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 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 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, in a similar way, sc and st become 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 esdripir ("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, 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 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"), 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").

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 (tembus simbes)
Present (bresende)

The present 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'n 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 Macalianes desdubre as Filipinas nu 15u de marçu de 1521 = "Ferdinand Magellan discovers the Philippines on March 15th, 1521" Esde iugnu, ambulo aa Amerga = "This June, I am travelling to America" Acora es e pees desdulbas au segnòr Rodericaes! = "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 (pasau imberfebdu)

The imperfect is formed with the endings shown below:

Uses

The imperfect is used to express the following: Quandu sïa siicu, fablapa romàvica cuna mea ava = "When I was young, I spoke Romavian with my grandmother" Brendiam a ianda quandu indrò Eduardu = "We were having dinner when Edward came in" ''Tou esdaba drangailu 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 (pasau indefiniu)

The preterite 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 Eduardu = "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 (fuuru simbe or fuuru imberfebdu)

The future 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 agnu sequinde, visïarè Mosdova = "Next year, I shall/will visit Moscow" ''Quen esdarà glamandu aa porta? — 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 homu aa 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 televisià? = "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 aa Àsïa 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 (tembus combosdus)
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 (bresende perfebdu)

In the present perfect, 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 disïu a mea opigna = "I have told you my opinion"
 * Esde mes fape bloveu muldu, mas hoi fase bon dïa = "It has rained a lot this month, but today is a fine day"

Past perfect or pluperfect (pasau perfebdu)

In this tense, the imperfect form of faber 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
 * (ees/elas/vosees) 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 (pasau anderiòr)

The past anterior 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
 * (ees/elas/vosees) fapero + past participle

It is often replaced by either the preterite or the pluperfect, with the same meaning:
 * Quandu fapero blicau tous, cominçò a seremogna = "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 (fuuru combosdu)

The future perfect 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
 * (ees/elas/vosees) faperàn + past participle
 * Faperè fablau = "I shall/will have spoken"
 * Quandu eo blicae aa fesda, faperàn-se iu tous = "When I get to the party, everyone will already have left"

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

The conditional is used to express the following: Segnòr, poeria dar-me una copa de vinu? = "Sir, could you give me a glass of wine?" Caereria vier u filme esda sebdimana = "I would like to see the film this week" Sic eo sïa ricu, ambularia aa Amerga Merionàl = "If I were rich, I would travel to South America" ''Quandas personas asisdero aa inaucuraçà du Presidende? — 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 sïa siicu, 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 (condisionàl combosdu)
The conditional perfect refers to a hypothetical past action.

For example:
 * Eo faperia fablau sic faperian-me dau a opordugnà = "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 segretaru ("Have the secretary call him")

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

Negative imperative (imberaivu necäivu)
For the negative imperative, 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 (tembus simbes)
Present subjunctive (bresende du subiundivu)

The present subjunctive of regular verbs is formed with the endings shown below: Imperfect subjunctive (imberfebdu du subiundivu) Future subjunctive (fuuru simbel du subiundivu)

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

Present perfect subjunctive (bresende perfebdu du subiundivu) Pluperfect subjunctive (blusguamberfebdu du subiundivu) Future perfect subjunctive (blusguamberfebdu du subiundivu)
 * Quandu eo fapa fablau... = "When I have spoken..."
 * Sic 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 lecaendu ("I am reading"). However, one can also say seco lecaendu ("I am still reading"), ó lecaendu ("I am slowly but surely reading"), ando lecaendu ("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 sïas 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")
 * Dïò-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 -sià 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 profesòr/a profesora, u ministru/a ministra, u can/a cana. Often, nouns that refer to positions that are traditionally held by men are declinable.
 * Invariant nouns (in Romavian, susdandivus de dienru 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 visïa.
 * 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 cabalu/a equa.
 * Epicene nouns. The gender of the noun is fixed and sex is indicated by masglu ("male") or femna ("female"). Examples: a diirafa masglu, a diirafa femna, u rinoseronde masglu, u rinoseronde femna.
 * Applied to things:
 * Masculine, e.g. u pan.
 * Feminine, e.g. a mandeca.
 * Vacillant nouns (called susdandivus ambìcuus 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 alìcuu (instead of aliqua) and nècuu (instead of nequa) 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 fridiias.
 * 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: foo ("photo") from foografia, and moo ("motorcycle") from moosiglea; -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/sià (a naçà, a televisià, a solïà, a liberdà, a senebdïa).

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:
 * Maïa 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 Iorcae (city)
 * a antiqua Cartaco (city)
 * Iersisiica sé siicu (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, alìcuu, 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 → vosees). 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 nignus, grammatically masculine, may mean "the children" or "the boys". The feminine gender is exclusive in the plural: as nignas = "the little girls". When male sex needs to be shown exclusively in the plural, phrases such as us nignus 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 → locäes).
 * 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 nècuu ("no") always take singular noun phrases, even where plurality might be intended: The determiner qualquera has a plural form (quaesquera).
 * Sic fape alìcuu arbor, u deriparemo = "If there is any tree, we will tear it down"
 * Pur qualqueru mèiu = "By any means"
 * Nècuu obsdaglu inderbone-se = "No obstacle is in our way", "There are no obstacles in our way"
 * Non viì a necuna mulièr = "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 Spanish is -ili-. 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 → blandilia / blandaca ("plant" → "little plant" / "big plant")
 * copu → copiliu / copucu ("glass" → "little glass" / "big glass")
 * nignu → nigniliu / nignucu ("small boy" → "little tiny boy" / "big (little tiny) boy")
 * segnòr → segnoriliu ("Sir/Mister" → "little sir/mister" (mockingly) compare segnora → segnorilia ("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" → borsiliu "pocket"
 * gaerra "war" → gaerrilia "hit-and-run warfare"
 * porda ("door") → pordaçu ("slam of a door")
 * manu ("hand") → manaçu ("a hit with the hand")
 * blesia ("arrow") → blesiaçu ("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. Fridiiu ("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 fridiia; -a is generally the feminine singular ending for adjectives that inflect for gender. When it is used with a masculine plural noun, it becomes fridiius, and when it is used with a feminine plural noun, it becomes fridiias; -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 homus 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 mondagna ("high mountain")), can be placed before or after the noun with little change in meaning.
 * friddiu ("cold") = friddiu, fridiia, fridiius, fridiias
 * siicu ("small") = siicu, siica, siicus, siicas
 * vermiliu ("red") = vermiliu, vermilia, vermilius, vermilias
 * virde ("green"): virde, virde, virdes, virdes
 * formàl ("formal"): formàl, formàl, formaes, formaes
 * simbel ("simple"): simbel, simbel, simbes, simbes
 * U vermiliu á ecaì, no? = "The red one goes here, doesn't it?"
 * Fapemo tirar as rumbias = "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: meliòr ("better"), peiòr ("worse"), minòr ("younger"), and maiòr ("older"), respectively. Meliòr and peiòr are placed before the nouns they modify: a meliòr causa, ("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 -ìsdimu. 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 → rapiìsdimu
 * muldu formosas → formosìsdimas
 * muldu rica → ricaìsdima
 * muldu lendu → lendìsdimu
 * muldu andìcuu → andiquìsdimu
 * 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 absorb by the present participle suffix, used in this language for adjective creation from verbs. For example: Examples:
 * As danças sïeron aquandes = "The dances were exhausting"
 * Una biografia insbirande = "An inspiring biography" (or lit. "A biography that inspires")

Time
Non-defining

Defining