Alphabet & Grammar
Everything you need to get started: how the letters sound, how words get built, and how sentences fit together.
The Alphabet
Novôslav is written in plain Latin letters. Three letters aren't pronounced quite how you'd expect: c is "ts" (as in co, "what"), j is "y" (as in Jag, "I"), and y works as a soft vowel/glide (as in yak, "how").
Standard letters
Accented vowels
Four extra vowels, on top of the regular five. They're part of the language's whole look, so we keep them exactly as they are.
Soft consonants
These give Novôslav its melodic quality: a caron over the letter softens it.
Sibilants
A caron also covers a couple of consonant sounds English usually spells with two letters.
o for ô, s for š, c for č, d/t/l/n for ď/ť/ľ/ň. It just won't distinguish those words from their unaccented look-alikes.
Sound Rules
The Rhythmic Law
Two long vowels or accented syllables can't sit next to each other. If a suffix brings in a long vowel and the stem already ends on one, the stem vowel shortens automatically to keep the rhythm balanced.
Glide Insertion
When a verb root ends in a vowel and the suffix starts with one too, Novôslav slips a glide consonant y in between so the two vowels don't collide.
Word Order & Sentence Structure
Strict SVO
Subject, then verb, then object, always. Novôslav doesn't let you reorder words for emphasis, the order always stays put.
No Case System
Nouns never change form for case. Word order and prepositions do all the work, the same noun form works as subject or object.
Ty vidar druhen.
"You see the friend." Subject ty, verb vidar, object druhen, always in that order.
Articles
Definiteness gets marked by tacking a suffix onto the end of the noun, instead of using a separate word before it.
Common gender: -en
Most animate and everyday nouns.
kôn (horse) → kônen (the horse)
druh (friend) → druhen (the friend)
Neuter: -et
A smaller class of nouns, often abstract.
serd (heart) → serdet (the heart)
dom (house) → domet (the house)
Verb Conjugation
Verbs only conjugate for tense, never for person or number. The same form works for "I", "you", "he", "we", or "they".
| Tense | Suffix | Example (root: milu- "love") |
|---|---|---|
| Present | -ar / -er | miluar, "love(s)" |
| Past | -te / -de | milude, "loved" |
My, ty, on byar dobri.
"We, you, he, are good." One verb form, no matter the subject.
Building New Words
To coin a new Novôslav word: start with a consonant-rich root, soften it with a diphthong or two, trim it down, then attach the right suffix.
Kôn (Horse)
The root kôn is the word itself, then definite kônen.
Serdet (Heart)
A root like serd takes the neuter definite suffix straight on: serdet.