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 are conserved but without the existence of all long vowels, in this aspect the language would be closer to Sardinian. Long vowels are only kept for stressed syllables due to Romavian being a stress-timed language.

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, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and X. J, K, W, Y and Z are not used, and Ç was added to the set, so its alphabet has 22 letters. It also contains some digraphs like ca (before e and i), di (before vowel), ga (before e and i), gn (with the same pronounciation as in French and Italian), li (before vowel), rr (representing a thrill, like in Spanish and Italian) and si (before vowel). Letter h is mute.

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 the digraph li:
 * The Vulgar Latin oricla evolved to the Romavian orilia ("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 diphtongs:
 * The Latin caseus evolved to the Romavian casu ("cheese").
 * The Latin iānua ("door") evolved to the Romavian iana ("window").
 * Simplification of triphtongs:
 * The Latin quaerere ("to seek") evolved to the Romavian caerer ("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 belu ("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 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:
 * The Latin lūcta evolved to the Romavian lubda ("fight").
 * The Latin accaptāre evolved to the Romavian acabdar ("to respect [a rule]").


 * Initial fl and pl become bl, as in the Latin fl ūmen 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, vosees) 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"). Spanish 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).
 * (Vosees) 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.
 * Ees 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 (brimeru grupu ["first group"]). Examples: fablar ("to speak"), candar ("to sing"), dançar ("to dance").
 * "-er" verbs (secundu grupu ["second group"]). Examples: beper ("to drink"), lecaer ("to read"), combrender ("to understand").
 * "-ir" verbs (terseru grupu ["third group"]). Examples: vivir ("to live"), sendir ("to feel"), esdripir ("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"), lecaendu ("reading"), combrendendu ("understanding").
 * -ir verbs: -indu. Examples: vivindu ("living"), sendindu ("feeling"), esdripindu ("writing").

The gerund has a variety of uses and can mean (with facaendu, 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 facaendu ("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"), lecaeu ("read"), combrendeu ("understood").
 * -ir verbs: -iu. Examples: viviu ("lived"), sendiu ("felt"), esdripiu ("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").