Slavski jezik

Overview

=Setting= Slavski jezik is a constructed and simplified language based on Slavic languages. It is characteristically a South Slavic language with a significant amount of East Slavic (mainly Russian) and West Slavic (Polish) influence.

= Basic Grammar =

Orthography
Slavski spelling is quite phonemic in practice and mixes morphological and phonetic principles. The punctuation follows the German model.

Slavski language has two parallel writing systems: Cyrillic and Latin. They can be used interchangeably in all situations but being more suitable for a Cyrillic language the Cyrillic spelling is preferred in official contexts.

The Latin alphabet for Slavski jezik (27 letters, 2 letter combinations): Aa Bb Cc Čč Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Ljlj Mm Nn Njnj Oo Pp Rr Ss Šš Tt Uu Ůů Vv Yy Zz Žž

The Cyrillic alphabet for Slavski jezik (30 letters): Аа Бб Вв Гг Дд Ее Жж Зз Ии Йй Јј Кк Лл Љљ Мм Нн Њњ Оо Пп Рр Сс Тт Уу Ўў Фф Хх Цц Чч Шш Ыы

Several other letters can occur in order to render direct citation of foreign words, primarily modified Latin letters, such as: q, w, x; ç; Đ,đ; Ģ, ģ; Ł, ł; Ş, ş; Ż, ż. Though written, these are pronounced like the most similar indigenous phoneme, e.g. Kwaśniewski is pronounced as though written Kvašnjevski, Washington as though written Vošington. Other Cyrillic letters, e.g. Щщ ъ Яя, may be used in foreign words and names.

The use of i/j: in Latin spelling Jj is used when [i] is the final part of a vowel combination and syllable-initially. Ii is used elsewhere. The use of и/ј/й: Jj is used syllable-initially, й is used when [i] is the final part of a vowel combination. Ии is used elsewhere.

If diacritics cannot be used, the letters with diacritics are spelt as follows: č &gt; cz, š &gt; sz, ů &gt; ou, ž &gt; zs. In Cyrillic ў &gt; оу.

Phonology
Vowels

The Standard Slavski vowel system has five monophthongal and one diphthongal vowel. The difference between long and short vowels is not phonemic.


 * 1) This is an additional sound that is not reflected in the official spelling. In unofficial spelling it is usually rendered as Ы, ы (Cyrillic) or Y, y (Latin). The quality of the sound varies mainly depending on the speaker’s age. The older generation still use a close central unrounded vowel (IPA: [ɨ]) correspoding to the respective sounds in Russian (ы after unpalatalised consonants) and Polish (y). The younger generation tend to use a labialised near-close near-front unrounded vowel (IPA: [wɪ]). Or the same sound with no prior labialisation (IPA: [ɪ]). Whether the sound should be reflected in the official spelling is debatable but as only few minimal pairs exist and they do not cause much confusion, marking this sound in spelling has been seen unnecessary so far.
 * 2) The Diphthongal Vowel The close back rounded vowel preceded by a very short close-mid back rounded vowel ў (Cyrillic) or ů (Latin) (IPA: [ou]) is used solely as plural genitive ending. It was historically a half-long nasal close-mid back rounded vowel (IPA: [õ•]) that was reduced to a short close-mid back rounded vowel [u] elsewhere but kept its special quality in the plural genitive ending resulting in the sound [ou]. Some nasalisation may be heard occasionally, oddly enough, amogst the younger speakers [õ(w)]. When it does not denote the genitive plural ending it is pronounced as [w] e.g. Ůiski/Ўиски [wiski] and imaůam/имаўам [imawam].

Consonants 


 * 1) Voiced plosives and fricatives are devoiced word-finally and when preceding a voiceless consonant. E.g. muž [muʃ] 'man', blizki [bliski] 'nearby', led [let] 'ice'.
 * 2) Non-palatal consonants may be palatalised when preceding a front vowel. E.g. led [ʎet] 'ice', biti [bic(i)] 'to be'. The infinitive suffix -ti is frequently pronounced as [c] or [ts].
 * 3) Syllable final L is frequently vocalised to a semivowel [w]. E.g. Jа не видел тебе. [ja ne videw tebe] 'I did not see you.'

Nouns
Slavski nouns have grammatical gender (masculine, feminine or neuter), number (singular or plural) and case (nominative, genitive, dative and locative).

The plural is formed by adding to or replacing the the singular ending. Some forms are similar for all nouns of all genders, such as the genitive plural ending in -ў .

Masculine Gender
Hard Declesion

Soft Declesion

Masculine nouns ending in palatal sounds (њ, љ, ј) get the suffix -ем in dative singular.

Disappearing A

A weak -a- may vanish in declination e.g. in these words: дан, театар...

=== Neuter Gender ===

Hard Declesion

Neuter and masculine nouns only differ in nominative endlings. Otherwise the declination patterns are identical.

Soft Declesion (words ending in palatal sounds)

Feminine Gender
Both Hard and Soft Declesion

Feminines with I- declination (e.g. кост 'bone', гост 'guest', двер 'door')

A small number of feminine nouns end in consonants and have a divergent declination pattern.

Endings

Exceptions: време (neuter) 'time' pl.: времена (-н- added in all other forms save nominative and accusative singular)

Adjectives
Adjective paradigms are rather similar to the ones of nouns.

Almost all adjectives end in -i in masculine singular, the form found in dictionaries.

As an example the adjective novi 'new'.

Personal Pronouns
The personal pronouns in Slavski have various forms according to gender, number, person and case.

The pronoun оно can be used referring to neuter gender words. It is declined exactly like the 3rd person pronoun for masculine gender, он.

The reflexive pronoun is Acc/Gen.: себе (се), Dat/Loc.: себи (си) 'myself, yourself, oneself...'.

=== Possessive Pronouns === Possessive pronouns exist only in 1st and 2nd person. In 3rd person the genitive forms of personal pronouns are used.

Мой my

Твой your

Свой one's, my own, your own...

Наш our

Ваш your (pl)

...are all conjugated as мой.

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Demonstrative Pronouns
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Numerals
Most of the ordinal numbers have short forms used frequently in spoken language. Corresponding short forms for cardinal numbers are formed by adding the suffix -i.

Cardinal numbers are declined as adjectives.

Jedan is declined as an adjective (jedan, jedna, jedno, jedni). Jen is short for jedan. It's often used as an indefinite article. It's usually not declined.

Tense
Verb tenses of Slavski language are present, past and future.
 * Present tense uses the verb stem and a personal ending. E.g. ''ima + m = imam 'I have
 * Past tense uses verb stem, suffix -l- and personal ending. The suffix is frequently pronounced [w] and even written as w/ў in conversational/dialectal contexts. A parallel form using only the suffix conjugated in gender and number exists. Personal pronouns must be used with this form. E.g. ima + l + am 'I had~I have had' OR ja ima + l = Ja imal 'I had~I have had'
 * Future uses the future form of the verb biti 'to be' and infitive. E.g. budem imati 'I shall have

=== Mood ===

Besides the indicative, Slavski uses conditional, subjunctive and 'imperative. '
 * Conditional uses plain past tense forms with suffixed conditional forms of the verb biti 'to be'. E.g. ima + l + bim = Imalbim 'I would have
 * Subjunctive uses the indicative with the particle da. E.g. da + ima = da ima 'I have
 * Imperative uses suffix -i or -j attached to the (shortened) stem of the verb. E.g. ima + j = imaj! 'Have!

Aspect
Slavski uses two verbal aspects: perfective and imperfective.
 * Perfective uses the plain verbs forms.
 * Imperfective uses a suffix. The infinitive ending -ти is replaced by -вати and the verb is conjugated accordingly. 

Ја читам книги. I read books.

Ја читавам твоју книгу. I am reading your book.

Ја читал книгу. I (have) read a book.

Ја читавал книгу. I was reading a book.

Ја будем читати книгу. I shall read a book.

Ја будем читавати книги. I shall be reading books.

Conjugation
Verb имати 'to have' used as an example.

Infinitive: има|ти (root being има-)

Active Past Participle: ималан (declined as a regular adjective)

Passive Past Participle: имати (declined as a regular adjective)

Present Participle: имајуши (declined as a regular adjective)

Some of the verb form presented below have alternative forms:
 * Past: ималам, ималаш, имала, ималаме, ималате, имали
 * Conditional: бим, биш, би, биме, бите, би + имати (infinitive)
 * 3rd Person Plural: Conjugated verb froms can either end in -ју or be identical to the 3rd person singular forms.

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Irregular Verbs
There are only two verbs with irregular forms: бити 'to be' and идети 'to go'.

Бити (infinitive), билан (APP), бити (PPP), бијуши (PP), будуши (Future Participle)

Идети (infinitive), идети (PPP), идејуши (PP)

Only Past forms are irregular:

masculine singular: шал

feminine singular: шла

neuter singular: шло

plural: шли

Prepositions
=Dictionary=


 * Slavski Jezik / A
 * Slavski Jezik / B
 * Slavski Jezik / C
 * Slavski Jezik / Č
 * Slavski Jezik / D
 * Slavski Jezik / E
 * Slavski Jezik / F

=Example text=

Svi ljudi rodin se svobodni i jednaki u svoji dostojnosti i pravimi. Oni su nadeleni sa razumem i sovestim i treban postupati jedan pret ina u duši bratsva.

(1. Artikal Vseobceni deklaraciji pravů človeka)

Сви људи родин се свободни и једнаки у своји достойности и правими. Они су наделени са разумем и совестим и требан поступати један прет ина у души братсва.

(1. Артикал Всеобцени декларацији правў чловека)

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

(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

_____________________

Zdravo! Hello!

Šče! Hi!

Kak ti (si)? How are you?

Dobre. Fine.

Dekam. ''Thank you. (lit. I thank)''

Deki. Thanks.

Ne za čo. / Nizaš. / Niš. You are welcome.

Svoja strana ljubima, druga strana neznama. Home sweet home.

U každi strani, svoji privičani. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Žaš čo sijaš. You reap what you sow.

Neplači, strašno dete, zautre ti kupime novo lice. Don't cry ugly child, tomorrow we'll buy you a mask.

Luče ideš. You'd better go.