the adjective, whether or not it differs from the masculine singular. Thus:


 * glaru ("clear", m. sg.) → glara (f. sg.) → glaramende ("clearly")
 * ràpiu ("fast, rapid", m. sg.) → ràpia (f. sg.) → ràpiamende ("fast, quickly, rapidly")
 * nauràl ("natural", m. & f. sg.) → nauràlmende ("naturally")
 * drisde ("sad", m. & f. sg.) → drisdemende ("sadly")
 * auàç ("bold", m. & f. sg.) → auàsmende ("boldly")

The adjectives bonu ("good") and malu ("bad") have irregular adverbial forms: ben ("well") and mal ("badly"), respectively.

As in English, some adverbs are identical to their adjectival counterparts. Thus words such as tembranu ("early"), lendu ("slow"), and fondu ("deep") can also mean "early" (as in English, as in "He arrived early") "slowly", and "deeply", respectively.

In series of consecutive adverbs that would each end in -mende on their own, the -mende is dropped from all but the final adverb, and the others are left as if they were adjectives in the feminine singular. Thus: There are also a wide variety of adverbial phrases in Romavian, such as amenù ("often"), in toas pardes ("everywhere"), de repende ("suddenly"), por fin ("finally"), and sin embargu ("however, nevertheless").
 * ràpia e fasilmende = "quickly and easily"
 * lenda, cojaosa e dubdamende = "slowly, carefully, and skillfully"
 * parçàl ou combleamende = "partially or completely"

As with adjectives, the comparative of adverbs is almost always formed by placing maes ("more") or minus ("less") before the adverb. Thus maes tembranu ("earlier"), maes ràpiamende ("faster, quicker, more quickly"), minus inderesandemende ("less interestingly"), etc. The superlative is formed by placing the article u before the comparative, although it is generally used with an additional qualifier phrase such as que poas ("that you can") or de tous ("of all"): u maes ràpiamende que poas ("as quickly as you can", lit. "the most quickly that you can"), u maes inderesandemende de tous ("most interestingly of all"), u minus glaramende dē's ("the least clearly of them"), etc. As with their corresponding adjectival forms, ben ("well") and mal ("badly") have irregular comparative forms (meiòr ("better") and peiòr ("worse"), respectively), and maes and minus are the comparatives of muldu ("much, a lot") and pàucu ("a little"), respectively.

Prepositions
Prepositions in the Romavian language —like those in other languages— are a set of connecting words (such as cun, de or bra) that serve to indicate a relationship between a content word (noun, verb, or adjective) and a following noun phrase (or noun, or pronoun), known as the object of the preposition. The relationship is typically spatial or temporal, but prepositions express other relationships as well. As implied by the name, Romavian "pre-positions" (like those of English) are positioned before their objects. Romavian does not place these function words after their objects. Prepositions in this language have the characteristics of merging with personal pronouns and articles (definite or indefinite) when they are written after them, preposition in drops the letter i when merged. In the following table we can see how Romavian prepositions merge with other words: Romavian prepositions can be classified as either "simple", consisting of a single word, or "compound", consisting of two or three words. The prepositions of Romavian form a closed class, meaning that they constitute a limited set to which new items are rarely added. Many Romavian school pupils memorize the following list: a, ande, basu, bra, bro, cape, cun, cundra, de, desde, dras, durande, faça, hasda, in, indre, meiande, pur, secùn, sin, so, subre and, via. This list includes synonymous prepositions — basu and so (“under”).

Some common Romavian prepositions, simple and compound, are listed below, with their meanings.

a
A is most often translated as "to" or "at" (it can be confused with the definite article a); its main uses are the following:
 * It indicates movement to a destination:
 * Ambularo a Mundevirde. = "They traveled to Ceri Gelu (Green Mount)"
 * Blicaro a Mundevirde. = "They arrived in Ceri Gelu"
 * It indicates a stationary point on a quantitative scale, as in telling time (but usually not a spatial location, which is normally expressed by in):
 * Blicaro ās dos. = "They arrived at two o'clock" (Note how the preposition merges with the definite article)''
 * Venden-se a dos dòlares a libra. = "They are sold at two dollars a pound" (Here the second a is a definite article)
 * It introduces indirect objects that Latin would have marked with the dative case:
 * Inviè-e a carda a Ana. = "I sent Ana the letter", "I sent the letter to Anna"
 * Bresendasde-es a maš'ina aus teus padres? = "Did you give your parents the car as a gift?", "Did you give the car to your parents (as a gift)?"
 * Note that the indirect object pronoun forms e and es appear, even when the indirect object is given in full.
 * It introduces a direct object referring either to a person or a personalised thing (pet, organization, vehicle):
 * Vio a Maria = "I see Mary"
 * Keren-te ver aì = "They want to see you"

cun
Cun is usually translated by English "with", both in the sense of accompaniment (cunu meu irmau, "with my brother") and in the instrumental sense (cunun mardelu, "with a hammer"). Unlike other prepositions, cun combines with the prepositional pronouns. These forms are derived historically from forms with the Latin preposition cum postposed to its object.
 * En cunmì e cunèl acora = "Come with me and him now."
 * É ā' fesda cundì = "I will go to the party with you."
 * Sé raru levar un note de 200 margus cunsì = "It is unusual to carry a 200 marks note on oneself."

de
De is the most frequent preposition in Romavian, and in fact it vies with que to be the most frequent word in the language. It is most often translated in English by "of" or "from", but also denotes several other relationships as well. The English possessive with apostrophe-s is translated by a construction with de: The preposition de is part of many compound prepositions, such as dendru de (“within”, “inside of”) and in cundra de (“against . . .”)
 * Sé a maes cèlebre de toas = "She is the most famous [one] of all [of them] "
 * Só de Mundevirde = "I am from Ceri Gelu"
 * A irmà de Davì = "David's sister."
 * Ese libru sé du brofesòr = "That book is the teacher's."

pur and bra
Both pur and bra are frequently translated into English as "for", and thus they pose a challenge for English-speaking learners of Romavian. In the broadest terms, pur denotes cause or stimulus (with a retrospective focus), while bra denotes destination or purpose (with a prospective focus). The following are common uses of these prepositions:

pur

 * "somewhere in", a diffuse location in space or time:
 * Perdì-u pur ahì = "I lost it thereabout, somewhere around there"
 * "in exchange for, in place of"
 * Cambiè us meus euros pur dòlares = "I exchanged my euros into dollars"
 * "per" (day, hour, mile, etc.)
 * Pacan un euro pur hora. = "They pay one euro per hour"
 * "by means of", "by way of"
 * Sé maes ràpiu pura maš'ivia. = "It is faster by the motorway"
 * "because of" (compare purcae, "because")
 * Penaro-me pur exesu de velosià = "They fined me for speeding"
 * U meu capu esda infirmu e pur esu teno que dripayar = "My boss is sick, and therefore I have to work"
 * "for the sake of", "for the benefit of"
 * Tou u que faso, faso-u purdì = "Everything I do, I do [it] for you"
 * "in favor of"
 * Eo vō' puru pardiu de direbda = "I vote for the right-wing party"
 * "by" (the agent of a passive construction)
 * A nova lei siò mal reabdà puru pardiu gupernande = "The new law was badly written by the governing part"
 * "for" (a period of time; often replaced by durande)
 * Vivero in Nova Iorke pur dres menses = "They lived in New York for three months"

bra

 * "intended for" (a purpose or recipient); "so that" (with a clause of purpose)
 * denaru bra pacar u cafè = "money to pay for coffee"
 * Esdas blores sen braì = "These flowers are for you"
 * Lavè-u bra que guardaras-u = "I washed it so you could keep it"
 * "toward" (a destination; informal, replaces a and faça)
 * Ó brau meriòn = "I am going [to the] south"
 * "by" (a certain time)
 * Bra esda època du aň'u sembre blove = "By this time of the year, it always rains"
 * "in order to"
 * Imo ā' buica bra combrar alimendus = "We went to the store to buy food"
 * "for, considering that..." (to express a comparison)
 * Bra una persona tandu iuven, quaš'a-se demaes. = "For such a young person, he complains too much"
 * "about to" (in the expression esdar bra, "to be about to [do something]")
 * Eo esdapa bra salir, quandu sonò u telèfonu = "I was about to leave, when the telephone rang"

secùn
Secùn translates as "according to". With some uses of secùn, part or all of the object of the preposition is omitted and merely implied. Often the missing words can be taken as u que ("what"): Popular speech uses it alone, as an equivalent of "It depends."
 * Secùn dise, sé un bon libru. "According to what he says (according to him), it is a good book."
 * Secùn cunvena. "As may be required."
 * Q: Gusda-te a kino branš'ès? ("Do you like French cinema?")
 * A: Secùn. ("It depends.")

sin
Sin translates as "without": When the object of the preposition sin is a clause introduced by que (alternatively interpreted as a compound conjunction, sin que), verb in the clause must be in the subjunctive mood:
 * Un š'ai sin labde, pur favòr = "A tea without milk, please"
 * Miò-se na cama sin desberdar-a = "He got in bed without waking her"
 * Miò-se na cama sin que desberdara-se = "He got in bed without her waking up."
 * Non poe-se poner a esus niň'us na mesma cambra sin que lubden-se = "You cannot put those children in the same room without their fighting"
 * Us ladrus indraro sin que noara-se nàie = "The thieves entered without anyone noticing them"

Compound prepositions
Some compound prepositions duplicate the meaning of a simple preposition, but often with a more formal tone or with greater specificity. For example, d'acordu cun ("in accordance with") is equivalent to secùn ("according to"). In direbda a ("in the direction of") is more ponderous than faça ("toward"). The English counterpart of Romavian in may be either "on" or "in", while dindru de specifies "within". "Because of" is only one of several possible meanings of pur, but pur càusa de conveys that meaning exclusively. In some cases the compound preposition denotes a literal spatial relationship, while the corresponding simple preposition expresses a figurative version of that relationship: thus, basu duna mensa ("under a table") vs. bas'ūn rèjimen ("under a regime"), or ande dun eifiçu ("in front of a building") vs. andun dripunàl'' ("before a court of law").

The list of compound prepositions is much longer than that of the simple ones, and only some representative examples are listed here.

Romavian compound prepositions can be composed of: Other Romavian compound prepositions include the following:
 * a preposition + noun + preposition:
 * pur càusa de / a càusa de / in raçà de = "because of"
 * sin perjuiçu de = "notwithstanding", "without prejudice to"
 * cun resbebdu a = "with respect to", "regarding"
 * a favòr de = "in favour of"
 * in cundra de = "against . . ." (e.g. en mi contra, en tu contra, en su contra, etc.)
 * in locàl de / in vé de = "instead of", "in lieu of"
 * or of an adverb + preposition:
 * desbòs de = "after"
 * basu de = "beneath", “underneath”
 * ande de = "before" (i.e. “prior to”), "in front of" and “[positioned] before”
 * iunbdu a = "beside", "alongside"
 * dras de = "behind"
 * a força de = "by dint of"
 * iubdu a = "next to"
 * so de = "above"
 * dras de = "behind"
 * in mèiu de = "in the middle of"
 * in pos de = "in pursuit of"
 * cun rumbu a = "headed for"
 * cun desdinu a = "on the way to"
 * a via de = "across"

Serial prepositions
In certain cases, Romavian prepositions can be used serially, that is, two—or occasionally even three—in succession, as in the following examples:

a pur
In Romavian the sequence a pur, used mainly with verbs of movement, such as ir and salir, can be used to mean "in search of", or "to go fetch [something]". See the difference between pur and a pur:
 * Supì pura esgala = "I went up the stairs" or "I went up the ladder"
 * Supì a pura esgala = "I went up for the ladder"

bra cun
This compound means "toward" in the context of an attitude or demeanor toward someone or something:
 * Sé muldu jenerosu bra cunus neseš'aus, He is very generous toward/with the needy".
 * Non teno brurius bra cunē's, "I have nothing against them".

English postpositions into Romavian
The English language features three types of adpositions; prepositions (preceding), postpositions (following), and circumpositions (enclosing); allowing constructions such as “ in the box”, “ on the airplane”, and “ out of Africa”, as in Romavian. But the postposition “three years ago ” is as impossible in Romavian usage as: “ago three years” is in English. Thus Romavian prepositions function exclusively as such; these examples express equivalent concepts using other mechanisms:
 *  Fase dres agnus = “three years ago ” (“It makes three years.”)
 *  Dindru de dres aň'us = “three years hence ” (“Within [a period] of three years.”)
 *  A dres kilòmedrus = “three kilometres away ” (“To/Some three kilometres [from here].”)

Conjunctions
The Romavian conjunctions e ("and") and ou ('or') alter their form in both spoken and written language to ed and oud respectively when followed by an identical vowel sound. Thus, padre e filiu ("father and son"), mar ed insla ("sea and island"), supiebdu ou opiebdu ("subject or object"), deu oud ungla ("finger or fingernail").

Order of constituents
Romavian unmarked word order for affirmative declarative sentences is subject-verb-object (SVO); however, as in other Romance languages, in practice, word order is more variable, with topicalization and focus being the primary factors in the selection of a particular order. Verb-subject-object (VSO), verb-object-subject (VOS), and object-verb-subject (OVS) are also relatively common, while other orders are very uncommon outside of poetry.

Thus, to simply say, "My friend wrote the book", one would say (SVO): Although bare VSO and VOS are somewhat rare in declarative independent clauses, they are quite common in sentences in which something other than the subject or direct object functions as the focus. For example: In many dependent clauses, the verb is placed before the subject (and thus often VSO or VOS) to avoid placing the verb in final position:
 * U meu amicu esgripiò u libru
 * Fase pàucus aň'us esgripiò u meu amicu un libru or Fase pàucus aň'us esgripiò un libru u meu amicu = "A few years ago, my friend wrote a book"
 * Aièr viò a mea madre au meu amicu e brecundò-e puru seu libru or Aièr viò au meu amicu a mea madre e brecundò-e puru seu libru = "Yesterday, my mother saw my friend and asked him about his book"
 * Esde sé u libru que esgripiò u meu amicu, but rarely Esde sé u libru que u meu amicu esdripiò = "This is the book that my friend wrote"

A sentence in which the direct object is the topic or "theme" (old information), while the subject is part of the comment, or "rheme" (new information), often assumes OVS order. In this case the direct object noun phrase is supplemented with the appropriate direct object pronoun; for example: Because subject pronouns are often dropped, one will often see sentences with a verb and direct object but no explicitly stated subject.
 * U libru esgripiò-u u meu amicu

In questions, VSO is usual (though not obligatory): Yes/no questions, regardless of constituent order, are generally distinguished from declarative sentences by context and intonation.
 * Esgripiò u meu amicu u libru? = "Did my friend write the book?"

Cleft sentences
A cleft sentence is one formed with the copular verb (generally with a dummy pronoun like "it" as its subject), plus a word that "cleaves" the sentence, plus a subordinate clause. They are often used to put emphasis on a part of the sentence. Here are some examples of English sentences and their cleft versions: Romavian does not usually employ such a structure in simple sentences. The translations of sentences like these can be readily analyzed as being normal sentences containing relative pronouns. Romavian is capable of expressing such concepts without a special cleft structure thanks to its flexible word order.
 * "I did it." → "It was I who did it" or colloquially "It was me that did it."
 * "You will stop smoking through willpower." → "It is through willpower that you will stop smoking."

For example, if we translate a cleft sentence such as "It was John who lost the keys", we get Siò Ioàn u que perdiò as glaves. Whereas the English sentence uses a special structure, the Romavian one does not. The verb siò has no dummy subject, and the pronoun u que is not a cleaver but a nominalising relative pronoun meaning "the [male] one that". Provided we respect the parings of "u que" and "as glaves", we can play with the word order of the Romavian sentence without affecting its structure – although each permutation would, to a native speaker, give a subtly different shading of emphasis.

For example, we can say Ioàn siò u que perdiò as glaves ("John was the one who lost the keys") or U que perdiò as glaves siò Ioàn ("The one who lost the keys was Juan"). As can be seen from the translations, if this word order is chosen, English stops using the cleft structure (there is no more dummy "it" and a nominalising relative is used instead of the cleaving word) whilst in Romavian no words have changed.

Here are some examples of such sentences: Note that it is ungrammatical to try to use just que to cleave such sentences as in English, but using quen in singular or quenes in plural is grammatical. When prepositions come into play, things become complicated. Structures unambiguously identifiable as cleft sentences are used. The verb ser introduces the stressed element and then there is a nominaliser. Both of these are preceded by the relevant preposition. For example: This structure is quite wordy, and is therefore often avoided by not using a cleft sentence at all. Emphasis is conveyed just by word order and stressing with the voice (indicated here within bolding): In casual speech, the complex cleaving pronoun is often reduced to que, just as it is reduced to "that" in English. Foreign learners are advised to avoid this. In the singular, the subordinate clause can agree either with the relative pronoun or with the subject of the main sentence, though the latter is seldom used. However, in the plural, only agreement with the subject of the main sentence is acceptable. Therefore:
 * Siò Ioàn u que perdiò as glaves = "It was John who lost the keys"
 * Sen solamende dres dias us que  kean-te = "It is only three days that you have left"
 * Serè eo quen disa-se-u = "It will be I who tells him"
 * Sen pàucus us que venen e kean-se = lit. "There are few who come and stay"
 * *Siò Ioàn que perdiò as glaves (incorrect)
 * Siò Ioàn quen perdiò as glaves (correct)
 * Siò amì a quen diò-e permisu = "It was me to whom he gave permission", lit. "It was to me to whom he gave permission"
 * Sé branòs bra quenes fasiò-se esdu = "It is us for whom this was made", lit. "It is for us for whom this was made"
 * Sé pur esu puru que fasì-u = "That is why I did it", more literally: "It is because of that that I did it", or completely literally: "It is because of that because of which I did it"
 * Sé asì quomu depe-se faser = "It is this way that it must be done", lit. "It is this way how it must be done" (quomu replaces longer expressions such as a forma in que)
 * Diò-me permisu amì  = "He gave permission to me"
 * Fasiò-se esdu branòs  = "This was done for us"
 *  Pur esu fasì-u = "I did it because of that"
 * Depe-se faser asì  = "It must be done this way"
 * Sé branòs que fasiò-se esdu
 * Sé pur esu que fasì-u
 * Siò amì que diò-e permisu (preferred: a quen)
 * Sé asì que depe-se faser (preferred: quomu)

Singular

 * Eo siò u que bepì-me-u  = "I was the one who drank it" (agreement with subject of main sentence)
 * Eo siò u que bepiò-se-u  (preferred form with same meaning, agreement with u que)
 * A que sapo -u só eo = "I am the one who knows" (agreement with subject of main sentence)
 * A que sape -u só eo = (preferred form with same meaning, agreement with a que)

Plural

 * Semo us ungus que non tenemo nic un sèndimu bra aposdar = "We are the only ones who do not have even a cent to bet" (agreement with subject of main sentence)
 * Vós sei as que sapei -u = "You girls are the ones who know" (agreement with subject of main sentence)

Geographical distribution
Romavian is part of the family of the Romance languages but there is no a precise number of speakers as a mother tongue. The estimations according to the Institut Statistigiga (Keltsvian for "Statistics Institute"), there are around 200,000 Romavian native speakers in all Keltsvia and around an 80% of them in the region of Romavia, the equivalent Romavian institution, the Insdiù Esdaisgu lowers that number to 180,000. The numbers of native speakers of Romavia abroad is negligible. Romavian language is not between the Romance languages with a lower number of speakers but it is amongst the Romance languages with some degree of official status with a lesser number of speakers. It is co-official in the Keltsvian region of Romavia along with Keltsvian.

Relation to other languages
Romavian is closely related to the other West Iberian Romance languages, including Asturian, Aragonese, Galician, Ladino, Leonese, Mirandese, Portuguese and Spanish.

It is generally acknowledged that Portuguese and Spanish speakers can communicate in written form, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility but with Romavian speakers this communication is possible and easier with oral speech. Mutual intelligibility of the written Romavian with Spanish and Portuguese languages is lower, based in the huge differences in spelling, that may appear weird to the latter. Romavian and Spanish speakers can understand orally each other pretty well but as it happens with Spanish speakers, Portuguese speakers understand Romavian speakers with more ease than Romavian speakers understand Portuguese speakers.

The following table compares the forms of some common words in several Romance languages:

Writing system
In general, pronunciation can be entirely determined from spelling but this not always the case. Under the orthographic conventions, a typical Romavian word is stressed on the syllable before the last and if not it is always accentuated (`).

The acute accent (´) is used, in addition, to distinguish between certain homophones, especially when one of them is a stressed word and the other one is a clitic: compare se (reflexive pronoun) versus sé ("he/she/it is").

Non-used letters and other characters
Not all the main letters in Latin script are used in Romavian language but they have a name

Special and modified letters
Vowels can be marked with an asendu tongu ("stress accent") -à, è, ì, ò, ì- which is used uniquely to indicate the stressed vowel in the word (pronounced slightly longer than the rest of vowels).

They can be marked with an asendu diagriicu ("diacritic accent") -á, é, í, ó, ú-, used to differenciate homophonous words, like sé ("he/she/it is") and se (reflexive pronoun).

Two of the vowels, a and i, can be marked with a diaeresis -ä, ï-, who receives in Romavian the name of rumbende de dìgrafus ("digraph breaker"). Letter a is not pronounced when it appears after c or g and before a vowel (caelu is pronounced as /'ke.lu/), so ä is applied when it has to be pronounced (locäes is pronounced /lo'ka.es/) breaking the digraph. Letter i indicates a digraph modifying the preceding consonant (if it is d, l or s) and itself precedes another vowel, here i is not pronounced (so dieneràl, aliu and siicu are pronounced /dʒe.ne'ɾal/, /'a.ʎu/ and /'ʃi.ku/ respectively), then ï appears to indicate three things: there is no digraph, there is no consonant modification and i is pronounced (as in dïa, lïografia and sïa, pronounced /'di.a/, /li.o.gɾa'fi.a/ and /'si.a/ respectively).

Stress and accentuation
Stress in Romavian is marked marked unequivocally through very simple orthographic rules. The default stress is located in the syllable carrying the penultimate nnon-silent vowel, when the stress is in any other syllable, this syllable's vowel will be marked with a stress accent (à, è, ì, ò, ù). The only exceptions to this rule are verbs in their infinitive form, their last syllable is the stressed one but they are never marked with any accent, and qu, that never carries accent because the u in that particle is always an approximant /w/.

Foreign words
Loanwords in Romavian are always written according to Romavian spelling conventions (alienismus aabdaus): e.g. pael, vudbal, siofer, masder. However, some people uses foreign words in Romavian texts in their original forms, not conforming to Romavian orthographic conventions. So we can see texts like this in Romavian:
 * Official criteria or conservative criteria: Caero asguldar iàs e comer pidsa.
 * Non-official (but not uncommon) criteria: Caero asguldar jazz e comer pizza.

Capitalization
Capitalization in Romavian is sparse compared to English. In general, only personal and place names, some abbreviations (e.g. Sr. Lopes, but segnòr Lopes); the first word (only) in the title of a book, movie, song, etc; and the first word in a sentence are capitalized, as are names of companies, government bodies, etc. Names of nationalities or languages are not capitalized, nor are days of the week and months of the year.

Reform proposals
There are two main reform proposals, one from the Romavian linguist Fransisgu Pombeu and another one from the Keltsvian Romavianist linguist Anton Sutlur. But so far, any of them has been adopted, being Pombeu's proposal the most supported.
 * Pombeu proposed a simplication of the orthography making it more intuitive to read and propnounce properly and making it simpler to write:
 * Accentuation rules for stress and diacritics is kept.
 * Long vowels would be written with a macron instead of two vowels: naar → nār.
 * Substitution of the digraph ca with the letter k (currently not used): caelu → kelu.
 * Elimination of ç being replaced entirely by s: força → forsa.
 * Substitution of the digraph di with the letter j (not used in the actual Romavian alphabet), giving to this letter a different IPA value: dieneràl → jeneràl.
 * Elimination of the digraph ga and the letter g would be always a strong g: gaerra → gerra.
 * Substitution of the digraph gn with the letter ñ (taken from Spanish): agnu → añu.
 * Elimination of h: hoi → oi.
 * Substitution of the digraph li with the letter y (not used in the actual Romavian alphabet), giving to this letter a different IPA value: aliu → ayu.
 * Substitution of q with c: que → cuè (in Romavian, qu consists in a non-accentuable particle, with its substitution an accent may be required).
 * Double r is kept.
 * Substitution of the digraph si with the letter ș (taken from Romanian): siicu → șicu.
 * The letter x is kept.
 * Sutlur proposed the adaptation of some of the rules of the Keltsvian orthography to the Romavian language.
 * Accentuation rules for stress and diacritics is kept. So accentuated vowels keep their original pronounciation in Romavian rather than adopting the Keltsvian one.
 * It keeps the use of double vowels for long vowels.
 * Elimination of the letter c and the digraph ca with the letter k (currently not used): casa → kasa and caelu → kelu.
 * Elimination of ç being replaced entirely by s: força → forsa.
 * Substitution of the digraph di with the Keltsvian digraph dž (being the letter ž used exclusively for this digraph): dieneràl → dženeràl.
 * Elimination of the digraph ga and the letter g would be always a strong g: gaerra → gerra.
 * Substitution of the digraph gn with the Keltsvian equivalent ň: agnu → aňu.
 * Elimination of h: hoi → oi.
 * Use of j to indicate the approximant /j/: hoi → hoj → oj (applying also the previous rule).
 * Substitution of the digraph li with the Keltsvian equivalent ł: aliu → ału.
 * Substitution of q with kw: que → kwe. Thus, use of w to indicate the approximant /w/.
 * Substitution of double r by ř (taken from Czech), this new letter has no phonetic value, it's just to distinguish the flapped r from the trilled r when a confusion may appear.
 * Substitution of the digraph si with the Keltsvian equivalent š: siicu → šicu → šiku (applying the previous rules).
 * Substitution of x with gs or s when in initial position: sexu → segsu and xenofòbia → senofòbia.

Pombeu's proposal has more popular and academic support and it takes some solutions from other Romance language, so the result makes think the reader that the language is still a Romance language. The problem is that it increases the differences between Keltsvian and Romavian alphabets. Sutlur's proposal created more similarities between both alphabets and makes the spelling more phonetic and at the same time easier for Keltsvian native speakers but the language loses part of its Romance essence.

Article 1 (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
 * Official orthography: "Tous us seres humanus nasgaen libres ed equaes in dignà e direbdus e, dobdaus quomu esdàn de raçà e consgaença, depen-se combordar braernàlmende us unus cunus aldrus."
 * Pombeu's reform: "Tous us seres umanus nasgen libres ed ecuaes in diñà e direbdus e, dobdaus cuomu esdàn de rasà e consgensa, depen-se combordar braernàlmende us unus cunus aldrus."
 * Sutlur's reform: "Tows us seres umanus nasgen libres ed ekwaes in diňà e direbdus e, dobdaws kwomu esdàn de rasà e konsgensa, depen-se kombordar braernàlmende us unus kunus aldrus."

Other alphabets
As a Romance language, Romavian has been always written officially using the Latin script but during the Middle Age, in the Iberian Peninsula it was written using the Arabic script during a brief period of time, some linguists say that the Arabic script was the first script of Romavian language until the Christian kingdoms conquered the territory where Romavians lived, then they swapped to the Latin script. In the 20th century, some Soviet linguists developped a Romavian Cyrillic alphabet along with Keltsvian, but Romavian linguists never adopted that script as official.

Article 1 (Universal Declaration of Human Rights):
 * Romavian Cyrillic alphabet: "Тоус ус серес уманус насген либрес ед екуаес ин диньá е диребдус е, добдаус куому есдáн де расá е консгенса, депен-се комбордар браернáлменде ус унус кунус алдрус"

Organizations
The Romavian language is regulated solely by the Acäèmia da Lìngua Romaviana ("Academy of the Romavian Language).

Zodiac signs

 * Àries (Aries).
 * Tàuru (Taurus, literally bull).
 * Dièminis (Gemini).
 * Canser (Cancer).
 * Leo.
 * Virgo.
 * Libra.
 * Esgòrpiu (Scorpio).
 * Ofiucu (Ophiuchus).
 * Sadiiàriu (Sagittarius).
 * Cabricornu (Capricorn).
 * Aquàriu (Aquarius).
 * Pisgaes (Pisces).

Numerals
Romavian numerals have very similar names to other Western Iberian Romance language. Thousands are separated using dots (.) and decimals using commas.

Cardinal numbers

 * 0: seru.
 * 1: un.
 * 2: dos.
 * 3: dres.
 * 4: quadru.
 * 5: singu.
 * 6: sei.
 * 7: sebde.
 * 8: obdu.
 * 9: nove.
 * 10: deç.
 * 11: onse.
 * 12: dose.
 * 13: drese.
 * 14: quaorse.
 * 15: quinse.
 * 16: desesei.
 * 17: desesebde.
 * 18: deseobdu.
 * 19: desenove.
 * 20: vinde.
 * 21: vindeùn.
 * 22: vindeòs.
 * 23: vindedrès.
 * 24: vindequadru.
 * 25: vindesingu.
 * 26: vindesei.
 * 30: drinda.
 * 31: drindaùn.
 * 40: quarinda.
 * 50: quinguinda.
 * 60: seisinda.
 * 70: sebdinda.
 * 80: obdinda.
 * 90: novinda.
 * 100: sen.
 * 168: sen seisindaobdu.
 * 732: sebdesenes drindaòs.
 * 1.000: mil.
 * 2.367: dos mil dressenes seisindasebde.
 * 1.000.000: un miliòn.
 * 1.000.000.000: mil miliones (or un miliardu).
 * 1.000.000.000.000: un biliòn.
 * 2.345.678.901.234,56: dos biliones dressenes quarindasingu mil seisenes sebdindaobdu miliones novesendes un mil dossenes drindaquadru cun quinguindasei.

To separate the words in numbers with letters they follow a similar criteria as Catalan in their hyphenated number names. This system receives the name of Desenas Ugnaes Sendenas or DUS ("Tenths Units Hundreds", "TUH").

Ordinal numbers
Ordinal numbers are based in Latin, as it is expected from a Romance language. Also the equivalent of 1st in Romavian would be 1u (masc. sing.), 1a (fem. sing.), 1us (masc.pl.) or 1as (fem.pl.).
 * 1st: brimeru(s)/brimera(s).
 * 2nd: secundu(s)/secunda(s).
 * 3rd: terseru(s)/tersera(s).
 * 4th: quardu(s)/quarda(s).
 * 5th: quindu(s)/quinda(s).
 * 6th: sexdu(s)/sexda(s).
 * 7th: sèbdimu(s)/sèbdima(s).
 * 8th: obdavu(s)/obdava(s).
 * 9th: novenu(s)/novena(s).
 * 10th: desmu(s)/desma(s).
 * 11th: undesmu(s)/undesma(s).
 * 12th: duoesmu(s)/duoesma(s).
 * 13th: desmu terseru(s)/desmu tersera(s).
 * 14th: desmu quardu(s)/desmu quarda(s)
 * 20th: vidiesmu(s)/ vidiesma(s).
 * 21th: vidiesmu brimeru(s)/ vidiesmu brimera(s).
 * 30th: dridiesmu(s)/dridiesma(s).
 * 40th: quadradiesmu(s)/quadradiesma(s).
 * 50th: quinguadiesmu(s)/quinguadiesma(s).
 * 60th: sexadiesmu(s)/sexadiesma(s)
 * 70th: sebduadiesmu(s)/sepduadiesma(s)
 * 80th: obdodiesmu(s)/obdodiesma(s)
 * 90th: nonadiesmu(s)/nonadiesma(s)
 * 100th: sendesmu(s)/sendesma(s).
 * 200th: dusendesmu(s)/dusendesma(s).
 * 300th: drisendesmu(s)/drisendesma(s).
 * 400th: quadridiendesmu(s)/quadridiendesma(s).
 * 500th: quindiendesmu(s)/quindiendesma(s).
 * 600th: sexendesmu(s)/sexendesma(s).
 * 700th: sebdindiendesmu(s)/sebdindiesdesma(s).
 * 800th: obdidiendesmu(s)/obdidiendesma(s).
 * 900th: nonindiendesmu(s)/nonindiendesma(s)
 * 1,000th: milesmu(s)/milesma(s).
 * 10,000th: desmilesmu(s)/desmilesma(s).
 * 100,000th: senmilesmu(s)/senmilesma(s).
 * 1,000,000th: milionesmu(s)/milionesma(s).

Partitive numbers

 * 1/2: mèiu(s)/mèia(s).
 * 1/3: terçu(s)/terça(s).
 * From 1/4 to 1/10 are the same as their ordinal counterparts.
 * From 1/11 to 1/20 are the same as their cardinal counterparts but with the suffix -avu(s)/-ava(s).
 * From 1/20 (including 1/20), another formula is used: una [ordinal] parde, for example: una 'vidiesma parte.
 * So for 1/20, two forms of partitive are allowed: vindeavu(s)/vindeava(s) or una vidiesma parde.

Months

 * 1) ianeru
 * 2) febreru
 * 3) marçu
 * 4) abrìl
 * 5) màiu
 * 6) iugnu
 * 7) iuliu
 * 8) aucusdu
 * 9) sebdembre
 * 10) obdubre
 * 11) novembre
 * 12) desembre

Time units

 * secundu (second)
 * minuu (minute)
 * hora (hour)
 * dïa (day)
 * sebdimana (sepxos)
 * mes (month)
 * agnu (year)
 * lusdru (lustrum)
 * dècaa (decade)
 * seglu (century)
 * milegnu (millenium)

Weekdays
The first day of the week for Romavians is Monday, so the order is:
 * lunes
 * mardes
 * mergres
 * ioves
 * vernes
 * sabdu
 * domengu

Expression of date and time
Romavians used the Keltsvian format for date and time is dd-mm-yyyy and hh.mm respectively. For time, they rarely use AM and PM.

When they write a date they use the ordinal number (after its corresponding article) + de + the month + du + the year. For example: To express time, Romavians use exactly the same expression as Keltsvians, they don't use the form It's ten o'clock, the Romavian version would be we have ten hours (they always use the first person singular for expressing time). Examples: Romavians express time in sixths for 10, 20, 40 and 50 minutes of the hour, in quarters for 15 and 45 minutes of the hour and in half for 30 minutes of the hour. For the rest of minutes they do not use any fraction. Not using fractions in time is technically correct but used only for scientific purposes to avoid confusion and simplifying the communication. It is also common for normal speech to say quardu d'hora (quarter of hour) instead of saying quinse minuus (fifteen minutes) or singu sexdus d'hora (five sixths of hour) instead of quinguinda minuus (fifty minutes).
 * 15th June 1991 would be u 15u d'iugnu du 1991.
 * The written form of the same date would be u desmu quindu d'iugnu du mil novesenes novindaùn.
 * It's nine o'clock would be tenemos nove horas
 * 00.00: seru horas (zero hours), dose horas da nobde (twelve hours of the night) or meianobde (midnight)
 * 05.05: singu e singu (five and five)
 * 06.10: sei e un sexdu (six and one sixth)
 * 07.13: sebde e drese (seven and thirteen)
 * 08.15: obdu e un quardu (eight and one quarter)
 * 09.18: nove e deseobdu (nine and eighteen)
 * 10.20: dek ač du ansek (ten and two sixths)
 * 11.30: onse e mèia (eleven and one half)
 * 12.00: dose horas (twelve hours) or meiuia (midday)
 * 13.40: drese e quadru sexdus (thirteen and four sixths)
 * 14.45: quaorse e dres quardus (fourteen and three quarters)
 * 15.50: quinse e singu sexdus (fifteen and five sixths)
 * 16.59: desesei e quinguindanove (sixteen and fifty-nine)

John 3:16
Purgae esì amò Deus au mundu, que fape dau au seu Filiu unidiegnu, bra que tou equìl que nel gree, non perda-se, mas tena via eerna.

The Lord's Prayer
Padre nosu, que esdàs nu caelu, sïa sandificau u nome teu. Vena anòs u regnu teu. Fasa-se a volundà tea, sïa nu caelu, e na terra. Nosu pan quoidianu da-nos hoi, e perdà as nosas debdas, quomu nós perdamo aus nosus debdandes. E non indusas-nos na tendaçà, lipera-nos du mal.

Amen.

Psalm 23
U Segnòr redie-me, e ná faldarà-me: In locäes pasguaes plicarà-me. N'aquas relaxaes eucarà-me, mea anma cambiarà. Gaiarà-me pur sendas d'iusdiça, pur amòr du seu nome. Mas, ambule nu mèiu da umbra da morde, non temo au mal, purgae tu esdaràs cunmì. Tea vara e teu baglu, consolaràn-me. Pararàs a mensa andemì, façaus meus adversus; undiisde a mea capeça n'açai; e meu caliç reversa! Tea misericordia sequirà-me tous us dïas da mea via; e na casa du Segnòr hapiarè, pur longus dïas.

Genesis 11:1-9
Sïa toa a terra ugna, e fablapan tous equàlmende. Quomu pardero d'oriende, incondraro un cambu na terra de Siinaar, e hapiaro elì. Disiro us unus aus aldrus: Venir, fasamo ladres, e coçamo-us cun focu. Fapero ladres bro pedras, e biùn bro caemendu: E disiro: Venamo, fasamo una nove sivià e una turre, cùiu culmu plicae au caelu: e selebremo-nos un nome, pur si seramo diviius pur toa a terra. Desgaendïò u Segnòr bra vier a sivià e a turre que eificapan us filius d'Aam, e disïò: ecu, u poblu sé un e tous tenen una lìngua: cominçaro a faser, ná faserà-es desisdir du que esdàn fasendu. Acora, desgaendamo, e confundamo seas lìnguas, bra que necùn combrenda a fabla du aldru Indunse sïero diviius puru Segnòr desde elì faça toa a terra, e sesaro eificar a sivià. Pur esu sïò glamau u nome seu Bapel, purgae elò confundò u Segnòr a lìngua de toa a terra e disbersò-us pur toa a terra.

The North Wind and The Sun
U vendu sebdendrionàl e u sol disguian quen dus dos sïa u maes forde, quandu viero un ambulande que asirgapa-se involveu nuna grande capa. Acordaro que quen cunseque brimeru que u ambulande quiara-se a capa, seria consïerau u maes forde. U vendu sebdendrionàl sublò cun toa a sea força; mas si maes sublapa, maes abricapa-se u ambulande cuna sea capa. Finalmènde, reiò-se. Indunse u sol cominçò briliar, e ràpiamende, u ambulande, muldu ingaldau, quiò-se a capa. Esì, u vendu sebdendrionàl admiiò que u sol sïa u maes forde.

Prayer of St. Francis
Segnòr, fase-me un servu da tea paç. dunde fapa oiu, sïa amòr, dunde fapa ignùria, sïa perdà, dunde fapa dubda, sïa fiè, dunde fapa desberaçà, sïa esberança, dunde fapa neblas, sïa luç, dunde fapa drisdeça, sïa felisià. O Segnòr caelesdiàl, consee-me bra non tener de ser consolau bro consolar ser combrendiu bro combrender, ser amau bro amar. Purgae dandu resipimo, perdandu perdamo, e sé morindu quomu nasgaemo na via eerna. Amen.