Hi, my name is Delano. I'm currently working on the conlang Lingua Romana (Roman language). This language is not my original work. The original creator, Dan Tohatan, quit working on this project around 2003-2004. I'm trying to revive it and make it more appealing to those who are intrigued with the modern romance languages. I personally like Romana because it contains words that correspond to mostly all the modern romance tongues as well as Classical Latin. The greater majority of the verbs used in Romana pre-date those of the modern romance languages . Examples of these include the following: (Iocare; to play), (occidere; to kill), (manducare; to eat), and (facere; to do or to make). Becuase of this, Romana can be understood by many romance speakers. My only complaint is that Romana tends to favor Italian over the other romance languages in verb conjugation. Posted below is a sample of text in Romana, Enjoy.

English:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Romana:

Toto il mundo est intitulato ai toti reti e liberati proclamati in chesta declarazione, sine distinzione de alquale tipo, com racia, colore, sesso, lingua, religione, opinione politica or altra, origine nazionale or sociale, proprietate, nativitate, or altro statuto. Anche, nula distinzione sera fata per base del statuto politico, giuridico, or internazionale, de la patria or tera a la quale una persona apertene, sia ela independente, fidele, nonautonome, or sub alquale altra limitazione de imperio.

Here is a well known passage from the book of Genesis 1.1. Posted are the Romana and English versions.

English:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The spirit of God was hovering over the water. Then God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light. God saw the light was good. So God separated the light from the darkness. God named the light 'day', and the darkness He named 'night'. There was evening, then morning, the first day.

Romana:

In l'inceputo, il Deo crea il cielo e la tera. La tera era sine forma e vida, ed il tenebrico copereva l'aqua adunca. L'anima del Deo levitava supra l'aqua. Poi il Deo dissi, "Sia fata luce!" Si, la luce fu fata. Il Deo vedu che la luce fu bona. Ita, il Deo separa la luce del tenebrico. Il Deo nomi la luce 'dia', ed il tenebrico El nomi 'note'. Poi fu la sera, la matina, la prima dia.

Can you give us some sound changes or grammar or something besides translated texts? At least gloss the texts if you want some response.

Hey guys, here is a guide to word pronunciation in Romana. If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.


The Alphabet (L'Alfabeto Romano)

The alphabet is the same as the English alphabet. Below, each letter of the alphabet is explained in detail. The rules are for American English pronunciation.
Letter Name in Romana Pronunciation Rules
A a Like in the English words "father", "start" and "hall".
B be Like in English "book".
C ce

* Before "e" or "i", it is pronounced like in "chart" or "chicken"
* Before any other vowel, it is pronounced like "kind"
* In the case of "ch" + e/i, it's always pronounced like "kind"

D de As in "door".
E e As in "get", "pet", "lend", "men", or "stare", "flare", "care".
F ef As in "foot".
G ge

* Before "e" or "i", it is pronounced like in "jack" or "gentle"
* Before any other vowel, it is pronounced like "good"
* In the case of "gh" + e/i, it's always pronounced like "good"

H hacia Pronounced as in English "have". Rarely used.
I i Can be a vowel as in "feet", "seat", "see", and "free", or a consonant as in "say", "hey", and "you".
J gi Never used.
K ka Never used.
L el As in "lamp".
M em As in "man".
N en As in "never".
O o As in "hold", "told", "bold", or "core", "more", "soar".
P pe As in "pig".
Q cu As in "quick".
R er A rolled R like Italian or Spanish.
S es As in "see" or "sight". If it is between two vowels, the sound changes to "z" as in "laser".
T te As in "time".
U u As in "soon", "cool". Can also be a consonant as in "work".
V ve As in "vendor".
W duplo ve Never used.
X ix As in "example" or "extreme". Has the pronunciation of either "ks" or "gz", as in English.
Y i greco Never used.
Z zeta At the beginning of word, "z" as in "zoo". Otherwise, "dz" as in "Zurich" or "Tsar".

Note that every letter is always pronounced with the above rules.

Letter Combinations
Diphthong Pronunciation
ai "ay" as in "side"
au "aw" as in "wow"
ea "ea" as in "sand"
ei "ey" as in "they"
ia "ya" as in "yacht"
ie "ye" as in "yes"
io "yo" as in "your"
iu "yu" as in "you"
ii "yi" as in "yield"
oa "wa" as in "walk"
oi "oy" as in "ahoy" or "boy"
ou "ow" as in "crow" or "though"
ua "wa" as in "walk"
ue "we" as in "went"
ui "wi" as in "wind" or "uy" as in "booya"
uo "wo" as in "woe"

All other vowel combinations are usually pronounced as separate vowels. (Each vowel makes up a syllable)

Is it the same as Italian, so hacia would be pronounced "ah-chah" or would you say "ah-ch-yah"?

Thanks for your input on how to improve my thread. As far as the pronunciation of "hacia" goes, it would be the ladder more so than the former. Currently, one of the languages I study is Italian, I would be more inclined to pronounce "hacia" as "ah-chah".

In case you're curious as to how Romana was actually formed, provided is a guide which shows you Romana's etymology. The original creator is responsible for creating this guide, not me .



Introduction

99% of nouns in Romana come directly from Latin. The rest (~1%) are of foreign origin, or taken directly from English, simply because there is no such word in Latin. Two examples would be "chocolate" or "coffee". I've provided a few rules here to let you convert words from Latin to Romana. Just remember that you should favor the latest (Vulgar Latin / Medieval Latin) words as opposed to classical.

Generic Orthographic Transformations

Just like ancient Greek evolving into modern Greek, many sounds changed over time. This goes also for Romana. To maintain a phonetic system of writing, the orthography (spelling) of the words had to change. Here is a summary of the phonetic changes that lead to changes in spelling compared to classical Latin:

Merging and Splitting of Diphthongs
Latin Romana
ae/ai/oe e
au o
ei/oi i
e (long) ie

Changing Inflectional Endings
This is covered in more detail later. The most notable changes are the conversion from 'es' or 'is' to 'e' and 'i', the disappearance of the final 'm', and the disappearance of the final 's'.

Consonants
1. The 'qu' and 'gu' combinations before anything other than 'a' become just hard 'c' and 'g'. For example, 'requirere' -> 'rechirere'.
2. All 'ct' occurrences merge to 't'. E.g. 'punctus' -> 'punto'.
3. All 'ns' (nasal + s) become just 's' or 'ss'. E.g. 'mensis' -> 'mese'.
4. All 'x' occurrences change to 'ss' (hard 's'). E.g. 'axis' -> 'asse'.
5. All intervocalic 'b' soften to 'v'. E.g. 'debere' -> 'devere'.
6. All aspirates 'h' disappear. E.g. 'habere' -> 'avere'.
7. All ti+vowel become ci+vowel or zi+vowel. E.g. 'ratione' -> 'racione', 'natione' -> 'nazione'.
8. All di+vowel become gi+vowel or zi+vowel. E.g. 'diurnum' -> 'giurno'.
9. The 'silent u' or 'silent i' in words disappears. E.g. 'tabula' -> 'tabla'.
10. The -gi- between two vowels just disappears. E.g. 'magis' -> 'mai', 'triginta' -> 'trenta'.

Converting Nouns

Scroll down to see the complete 3-step guide to converting Latin nouns to Romana.

Third and Fifth Declination

Third declination nouns convert in all sorts of different ways, but eventually all end up ending in "e". Here is a table showing the common endings for third declination nouns and the corresponding ending in Romana (singular nominative).
Latin Romana
-o (-onis in genitive) -one (take genitive stem)
-is (-is in genitive) -e (take genitive stem)
-or (-oris in genitive) -ore (take genitive stem)
-as (-atis in genitive) -ate (take genitive stem)
-x (-cis in genitive) -ce (take genitive stem)
-ns (-ntis in genitive) -nte (take genitive stem)

Verbs and Conjugations

Verbs generally remain intact, beyond the generic word-transformation rules defined above, when transferred from Latin to Romana. Verb participles are converted using the Latin noun conversion process described further down. Past participles change, to reflect the changes that occurred in modern Romance languages. For example, 'avere' becomes 'avuto' in the past, rather than 'avito', as Latin would dictate ('habitus').

Adverbs and Miscellaneous

These words, and their usage, change the most in Romana when compared to Latin. They all take on new meanings, similar to the meanings of their correspondents in modern Romance languages. A very small percentage of these are "made up" (i.e. not found in Latin dictionaries), but most are taken directly from Latin, with few orthographical changes.

Table of Latin Declinations

This will help you see which patterns are most predominant in Latin and if/how they were transferred to Romana.
Declination Nom S Gen S Dat S Acc S Abl S Nom P Gen P Dat S Acc P Abl P
1st Fem a e e am a e arum is as is
2nd Masc us i o um o i orum is os is
3rd Masc/Fem es is i em e es um ibus es ibus
4th Masc us s i um u us um ibus us ibus
5th Decl. es s i em e es rum ebus es ebus

Patterns

1. Because there is no pattern for nominative singular, the Latin ablative singular is used in Romana to replace the nominative singular. The endings are practically taken directly from Latin in this case, with the exception of the 4th declination "u" which changes to "o" like the 2nd declination.
2. For 1st and 2nd, the "a" of the singular changes to "e" and the "o" of the singular changes to "i". For 3rd and on, the "s" appears predominant. Romana changes the rule for 3rd declination to be the same as 2nd declination. This time, it doesn't rely on the ablative, because the ablative is identical to the dative and are both basically unsuitable.

The Complete Process of Transforming Latin Nouns and Adjectives

Any noun and adjective from Latin can be fully and correctly converted to Romana by following these steps (after applying the generic orthographic transformations described earlier).

1. Take the ablative singular form of the word. If it ends in "u", change the "u" to "o".
2. Change the gender of the word to masculine if it is neutral and it is not an adjective. If the word is a noun, make sure the ending agrees with the Latin gender. For example, the Latin "poeta" would change to "poeto" because the noun is masculine. Similarly, "manus" would change not to "mano" but to "mana" because the word is feminine in Latin.
3. For 5th declension nouns such as "dies", they become 1st declension nouns because they're all feminine anyways. That is, "dies" becomes "dia".

Example 1: haedus = "young goat"

1. Abl. "iedo" (with applied orthographic transformations).
2. Not necessary.
3. Not necessary.

Therefore, the Romana word for "young goat" is "iedo" and is masculine.

Example 2: fetus = "offspring"

1. Abl. "fetu". Must change to "feto".
2. Not necessary.
3. Not necessary.

Therefore, the Romana word for "offspring" is "feto" and it is masculine.

Example 3: laetabilis = "joyful"

1. Abl. "letabile".
2. Not necessary.
3. Not necessary.

Therefore, the Romana word for "joyful" is "letabile".

Example 4: ligamen = "ligament"

1. Abl. "ligamine".
2. The word will now be masculine.
3. Not necessary.

Therefore, the Romana word for "ligament" is "ligamine" and it is masculine.

Example 5: manus = "hand"

1. Abl. "manu". Changes to "mano".
2. Because the word is feminine in Latin, the word changes to "mana".
3. Not necessary.

Therefore, the Romana word for "hand" is "mana" and it is feminine.

See how easy it is? Basically, if you know your Latin vocabulary, you should have no trouble with Romana.

No matter what you say about its relation to Latin, it looks awfully like Italian to me.

Neqitan, look at the following sentence. How Italian does it sound to you? In my opinion, depending on what is being said in Romana it can resemble Spanish or Italian.

Example (1) : Il pero e la pela sun balando al ritmo de la musica (The boy and the girl are dancing to the rhythm music)

or

Example (2) :Il vostro cano sta crasso. (Your dog is fat)

Neqitan, It all depends on context and the speakers preference of words. An example would be the English word "table" which Romana has 3 words for, they are (mesa, tavulo, and table).

This is example is more Spanish, yes, but on the whole it's still very Italian. In both of your examples there were so many words ending in -e!


This is example is still very Italian... The article il, the stressed o in the possessive (Spanish has vuestro, an o->ue sound change), the combination of a definite article and the possessive (which is forbidden in Spanish), the use of a word related to canis, plus that geminated consonant s. In Spanish it would be vuestro perro es gordo.


That sounds more promising, but Lingua Romana is not widely used anyways. Otherwise I think it would develop its own tendencies toward word usages as in Esperanto...