Novial/Hound Lesson 1

Novial home – Pronunciation Guide

Contents – Lesson 1 – Lesson 2 – Lesson 3 – Lesson 4 – Lesson 5 – Lesson 6 – Lesson 7

Prefixes – Suffixes – Proforms

Li Hunde del Familie Baskerville
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Watson: Bon jorne, doktoro Mortimer.

Mortimer: Bon jorne. Ob vu es sinioro Sherlock Holmes?

Holmes: No, lo es men amike, doktoro Watson.

Mortimer: Plesure ke me renkontra vu, doktoro. Me sava vun nome. Sinioro Holmes, vu tre multim interesa me.

Holmes: Me observa fro vun fingre ke vu fuma. Bonvoli sida e fuma. Pro quu vu visita nus disdi?

Mortimer: Me have seriosi e exterordinari probleme. Me realisa ke vu es li duesmi autoritate in Europa.

Holmes: Ya, sinioro! Que es unesmi?

Mortimer: Li laboro de Monsieur Bertillon sembla bon a siential home.

Holmes: Dunke, pro quu vu non konsulta lo?

Mortimer: Lu sembla bon a siential home, ma me prefera konsulta vu in praktikal koses. Me espera ke me non ofense vu.

Holmes: Nur pokim. Rakonta a nus li nature de vun probleme.

Alphabetical Vocabulary List
Adjectives which often drop the final -i have it in brackets.


 * a – to
 * amike – friend
 * autoritate – authority
 * bon(i)  – good
 * bonvoli –  (to) be willing, please
 * de – of
 * del – of the
 * disdi – today
 * doktoro – doctor
 * duesmi – second
 * dunke – therefore
 * e – and
 * es – am, are, is, (to) be
 * espera –  (to) hope
 * Europa – Europe
 * exterordinari – extraordinary
 * familie – family
 * fingre – finger
 * fro – from
 * fuma –  (to) smoke
 * have –  (to) have, possess
 * home – person
 * hunde – dog
 * in – in
 * interesa –  (to) interest
 * jorne – day
 * ke – that (conjunction)
 * konsulta –  (to) consult
 * kose – thing, matter
 * laboro – work
 * li – the
 * lo – he, him
 * lu – it
 * ma – but
 * me – I, me
 * men – my, mine
 * nature – nature
 * no – no
 * nome – name
 * non – not
 * nur – only
 * nus – we, us
 * ob – is it that? 
 * observa – (to) observe
 * ofense – (to) offend
 * plesure – pleasure
 * pokim – a little (adverb)
 * praktikal(i)  – practical
 * prefera –  (to) prefer
 * pro quu? – why?
 * probleme – problem
 * que? – who? 
 * rakonta – (to) tell, recount
 * realisa –  (to) realize
 * renkontra –  (to) meet
 * sava –  (to) know
 * sembla –  (to) seem
 * seriosi – serious
 * sida –  (to) sit
 * siential(i)  – scientific
 * sinioro – Mr, sir
 * tre – very
 * tre multim – very much
 * unesmi – first
 * visita –  (to) visit
 * vu – you (one person)
 * vun – your, yours (one person)
 * ya – indeed

Personal Pronouns – Subject, Object and Possession
The subject and object forms (e.g English I and me) of Novial pronouns are the same:


 * me – I, me
 * nus – we, us
 * vu – you (one person)
 * vus – you (more than one person)
 * lo – he, him
 * los – they, them (all male)
 * la – she, her
 * las – they, them (all female)
 * le – he or she, him or her
 * les – they, them
 * lu – it
 * lus – they, them (all sexless objects)

Notice that in the third person, male and female have the endings -o and -a respectively. The ending -e indicates either male or female without specifying. The ending -u indicates a sexless thing. Plurals all end in -s. Les is conveniently used to mean they, them as in English, i.e. it is not specified whether they are sexless or not, and they may be any mixture of male, female and sexless things. This system is flexible and allows more speakers to follow their natural language habits. So the French may often choose to use las and los, while most English speakers would choose to use les, ignoring the sex distinction which is here absent in English. A Finnish speaker may prefer to use le (he or she), since the he/she distinction is absent in Finnish. The pronoun le is also very convenient to say he or she using a single word and avoiding sex bias.

The standard word order is, as in English, subject-verb-object, so the object need not be marked to distinguish it from the subject:
 * me observa vu – I observe you
 * vu observa me – you observe me

The personal possessive adjectives are formed from the pronouns by adding -n or after a consonant -en. This is in fact the genitive (possessive) of the pronoun so men means both my and mine (of me):
 * lu es men hunde – it is my dog
 * lu es men – it is mine


 * men – my, mine
 * nusen – our, ours
 * vun – your, yours
 * vusen – your, yours (more than one person)
 * lon – his
 * losen – their, theirs (all male)
 * lan – her, hers
 * lasen – their, theirs (all female)
 * len – his or her, his or hers
 * lesen – their, theirs
 * lun – its
 * lusen – their, theirs (all sexless objects)

Verb – Present Tense, Imperative, Infinitive and Negative
As in English the present tense of the verb and the imperative are identical:
 * me dikte – I say or I am saying
 * dikte!  – say! 

Note that the English present continuous, such as you are saying, is translated by the simple present: The infinitive is also the same as the present:
 * vu dikte
 * me prefera dikte – I prefer to say

The negative is formed with non (not), which usually precedes the word which it negates. The negative answer to a question is no (no), while the positive answer is yes (yes).
 * nus non sava lu – we don’t know it

The verb never varies with the person:
 * me sembla – I seem
 * nus sembla – we seem
 * vu sembla – you seem
 * vus sembla – you seem
 * le sembla – he or she seems
 * les sembla – they seem

Articles, Plural Nouns and Nouns with Natural Sex
The plural of a noun is formed by adding the ending -s (-es after a consonant) and the definite article li (the) is invariant as in English:
 * li probleme – the problem
 * li problemes – the problems

For convenience de li (of the) is usually shortened to del and likewise a li (to the) to al and da li (by the) to dal. There is no indefinite article (a, an) in Novial. This causes no ambiguity as seen in English when the plural indefinite article (some) is dropped:
 * hunde – dog, a dog
 * hundes – dogs, some dogs

The indication of sex in the third person pronouns with the endings -e, -o and -a is also used with nouns that have natural gender:
 * doktore – doctor (male or female)
 * doktora – female doctor
 * doktoro – male doctor


 * hunde – dog
 * hunda – bitch, female dog
 * hundo – male dog


 * siniore – sir or madam
 * siniora – madam, Mrs
 * sinioro – sir, Mr
 * siniores – ladies and gentlemen


 * home – person
 * homa – female person (adult or child)
 * homo – male person (adult or child)
 * homes – people

Many sexless nouns also end in -e and these of course cannot change the ending to indicate sex differences.

Adjectives
All adjectives end in an -i, which may be dropped if easy to pronounce. Adjectives usually precede the noun that they qualify. As in English, adjectives do not agree with their noun in number or gender:
 * boni puera or bon puera – a good girl
 * boni pueras or bon pueras – good girls
 * boni puero or bon puero – a good boy
 * boni pueros or bon pueros – good boys
 * boni pueres or bon pueres – good children (boys and/or girls)

Questions
Question words such as que (who?) or pro quu (why? ) directly indicate a question and the subject-verb-object order need not be changed:
 * pro quu vus visita nus?  – why are you visiting us? (Literally: why you visit us? )
 * que visita nus?  – who is visiting us? (Literally: who visits us? )

Otherwise a question is indicated with the general question word ob (is it that?), again with no change in the standard word order of the remainder of the sentence:
 * ob vu es lan amike?  – are you her friend? (Literally: is it that you are her friend? )
 * ob vu sava li familie?  – do you know the family? (Literally: is it that you know the family? )

____________________________________________________________________________________ Novial home – Pronunciation Guide

Contents – Lesson 1 – Lesson 2 – Lesson 3 – Lesson 4 – Lesson 5 – Lesson 6 – Lesson 7

Prefixes – Suffixes – Proforms