Rozumio

Rozumio is an attempt to bring together two Slavic auxilary conlangs Slovio and Slovianski.

The language is based on Slovio, and yet can be considered a kind of Slovianski in its primitive form (Slovianski has several versions varying in simplicity/naturalism of grammar). The language is intended for inter-Slavic communication and does not use concepts difficult for non-Slavs to perceive.

The general priniples are:


 * Not to bring in features that don't make the language more comprehensible for Slavs who did not learn the language.
 * Linguistic schematism is welcome as long as it does not make the language less understandable.
 * The language should not force its users to speak worse than they can.

Orthography
Alphabet: a b c č d e f g h i j k l m n o p r s š t u v z ž

The letters are pronounced like in Croatian.

X-orthography of Slovio is discarded. Apostrophe-orthography is used when diacritics is unaccessible, e.g. Slovio cxasxa becomes čaša, or c'as'a.

Nonsyllabic i is spelled j; -ia is restored to -ija: voina → vojna ("war"); obiasnit → objasnit ("explain"); organizacia → organizacija ("organization"); soiuz → sojuz ("union").

Nouns
The endings are:

Object case is used for direct object when it precedes the subject, for inderect object, and when a noun follows other noun it describes: Pismu pisam ja ("I write a letter", word order is reversed), Ja pisam pismo drugu ("I write a letter to a friend"), Pisanije pismu ("writing of a letter").

When words look weird, the user should not hesitate to correct it by dropping or adding vowels: use psi, not pesi ("dogs").

Adjectives
The universal ending for adjectives is -e: bele ("white").

When adjective is derived from a noun, one of the suffixes has to be used. The most used suffixes are: -sk-, -n-, -ov-.

By default:


 * Suffix -sk- is used with nations, and other geographic and population entities: rosijske ("of Russia"), karpatske ("Carpathia"), ženske ("women's").
 * Suffix -n- is used for nouns ending in -a: pravdne or pravedne ("truthful"). For easier pronunciation's sake, the final -g, -h, -k may be changed to -ž, -š, and -č respectively: strašne ("scary"), ručne ("hand", adj.), fizične ("physical"), nožne (note that noga ("leg") gives nožne, while nož ("knife") gives nožove)
 * Suffix -ov- is used for nouns ending in zero, -o, and -e: finansove ("financial"), stolove ("table", adj.), čislove ("nummerical"), morjove ("marine").

— but when these rules contradict common sense, of course common sense should be preferred to regularity.

Many other suffixes may be used, e.g. seks ("sex") gives seksualne ("sexual"), while regular seksove may be used as well.

Possessive adjectives:


 * Suffix -insk- is used for nouns ending in -a: sestrinske ("sister's").
 * Suffix -ovsk- is used for nouns ending in zero, -o, and -e: bratovske ("brother's").

Gender-specifying adjective endings may be used when necessary: krasna devica ("fine maiden").

Adverbs
Usually adverbs are derived from adjectives and end in -o: mnogo ("very", "much").

Verbs
The verb bit ("to be") is irregular: bit, jesem, jeseš, je, jesme, jeste, jesut, bil (bila, bile, bilo, bili). The 3rd person singular form je may be used istead of all the other present tense forms.

Past tense endings -la, -le, -lo, -li are optional and may be used as well when necessary. The easiest rule is to make the verb to end into the same vowel as the noun it modifies:

Future tense is formed by auxilary verb bude and infinitive of the main verb: on bude vidit ("he will write").

The language is not pro-drop one, thus it's better to retain the pronoun, even when the person and number is already obvious by the verb ending.

Vocabulary
The language borrows the vocabulary of Slovio, but it should be used very cautiously to avoid nonsense like zxen instead of žena ("woman", "wife") and jazika instead of jazik ("tongue", "language").

Example
''Somaliske pirati oglosili što oni je gotove otrazit vse probi vojnne operacijov dla svobodenije super-tanker-korabu Sirius Star. Kak molvil jedin iz pleniteli, vojnne operacija može koncit katastrofno dla vse-kto. Pirati plenili tanker-korab v Adenske zaliv jedna sedmica nazad. Na bort korabu je dva milioni bočki neftu, v plen ostajut 25 človeki ekipažu. Pirati predložili firmu-korabvlasniku v desjat dni sberat vikup rozmeru 25 milioni dolari.''

"Somali pirates stated that they are ready to repulse any attempt of armed operation for freeing of the supertanker Sirius Star. As one of the seizurers said, an armed operation will end disastrously for everybody. The pirates seized the tanker in the Gulf of Aden one week ago. There are two million barrels of oil aboard, 25 crewmen remain held captive. The pirates proposed the ship-owner company to collect a ransom of 25 million dollars."