Celitiàm

Classification and Dialects
Celitian is a romance language spoken in Bavaria as well as in Austria and parts of Czechia. It is spoken by around 1.000.000 people.

There are two major dialects, a western and an eastern one. The western one is spoken in Bavaria and the eastern one is spoken in Austria and Czechia. The eastern dialect tends to drop or not pronounce more letters in a word than the western dialect.

he is not as good as that amazing man:



il nu e pra calo si isto calíssimo oumo (west) / il n'e pra calo s'ist(o) calíssim(o) oumo (east)

Alphabet
The stress lies on the second to last syllable (chapUnto-correct), but never on vowels with a breve: ă, ĕ and ĭ (prăzEns-present). If the stress lies on another syllable then this is indicated by an accent on the vowel in that syllable (çhantàt-sung). An accent aigu indicates a long vowel and an accent grave a short vowel.

if there stands an -s before a vowel with an accent grave on it, you pronounce the -s (sj). Grasèus (grasjEus-thank you).

Nouns
There are two genders, masculine and feminine, and three numbers, singular, dual and plural.

All nouns are divided into four different groups. In group 1, masculine words end with -o and feminine words end with -a

Nouns from group 2 are almost always masculine.

Words from group 3&4 can either be masculine or feminine and can sometimes have irregular plurals.

In a one-syllable word from group 4, the dual and plural ending comes behind the word. In a more-syllable word, the last letter is replaced with the dual and plural ending. For example: mox - moxe but ananas - ananae.

articles
there are definite and indefinite articles.

cases
even though Celitiàm has abandoned most of its cases, there are still genitive forms that are used, especially in the eastern dialect. The genitive indicates a posession. Instead of the genitive case, the preposition 'de' can be used, which is now more common. To form the genitive, you take the dual form of a word and then you delete the -e to get the stem. Then you add the genitive endings. you can always replace the genitive with the word: de

iu mox i'oumiu (the man's moustache) vs. iu mox de i'oumo. iu iavro ie muiau (the woman's book)

ia festas oi fiei/fiior (the (two) boys' party)

posessive pronouns
posessive pronouns change depending on number and gender.

adjectives
an adjective conjugates to the noun it belongs to, but they do not have a genitive form. Adjectives can either be placed before or after the noun. An adjective in the masculine form can end in either -o or -u. ist'oumo e pra calo. (this man is so good.)

il n'e pra calo s'ista pela muia (he is not as good as this beautiful woman.)

cala sàra. (good evening.)

cómparatis and súperlatis
to form the comparative and the superlative of an adjective, you take the masculine form of the adjective and add the ending -ro/ra for the comparative and -sto/sta for the superlative. ia calosta muia venĭ a ma çhiasa. (the best woman comes to my house.)

when the adjective in the comparative or superlative is not directly next to the noun, you use the forms of multi (much), plu, (am) fos + póstitis.

illa çhiasa e plu pela si i'autra. (that house is more beautiful than the other one.)

(tu) es am fos gralto. (you are the longest/biggest.) You use am fos + pósitis if the adjective describes someone's/something's appearence. In other cases, you use an article with fos + pósitis

(tu) es iu fos calo. (you are the best.)

there are a few adjectives that have irregular comparative and superlative forms.

maio (bad), peioro, peiosto

pievro (poor), pievoro, pievosto

multi (much), plu, fos

Verbs
there are four types of verbs. Verbs that end in the infinitive with: -ar, -er, -ir, -re (çhantar - to sing, qiser - to eat, velir - to want, prandre - to take). To conjugate a verb you take away -ar, -er, -ir, -re to get the stem and then you add the endings.

Cerlitian verbs have: 7 tenses: iu prăzens, i'imperfatu, iu perfatu, iu furamu, iu passe compent, iu plussiperfatu simplo and iu plussiperfatu compent; 2 numbers: iu singularis and iu pluralis; 4 moods: i'indicatis, iu condixionel, iu parafatis and iu coniunctis and 2 voices: i'actius and iu passius.

the personal pronouns are: the personal pronouns are not required before a verb since every person has another ending. The formal form to say you is 'umă' in the singular form and just vus in the plural form.

direct object personal pronouns can either be placed before or after the verb, unless the sentence is negative or a question because then it must stand in front of the verb.

ieu lavu-tĕ / ieu tĕ lavu (I love you) but only: ieu nu tĕ lavu (I don't love you)

Present tense
the present tense is used to describe something that happens frequently or something that happens now.

(ieu) çhantu zi (tu) qises. (I sing and you eat/i am singing and you are eating)

(ieu) veliu cafè am let. (I want coffee with milk)

Past imperfect tense
the past imperfect tense is used to describe something that happened frequently in the past or to describe background information.

nu pasad, (ieu) ios xavivàm alcuhol pa un festas.(in the past, i always drank alcohol at a party.)

ia vencha fajivă caet un oumo ambulá per ia sadura. (the wind was blowing while a man was walking through the forest.)

Preterite tense
the preterite is used to describe an event that occured in the past.

ir (el) vostá cu ma sora (yesterday she spoke with my sister.)

ia nicta passe ambulíms isul per ia caje (last night we walked through the street.)

Future tense
the future tense is used to describe something that will happen in the future.

(tu) furis un calíssimo oumo. (you will be a great man.)

(ieu) savu qua (ili) dirii a miu. (I know what they will say to me.)

Compound past
the compound past (iu passe compent) is formed by the auxiliary verb aure (to have) + the past participle form of the verb. the compound past is used to describe something that has ended so there's no use/possibility to do it again.

(ieu) au qisèt ia pizza. (I have eaten the pizza).

(nus) ams pranti i'ofriu. (We have taken the offer.)

Pluperfect tense
there are 2 types of pluperfect tenses. The simple pluperfect and the compound pluperfect. They are usually interchangeable, but if you have two pluperfect tenses in one sentence, you use the compound pluperfect to describe the event that happend first and the simple pluperfect to describe the event that happend after that. you use the pluperfect tense to describe something that happened before the main action happened.

caet (vus) ís estior, já delază de plurar. (when you went outside, it had already stopped raining.)

(ili) já qisezai. (they had already eaten.)

the compound pluperfect is formed using the past form of the verb aure and then the past participle. (see compound past tense.)

irregular verbs
There are a few irregular verbs. The most frequent are: sère (to be), dir (to say), posser (to can), ponder (to place), fiar (to make) and aendre (to go)

passive
The passive (iu passius) has five tenses. The present, the past imperfect, the future, the perfect and the pluperfect tense. The first three are formed using a form of the verb vuir + passive participle. The other two are formed using a form of sère + passive past participle. The perfect tense is formed using the present tense of sère (su), the pluperfect tense is formed using the past tense of sère (siàm). Some verbs, like sère, don't have passive forms themselves. the passive pasticiple is for every verb in singular and plural: stem + usc, for example: çhantusc (sung) the passive past participle is the same as the past participle + u for singular and + ui for plural.

the passive is used when you want to say what happens to the subject or when you don't not know the subject.

ia pizza e qisetu. (the pizza is eaten.)

(nus) ios vuiàms batusc per nos(su) paiu. (we were always hit by our father.)

subjunctive
The subjunctive (iu coniunctis) has 2 tenses and 2 voices, present and past, active and passive. Things that will happen in the future, are also expressed with the present subjunctive. To form the conjunctive, you take the 1sg form of the verb in the indicative and then you take away -u/-iu (-ir verbs). Then you add the endings, so it is vaiem and not aendĕm (aendre). If the forms are (almost) the same, you can add the word 'sa' in front of the verb to indicate the use of the subjunctive, but this is not required.

These are the most important uses of the subjunctive:

- wishes ((sa) vivei(ĕ) iu renyu, long live the king/may the king live long)

- desires ((ieu) veliu qe (tu) (sa) mauries, I want you to die)

- doubts ((ieu) dobu qe (ili) (sa) possei vorber Celitiàm, I doubt that they can speak Celitian)

- possibilities (nu e possiblo qe (vus) (sa) vorbeite Celitiàm, It is not possible that you speak Celitian)

Some verbs that often have a subjunctive with them are: velir (want), dobar (doubt), stundar (think), jesper (hope), desar (desire/wish). the passive of the subjunctive is formed using the subjunctive form of vuir in the present tense and the subjunctive form of sère in the past tense. The pasticiples stay the same as in the indicative. (nus) jespems qe (vus) nu (sa) vuite madeçusc (we hope that you will not be murdered) (ieu) stundái qe (il) (sa) si(ĕ) batatu (I thought that he was hit)

negation and questions
To make a sentence negative, you can do two things. You can add the word nu directly in front of the verb (ieu nu tĕ lavu). Or you can add the suffix -ne to the verb, but you can only do this if the verb ends in: a vowel (not the vowels with a breve mark on it) or an s (ieu tĕ lavune). However, if the verb is only one syllable long, this is also not possible (il nu e, and not: il ene)

To form a question, you can just add a question mark after the sentence (tu mĕ lavas?). Or you can put ce in front of the sentence (ce tu me lavas?).

the stressed syllable never changes because of the suffixes (tu mĕ lAvasne).

adverbs
To make an adverb out of a adjective, you make the adjective feminine and then you add the ending: -mè. Adverbs are used to say something about a verb, an adjective or another adverb. Adverbs never change in form.

tu ambulas răfamè (you walk fast) vs i'oumo răfo (the fast man)

There are a few exceptions on the rule.

calo - chiel

maio - mal

multi - mult

contractions
there are a few prepositions that contract if there comes an article after them.

de (from/of)

de + iu = du

de + ia = da

de + éi = déi

in (in)

in + iu = nu

in + ia = na

in + éi = néi

pa (at)

pa + iu = piu

pa + ia = pia

pa + éi = péi

Cu/am
cu and am can both be translated as ‘with’, but there is a difference in use. Am means that you have added one thing to another, mostly liquids/food ex. cafè am let (coffee with milk) or tort am zach ĕr (cake with sugar). Cu is used in all other cases ex. ieu veliu ambular cu tiu (I want to walk with you). When you have a personal pronoun after a preposition, you use the indirect object form.

greetings:
there are a few ways to greet someone in Celitiàm.

informal:

prava / salut / ileu / chiau = hi / hello

prava / chiau / vale = bye

formal:

calo uz / cal'uz = good morning/afternoon

cala sàra = good evening

cala nicta = good night

a rever = see you later

a mĕnau = see you tomorrow

other expressions:
here are a few other expressions that can be useful:

stĕplază (from: si tĕ plază. lit. 'if it pleases you') = please

(multi) grasèus = thank you (very much)

ma plaza (lit. 'my pleasure') / de ras (lit. 'from nothing') = no ploblem

Numbers
to say 'i am 23 years old in Celitian you say: (ieu) au zintum-trai ani (lit. I have 23 years).

Example text
from the universal decleration of human rights:

Tos éi sèrendi humanitari sunt naetatu leuvri zi ejai in dignitat zi drechi. Sunt dotatui du rajau zi consènzia zi deuvei coutarsi fraternamè am lauta.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards another in a spirit of brotherhood.