| Ring A next: | Lortho |
| Ring A previous: | Ronc Tyu |
The girl looks very worried. She tells me that a fox came into the village today. She doesn’t know why it sneaks around here. But perhaps it is hungry, and it is often seen hunting for food around the hollow oak tree behind my house.
The girl says she really hopes that the fox won’t devour Tom.
I ask: Why it would want to eat Tom?
The girl says she didn’t find Tom at the pond, and he often sits in the nest inside the hollow in that oak tree.
Only then do I realize that Tom is a teal!
The girl says she believes the soul of her grandfather lives on in that bird. The grandfather’s name was also Tom. He bore an old long scar on his left shoulder, and that teal is marked with a large pale speckle on its left wing.
Because of this insight, the girl fiercely hopes that the fox won’t devour the bird.
Ja puela paere vae meodinde.
Me dihe ud a vuebe hae vinde in uegu hoe.
Non xi ackod ja ſerbe hirge ic.
Sed for ix ione, ed un uec ed aele ja ſe ueze caerer hivu hirge cauve ei ceorgu pox m’ei dowu.
Ja puela dihe ud bein pfera ud non i borare ja vuebe en Towa.
Roho: ¿Ackod ga eßer en Towa?
Ja puela dihe ud non hae iomminde en Towa pud tſangun, ed ih ſoele ſezire in nizu in ei cauva yh ceorgu.
¡Tun mere caebo ud Towa ix a ceorceola!
Ja puela dihe ud creze ud ih aemu ſ’yh graempare perre uever iſte in aeve.
Ih graempare cou era noumpade Towa.
Jerriva veore an hioctrihe longa ſu niſter in uomer,
ed iſte ja ceorceola ix ſingade mange ni maugul paeda ſu niſter in ala.
Ic cos ſaebindſa, ja puela pfera arrinde manore ud non i borare ja vuebe en aeve.
Jovian is a romlang that developed in the region of Alsace about at the same time as the neighboring romlangs, but unlike those, it features many aspects of Classical rather than Vulgar Latin. This is due to a period where the local rulers insisted that their court speak «lingua Iovis nec bovis» and deliberately re-introduced some Classical aspects into the spoken language, albeit not always successfully. The whole grammar is online at the link below, but I doubt you will need any of it beyond this prompt.
In Modern Jovian, nouns only inflect for number, not for case. Only pronouns still have case inflections. For that reason, it is important that each noun phrase be marked with at least an article or a preposition, lest it be interpreted by default as a nominative before the verb or an accusative after the verb.
The 3rd person personal pronouns «is, ja, id» "he, she, it" double as the definite articles: Ja feima "the woman" (literally: "she woman"). The indefinite article is «u, a, un». Both are very irregular, so their forms will be given in the vocabulary list.
A peculiarity of Jovian noun phrases is the tendency to move an adjective (or other modifier) in front of the article or preposition, where it loses all inflection:
| a feima beola | --> beole a feima "a pretty woman" |
| in coelun cruelun | --> cruele in coelun "in (the) blue sky" |
The unmarked adjective form in -e is also used in predicative statements and when deriving adverbs from adjectives:
| id coelun ix cruele | "the sky is blue" |
| ja feima canda beole | "the woman sings beautifully" |
With most pronouns, this construction is pretty much mandatory:
| oene ni obe | "by every means" |
| nuole u omme | "not a single man, no man" |
| ic ei mozu | "in this fashion" |
| m'yh mare | "of my mother" (m'y = mi yh) |
| suwe mi's manes | "take my hands" (mi's = mi eas) |
The oblique case combines the roles of the Latin dative and ablative cases. While the personal pronouns distinguish accusative and oblique forms, the oblique forms are often reduced in informal speech to coincide with the simpler accusative ones:
| me doele | "it hurts me (ACC)" | |
| mic plaehe | "it pleases me (OBL)" | --> me plaehe |
Jovian verbs always inflect for person and number, and for the present and imperfect tenses. Other tenses and moods are expressed with auxiliary constructions or particles.
Thanks to the verb inflections, pro-drop is common:
| veine | "he/she/it comes" |
The perfect tense is expressed with «haere» < HABERE plus a past passive participle:
| uezo | "I see" | --> hau ueſte | "I have seen" |
The future tense consists of the auxiliary «ire» < IRE plus an infinitive:
| luves | "you pay" | --> is luver | "you will pay" |
The conditional mood is built from the auxiliary «gare» (from the subjunctive of AGERE) plus an infinitive:
| ja uengo | "she wins" | --> ja ga uenger | "she would win" |
The i-thematic conjugation also afflicts an i-umlaut to the stem vowel if it is stressed:
| ozire | "to hate" | oeze | "hates" |
Jovian often employs the middle voice construction found in many other Romlangs where one would classically expect a passive:
| ſe louge Joeva | "Jovian is spoken", | lit. "Jovian speaks itself" |
| ih honnur non ſe ewe | "honor can't be bought", | lit. "honor does not buy itself" |
| a | pron. | < UNA (indef.f.nom.sg.) |
| ala | n.f. | < ALA |
| an | pron. | < UNAM (indef.f.acc.sg.) |
| ackod | adv. | < AD + QUOD, means "to what end?" |
| aemu | n.m. | < ANIMUS |
| aeve | n.f. | < AVIS |
| arrinde | adj. | < ARDENS |
| bein | adv. | < BENE (often used as an intensifier) |
| borare | v.tr. | < DEVORARE |
| caeber, caeftu | v.tr. | < CAPERE (fig.: "to realize, understand") |
| cauva | n.f. | < CAVA |
| cauvu | adj. | < CAVUS |
| caerer, caeſtu | v.tr. | < QUAERERE |
| ceorceola | n.f. | < QUERQUEDULA |
| ceorgu | n.m. | < QUERCUS |
| cos | prep. | < CAUSĀ |
| cou | adv. | < QUOQUE |
| crezer, creitu | v.tr. | < CREDERE |
| diher, dictu | v.tr. | < DICERE |
| dowu | n.f. | < DOMUS |
| ed | conj. | < ET |
| ei | pron. | < EI (obl.sg. of 3rd person pronoun; def. article) |
| en | pron. | < EUM, EAM (acc.sg. of 3rd person pronoun; def. article) |
| ere, ſidu | v.irr. | < ESSE |
| eßer, eſu | v.tr. | < ĒSSE |
| gare, gadu | v.aux. | < AGAM, AGAS etc. (conditional mood) |
| graempare | n.m. | < GRANDIS, PATER |
| haere, haetu | v.tr./aux. | < HABERE (used for perfect tense) |
| hioctriha | n.f. | < CICATRIX |
| hirge | prep./adv. | < CIRCA |
| hivu | n.m. | < CIBUS |
| hoe | adv. | < HODIE |
| for | adv. | < FORSITAN, FORSE |
| ic | adv. | < HIC, means "this" when used as an adjective |
| iſte | adv. | < ISTIC, means "that" when used as an adjective |
| ionu | adj. | < IEIUNUS |
| iommire, -mindu | v.tr. | < INVENIRE |
| in | prep. | < IN |
| ire, idu | v.aux. | < IRE |
| ix | < EST, irregular 3rd sg. form of «ere» | |
| ja | pron. | < EA (f.nom.sg. of 3rd person pronoun; def. article) |
| jerrer, jeſtu | v.tr. | < GERERE |
| longu | adj. | < LONGUS |
| mangu | adj. | < MAGNUS |
| manore | adv. | < MAGNOPERE |
| maugul | n.f. | < MACULA |
| me | pron. | < ME or MIHI |
| mi (m') | pron. | < MEUS |
| meodinde | adj. | < METUENS |
| meru | adj. | < MERUS |
| ni | pron. | < UNI (indef.obl.sg.) |
| niſter | adj. | < SINISTER |
| nizu | n.m. | < NIDUS |
| non | adv. | < NON |
| noumpare | v.tr. | < NUNCUPARE |
| paedu | adj. | < PALLIDUS |
| parire | v.intr. | < PARERE |
| perrer, prictu | v.intr. | < PERGERE |
| pferare | v.tr. | < SPERARE |
| pox | prep. | < POST |
| pud | prep. | < APUD |
| puela | n.f. | < PUELLA |
| rohare | v.tr. | < ROGARE |
| ſaebindſa | n.f. | < SAPIENTIA |
| ſe | pron. | < SE |
| ſed | conj. | < SED |
| ſerber, ſerpfu | v.intr. | < SERPERE |
| ſolire, ſoetu | v.tr. | < SOLIRE (used like English "used to", but also in the present) |
| ſezire, ſeitu | v.intr. | < SEDERE |
| ſingadu | adj. | < SIGNATUS |
| ſu (ſ') | pron. | < SUUS |
| Towa | n.m. | < THOMAS |
| tſangun | n.n. | < STAGNUM |
| tun | adv. | < TUM |
| uegu | n.m. | < VICUS |
| uever, uectu | v.tr. | < VIVERE |
| uezire, ueſtu | v.tr. | < VIDERE |
| ud | conj. | < UT |
| un uec ed aele | adv. | < UNA VICE ET ALIA, "every now and then" |
| uomer | n.m. | < UMERUS |
| xire, xidu | v.tr. | < SCIRE |
| yh | pron. | < EIUS (gen.sg. of 3rd person pronoun; def. article) |
| vae | adv. | < VALDE |
| venire, vindu | v.intr. | < VENIRE |
| veore | adj. | < VETUS |
| vuebe | n.f. | < VULPES |
page started: 2018.Jan.08 Mon
current date: 2018.Feb.24 Sat
content originated by Christian Thalmann
form originated by qiihoskeh
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