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Setting[]

Croanian is a Conlang (obviously) still in construction. It's a Romance language, closely resembling Latin and Italian. Some constructions are clearly derived from either these two, French or Spanish - this because it would have been spoken in the area of North-Spain/South-France/West-Italy.

Basic Grammar[]

The alphabet and pronunciation[]

The Croanian alphabet consists out of 27 characters:

Aa Bb Cc Cs Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qu Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Xx Yy Zz Zh Ææ

Note: The characters cs, qu, zh and æ make a different sound than the single letters C, Z, A and E. The Q never occurs on its own, and the æ can also be written as ae. Use The IPA Rostov-na-don 19:20, July 25, 2010 (UTC)

An overview of the nouns-system[]

Gender, number and case[]

Croanian nouns can have one (sometimes multiple) of the following three genders: Masculine / Feminine / Neuter. Furthermore, a noun is inflected by number (Singular / Plural) and case: Nominative / Genitive / Dative / Accusative. Note that all these genders, numbers and cases are reflected in the Suffix which is added to the noun stem. If we'd take a look at one stem which occurs in all three genders, Bambin-, the possibilities add up to an overwhelming 3 × 2 × 4 = 24 forms for just one single word!

Just to show you what all the different forms look like, here's a table:

Singular
Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative
Masculine Bambino Bambinois Bambinom Bambinos
Feminine Bambina Bambinais Bambinam Bambinas
Neuter Bambinu Bambinüis Bambinum Bambinus


Plural

Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative
Masculine Bambini Bambiníis Bambinim Bambinis
Feminine Bambinæ Bambinæis Bambinæm Bambinæs
Neuter Bambina Bambinais Bambinam Bambinas


Hopefully you see a clear pattern in these declensions for each form: |Stem| + |Gender/Number-related vowel| + |Gender suffix|.

The gender/number-related vowels are the following:

Masc. Sing. Fem. Sing. Neut. Sing. Masc. Plural Fem. Plural Neut. Plural
o a u i æ a

And the case suffixes look like this:

Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative
- -is -m -s



The cases work exactly the same as in German: Nominative = subject; Genitive = possession or relation; Dative = indirect object; Accusative = direct object

The tranlations of the forms of bambin- strongly depends on the case and gender. Generally, bambino would translate to little boy, bambina to little girl and bambinu to little child.

Other Noun Forms[]

Some nouns can have a different suffix in the nom.sing., such as Pony, Museus and Templon [Pony, museum and temple, resp.] The declension for these 'other' nouns looks like this:

Singular

Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative
-y Pony Ponyis Ponym Ponys
-us Museus Museüis Museum Museus
-um Parfum Parfüis Parfum Parfum
-consonant Hotel Hoteleis Hotelem Hoteles
-on Templon Templonis Templom Templos


Plural

Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative
-y Ponyi Ponyíis Ponyim Ponyis
-us Musei Museíis Museim Museis
-um Parfa Parfais Parfam Parfas
-consonant Hoteli Hotelíis Hotelim Hotelis
-on Templi Templíis Templim Templis

An overview of the verbs system[]

General Form[]

Verbs in Croanian have a very strict pattern in showing what/who is the object and in which tense the verb is. This is done by means of suffixes, small parts (1 or two characters) which are added to the stem of a verb. The general form for every verb is as follows:


Verb Stem + Tense suffix(es) + Personal Suffix


With the tense suffixes always being put in the following order:


Past - Future - Perfect (To indicate a present simple, no tense suffix is used)


Personal Pronouns[]

The personal pronouns are rarely used in Croanian as an object, but they do exist:

English Croanian
I Io
You (sing.) Tu
He Ello
She Ella
It Ellu
We Noi
You (pl.) Voi
They (masc.) Elli
They (fem.) Ellæ
They (neut.) Ella

Note that the 'it' and 'they (neut.)' forms are alike in Croanian, but the difference is clearly visible in the conjugated verb. Also note that the form 'Ellu' is almost never used, to translate sentences as "It is beautiful", 'it' is almost always omitted.

Personal Suffixes[]

Sounding rather fancy, the 'personal suffixes' are actually quite dull. Where English uses personal pronouns to indicate the object of a sentence ("They throw the ball."), Croanian does this by adding one or two characters to the verb. In the first, most simple tense - the present simple - they're simply added to the verb stem. Here's a table of all suffixes:

Io -o
Tu -os
Ello -it
Ella -at
Ellu -ut
Noi -i
Voi -em
Elli -is
Ellæ -as
Ella -us

So, let's just take a random verb, and we'll see what we'll get!

Marsere [To walk]

Io Marso
Tu Marsos
Ello Marsit
Ella Marsat
Ellu Marsut
Noi Marsi
Voi Marsem
Elli Marsis
Ellæ Marsas
Ella Marsus

The Infinitive[]

As you prbably noticed, the stem of Marsere is formed by removing the suffix -ere from the stem. But, the infinitive can also take a different form, as with the verb Vivire [To live]. This verb has the suffix -ire, which doesn't matter much at this moment. (The difference between -ere/-ire matters only in the past perfect and the conjunctive mood) The infinitive is furthermore used in the same way as English, so in Croanian it is possible to say "I want to walk" - "Vuolo marsere".

Irregular Verbs (Present Tense)[]

Of course, some verbs are irregular in Croanian. There are 7 really irregular verbs, and a handful of others which don't exactly follow the normal pattern, but aren't really irregular either. These seven verbs are: Essere [To be] / Allere [To go]

Dovire [To have to] / Podire [To be able to] / Volire [To want]

Fassere [To do] / Savvere [To know]

And they are conjugated as follows:

Essere Allere Dovire Podire Volire Fassere Savvere
Io Sum Alleo Duovo Puodo Vuolo Faco
Tu Estos Alleos Duovos Puodos Vuolos Facos Sabos
Ello/-a/-u Est Va Dueve Puede Vuele Fasse Savve
Noi Esti Alli Dovi Podi Voli Fassi Savvi
Voi Estem Allem Dovem Podem Volem Fassem Savvem
Elli/-æ/-a Sunt Vas Dueves Puedes Vueles Faces Sabes


Dictionary[]

Human-describing words[]

  1. bambino = little boy
  2. bambina = little girl
  3. bambinu = little child
  4. garcsono = boy
  5. filiia = girl (Note the pronunciation of Filiia: /fi-lley-jah/)
  6. homo = man
  7. fema = woman
  8. senioro = mister
  9. seniora = miss
  10. viexo = old man
  11. viexa = old woman
  12. persono = someone
  13. qualquuno = anyone ( Pronounced: /kwahl-kwoonoh/)

Random Verbs[]

  1. Essere = To be
  2. Allere = To go
  3. Dovire = To have got to (As in: I've got to go now)
  4. Podire = To be able to (As in: I'm able to do this / I can do this)
  5. Volire = To want
  6. Fassere = To do (Used for many expressions, e.g. to express time and weather)
  7. Savvere = To know
  8. Marsere = To walk
  9. Nagere = To swim
  10. Naistrere = To be born
  11. Mangere = To eat
  12. Vivire = To live
  13. Venire = To come
  14. Vicire = To win / conquer
  15. Audire = To hear


Numbers[]

Please note that, in Croanian, numbers have to change their common suffix (-e) to the appropriate gender and number of the noun they belong to!

Cardinal Ordinal
1 Une Primere
2 Düe Seconde
3 Tríe Tercsere
4 Quattre Quattere
5 Csinque Pentere
6 Sesse Sessere
7 Sette Settere
8 Occe Octere
9 Nove Novere
10 Diezhe Hexere


Example text[]

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