I'm glad to introduce my latest conlang, whose name is Sejuvli /se 'ju vli/.
This name is a compound word from "se ju" ("my") and the suffix "-vli" which marks languages (e.g.: "angavli" = English language; "Italjavli" = Italian language): therefore, it literally means "my language", "language of me".

Ok, let's start off with the alphabet and some phonology.

Sejuvli alphabet consists of 25 letters, each one having always the same pronunciation (as in Esperanto):

a b c č d e f g ğ h i j l m n o p r s š t u ų v z
/a b k tS d e f g dZ h i j l m n o p r s S t u w dz/

The four letters with diacritic symbols can also be written like this, especially when chatting and sending SMS:
č = ch
ğ = gh
š = sh
ų = w

The diphthongs are formed with the semi-vowels j and ų. E.g.:
jesti = year
mejan = to buy
meų = much, many, very
ųaši = evening

The word stress is always on the last-but-one syllable, except for monosyllabic words. E.g.:
mejtaųdec = buying and selling
tan = during, for

Words ending in a vowel can lose the ending vowel and replace it with an apostrophe. This happens almost only in poetry.
E.g.: sum'uğa lacev, tola = there is a house, further on [that sum' would have been suma without elision]

So much for phonology. Read about morphology in the next post.

Would you like to know something about Sejuvli morphology? If the answer is yes, well, have a look at this stuff.
In this post, I'll tell you something about articles, nouns and adjectives; and I'll teach you some words and useful sentences.

Articles

There is no article at all, in Sejuvli, as in Latin, Chinese and Vabungula. E.g.:
ve jesa pavli? = do you know [the] language?
mi ceųnen ğeji la hada = I saw [a] man in [the] street

Nouns

Nouns have no grammatical gender. There are two numbers: singular and plural.
Nouns ending in vowel add -r to derive the plural form.
jesti (year) -> jestir (years)
Nouns ending in consonant add -i to derive the plural form.
lacev (house) -> lacevi (houses)
Notice that the plurals ending in -i move the word stress a syllable forward.
lacev -> lacevi

I don't want to say anything about derivational morphology for now. I can only tell you that lacev is formed by the lac- root of the verb lacan, "to dwell", and the suffix -ev which expresses a place. So, "place where you dwell".

Adjectives

Adjectives are always put before the nouns they determinate, as in English. They can be put after nouns only if there is a complement referred especially to the adjective itself. E.g.:
ilu ei selom ğeji = he is an important man
ilu ei ğeji selom šu preseci se ga = he is a man important for his own actions (the complement "for his own actions" is referred to "important")

I'll tell you something about comparative adjectives in one of the next posts.

Some useful words and example sentences

ija!* = hello! hi! good morning! goodbye!
lacev = house, home
ğeji = man
caų = good
ante = day
selom = important
presec = action
šu = because of...

ija, ve feta pocųo? = hello, how are you?
meų caų, gavom, je ve? = fine, thanks, and you?
ve ben vara mi? = could you help me?
če / ro = yes / no
socen mi daša čunan fųe. Luceųno ve! = now I have to go. Bye [lit. "will-see-again you"]!

Keep ready for the next post, where we'll talk about personal pronouns, possessive adjectives and will get deeper in Sejuvli grammar. Meanwhile, I'd like to hear what you think about it so far. What's your opinion about Sejuvli? Poğe ei gesma se ven sųo Sejuvli?

I like what I've seen of it so far. Partly because of the orthography, but also because of the sound of the words, it reminds me of a Balto-Slavic language.

Wow, thanks. Yes, I actually wanted Sejuvli to have a Slavic sound. I took my very first inspiration from the Sims' language I heard a Sim telling his wife something like /ma 'go jol/ and I imagined that meant "I love you". And I liked the sound of /ma 'go jol/! So I started creating the first form of Sejuvli. I've reformed it twice or thrice and here is the ultimate form.

Ok, now I post this simple exercise:
Turn these singular nouns into the plural form, and meanwhile learn their meaning.
matur (teacher)
cojesur (learner, student)
pavli (language)
bešu (book)

Now, let's start with the personal pronouns!

This is a very simple thing, because there are only ONE form both for the subject and for the object/complement, as in Chinese. (compare English I/me, he/him...). Learn them well by heart, they'll be very useful in the future, when we'll get deeper into the grammar.

mi I, me
ju I, me (formal)
ve you (sing.)
ilu he, him
ila she, her
ile it
min we (exclusive)
jun we (inclusive)
ven you (pl.)
ilun they (male or mixed)
ilan they (female)

Of course the word order is strictly fixed: it's always SVO, therefore you can easily distinguish sentences such as:
mi goja ila = I love her
ila goja mi = she loves me

Note the double pronoun for the first singular person, mi and ju. Ju is used very seldom and only in formal circumstances: but notice that whereas many languages use an alternative form to substitute "you", in Sejuvli there is a pronoun to substitute "I". E.g.:
man, ju al cangen gom priša tei gom poga = please, I would really like a cup of tea.
N.b.: in the name of the language, I didn't use "ju" to be more "formal" or something, but because I didn't actually like the sound of "Semivli"

Note the difference between min and jun as well: now it's not about politeness, but about inclusivity and exclusivity. E.g.:
min lida so lacev = we (I and other people but not you) own that house
jun lida so lacev = we (I and you) own that house

Ilu and ila are the same as in Verdurian, I know. It's actually a little tribute to Mark Rosenfelder aka Zompist, as I really admire him as a linguist.

About possessive adjectives, they are simply formed with the preposition se ("of") and the personal pronoun. E.g.:
mi canga lacev se ve = I like your (lit. "of you") house
ilu ei matur pi angavli se mi = he's my English teacher

In the next post we'll start studying the verbal system and doing some "serious" exercises!

So does *ilen not exist at all? If so, what is the plural form corresponding to ile?


Given that the word order is fixed, how does one show emphasis/contrast? (Cf. English Her, I love.)

I also like the sound of this conlang so far. Unlike my horrid creations, there are plenty of pleasantly-sounding vowels and consonants. Sejuvli sounds very nice to me, as it really does have a Slavic feeling to it. Those kinds of languages hit home with me, especially the nice sounding ones like yours. ;D I might consider learning it as a small past-time, although I already have a pressing need to learn German...

Anyway, I'd also like to know if there are irregular plural endings to the nouns. Do you happen to have cases, by the way? I really like cases; that'll be a pushing factor to learn it. ;D

Like Esperanto gxi, ile has no plural form. At first I thought that deliberately avoiding the creation of a form such as ilen would cause difficulties to me, but so far I've never happened to need such a form.
To express an hypothetic ilen, though, you can use sopir or topir, which mean "these things" and "those things", referred to inanimate objects (cf. Esperanto tio, but notice that Sejuvli sopi and topi do have a plural form).



That's a very good question. In order to express emphasis, contrast and other things, I've decided to create a bunch of modal particles (they exist in German, too, but Sejuvli uses them more often and abundantly), which have no meaning by theirselves, but give a nuance to the whole context.
In this case, to express emphasis, you can use these three modal particles: če, ja, ge.
You use če to emphasize something subjectively, and in this very case it's the most correct, because love is a subjective feeling. Note that, used alone, če means "yes". E.g.:
mi goja ila če = I love her, and no other girl
mi če goja ila = I, and no other boy, love her
Ja is to emphasize something objectively. You can use it when you don't want to express an emotional participation. Ge is used to emphasize a person: it's a "personal intensifier". It's used most often in phrases such as sa ljoğe ge, "by one's self". E.g.:
mi preso ile sa mi ge = I'll do this by myself



Thanks. Actually, the very first form of Sejuvli was horrible! "I think, therefore I am" was something like yu tule xeka yu yao, and "I'd like to say something" was nudè, yu kange flage bayò panir I reformed almost all of the words to give them a "sweeter" sound. For example, the first word for "thankful" (which is used to say "thanks" too) was gaftu, now it's gavom, that flows better in my opinion.

That could be disappointing for you, but NO CASES! there is no declension at all in the whole Sejuvli grammar. About irregular plural endings, there was only one in the first form of Sejuvli: that was pan ("thing", "matter"), whose plural was panir (instead of the regular pani). Later I rejected that word and now the term for "thing/matter" is upi (that's regular: the plural is upir). (cf. sopi/topi above: <-- so/to upi "this/that thing")

Ok, now let's start with some verbs.

In this post we'll learn about the infinitive, the present tense and the past simple tense.

Verbs are listed in dictionaries in the infinitive form, which always ends in -an. There is no exception. E.g.:
gojan = to love
cadan = to want
gozan = to be able to
šolan = to say/talk/tell/speak (transitive!)
lacan = to dwell
husan = to sleep
čunan = to go
esan = to be (copula, and existential in informal speech)
suman = to be (existential)

Conjugations are very easy to learn, because verbs don't inflect for person. There is only one form for the whole tense, as in English (except for the -(e)s in the third singular person of the present tense). Therefore, you always have to express the subject, using a noun or a personal pronoun.

The present tense always ends in -a. Notice that the Sejuvli present tense can also be used as the English present continuous. The verb esan (to be) is the only irregular verb: its present form is ei instead of esa. E.g.:
gojan (to love) -> mi goja (I love)
lacan (to dwell) -> mi laca la Parisi (I live in Paris; la = in)
cadan (to want) -> ilu cada (he wants)
esan (to be) -> ven ei (you all are)
šolan (to say/talk/tell/speak) -> mi šola ve (I'm talking to you)

The past tense always ends in -en, and it corresponds to the English past simple or sometimes to the present perfect. The verb esan has an irregular past form: that's fųei. E.g.:
lacan (to dwell) -> mi lacen (I dwelled)
gojan (to love) -> ve gojen (you loved)
esan (to be) -> ilun fųei (they were)
čunan (to go) -> ila čunen na Roma (she went to Rome; na = to)

Easy, isn't it? Now let's try with some exercises, caų?*

Transform these verbs from the infinitive to the present and past simple form. Meanwhile, try to remember their meaning.
Gojan, lacan, čunan, esan, suman, husan.

Translate these two sentences from Sejuvli to English, and translate the following two sentences from English to Sejuvli.

Mi cada čunan na lacev se ila.
Ve ro goza šolan angavli. Mi mata na ve, caų?

I loved you.
I am in Paris, you are in Rome. (use existential "to be"!)

In the next post we'll talk about the future tense, about the past perfect, and about participles.

* = the main meaning of caų is "good", but in the end of an assertion you can use it to encourage the interlocutor to participate, to tell you his thought, to take part in the action you're talking about. E.g.:
mi cada matan angavli na ve, caų? = I want to teach you the English language, ok?
ve ro goja nepošur se mi, caų? = you don't love my wife, do you?

So far, Sejuvli is quite simple. It reminds me slightly of Esperanto because of its simplicity, but I guess English is just as simple.

Just for fun, I'm going to do the tense excercises:



I want to go to her house.
You can't speak English. I'll teach it to you, okay?



Mi gojen ve.
Mi ei la Parisi, ve ei la Roma.

I must say that I really like this conlang. It is simple, elegant and sounds beautiful. I also like your use of ų. I've never seen it used in this way, but I really think that it fits in this language very well.

The phonology is nicely balanced. But I do have one thought concerning linguistic universals. (You don't have to make a naturalistic language. If it's not you intention, please disregard this.) The /dz/ phoneme is a very rare one. It will most likely only exist if both /dʒ/ and /ts/ is there. So a /z/ value, or maybe even /ts/, for <z> would be more plausible. An interesting compromise could be to let <z> be /z/ with the allophone [dz] word-initially.

I've found a few inconsistencies in the above posts. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Firstly, the second row of the alphabet is missing /v/.

Should this be "this house"? This seems to be the case with "cf. sopi/topi above: <-- so/to upi 'this/that thing'".


Should this be "... se ilu ga"?


Should this be "mi šola na ve"? (i.e. šolan is ditransitive like matan and uses na with indirect object) If not, how do you say "I speaking Sejuvli to you."?

Then, also, I wonder what the following words mean:

feta, pocųo, ben, fųe, al, gom, priša, tei, poga, uğa, pi, ljoğe

Sejuvli is an interesting language. I'm looking forward for the next part!