Curtuvan
| Curtoubís | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | [/kuɾ.towˈbis/] |
| Created by | – |
| Date | 2024 |
Proto-Indo-European
| |
Curtuvan (natively Curtoubís /kuɾ.towˈbis/, curtubés in Spanish) is a fictional Romance language that would be spoken as a minority language in southern Spain (near the real-life province of Córdoba). A closely-related variety known as Giarbís /ʝaɾˈbiʃ/ would be spoken in nearby Portugal (near real-life Algarve).
Curtuvan’s most distinguishing feature lies in the diphthongization of pre-tonic vowels, that is to say, vowels in the syllable preceding a the one with primary prosodic stress. This feature is loosely based on a feature of the Argentinian cordobés accent. The conlang also differs from most Romance languages in completely dropping word-final proto-Romance -a and -e while preserving -o as -a instead (masculine fiya, ‘son’, from Latin fīlium vs feminine fiy, ‘daughter’, from Latin fīliam). The language also features substantial influence from Arabic, much like its real-life counterpart Mozarabic (which would have co-existed with Curtuvan in the latter’s timeline).
Other than that, Curtuvan is generally fairly close to Spanish, with common developments such as the merger of Latin /b/ and /v/ and a lack of phonemic voicing in fricatives, although other aspects of its phonology and morphology show a much closer link to Catalan.
This conlang was created in May 2024.
Concept
Curtuvan was inspired by a feature of Argentinian cordobés, a Spanish dialect spoken in the province of Córdoba, Argentina (not to be confused with its many namesakes in Spain and in various other parts of the Spanish-speaking world). Among other things, Cordobés is unusual for lengthening the vowel that precedes a stressed syllable (a fairly odd feature considering that usually stressed syllables are far more prone to getting lengthened, as it’s indeed often the case in the Rioplatense dialect found in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires). As a result, the word “cordobés”, which would be typically transcribed as /koɾ.ð̞oˈβ̞es/ gets pronounced as something like [koɾ.ð̞oːːˈβ̞eh] by cordobés speakers themselves.
Curtuvan, however, would do something similar with (vulgar) Latin and evolve a language from that. This involved many developments not found at all in Argentinian cordobés such as the diphthongization of those lengthened vowels. Curtuvan also differs from real-life cordobés in that this pre-tonic lengthening also affects articles and pre-clitics before a stress-initial word, while Argentinian cordobés vowel lengthening does not extend beyond word boundaries (at least as far as I know).
The association with the Spanish city of Córdoba (and the historical Emirate of Córdoba) was added as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the homonymous city in Argentina. The addition of heavy Mozarabic-like Arabic influence simply made sense for a language that would have developed in Muslim-held lands until well into the Renaissance.
Setting
The conlang would be spoken in an alternate history that is identical to ours aside from the development of Curtuvan as a distinct language in medieval southern Spain (alongside historical Mozarabic) and its survival to modern times.
Curtuvan would have been a minority language since the Reconquista (which led to the unification of Spain and the genocide of its non-Christian peoples). As of the early 21st century, Curtuvan would have a status similar to that of Galician, enjoying some official protections and not risking imminent extinction but still in marked decline.
Curtuvan-speaking communities across the border in Southern Portugal (and their Giarbís dialect) would barely number in the low thousands, making their variety severely endangered.
Like other minority languages from Spain, Curtuvan wouldn’t have much of a noticeable impact in the Americas.
Evolution
Early developments
The cordobés-style pre-tonic vowel length would have been the first step in the development from a generic early Western Romance variety. For instance, the Latin word for ‘olive’, olīva, pronounced /oˈli.va/ in Vulgar Latin, would become /oːˈli.va/ or, with the /b/~/v/ merger (also present in Castillian/Spanish, although not in various other Romance languages from the Iberian peninsula), /oːˈli.bə/ (note however that Curtuvan /b/ is a true voiced plosive, unlike the approximant /β̞/ found in Spanish).
Other important Spanish-like sound changes occurring early in the language history would include: - Conflation of Western Romance /e/ ~ /ɛ/ and /o/ ~ /ɔ/ into /e/ and /o/ respectively. - Clusters such as the /mn/ found in _*homne(m)_ (Latin hominem) developing into /mbr/: Early Curtavan _*(h)ombre_ (later ambra, cf. Spanish hombre).
Meanwhile, early non-Spanish-like features include: - Universal voicing of initial /p/ to /b/ and occasional voicing of /p/ to /b/ in other positions (likely due to Arabic influence): patrem becomes batra. - Latin C and G before front vowels initially developed as /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ before being conflated as /tʃ/ (a development shared by Aragonese). Later on, the affricate simplified to /ʃ/ (spelled as <x>) as in xenta for ‘hundred’ (Latin centum) and xent for ‘people’ (Latin gentem), except in word-final position where it typically yielded /s/ (spelled as <ç>) as in faç (‘after’, from Latin faciem, originally meaning ‘towards’). - Lack of diphthongization in the stressed vowel: petra is inherited as beta (earlier betra) as opposed to diphthongized Spanish piedra. - Reduction of word final -a and -e to schwa which would later be lost (except after certain clusters, as seen before in ambra). - Onset clusters with an /l/ glide (Latin pl, cl, bl, gl, fl) initially developed as /Cʎ/ (palatalizing the /l/ element) before evolving in a variety of ways: - /pl/ as in pluviam was inherited as /bj/: biomb /bjom/ (rain). Some non-initial instances might be inherited as /pj/ as in cuapiar (to improvise verses or music, cf Spanish _copla). - /cl/ as in clavem was inherited as /ʃ/: xamb /ʃam/ (key). - /bl/ is variously inherited as /bj/ or /j/: blandus yields yanda /ˈjan.da/ (soft), blasphemia is inherited as biafímia /bjaˈfi.mja/ (blasphemy, curseword) although the latter might have been influenced by other languages. - /gl/ and /fl/ are inherited as /j/ aside from learned borrowings: florem yields yor /joɾ/ (flower, curiously enough a masculine noun as in Latin and Italian but unlike most other Romance languages) but globalis as giobal /ɡjoˈbal/ (global, clearly a later borrowing).
Due to the influence of nearby languages (as well as occasional learned borrowings from classical Latin itself), however, a number of exceptions might be found. In particular, Curtuvan contains a number words where Latin C before /e/ or /i/ is inherited as /s/ (spelled <c>) rather than as /ʃ/ as in ceiniç (‘ash’, cf. Spanish ceniza, Portuguese cinza).
Vowel changes
Pre-tonic diphthongization
Perhaps the most distinguishing feature in the language resulted from the diphthongization of the long vowels preceding stressed syllables, with pre-tonic /a e i o u/ becoming /e̯a i̯a ei̯ u̯a ou̯/ (note that non-syllabic /i/ and /u/ are considered identical to /j/ and /w/ as far as Curtuvan phonology is concerned).
Thus, for instance, the word for ‘olive’ evolved from Early Curtavan /oːˈli.bə/ to /waˈli.bə/.
This led to perduring alternations in the language, as inflectional forms of the same lexeme with variable stress resulted in pairs which showed this pre-tonic diphthongization in different positions (as in comiançar, ‘to begin’ vs cuamença, ‘I begin’) or which only presented diphthongization in some forms (cêatar for ‘to see’ but unaffected cata for ‘I see’). As a result, this sound change is both diachronic (affecting the historical evolution of a word) and synchronic (affecting lexical elements situationally within the modern language).
The synchronic aspect of this sound change also lead to speakers having a certain intuition of how vowels should shift depending on the context. This intuition explains the continued applicability of pre-tonic diphthongization in words that entered the language after the diachronic change took place. This is most evident in verbs where the diphthongization pattern might be applied to neologisms without a historical justification as in cleicar (to click [on a computer]) and clica (I click), applying the /i/ to /ei̯/ shift to a lexeme derived from the English internationalism ‘click’.
Other vowel changes
Not long thereafter, the word-final schwas resulting from early Romance final -a and e were lost provided that the result was phonotactically permissible (for reference, a phonotactical system in line with that of Catalan might be assumed for this stage of Curtavan). This sound change occasionally affected schwas in word-final syllables with codae such as the plural marker -s. Thus, the words for ‘olive’ and ‘olives’ at this stage became _*ualib_ /waˈlib/ and _*ualibs_ /waˈlibs/ (the latter possibly showing some degree of assimilation as in [waˈlibz]).
Conversely, other vowels (most commonly derived from an early -o) were reduced to a schwa. As a result, original schwas that couldn’t be dropped due to phonotactical concerns such as the last vowel in ambra (man, from Latin hominem, _*ombrə_ in earlier Curtuvan) were merged with the earlier -o found in words such as umbra (shoulder, from Latin humerum, _*umbro_ in earlier Curtuvan). These schwas were written as <a>. A considerably later development (likely motivated by the influence of Spanish, whose vocalic system doesn’t include a distinct schwa vowel) had this phoneme shift to an /a/, just as those preserved all the way from Latin /a/ in stressed positions.
As a result, contrasts in grammatical gender expressed in other Romance languages as masculine -o vs feminine -a (as in Spanish hijo for ‘son’, hija for daughter) become a contrast between a masculine -a ending versus a null feminine ending (Curtuvan fiya for ‘son’, fiy for ‘daughter’).
Diphthongization does not proceed for vowels that are already part of a diphthong. For instance, the verb for ‘to rain’ is inherited as biover /bjoˈbeɾ/ (cf. Spanish llover, Portuguese chover) even though a pre-tonic /o/ would generally diphthongize to /wa/.
Other developments
Palatalization
Aside from the previously discussed /Cl/ clusters, instances of Latin /l/ which palatalized to ll or j in Spanish and lh or ch in Portuguese become <y> /j/, as seen in fiya for son (cf. Portuguese filho, Spanish hijo).
A later development involved the palatalization of certain non-final coronal consonants following the vowel /i/ or its diphthongized variant ei /ej/: - /t/ becomes <ch> /tʃ/: Italia → _*Eitallə_ → Eichay /ejˈtʃaj/ (Italy). - /d/ becomes <j>, historically pronounced as /dʒ/ but now variously pronounced as /tʃ/, /ʃ/ or /ʃj/ depending on the region, with the /tʃ/ pronunciation (identical to <ch>) being the standard: idea → eijé (idea). - /s/ becomes <x> /ʃ/: _*missionem_ → meixon (meaning ‘overseas travel’, a semantic shift originally derived from missionaries heading to the Americas).
There exist, however, a fairly large number of words which lack these development, be it due to being borrowings more recently integrated into the language or due to analogy with non-palatalized forms.
Final -mb
A relatively late development saw a shift from word-final /b/ to /mb/, which was later simplified to /m/. This shift is responsible for the final form of the Curtuvan word for ‘olive’ (used in the examples above) which is ualimb /waˈlim/, with ualimbs /waˈlims/ as its plural form, ‘olives’.
This change also affected a series of’dative/allative’ pronouns which originally ended in -b such as mimb (to me), timb (to you) and domb (whereto). This series of pronouns represents a shared development with Mozarabic (mib for ‘to me’, tib for ‘to you’), which might have originated as an analogy from the dative form of the Latin 2s pronoun: tibi.
The shift from -b to -mb was limited to word-final occurrences (aside from suffixes such as plural -s). As a result, the effect might be present in some words and absent from other closely related ones as its the case for ualimb (‘olive’, cf. Spanish oliva) and ualiba (‘olive tree’, cf. Spanish olivo).
Delabialization of /kw/ to /k/
Latin <qu> /kw/ is inherited as /k/ (written as <qu> before front vowels and as <c> elsewhere) as in canda (when) from Latin quando, catra (four) from quattuor, and quinta (fifth) from quintus.
This differs from the developments found in neighboring Romance languages where /kwa/ was preserved (Spanish cuando, cuatro, Portuguese quando, quatro, Catalan quan, quatre), instead being more akin to French (where quatre, ‘four’, is realized as /katr/).
This sound change does not affect the sequence /kwa/ derived from a historical /ko/ subject to pre-tonic diphthongization as in cuamença (I begin, from an earlier _*co:menço_).
Assimilation
Some consonant clusters are assimilated, sometimes without it being reflected in the orthography (as seen before with the word final /m/ for -mb).
Any word-final combination of <t> and <s> is pronounced as just /s/: vist /bis/ (a view), vists /bis/ (many views), ceits /sejs/ (oils, plural of ceit, /sejt/).
Word final /nks/ (often occurring as the plural of a noun with final /nk/) are realized as /nʃ/.
Borrowings
The Curtuvan language would have developed under the Islamic rule of Al-Andalus, the Emirate of Cordoba and other Muslim-held states that ruled most of the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages, much like the historical Mozarabic language (which would have existed alongside Curtuvan in the latter’s timeline, rather than being fully replaced). As a result, the language would contain a fairly elevated number of Arabic loanwords, surpassing those found in Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan (although perhaps not as many as the ones found in Mozarabic itself). Unlike Spanish and Portuguese, Arabic loanwords in Curtuvan don’t include the definite article, thus as-sukar ([the] sugar) gets borrowed as sucra, as opposed to Spanish azúcar and Portuguese açúcar.
After the Christian takeover led by the kingdoms of Castille and León (who would later join to form Spain), Curtuvan would have lost ground to Spanish, remaining as a regional minority language. Since then, the language would have been exposed to a considerable number of borrowings from Spanish, with occasional loanwords from Catalan, French and English as well as a number of ‘learned’ borrowings from Latin.
Phonology and orthography
Consonants
Curtuvan’s consonantal inventory is as follows (IPA followed by orthographic representation)
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | /m/ m, -mb | /n/ n | |||
| Plosive | Unvoiced | /p/ p | /t/ t | /k/ c, qu | |
| Voiced | /b/ b, v | /d/ d | /ɡ/ g | ||
| Affricate | /tʃ/ ch, j | ||||
| Fricative | /f/ f | /s/ s, c, ç | /ʃ/ x | ||
| Glides | /j/ y, i | /w/ u | |||
| Rhotic (flap) | /ɾ/ r | ||||
| Lateral | /l/ l |
Notes: - Unvoiced plosives are unaspirated and voiced plosives are true plosives (as opposed to approximants as in Spanish). - The letter <c> is read as /s/ before the letters <e> (but not <ê>) and <i> or as /k/ otherwise. - Word finally, the sequence <mb> is read as just /m/. - Word finally, /(t|d)s(t|d)/ or is simplified to /s/. - The conjunction et (and) is mostly pronounced as /e/, although the pronunciation /et/ might optionally be used before vowel-initial words. - The letter <j> is used to represent a palatalized /d/ which, depending on the dialect, might be realized as s /tʃ/, /ʃ/ or /ʃj/. - Aspiration of word-final /s/ into [h] is found for some speakers. - Nasals in clusters assimilate to the place of articulation of the second element as usual, /nk/ is realized as [ŋk]. - Word-final <ncs> and <ngs> are read as /nʃ/. - Word-final <(n)fs> is typically read as just /(n)f/ although some speakers might pronounce the final /s/.
A silent etymological <h> is now found exclusively in forms of the auxiliary verb haber (from Latin habeo), although it used to be much more widespread with words like eistória (history) once being spelled as heistória.
Vowels
Curtuvan has five monophthongs: [ä e̞ i o̞ u] (or, more simply, /a e i o u/) spelled as <a e i o u>.
Diphthongs and triphthongs may be formed by preceding and/or following a monophthong with the glides /j/ (taken as a non-syllabic /i/) and /w/ (a non-syllabic /u/).
In addition to those, a non-syllabic /e/ is allowed as an initial glide in the diphthong /e̯a/, spelled as <ea>. This diphthong occurs nearly exclusively as a mutated form of /a/ in pre-tonic position (when the following syllable carries prosodic stress).
Word final non-syllabic /i/ (or, equivalently, /j/), is typically spelled as <y>.
There is no noticeable vowel reduction for most speakers.
Phonotactics
The language features a CCGVGCCC phonotactical structure, although syllables are seldom maximal.
Discounting glides (G, analyzed as part of the nucleus forming diphthongs or triphthongs, as mentioned above), only the clusters /pɾ tɾ kɾ bɾ dɾ ɡɾ fɾ/ are allowed as syllable-initial position. All consonants are allowed syllable-initially, although word-initial /p/ is restricted to later borrowings.
Word-medially, nasals, /s/, /ɾ/ and /l/ are allowed as codae. Word-finally, any single consonant is allowed as a coda (although most instances of final /b/ will have shifted to /m/) in addition to the clusters /mp mps ms nt nk nd ng nf ns nʃ ps ks bs gs sp sk ɾp ɾps ɾt ɾk ɾks ɾd ɾf ɾs ɾʃ ls/.
Violations to this phonotactics are occasionally found in the language due to borrowings, especially in cases where the resulting word would be phonotactically valid in Spanish (which most contemporary Curtuvan speakers would also be able to speak). For instance, the internationalism ‘click’ (with a mouse, on a computer) is typically found as clic, even though /kl/ is not generally found in the language.
Suprasegmentals and diacritics
Prosodic stress is phonemic in Curtuvan. Stress position may be marked with diacritics such as acute accents (<á é í ó ú>).
Stress in an unmarked polysyllabic word is determined as follows: - Any word-final <s> is discarded. - If the word ends in a vowel (not including <y>), stress falls on the second-to-last vowel: batra /ˈba.tɾa/ (father), poleicia /po.lejˈsi.a/ (police), ambras /ˈam.bɾas/ (men). - Otherwise, stress falls on the last vowel: bersar /beɾˈsaɾ/ (to talk), Eichay /ejˈtʃaj/ (Italy), eaxon /e̯aˈʃon/ (action).
Any other stress position requires the stressed vowel to be marked with an acute accent: cafá /kaˈfa/ (coffee), curtoubís /kuɾ.towˈbis/ (Curtuvan), cántan /ˈkan.tan/ (they sing).
In addition to acute accents, diaeresis might be used to break diphthongs as in gïon /ɡiˈon/ (hyphen) while a circumflex accent might be used on the <e> (resulting in <ê>) of an /e̯a/ diphthong to indicate that a preceding < should be read as /k/ (as when preceding an unmutated /a/) rather than /s/. This allows for verb stem C’s to be kept unchanged in conjugation paradigms where /e̯a/ might alternate with /a/ as in cêantar /ke̯anˈtaɾ/ (to sing) ~ cántan /ˈkan.tan/ (they sing).
Curtuvan usage of the circumflex to highlight an unusual pronunciation in a preceding consonant is inspired by a historical practice in Spanish where they marked that the sequence <ch> was to be read as /k/, rather than the expected /tʃ/: outdated Spanish châracterística /ka.ɾak.teˈɾis.ti.ka/ (characteristic) but charabón /tʃa.ɾaˈbon/ (young ostrich). This diacritic is no longer used as etymological <ch> for /k/ were dropped from the language (with ‘characteristic’ now being spelled more phonetically as característica).
As in neighboring languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, etc), a rising intonation alone might be used to mark a statement as a question.
Punctuation
Due to Spanish influence, Curtuvan orthography largely follows European Spanish conventions when it comes to typography and punctuation, including the usage of ¿ and ¡ at the beginning of questions and exclamations, respectively.
Grammar
Word order
As usual for Romance languages, Curtuvan is a nominative-accusative language with an SVO standard word order, although word order is fairly flexible. This is especially the case for pronouns which might optionally follow the verb when in pronoun position which, in addition to the usual Romance requirement of placing object pronouns before the verb might even result in OVS-like sentences such as Tia cata-yeu (literally you see-I) for ‘I see you’.
Pre-tonic mutation
Pre-tonic mutation is a widespread phenomenon affecting Curtuvan verbs, pronouns and articles. This involves a historical sound shift where monophthongs (pure vowels) might be replaced by (or ‘mutated into’) diphthongs when occurring immediately before a stressed syllable.
| Pure vowel | Mutated vowel |
|---|---|
| a | ea |
| e | ia |
| i | ei |
| o | ua |
| u | ou |
As previously discussed on the ‘Evolution’ section, there are a number of exceptions to this phenomenon, most notably the fact that vowels which already appear in a diphthong are immune to mutation.
In verbs
Curtuvan verbs have two stems known as tonic and atonic. Usually, both stems can be derived from an underlying ‘base stem’. As an example, we might consider the verbs comiançar, meaning ‘to begin’, which can be analyzed as having the base stem _*començ-_ and the verb cêatar, meaning ‘to see’, with the base stem _*cat-_.
Tonic stems appear in conjugations where primary stress falls on the last syllable of the stem. Correspondingly, these stems are formed by applying pre-tonic mutation to the second-to-last syllable in the base stem, thus yielding cuamenç- for _*començ-_ while monosyllabic base stems like _*cat-_ are preserved without change. Tonic stems are required for most present-tense verbforms: cuamença for ‘I begin’, cata for ‘I see’.
Atonic stems, on the other hand, are required by verbforms where stress falls on a suffix rather than on the stem itself. These stems show pre-tonic mutation on their last syllable, yielding comianç- for base _*començ_ and cêat- for base _*cat-. Notably, this is the form found in infinitives (marked by the stressed suffixes -ar_ or -er) as shown by comiançar (to begin) and cêatar (to see).
Verbal stems and the conditional mood
Conditional conjugations suppose an exception to the aforementioned, as the only inflectional forms with suffixes stressed on their second syllable as in the 1s.COND suffix -earí or -eirí.
As a result, pre-tonic mutation affects the first syllable of the suffix (which would otherwise be *-arí or *-irí) but, in principle, shouldn’t affect any syllable of the verbal stem. In the case of verbs with polysyllabic stems such as comiançar (base stem _*començ-, tonic cuamenç-, atonic comianç-), this would require the usage of the base stem without any mutation whatsoever, resulting in a hypothetical *comencearí_.
Due to analogy with other conjugations, however, Curtuvan grammar, makes an exception in this case, requiring the tonic stem instead yielding verbforms such as cuamencearí /kwa.men.se̯aˈɾi/, featuring the mutated form of the second-to-last syllable in the base stem despite the fact it does not truly occur in a pre-tonic position. ### In articles and pronouns
Many Curtuvan articles and pronouns can be found in two forms: a ‘base form’ closer to its Latin source and Romance cognates and a ‘mutated form’ affected by a historical diphthongization process.
Mutated forms are found exclusively in a pre-tonic context, which is to say, when followed by a stress-initial word, while base forms are used otherwise (when followed by a word stressed on a non-initial syllable, at the end of a sentence or when used in isolation).
As an example, the singular masculine definite article el has the mutated form ia required before stress-initial nouns: ia gata (/jaˈɡa.ta/, the cat) but el cêabala (/el.ke̯aˈba.la/, the horse).
Nouns
As expected for a Romance language, Curtuvan nouns feature two grammatical genders (feminine and masculine) and two grammatical numbers (singular and plural). While some words (termed ‘gendered words’) show feminine and masculine variants for female and male referents, lexical gender is largely arbitrary, even for words referring to people.
It should be noted that the ending -a, associated to feminine nouns in many Romance languages, is a masculine ending in Curtuvan, while feminine nouns typically have a null ending instead (ie, formed by the bare stem). As a result, many Curtuvan words will resemble its Catalan counterparts but with their genders flipped as in Curtuvan fiya and fiy for ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ (fill and filla in Catalan). There are, however, a number of feminine nouns with a final -a in Curtavan (such as beta, ‘stone’) as well as masculine nouns lacking the usual ending (such as el preseident, ‘the president’).
Nouns are singular by default, with plurals being formed by adding an -s (or in some instances an -as to avoid an illegal consonant cluster) as in fiyas for ‘sons’ and fiys for ‘daughters’. For nouns with a masculine vs feminine contrast such as fiya and fiy, the masculine form is typically used as the default for plurals referring to mixed groups, meaning that fiyas might also refer to ‘children’, including both sons and daughters, although explicitly listing both options as fiyas et fiys or fiys et fiyas isn’t too uncommon.
Thus, a typical gendered noun will present the following pattern:
| Feminine | Masculine | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | -Ø (fiy, daughter) | -a (fiya, son) |
| Plural | -s (fiys, daughters) | -as (fiyas, sons) |
Beginning in the 21st century, some speakers might use a gender-neutral ending -e/-es which could be perceived as more appropriate for non-binary persons, although the spread of this innovation would be limited. This allows for words such as fiye referring to children without referencing their gender, although in practice fiye would particularly suggest a child with a non-binary gender identity. These usages were almost certainly inspired by a similar practice in Spanish.
Articles
Curtuvan features definite and indefinite articles (corresponding to English ‘the’ and ‘a/an’) that come at the start of a noun phrase. They are required to agree with their noun in gender and number, as well as conforming to pre-tonic mutation rules.
Their usage largely follows the same rules as in other Romance languages, particularly Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese.
Definite articles
Singular definite articles take different forms depending on the gender of the following noun and whether it carries word-initial stress or not. The plural definite article las, on the other hand, is invariable.
| Feminine noun | Masculine noun | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular noun - Non-initial stress | la | el |
| Singular noun - Word-initial stress | ea | ia |
| Plural noun | las | las |
The feminine article la might be contracted to l’ before a vowel-initial word but this is optional.
Definite articles and proper nouns
Definite articles are commonly used alongside personal names: a man named Eibram (a common derived from Abraham/Ibrahim) will be referred to as el Eibram while a woman named Meiria (a local variation of Mary/Maria) will be referred to as la Meiria. Articles are not used in vocative usages (so when calling someone named Eibram, a Curtuvan won’t say **¡El Eibram! but ¡Eibram!).
Toponyms, on the other hand, are seldom said with an article unless the article itself is perceived as being part of the name. Thus Spain will be referred to as Eispan rather than **la Eispan while the region of La Mancha will be known as la Meanxa.
Indefinite articles
Curtuvan features indefinite articles both in singular (like English ‘a’ and ‘an’) and in plural (roughly like English ‘some’). Unlike definite articles, the indefinite articles un, una and ons are unaffected by pre-tonic mutation.
| Feminine noun | Masculine noun | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular noun | un | una |
| Plural noun | ons | ons |
Singular indefinite articles are contracted (or outright elided) after a consonant-final preposition such as en (in) or cun (with). After such words, masculine una contracts to ’a /a/ while feminine un is completely elided, although this elision is marked orthographically with a bare apostrophe <’>. Plural ons remains unchanged in these contexts. The following table illustrates the resulting forms for the locative preposition en applied to the feminine noun cas (house) and the masculine noun siafina (ship).
| Presposition en | cas (house), feminine noun | siafina (ship), masculine noun |
|---|---|---|
| Singular, definite | en ea cas (in the house) | en el siafina (in/on the ship) |
| Singular, indefinite | en’ cas (in a house) | en’a siafina (in/on a ship) |
| Plural, definite | en las casas (in the houses) | en las siafinas (in/on the ships) |
| Plural, indefinite | en ons casas (in [some] houses) | en ons siafinas (in/on [some] ships) |
Demonstratives
Curtuvan has proximal and distal determiners which might replace the definite article.
| Proximal | Distal | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular, feminine | ques | eaquel |
| Singular masculine | quesa | eaquel |
| Plural | quesas | eaquels |
The distal demonstrative eaquel is only used when explicitly contrasting two referents, otherwise ques(a) will be used even in contexts where English would prefer distal ‘that’ to proximal ‘this’.
Demonstratives might also be used on their own as pronouns, roughly translatable as ‘this one’ and ‘that [other] one’.
Although Curtuvan orthography officially never observed a distinction between pronominal and non-pronominal usages for demonstratives, many speakers would mark pronominal demonstratives with an unnecessary acute accent (qués, quésa, eaquél) due to the influence of a now-deprecated orthographic rule requiring the same in Spanish (as éste for ‘this one’, now spelled este).
Adjectives
Curtuvan adjectives typically follow nouns with the opposite being rare, even for adjectives such as ‘large’ or ‘new’ that are often pre-nominal in related languages. For the most part, adjectives agree with their nouns in grammatical gender and number, featuring the same endings as gendered nouns, as exemplified here with xeiquita (small, little).
| Feminine | Masculine | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | -Ø (ea fiy xeiquit, the little daughter) | -a (ia fiya xeiquita, the little son) |
| Plural | -s (las fiys xeiquits, the little daughters) | -a (las fiyas xeiquitas, the little sons) |
Some adjectives such as gran (large, big, great) only decline in number; with singular gran, and plural grans applying to both feminine and masculine nouns.
Adjectives might also be used as predicates, introduced with the copula verb eiser. Predicate adjectives are also required to agree with the referent they describe: Las casas son grans for ‘The houses are large’.
Adverbs
Curtuvan adverbs tend to follow the adjectives or verbs they modify with the exception of muy (‘very’, an intensifier for adjectives) and temporal adverbs for verbs such as dá for ‘already’ (cf. Spanish ya).
Adverbs might be derived from adjectives by adding the suffix -(a)ment to the feminine singular form of the adjective, as in gránament for ‘greatly’. This suffix is considered to be non-tonic, with the adjective retaining its original stress placement (although this does generally require adding a diacritic to mark the resulting stress position, as in gránament vs unmarked gran).
A few adjectives might be used in its masculine singular form without any further affixes when applied as adverbs to verbs (but not to other adjectives), particularly for the adjectives saria (fast), its synonym vialosa and forta (strong). Thus ‘you speak quickly’ might be rendered in Curtuvan as Bersas saria as well as Bersas saríment (or, alternatively, vialosa or vialósament).
Pronouns
Curtuvan personal pronouns include a contrast between singular and plural ‘you’ and a gender distinction in singular third person pronouns (él and ey for ‘he’ and ‘she’, with inanimate objects being referred as either according to their grammatical gender).
Each pronoun has a variety of forms according to their grammatical and phonetic context. A pronoun in subject position or used in isolation will take the nominative form (such as yo for ‘I’) unless it immediately precedes a verb with word-initial stress (which calls for a pre-tonic nominative form such as yeu) or unless it is placed after the verb, in which case the post-verbal clitic form (such as -yeu) are used. Dative pronominal forms are used for indirect objects and to indicate direction (those mimb corresponds to both ‘to me’ or ‘towards me’) while the oblique forms are required for direct objects and other syntactical uses. Oblique pronouns will also change to a pre-tonic variant when directly preceding a stress-initial verb.
| Nominative | Post-verbal | Pre-tonic | Oblique/Accusative | Pre-tonic | Dative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1s (I, me) | yo | -yeu | yeu | me, m’ | mia | mimb |
| 2s (you) | us | -us | vou | us | ous | timb |
| 3s.M (he, him) | él | -el | ial | lá | leá | limb |
| 3s.F (she) | ey | -ey | ey | lá | leá | limb |
| 1p (we, us) | nós | -nus | nós | nos, nós | nos | a nós |
| 2p (you) | usas | -us | usas | usas | usas | a usas |
| 3p (they) | eis | -eis | eis | lás | lás | a eis |
Examples: - Yo et us. - You and me. (pronouns used in isolation, nominative form) - Yo cêantamb. - I used to sing. (subject of a verb without word-initial stress) - Yeu canta. - I sing. (subject of a verb with word-initial stress, pre-tonic form needed) - Yo sempra canta. - I always sing. (subject doesn’t immediately precede the verb) - Canta-yeu. - I sing. (post-verbal variant) - Canta. - I sing. (variant with dropped subject pronoun) - Us me cêatasi. - You saw me. (direct object, not following a initial-stressed verb) - Us mia catas. - You see me. (direct object following a initial-stressed verb) - Con me. - With me. (oblique form used for non-object roles) - Us lea das mimb. - You give it to me. (dative form for an indirect object) - Ans-us mimb. - You are walking towards me. (dative to indicate direction)
Some pronouns are written with acute accents that are only meant to disambiguate between word pairs such as él (he, a pronoun) and el (the, a definite article). The first person plural pronoun nós/nos is written with an accute accent (nós) except when used as a direct object. Oblique first person pronoun me is often contracted to m’ before a vowel; similarly some speakers might also contract lá to l’ although this remains non-standard and is seldom found in writing.
Curtuvan once displayed a contrast between formal and informal second person pronouns (a feature known as ‘T/V distinction’ in Romance languages), with an informal T variant tu for informal 2s and a formal V variant vos/vus/us for formal 2s and for 2p in general. Eventually, only the V variant us was preserved (with the dative form timb being a remnant of the original T form) for 2s, while a pluralized variant usas was innovated for 2p. Curiously, verb conjugation seemed largely unaffected by these shifts, with 2s us forms retaining the original tu conjugations while 2p forms retain the original vos/vus/us conjugations.
Elders, customers and other people in a higher social position might be addressed as ustá, a cognate (likely) of the Spanish formal 2s pronoun usted, although Curtuvan ustá is better thought as being merely a term of address like English ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’ and will be used along the standard second person pronouns (us).
Reflexive pronoun (se)
For third person subjects only, a distinction is observed between oblique arguments matching the subject or not. Whenever the subject and the other argument refer to the same person, the latter must be replaced with a form of the reflexive pronoun se. This pronoun is found as se or sia in direct-object position, as simb in dative as si in any other role.
| Accusative | Pre-tonic | Oblique | Dative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reflexive pronoun | se | sia | si | simb |
This distinction makes it possible to differentiate between sentences referring to a single third person referent or to multiple as in Leá cató-el for ‘He saw him (a different person)’ vs Sia cató-el for ‘He saw himself’.
Historically, certain rural Curtuvan varieties failed to make this distinction although this dialectal feature was always seen as non-standard and is currently close to extinct.
Reflexive verbs
Certain Curtuvan verbs require their subject to be marked with a pre-verbal oblique/accusative pronoun as if it was also a direct object. Since this parallels reflexive constructions (such as Mia cata-yeu for ‘I see myself’), such verbs are known as ‘reflexive verbs’.
For third person pronouns, this always requires the se reflexive pronoun.
A small number of Curtuvan verbs are only found as ‘reflexive verbs’, as it’s the case for (se) bourlar (to laugh at something/someone), one cannot say **Burla-el d’eis for ‘He laughs at them’ but Sia burla-el d’eis.
A somewhat greater number might be found either as ordinary or reflexive verbs with some difference in meaning. For instance, truabar means ‘to find’ when used as a non-reflexive verb (Truabey un cuampen translates to ‘I found a friend’, perhaps referring to a game of hide and seek) while reflexive (se) truabar translates as ‘to meet’ or ‘to run into’ (Me truabey cun’ cuampen ~ ‘I met [with] a friend’).
Possessives
Curtuvan pronouns might have two types of possessive forms: possessive determiners and possessive adjectives.
Although there might be idiolectal variations in usage, possessive determiners (when they exist) tend to be preferred over possessive adjectives in everyday speech.
Possessive determiners
Possessive determiners, comparable to English ‘my’ or ‘your’, are grammatically similar to definite articles: they precede nouns, agree with the possessed noun (although only in number) and might be subject to pre-tonic mutation (only in singular). Nouns described by these determiners are always definite and do not require any additional determiners. Possessive determiners do not exist for all pronouns, only for the first person singular (mi, ~ ‘my’), second person singular (historically tu but now mostly replaced by su) and for third person singular and plural (also su):
| Singular | Singular pre-tonic | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1s.POS, ‘my’ | mi | mei | mis or mes (regional variation) |
| 2s.POS, ‘your’ | tu (archaic), su | tou (archaic), sua | tus (archaic), sos |
| 3s.POS, ‘his/her/its’ 3p.POS, ‘their’ |
su | sua | sos |
Qualified sua
As noted, the possessive determiner su might indicate possession by second person or third person referents and thus might prove ambiguous in some contexts. For instance, sua batra might correspond to English ‘your father’, ‘his father’, ‘her father’ or ‘their father’. This ambiguity may be lifted through the use of construction known as ‘qualified sua’ which follows a syntax closer to that of possessive adjectives.
| Qualified sua form | |
|---|---|
| 2s.POS, ‘your’ | sua tuy |
| 3s.F.POS, ‘her’ | sua d’ey |
| 3s.M.POS, ‘his’ | sua d’él |
| 3p.POS, ‘their’ | sua d’eis |
Qualified sua forms always follow nouns (rather than preceding them) and are invariant. Nouns affected by this construction might optionally take definite or indefinite articles. Thus, ‘her olive’ might be rendered as the ambiguous su ualimb, as ualimb sua d’ey or as la ualimb sua d’ey, while an indefinite construction una ualimb sua d’ey might be used to convey a meaning of ‘one of her olives’ or ‘an olive of hers’.
Qualified sua constructions do not show any agreement, not even in predicate usage; observe the lack of plural marking in las casas son sua d’ey (the houses are hers).
It could be noted that using sua tuy is completely equivalent to using the possessive adjective tuy alone; the usage of one variant or the other is a personal stylistic choice.
Possessive adjectives
As the name indicates, possessive adjectives are adjectival-like and, as such, they might follow the affected noun or might be used as predicates with the copula verb eiser. Nouns described by a possessive adjective will commonly take definite and indefinite articles as usual, although definite articles might sometimes be dropped for kinship terms (batra tuy for ‘your father’, rather than ia batra tuy) or for locations (cas miy for ‘my house’).
Unlike regular adjectives which are required to agree with their noun both in attributive and predicate usages, possessive adjectives are invariable when applied directly to a noun phrase (attributive) but are required to show agreement when appearing as predicate. For instance, we see the invariable attributive form miy in las ualibas miy (my olive trees) but the marked masculine plural form in las ualibas son miyas (the olive trees are mine).
| Attributive | Singular Feminine | Singular Masculine | Plural feminine | Plural masculine | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1s.POS, ‘mine’ | miy | miy | miya | miys | miyas |
| 2s.POS, ‘yours’ | tuy | tuy | tuya | tuys | tuyas |
| 1p.PS, ‘ours’ | nosa | nosa | nosa | nosas | nosas |
Pronouns without a dedicate possessive adjective form might construct an invariable possessive with the possessive case preposition da (d’él for ‘his’, d’ey for ‘hers’, d’usas for ‘yours, of you all’ and d’eis for ‘theirs’) or use a qualified sua form.
Body parts
Curtuvan uses possessives normally for body parts, regardless of whether the possessor appears elsewhere in the sentence. This usage, which matches English, differs from the ‘dative external possessors’ found in other Romance languages where a pronoun referencing the person might be added to the clause while leaving the body part unmarked.
Consider the phrase ‘My head hurts’ (which might apply to you after reading the previous paragraph). In English, the ‘head’ is qualified with the possessive determiner ‘my’. A Spanish speaker, however, would say “me duele la cabeza”, literally “the head hurts to me”, with no possessive marking on “la cabeza” (the head). Such constructions are common across Romance and various other languages from continental Europe.
Curtuvan would phrase this as Fa mal mimb mi cêabeç, literally “my head hurts to me”, requiring a possessive marker for cêabeç (head).
Verbs
Much like its neighboring Romance relatives, Curtuvan retains a rich verbal morphology with verbs conjugating for person, number, tense, aspect and mood.
One unique element of Curtuvan conjugation is the incorporation of pre-tonic mutation, with some verbforms requiring a tonic stem (stressed on the final syllable of the stem and commonly displaying pre-tonic mutation on its second-to-last syllable if any) and an atonic stem (for verbforms presenting primary stress on verbal suffixes, typically presenting pre-tonic mutation on the last syllable in the stem). For more information on this feature, refer to the section above on pre-tonic mutation.
Most Curtuvan verbs fall under one of two main conjugation classes (‘first’ for verbs with an infinitive ending in -ar and ‘second’ for -er verbs), although a significant fraction of verbs feature irregular paradigms.
Conjugation paradigm for regular and selected irregular verbs are given at the end of this section.
Non-finite forms
As usual for a Romance language, Curtuvan verbs have three non-finite forms which cannot form verb phrases on their own. These are the infinitive, the gerund and the participle.
Infinitives
Infinitives are the citation form of each verb and are typically composed of the atonic stem followed by the suffixes -ar (for first conjugation verbs) or -er (for second conjugation verbs). As a result, knowledge of the infinitive is enough to guess the whole conjugation paradigm for a regular verb.
Infinitives may be used as a noun phrase (without any determiners) referring to the action denoted by the verb, as in Nuadar es una eisporte bona (‘Swimming is a good sport’, notice that this usage is covered by the gerund in English) and are commonly required by constructions as ‘to like’ (Nuadar mia va, I like to swim) ‘to want’ (Volga nuadar, I want to swim) or ‘to learn [how to]’ (Quera a nuadar., I learn to swim).
Infinitives are also required for the most common future-tense construction, formed by the auxiliary haber, the preposition a and an infinitive (Hey a biarsar ‘I will talk’) and to issue negative commands (No biarsar - ‘Don’t talk’).
Gerunds
Curtuvan gerunds typically work as adverbial phrases setting a time frame while an action occurs (Eananda a Eispan ~ ‘(while) going to Spain’) or indicating that the action was accessory to another (Nuadanda areivó-el al siafina, ~ ‘(by) swimming, he arrived to the ship’). Gerunds are typically formed by adding the suffix -anda to the atonic stem of the verb. Historically, second conjugation verbs (verbs with an infinitive ending in -er) would take the suffix inda instead, but this distinction has fallen out of use.
Gerunds might also occur in constructions analogous to English past and present continuous, with eistar as an auxiliary verb. These constructions imply a progressive aspect, compare standard present Biarsa-yeu curtoubís (I speak Curtuvan ~ I am able to speak in that language) with Yesta-yeu biarsanda curtoubís (I am speaking in Curtuvan [at the moment]). This construction, however, remains controversial among Curtuvan speakers who might identify it as a Spanish construction applied to Curtuvan elements, preferring to use ‘standard’ Curtuvan tenses instead.
Participles
In Curtuvan, participles are adjectival forms of a verb, typically constructed by adding the ending -ata to the atonic form of first conjugation (-ar) verbs or -ita to the atonic form of second conjugation (-er) verbs, although a sizable number of Curtuvan verbs have irregular participles. Participles indicate a state of having been affected (as a direct object) by a verb; as a result participles are generally only found in transitive verbs.
Participles function as ordinary adjectives and, as such, agree with nouns in number and gender: inflectional forms of desiaxiata (‘desired’, participle of desiaxiar, ‘to wish, to desire’) can be found in ea cas desiaxiat (the desired house) or las dïas desiaxiatas (the desired days).
The preposition da might be used to introduce the subject as in desiaxiata da me for ‘desired by me’.
Barring highly-nonstandard grammatical calques from Spanish, Curtuvan participles are not used in past tense or passive voice constructions.
Tense
Finite forms (all verbforms aside from the aforementioned non-finite forms) are conjugated for mood (indicative, conditional, subjunctive and imperative), person and number (agreeing with their subject) and ‘tense’, although this last category also includes certain aspectual distinctions.
In the indicative mood (which could be thought as the default for real events) Curtuvan verbs show distinct forms for 3 tenses known as present, past and imperfect, with a separate future tense being expressed through a construction involving the infinitive and the auxiliary verb haber. Other moods make fewer distinctions as explained in the appropriate sections.
The present tense (abbreviated as PRS), as the name says, is used for events taking place in the present as well as generic statements (Eispan es un país, ‘Spain is a country’) or habitual actions (Canta-yeu might correspond to either English ‘I sing [habitually]’ or ‘I’m singing [presently]’). Since the only other inflectional tenses in the language correspond to past events, a case could be made that this could be seen as a ‘non-past’ tense, although referring to it as ‘present’ remains the norm per tradition.
Events in the past are expressed through two tenses which differ in aspect, the so called past tense (perfective) and the somewhat misnamed imperfect tense (imperfective).
Curtuvan’s past tense (PST) has a perfective connotation, meaning that it refers to actions viewed as a single event. This is the tense that most commonly corresponds to English simple past and present perfect (Cêantey could be translated into English as either ‘I sang’ or ‘I have sung’ depending).
By contrast, the imperfect tense (IPF, a misnomer according to current linguistic usage) can be described as an imperfective past tense, used for continuous or habitual actions (Cêantamb-yeu ~ ‘I used to sing’) or to set a time-frame for another event (Cêantamb-yeu canda us cêatey, ‘I was singing when I saw you’).
Unlike other European languages (including Spanish, Catalan, French), standard Curtuvan doesn’t have a past tense formed using the participle, like English present perfect.
Future tense
Unlike other Romance languages, Curtuvan lacks a morphological future tense (with it being unclear whether this is a result of early Curtuvan having lost it or if it never developed one in the first place).
Instead, Curtuvan uses a construction which involves the auxiliary verb haber (typically a cognate of verbs meaning ‘to have’ in Romance languages), the preposition a and the infinitive. In its most common form, a present tense form of haber is used such as hey (‘I have’) in Hey a cêantar (‘I will sing’).
An imperfect form of haber might also be used to indicate an aborted future event much like past forms of ‘going to’ in English: Imb-yeu a cêantar for ‘I was going to sing’.
Pronouns in direct object position might appear either before the infinitive (Hey a us cêatar for ‘I will see you’) or before the auxiliary verb (Us hey a cêatar). The former option was once the only alternative in the language and remains the most common, while the latter was likely adopted do to the influence of similar constructions in Spanish. Some speakers might double the direct object in this situation (Us hey a us cêatar) but this is generally perceived as an error.
Subject agreement
All finite forms must agree with their subject in person (first for the speaker or speaker and others, second for the listener, listeners or the listeners and third for other referents) and number (singular or plural), resulting in six ‘personal’ forms per tense and mood: 1s (I, yo), 2s (singular you, us), 3s (he, she, it or singular they, él or ey), 1p (we, nós), 2p (plural you ~ you all, usas) and 3p (plural they, eis).
Even though Curtuvan has separate 3s pronouns for the feminine and masculine genders (feminine ey, masculine él) this distinction is not observed in verbs.
Some tense and mood combinations do not have unique forms for each person; for instance the indicative imperfect tense has the same form for 1s, 2s and 3s: cêantamb might correspond to English ‘I was singing’, ‘you were singing’, ‘he was singing’ or ‘she was singing’. These ambiguous verbforms are particularly likely to include post-verbal pronouns (as in cêantamb-yeu for ‘I was singing’) but, as with all other verbforms, speakers are free to choose between using standalone subjects (yo cêantamb), post-verbal pronouns (cêantamb-yeu) or no subjects at all (cêantamb).
Impersonal verbs
Certain verbs dubbed as ‘impersonal’ may only occur in third person singular form. This is the case for weather verbs such as biover (to rain) which lack a real-world referent which could be identified as its subject (biomb, ‘it rains’, with English ‘it’ being a so-called ‘dummy pronoun’).
Subject ellipsis (having no pronoun in the sentence to indicate the subject) is required for impersonal verbs.
Mood
Curtuvan verbs have four moods: indicative, conditional, subjunctive and imperative.
The indicative mood (IND, although usually unmarked in transcriptions) can be thought as the default mood. It typically corresponds to real events. Verbs in this mood can appear in any tense: present, past, imperfect or future (using the haber + infinitive construction), as exemplified below with the verb cêantar (to sing): - Canta-yeu. - I sing. - Cêantey. - I sang. / I have sung. - Cêantamb-yeu. - I was singing. / I used to sing. - Hey a cêantar. - I will sing. / I am going to sing.
The conditional mood (COND) indicates a state or event that would happen should a certain condition be met. This mood is commonly used in the second part of ‘if’ clauses (If X, then Y). No tense distinctions are observed for this mood. - Si us vualgisis, yo cantearí. - If you wanted so, I would sing / If you had wanted so, I would have sung.
The subjunctive mood (SUBJ) works in a similar way as in other Romance languages, which means that its usage is hard to explain even for its own speakers. It generally applies to hypothetical situations such as desires or mental scenarios. Curtuvan allows for subjunctive constructions in the present, past (commonly used for counter-factual hypothetical scenarios) and future. - ¿Volas ca canti-yeu? - Do you want me to sing? - ¿Besas ca yo canti bian? - Do you think that I sing well? - Si cêantés, no besearias quesa. - If I sang, you wouldn’t think that. - Si habés-yeu a cêantar, caliarí ca quiarés. - If I were to sing (in the future), I would have to train.
Finally, the imperative mood (IMP) is used to issue commands. This mood only properly exists for the second person, with 2s and 2p variants, and is only used for positive commands (telling someone to do something rather than to abstaing from doing something). Although only the so-called ‘present imperative’ remains common in use, a future-tense variant based on the haber + infinitive construction may be used for instructions to be carried out further into the future. - ¡Cêantá! - Sing! (command directed to a single person) - ¡Cêantaç! - Sing! (directed to multiple people) - Hay-us a cêantar. - You will have to sing.
Negative commands are formed using the negative particle no followed by the infinitive. This construction doesn’t distinguish between 2s, 2p or some generic subject and might thus be interpreted as general prohibition. In order to specify to whom the prohibition apples, the speaker could use a vocative call at the start of the sentence or add a post-verbal pronoun clitic on the infinitive (the only scenario where such marking can occur on a non-finite form): - No cêantar. - Don’t sing. / Singing not allowed. - ¡Usas, no cêantar! - You folks, don’t sing! - ¡No cêantar-us! - You, don’t sing!
Paradigms
In this section, the full paradigms (this is to say, the set of all inflectional forms) will be given for two verbs showcasing Curtuvan’s two regular paradigms (the so-called first and second conjugations) as well as a select number of irregular verbs.
When two forms are given for a certain conjugation, both forms are valid although the first one might be somewhat more common.
Regular paradigms
Regular verbs in Curtuvan are split into two classes: ‘first conjugation’ verbs (which can be identified by their infinitives ending in -ar) and ‘second conjugation’ (whose infinitives end in -er instead).
Curtuvan proves simpler than other Romance languages in this regard, with Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan having three conjugation classes instead, with classes associated to infinitive endings -er, -ir and Catalan’s -re all being conflated in Curtuvan’s second conjugation. Despite this, most verbs fall under the first conjugation class by a very wide margin.
It should be noted that some verbs that conform to regular paradigms in speech might show slight adjustments in orthography. For instance, the <ç> in comiançar will become a <c> in verbforms such as subjunctive cuamenci as the otherwise expected *cuamençi would violate orthographic rules concerning the usage of <ç> and <c>.
In order to conjugate a given verb, the speaker needs to know its tonic and atonic stems, as described earlier in the section on pre-tonic mutation. Each paradigm will be given for a sample verb (namely biarsar, ‘to talk’, for the first conjugation and cuamer, ‘to eat’, for the second), the paradigm for other regular verbs can be obtained by substituting the tonic and atonic stems in the appropriate tables.
Note: Vowels between brackets as in bers(a) will be elided as long as phonotactically possible. This means that 3s.PRS form of biarsar will actually be bers, as the final cluster /ɾs/ is allowed while leadrar, a regular first conjugation with tonic stem ladr-, will have a 3s.PRS form ladra, as *ladr is phonotactically invalid.
First conjugation (-ar)
Exemplified by the verb biarsar (to talk), tonic stem bers-, atonic stem biars-.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | biarsar |
| Gerund | biarsanda |
| Participle | biarsata (SG.MASC)biarsat ( SG.FEM)biarsatas ( PL.MASC)biarsats ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
bersa | biarsey | biarsamb | hey a biarsar |
2s (you, us)
|
bersas | biarsasi | biarsabas | has a biarsar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
bers(a) | biarsó | biarsamb | ha a biarsar |
1p (we, nós)
|
biarsams | biarsamas | biarsábams | hems a biarsar |
2p (you, usas)
|
biarseç | biarsasis | biarsábeç | heiç a biarsar |
3p (they, eis)
|
bérsan | biarsáran | biarsában | han a biarsar |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
bersearí |
2s (you, us)
|
bersearias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
bersearí |
1p (we, nós)
|
biarsearíams |
2p (you, usas)
|
biarsearíeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
bersearían |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
bersi | biarsés | habés a biarsar |
2s (you, us)
|
bersis | biarsesis | habesis a biarsar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
bersi | biarsés | habés a biarsar |
1p (we, nós)
|
biarsims | biarsésims | hésims a biarsar |
2p (you, usas)
|
biarsíeç | biarséseç | héseç a biarsar |
3p (they, eis)
|
bérsen | biarsésen | hésen a biarsar |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
biarsá | hay a biarsar |
2p (you, usas)
|
biarsaç | heiç a biarsar |
Negative (NEG)
|
no biarsar | - |
Second conjugation (-er) =
Exemplified by the verb cuamer (to eat), tonic stem com-, atonic stem cuam-.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | cuamer |
| Gerund | cuaminda |
| Participle | cuamita (SG.MASC)cuamit ( SG.FEM)cuamitas ( PL.MASC)cuamits ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
coma | cuamí | cuamia | hey a cuamer |
2s (you, us)
|
comas | cuamisi | cuamias | has a cuamer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
com(a) | cuamió | cuamí, cuamia | ha a cuamer |
1p (we, nós)
|
cuamims | cuamimas | cuamíams | hems a cuamer |
2p (you, usas)
|
cuamiç | cuamisis | cuamíeç | heiç a cuamer |
3p (they, eis)
|
coman | cuamíran | cuamían | han a cuamer |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
comeirí |
2s (you, us)
|
comeirias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
comeirí |
1p (we, nós)
|
comeiríams |
2p (you, usas)
|
comeiríeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
comeirían |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
com(a) | cuamís | habés a cuamer |
2s (you, us)
|
comas | cuamisis | habesis a cuamer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
coma | cuamís | habés a cuamer |
1p (we, nós)
|
cuamams | cuamísims | hésims a cuamer |
2p (you, usas)
|
cuamíeç | cuamíseç | héseç a cuamer |
3p (they, eis)
|
cóman | cuamísen | hésen a cuamer |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
cuamé | hay a cuamer |
2p (you, usas)
|
cuameç | heiç a cuamer |
Negative (NEG)
|
no cuamer | - |
Irregular paradigms
Note: This is not necessarily an exhaustive list; other irregular verbs might occur in the language.
Eiser (to be, cf. Spanish ser)
Eiser is the main copula verb in the language, corresponding to English ‘to be’ and to most usages of Spanish “ser” and “estar”. As usual for Indoeuropean (and more specifically Romance) copula verbs, eiser is highly irregular.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | eiser |
| Gerund | sinda |
| Participle | sita (SG.MASC)sit ( SG.FEM)sitas ( PL.MASC)sits ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
soy | fey | era | hey a eiser |
2s (you, us)
|
ers | fisi | eras | has a eiser |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
es | fiá | era | ha a eiser |
1p (we, nós)
|
soms | fims | érams | hems a eiser |
2p (you, usas)
|
siç | fisis | ériç | heiç a eiser |
3p (they, eis)
|
son | feran | éran | han a eiser |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
siarí |
2s (you, us)
|
siarías |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
siarí |
1p (we, nós)
|
siaríams |
2p (you, usas)
|
siaríeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
siarían |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
sia | fesi | habés a eiser |
2s (you, us)
|
sias | fesis | habesis a eiser |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
sia | fesi | habés a eiser |
1p (we, nós)
|
síams | fésims | hésims a eiser |
2p (you, usas)
|
síeç | fésiç | héseç a eiser |
3p (they, eis)
|
sían | fisen | hesen a eiser |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
sé | hay a eisir |
2p (you, usas)
|
seç | heiç a eisir |
Negative (NEG)
|
no eisir | - |
Eistar (to be, cf. Spanish estar)
In Curtuvan, the verb eistar is used to indicate position, similar to the English construction ‘there is’. Accordingly, the usage of eistar is considerably more restricted than that of its cognate “estar” in Spanish which will typically be rendered in Curtuvan as eiser.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | eistar |
| Gerund | eistanda |
| Participle | eistata (SG.MASC)eistat ( SG.FEM)eistatas ( PL.MASC)eistats ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
eistoy | eistey | eistamb | hey a eistar |
2s (you, us)
|
eistás | eistasi | eistabas | has a eistar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
eistá | eistó | eistamb | ha a eistar |
1p (we, nós)
|
eistams | eistamas | eistábams | hems a eistar |
2p (you, usas)
|
eisteç | eistasis | eistábeç | _heiç a eistar |
3p (they, eis)
|
eistan | eistáran | eistában | han a eistar |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
istearí |
2s (you, us)
|
istearias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
istearí |
1p (we, nós)
|
istearíams |
2p (you, usas)
|
istearíeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
istearíen |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
eistí | eistés | habés a eistar |
2s (you, us)
|
eistís | eistésis | habésis a eistar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
eistí | eistés | habés a eistar |
1p (we, nós)
|
eistíms | eistésims | hésims a eistar |
2p (you, usas)
|
eistíeç | eistéseç | héseç a eistar |
3p (they, eis)
|
eisten | eistésen | hésen a eistar |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
eistá | hay a eistar |
2p (you, usas)
|
eisteç | heiç a eistar |
Negative (NEG)
|
no eistar | - |
Haber (auxiliary verb for future tense)
Curtuvan haber is a descendant of Latin habeo, meaning ‘to have’ but, much as in Spanish, this meaning has fallen out of use and the verb is now used almost exclusively as an auxiliary. However, unlike Spanish “haber” (used for periphrastic tenses related to the past), Curtuvan haber appears in future tense constructions.
Although this is just a coincidence (at least intrafictionally), in a way Curtuvan haber could be seen as an opposite to Catalan anar (to go): Curtuvan haber is cognate with verbs used for past-tense constructions in other languages (such as Spanish han cantado, ‘they have sung’) but it’s used for future-tense constructions instead (han a cêantar, ‘they are going to sing’) while Catalan’s anar is a cognate of verbs used for future-tense constructions in other languages (such as Spanish van a cantar, ‘they are going to sing’) but it’s used for the past tense Catalan (van cantar, ‘they sang’).
The old meaning of haber (to have, to possess) is preserved in a few fossilized phrases such as haber reaçon (literally ‘to have reason’) for ‘to be right’. While certain inflectional forms of haber do not occur when used as an auxiliary verb, these phrases require haber to have a fully-fledged paradigm (although the rarity of these expressions means that many speakers might be unaware about how to conjugate certain forms).
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | haber |
| Gerund | heabinda |
| Participle | heabita (SG.MASC)heabit ( SG.FEM)heabitas ( PL.MASC)heabits ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
hey | hiabí | heabia | hey a haber |
2s (you, us)
|
has | heabisi | heabias | has a haber |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
ha | hiabió | heabí, heabias | ha a haber |
1p (we, nós)
|
hems | heabimas | heabíams | hems a haber |
2p (you, usas)
|
heiç | heabisis | heabíeç | heiç a haber |
3p (they, eis)
|
han | heabíran | heabian | han a haber |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
heabrí |
2s (you, us)
|
heabrias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
heabrí |
1p (we, nós)
|
heabríams |
2p (you, usas)
|
heabríeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
heabrían |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
hamb | haibés | haibés a haber |
2s (you, us)
|
haibas | habesis | habesis a haber |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
haimb | habés | habés a haber |
1p (we, nós)
|
habams | hésims | hésims a haber |
2p (you, usas)
|
habíe | héseç | héseç a haber |
3p (they, eis)
|
háiban | hésen | hésen a haber |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
hay | hay a haber |
2p (you, usas)
|
heiç | heiç a haber |
Negative (NEG)
|
no haber | - |
Anar / var (to go, to walk, to like)
The Curtuvan verb corresponding to English ‘to go’ is an unusual case of a single verb with two infinitive forms: anar and var. The verb may be used both for walking without necessarily specifying a direction (Anamb-yeu, ‘I was walking’) and for motion in general, not necessarily on foot (Aney a Austrália, ‘I went to Australia’).
The infinitive anar implies ‘walking’, while var does not, so even though “Aney a mei cas” could mean either ‘I went to my house’ or ‘I walked to my house’, a distinction is made in the infinitives and in any constructions involving said forms. For instance, “Volga anar a mei cas” unambiguously indicates that the speaker intends to walk home, while “Volga var a mei cas” doesn’t have such an implication and may be used if the speaker doesn’t care about how they get home or, for instance, if they intended to drive home or go on public transport.
This distinction is not made in other forms of anar / var, although this is rarely a problem. In case a speaker needed to disambiguate that they intended to walk somewhere, a somewhat jocular but widely accepted solution is to specify that they mean the “anar” meaning by adding d’anar (of “anar” ): thus “Aney d’anar a mei cas” unambiguously (and somewhat emphatically) specified that the speaker went home on foot (perhaps in a context where that wouldn’t be expected, as if they had walked home from very far away).
The verb is also used for a construction indicating affinity like the English verb ‘to like’: X likes Y is expressed in Curtuvan as ‘Y goes [to] X’: - Nuadar mia va. - I like swimming. - Anar va al Eibram - Eibram likes walking.
Anar / var has a highly irregular paradigm, with forms being derived from Latin ire, vadere and ambulare.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | anar, var |
| Gerund | veanda |
| Participle | eanata (SG.MASC)eanat ( SG.FEM)eanatas ( PL.MASC)eanats ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
vay | aney | ibamb | hey a anar/var |
2s (you, us)
|
vas | anasi | ibas | has a anar/var |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
vas | anoy | ibamb | ha a anar/var |
1p (we, nós)
|
anams | eanamas | íbams | hems a anar/var |
2p (you, usas)
|
aneç | anasis | íbeç | heiç a anar/var |
3p (they, eis)
|
van, ánan | anáran | íban | han a anar/var |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
anearí |
2s (you, us)
|
anearias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
anearí |
1p (we, nós)
|
anearíams |
2p (you, usas)
|
anearíeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
anearíen |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
vey | anés | habés a anar/var |
2s (you, us)
|
vayas | anésis | habésis a anar/var |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
vaya | anés | habés a anar/var |
1p (we, nós)
|
veayams | anésims | hésims a anar/var |
2p (you, usas)
|
veayeç | anéseç | héseç a anar/var |
3p (they, eis)
|
váyan | anésen | hésen a anar/var |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
vay | hay a anar/var |
2p (you, usas)
|
veiç | heiç a anar/var |
Negative (NEG)
|
no anar/var | - |
Dar (to give)
The verb dar is a ditransitive verb, meaning it involves three arguments: a subject (the one giving something to someone), a direct object (the thing that is given to someone) and an indirect object (the one who is given something).
Accusative pronouns before this verb might only be used for the direct object (the thing being given). This contrasts with other Romance languages such as Spanish which allow pre-verbal clitics for both the indirect and direct objects (Spanish “Yo te lo doy” for ‘I give it to you’). Indirect objects, on the other hand, may only appear as dative pronouns following the verb (and any post-verbal nominative pronoun) or as a noun phrase introduced with the preposition a. Direct and indirect objects may also be omitted from the sentence altogether, as shown in the following examples: - Dey el gata a Eibram. - I gave the cat to Eibram. - Leá dey a Eibram. - I gave it to Eibram. - Dey limb el gata. - I gave the cat to him. - Lea dey limb. - I gave it to him. - Lea dey. - I gave it [away]. - Dey limb. - I gave [something] to him. - Dey. - I gave [something to someone].
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | dar |
| Gerund | danda |
| Participle | dota (SG.MASC)dot ( SG.FEM)dotas ( PL.MASC)dots ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
do | dey | damb | hey a dar |
2s (you, us)
|
das | disi | dabas | has a dar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
dá | dió | damb | ha a dar |
1p (we, nós)
|
dams | damas | dábams | hems a dar |
2p (you, usas)
|
daiç | disis | dábeç | heiç a dar |
3p (they, eis)
|
dan | dáran | dában | han a dar |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
dearí |
2s (you, us)
|
dearias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
dearí |
1p (we, nós)
|
dearíams |
2p (you, usas)
|
dearíeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
dearíen |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
desi | diasés | habés a dar |
2s (you, us)
|
desis | diasesis | habésis a dar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
desi | diasés | habés a dar |
1p (we, nós)
|
diasims | diasésisms | hésims a dar |
2p (you, usas)
|
diasíeç | diaséseç | héseç a dar |
3p (they, eis)
|
désen | diaséssen | hésen a dar |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
dá | hay a dar |
2p (you, usas)
|
deç | heiç a dar |
Negative (NEG)
|
no dar | - |
Feacer (to do, to make)
In addition to meaning ‘to do’ or ‘to make’, feacer appears in many collocations such as feacer mal for ‘to hurt’.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | feacer |
| Gerund | fiaçanda |
| Participle | fita (SG.MASC)fit ( SG.FEM)fitas ( PL.MASC)fits ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
faç | fis | fiacia | hey a feacer |
2s (you, us)
|
facis | fisi | fiacias | has a feacer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
fa, faç (dialectal) | fisa | fiací, fiacia | ha a feacer |
1p (we, nós)
|
facems | feiçamas | fiacíams | hems a feacer |
2p (you, usas)
|
faceç | fisis | fiacíeç | heiç a feacer |
3p (they, eis)
|
fan, facen | feiçáran | fiacían | han a feacer |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
fearí |
2s (you, us)
|
fearias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
fearí |
1p (we, nós)
|
fearíams |
2p (you, usas)
|
fearíeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
fearíen |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
faç, faça | feicís | habés a feacer |
2s (you, us)
|
faças | feicísis | habésis a feacer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
faça | feicís | habés a feacer |
1p (we, nós)
|
façams | feicísims | hésims a feacer |
2p (you, usas)
|
facíeç | feicíseç | héseç a feacer |
3p (they, eis)
|
fáçan | feicísen | hésen a feacer |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
faç, facé | hay a feacer |
2p (you, usas)
|
feç, faceç | heiç a feacer |
Negative (NEG)
|
no feacer | - |
Diaxer (to say)
Not to be confused with biarsar (to talk, to speak).
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | diaxer |
| Gerund | deixinda |
| Participle | dita (SG.MASC)dit ( SG.FEM)ditas ( PL.MASC)dits ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
dica | diç | diaxia | hey a diaxer |
2s (you, us)
|
diças | diaxisi | diaxias | has a diaxer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
diç | diça | diaxí, diaxia | ha a diaxer |
1p (we, nós)
|
diaxims | diaximas | diaxíams | hems a diaxer |
2p (you, usas)
|
diaxiç | diaxisis | diaxíeç | heiç a diaxer |
3p (they, eis)
|
díçan | diaxíran | diaxían | han a diaxer |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
diceirí |
2s (you, us)
|
diceirias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
diceirí |
1p (we, nós)
|
diceiríams |
2p (you, usas)
|
diceiríeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
diceiríen |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
dic | deixís | habés a diaxer |
2s (you, us)
|
dixas | deixísis | habesis a diaxer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
dixa | deixís | habés a diaxer |
1p (we, nós)
|
dixams | deixísims | hésims a diaxer |
2p (you, usas)
|
dixíeç | deixíseç | héseç a diaxer |
3p (they, eis)
|
díxan | deixísen | hésen a diaxer |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
diaxé | hay a diaxer |
2p (you, usas)
|
diaxeç | heiç a diaxer |
Negative (NEG)
|
no diaxer | - |
Seaber (to know)
Note that seaber might also be used for indicating the taste of something (samb dolç for ‘it tastes sweet’) but it is inflected as a regular second conjugation verb in that sense. Curtuvan seaber differs in this aspect from its close cognate Spanish saber, which uses the same irregular paradigm for both senses.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | seaber |
| Gerund | seabinda |
| Participle | seabita (SG.MASC)seabit ( SG.FEM)seabitas ( PL.MASC)seabits ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
sey | seabí | seabia | hey a seaber |
2s (you, us)
|
saps | seabisi | seabas | has a seaber |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
samb | seabió | seabí, seabia | ha a seaber |
1p (we, nós)
|
seabims | seabimas | seabíams | hems a seaber |
2p (you, usas)
|
seabiç | seabisis | seabíeç | heiç a seaber |
3p (they, eis)
|
sában | seabíran | seabían | han a seaber |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
sabeirí |
2s (you, us)
|
sabeirias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
sabeirí |
1p (we, nós)
|
sabeiríams |
2p (you, usas)
|
sabeiríeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
sabeirían |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
sep | siapís | habés a seaber |
2s (you, us)
|
sepas | saipisis | habesis a seaber |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
sepa | siapís | habés a seaber |
1p (we, nós)
|
siapams | siapísims | hésims a seaber |
2p (you, usas)
|
siapeç | siapíseç | héseç a seaber |
3p (they, eis)
|
sépan | siapísen | hésen a seaber |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
seabé | hay a seaber |
2p (you, usas)
|
seabeç | heiç a seaber |
Negative (NEG)
|
no seaber | - |
Vualer (to want)
Many forms of this verb show an unexpected <g> in the stem, a development that may also be seen in its Catalan cognate voler.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | vualer |
| Gerund | vualinda |
| Participle | vualita (SG.MASC)vualit ( SG.FEM)vualitas ( PL.MASC)vualits ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
volga | vualgí | vualia | hey a vualer |
2s (you, us)
|
volas | vualgisi | vualias | has a vualer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
vol | vualuió | vualí, vualia | ha a vualer |
1p (we, nós)
|
volgims | vualimas | vualíams | hems a vualer |
2p (you, usas)
|
volgiç | vualgisis | vualíeç | heiç a vualer |
3p (they, eis)
|
volan | vualíran | vualían | han a vualer |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
voleirí |
2s (you, us)
|
voleirias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
voleirí |
1p (we, nós)
|
voleiríams |
2p (you, usas)
|
voleiríeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
voleirían |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
vulga | vualgís | habés a vualer |
2s (you, us)
|
vulgas | vualgisis | habesis a vualer |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
vulga | vualgís | habés a vualer |
1p (we, nós)
|
voulgams | vualgísims | hésims a vualer |
2p (you, usas)
|
voulgeç | vualgíseç | héseç a vualer |
3p (they, eis)
|
vúlgan | vualgísen | hésen a vualer |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
volé | hay a vualer |
2p (you, usas)
|
voleç | heiç a vualer |
Negative (NEG)
|
no vualer | - |
Verbs with the -iaxiar ending
The suffix -iaxiar, corresponding to Spanish -ear and Catalan -ejar, is commonly found in verbs derived from nouns as in fiestiaxiar (to celebrate) from the noun fiest (celebration, festivity). These verbs could be considered to belong to the first conjugation class although they show some slight irregularities related to the presence of the /j/ glide before the -ar ending. Their conjugation is illustrated with the verb fiestiaxiar, tonic stem fiestexi-, atonic stem fiestiaxi-.
| Non-finite forms | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | fiestiaxiar |
| Gerund | fiestiaxianda |
| Participle | fiestiaxiata (SG.MASC)fiestiaxiat ( SG.FEM)fiestiaxiatas ( PL.MASC)fiestiaxiats ( PL.FEM)
|
| Indicative mood | Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Imperfect (IPF)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
fiestexa | fiestiaxey, | fiestiaxiamb | hey a fiestiaxiar |
2s (you, us)
|
fiestexas | fiestiaxiasi, | fiestiaxiabas | has a fiestiaxiar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
fiestexi | fiestiaxó | fiestiaxiamb | ha a fiestiaxiar |
1p (we, nós)
|
fiestiaxams | fiestiaxiamas | fiestiaxiábams | hems a fiestiaxiar |
2p (you, usas)
|
fiestiaxieç, fiestiaxiç | fiestiaxiasis | fiestiaxiábeç | heiç a fiestiaxiar |
3p (they, eis)
|
fiestéxan, | fiestiaxiáran | fiestiaxiában | han a fiestiaxiar |
Conditional mood (COND)
|
(No distinct tenses) |
|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
fiestexiarí, fiestexearí |
2s (you, us)
|
fiestexiarias, fiestexearias |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
fiestexiarí, fiestexearí |
1p (we, nós)
|
fiestexiaríams, fiestexearíams |
2p (you, usas)
|
fiestexiaríeç, fiestexearíeç |
3p (they, eis)
|
fiestexiarían, fiestexearían |
Subjunctive mood (SUBJ)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Past (PST)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|---|
1s (I, yo)
|
fiestexi | fiestiaxés | habés a fiestiaxiar |
2s (you, us)
|
fiestexis | fiestiaxesis | habesis a fiestiaxiar |
3s (he/she/it, él/ey)
|
fiestexi | fiestiaxés | habés a fiestiaxiar |
1p (we, nós)
|
fiestiaxims | fiestiaxésims | hésims a fiestiaxiar |
2p (you, usas)
|
fiestiaxieç | fiestiaxéseç | héseç a fiestiaxiar |
3p (they, eis)
|
fiestéxen | fiestiaxésen | hésen a fiestiaxiar |
Imperative mood (IMP)
|
Present (PRS)
|
Future (FUT)
|
|---|---|---|
2s (you, us)
|
fiestiaxiá | hay a fiestiaxiar |
2p (you, usas)
|
fiestiaxiaç | heiç a fiestiaxiar |
Negative (NEG)
|
no fiestiaxiar | - |
Verbs stems with a final -b
Any verb with a final /b/ in its stem (regardless of whether its spelled with a <b> or a <v>) will change it to <mb> /m/ for verbforms with no suffix, as in ruabar (to steal) - romb (he steals) or biover (to rain) - biomb (it rains).
Negative sentences
Sentences are typically negated by placing the particle no before the verb and any accusative pronouns (as in Yo no ous cata for ’I don’t see you).
Sentences might also be negated by other negative words including eabad (never), niaquin (nobody) and ren (nothing). These might appear alongside no with double negatives still being interpreted as negative (Niaquin no mia cêató still means ‘No one saw me’). The negative particle no might be optionally omitted when another negative marker appears earlier in the sentence (Niaquin mia cêató for ‘No one saw me’) although keeping the double negative remains a slightly more common option.
Interrogative sentences (questions)
Polar (yes-no) questions might be formed simply by pronouncing a sentence with a rising intonation. As in Spanish, this is marked orthographically by opening the sentence with a <¿> sign in addition to placing the usual <?> at the end: - Us mia catas. - You see me. - ¿Us mia catas? - Do you see me? - Us no mia catas. - You don’t see me. - ¿Us no mia catas? - Don’t you see me?
For questions involving interrogative words such as que (what), quin (who) or do (where), these words are required to appear at the beginning of the sentence. This could potentially result in ambiguity in sentences where an interrogative pronoun (such as quin, ‘who’) could work either as a subject or an object: ¿Quin cat? could, in principle, mean either ‘Who sees?’ or ‘Who does he see?’. In practice, however, Curtuvan speakers tend to use post-verbal pronouns for questions where the interrogative pronoun is not the subject. As a result, ¿Quin cat? would overwhelmingly correspond to ‘Who sees?’ while ‘Who does he see?’ would be expressed as ¿Quin cat-el? instead.
Relative phrases and subclauses
Relative phrases are introduced with the relative particle ca (corresponding to English ‘that’ or Spanish que) and, use the gap strategy, meaning that antecedent (the element from the outter sentence referenced within the subclause) is omitted within the relative clause (although Curtuvan’s flexibility in allowing subjects and other arguments to be omitted could occasionally make this ambiguous). When the antecedent is a person or multiple people, ca might be substituted by quin (singular) or quins; this is seen as a more formal construction although using ca in all situations remains common in casual speech.
The usage of relative pronouns for subjects and direct objects (of the embedded clause) presents an analogous problem to that found for interrogative pronouns, as el ambra ca cat could be interpreted as ‘the man that sees’ or ‘the man that he sees’. As with interrogative sentences, this situation is resolved by (generally) using post-verbal pronouns when the antecedent is not the subject of the relative phrase, leaving el ambra ca cat-el for ‘the man that he sees’ while el ambra ca cat would be much more likely to mean ‘the man that sees’.
For roles other than subjects and direct objects (in the relative phrase), prepositions are used before ca, quin or quins: el ambra a quin dey el gata ~ ‘the man to whom I gave the cat’, las casas en ca eistában ~ ‘the houses they were in’.
Content clauses are also introduced with ca: Cêatey-yeu ca us no leá disi limb for ‘I saw that you didn’t give it to them’.
The Giarbís dialect
A local Curtuvan variety known as Giarbís /ʝaɾˈbiʃ/ would be native to a territory across the border between Spain and Portugal and would now be spoken as a mildly endangered minority language in southern Portugal, in the Algarve region.
Originally part of the Curtuvan continuum, Giarbís would have developed some distinctive traits after the establishment of a national border between Portugal and Spain cut it apart from the rest. These traits include: - A general trend towards incorporating loanwords from Portuguese rather than Spanish, including the intensifier múitu (cf. pt muito, replacing Curtuvan’s muy which is arguably a borrowing from Spanish) and pulísia // (from pt polícia, as opposed to Curtuvan’s poleicia, from Spanish policía). - Conflation of /e̯a/ and /ja/ into /ja/. - Simplification of unstressed /wa/ as /u/. - Realization of /ej/ and /ow/ as [eː] and [oː]. - Preserving word final /b/, shifted to /mb/ (and then typically to /m/) in other varieties. - Palatalization of any /t d s n k ɡ/ as /tʃ ʒ ʃ ɲ c ʝ/ when preceded by /i/ or /j/. - Palatalization of / k ɡ/ as /c ʝ/ when followed by /i/ or /j/. - Realization of x as a retroflex /ʂ/ (contrasting with [ʃ] resulting from palatalized /s/). - Realization of j as /ʒ/. - Omission of final /ɾ/ in infinitives (often represented with an <h> in writing: quiantah /cjanˈta/ instead of cêantar /ke̯an.taɾ/) and occasionally in other words with word-final /ɾ/. Some speakers might also drop word-medial /ɾ/ coadae like saying biahson /bjaˈson/ instead of standard biarson /bjaɾˈson/. - Epenthetic /e/ after voiced obstruents in coda position. - Word final /ms/ broken into /mes/. - Development of a formality distinction: second person singular pronoun us (2s) might take 3s conjugation in formal settings, with the usual2s conjugation being used for informal, familiar settings. - Tendency to elide final /a/ or /e/ when followed by another vowel.
Having a very small speaker base (and being generally intelligible with less divergent varieties of Curtuvan), the Giarbís dialect is rarely found in writing, with speakers preferring to write their language in the standard variety instead (if at all) although there exists a custom-made orthography devised (and mostly used) by dialectologists which, among other things, makes uses of the accented letters <ē> and <ō> for [eː] and [oː] and writes down the epenthetic /e/’s.
Nerdy punctuation details
- Curtuvan uses English-style quotation marks “like these”, although some speakers might advocate for guillemets as used in European Spanish (without spaces, «like this») instead. In books, dialogue might be introduced with an n-dash (– Like this).
- Aside from informal use in messaging apps and the like, Spanish-style opening and closing question marks and exclamation marks are used, without spaces: ¡Like this!
- Oxford comma is not used.
- Only proper nouns are capitalized, not including months, days of the week, seasons nor any adjective derived from a proper name such as demonyms.
- As in Spanish, only the first letter of a title is supposed to be capitalized (in addition to any proper nouns). For instance, a film titled ‘The Andalusian Dog’ will become Ia gus andalousís, capitalizing only the article <ia>. As in Spanish, publishers will seldom comply with this rule.
- Western Arabic numerals (the usual kind) are used, with decimal comma and the period as an optional separator for thousands: <1.234,56>.
- Currency marks are typically placed after the number and are separated by a space: <100 €>.
- Ordinals are written by following the number with the ending of the word starting on the last letter of its stem and including inflectional suffixes. For instance breima (first, in singular masculine form) is written as 1ma, its feminine form breim as 1m and the corresponding plural forms as 1mas (for breimas) and 1ms (for breims).
- Roman numerals are used for regnal numbers (as in ‘Elizabeth II’) and, traditionally, for centuries (ia sigla XX for ‘the 20th century’), although a shift towards writing centuries with Arabic numerals is taking hold (ia sigla 21 for ‘the 21st century’).
- Dates are given in the
dd/mm/yyordd/mm/yyyyformats. - All diacritics are ignored for collation, including treating <ç> as <c>.
Examples
Schleicher’s Fable
Schleicher’s Fable, also known as The Sheep and the Horses is a common sample text in linguistics, most famously used to showcase reconstructions of Proto-Indoeuropean.
La uavey et las cêabalas
En’a eadaba, un uavey ca no tianí lan cêató cêabalas: una ca teiramb d’un cêaraç tiaquil, una ca gareicamb una farda gran et una muantata d’una ambra.
La uavey diça a las cêabalas: – Fa mal mimb mei calba cêatanda una ambra qu’areexi cêabalas.
Las cêabalas diaxíran: – ¡Uavey, eismá-us! Fan mal a nós las calbas nosa canda cêatams-nos quesa: una ambra, ia sid, fa simb un cêapot cun ea lan da la uavey. Et la uavey no ten lana.
Uayanda quesa, la uavey fearó par ea cam.
| IPA and translation: |
|---|
| La uavey et las cêavalas |
| /la waˈbej e las k̯eaˈba.las/ |
| The Sheep and the Horses |
| En’a eadaba, un uavey ca no tianí lan cêató cêabalas: |
| /ˈe.na e̯aˈda.ba un waˈbej ka no tjaˈni lan ke̯aˈto ke̯aˈba.las/ |
| On a hill, a sheep that didn’t have wool saw horses: |
| una ca teiramb d’un cêaraç tiaquil, |
| /ˈu.na ka tejˈɾam dun ke̯aˈɾas tjaˈkil/ |
| one that pulled a heavy wagon, |
| una ca gareicamb una farda gran |
| /ˈu.na ka ɡa.ɾejˈkam ˈun.a ˈfaɾ.da ɡɾan/ |
| one that carried a great burden |
| et una muantata d’una ambra. |
| /e(t) ˈu.na mwanˈta.ta ˈdu.na ˈam.bɾa/ |
| and one ridden by a man. |
| La uavey diça a las cêabalas: |
| /la waˈbej ˈdi.sa a las ke̯aˈba.las/ |
| The sheep said to the horses: |
| – Fa mal mimb mei calba |
| /fa mal mim mej ˈkal.ba/ |
| “My heart hurts |
| cêatanda una ambra qu’areexi cêabalas. |
| /ke̯aˈtan.da ˈu.na ˈam.bɾa ka.ɾeˈe.ʃi ke̯aˈba.las/ |
| seeing a man that drives horses.” |
| Las cêabalas diaxíran: |
| /las ke̯aˈba.las diˈʃi.ɾan/ |
| The horses said: |
| – ¡Uavey, eismá-us! |
| /waˈbej ejsˈma.us/ |
| “Sheep, listen! |
| Fan mal a nós las calbas nosa |
| /fan mal a nos las ˈkal.bas ˈno.sa/ |
| Our hearts hurt |
| canda cêatams-nos quesa: |
| /ˈkan.da ke̯aˈtams.nos ˈke.sa/ |
| when we see this: |
| una ambra, ia sid, fa simb un cêapot |
| /una ˈam.bɾa ja sid fa sim un ke̯aˈpot/ |
| a man, the master, fashions a warm garment |
| cun ea lan da la uavey. |
| /kun e̯a lan da la waˈbej/ |
| with the wool of the sheep. |
| Et la uavey no ten lana. |
| /e la waˈbej no ten lan/ |
| And the sheep has no wool.” |
| Uayanda quesa, la uavey fearó par ea cam. |
| /waˈjan.da ˈke.sa la waˈbej fe̯aˈɾo paɾ e̯a kam/ |
| Hearing that, the sheep fled towards the countryside. |
| Glosses: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| la | uavey | et | las | cêavala-s | |
DEF.SG.F
|
sheep (F)
|
and | DEF.PL
|
horse-PL (M)
|
|
| en-’a | eadaba | un | uavey | ca | no |
LOC-INDF.SG.M
|
hill (M)
|
INDF.SG.F
|
sheep | REL
|
NEG
|
| tianí | lan | cêató | cêavala-s | ||
have.3s.IPF
|
wool (F)
|
see.3s.PST
|
horse-PL
|
||
| una | ca | teiramb | d’-un | cêaraç | tiaquil-Ø |
one.SG.M
|
REL
|
pull.3s.IPF
|
of-INDF.SG.F
|
wagon (F)
|
heavy-F
|
| una | ca | gareicamb | una | farda | gran |
one.SG.M
|
REL
|
carry.3s.IPF
|
INDF.SG.M
|
burden | big |
| et | una | muantat-a | d’-una | ambra | |
| and | one.SG.M
|
ride.PTCP-SG.M
|
of-INDF.SG.M
|
man (M)
|
|
| la | uavey | diça | a | las | cêabala-s |
DEF.SG.F
|
sheep | say.3s.PST
|
to | DEF.PL
|
horse-PL
|
| fa | mal | mimb | mei | calba | |
do.3s.PRS
|
wrong | 1s.DAT
|
my | heart (M)
|
|
| cêatanda | una | ambra | qu’ | areexi | cêabala-s |
see.GER
|
INDF.SG.M
|
man | REL
|
drive.3s.PRS
|
horse-PL
|
| las | cêabala-s | diaxíran | |||
DEF.PL
|
horse-PL
|
say.3p.PST
|
|||
| uavey | eismá-us | ||||
| sheep | listen.IMP.2s-2s
|
||||
| fan | mal | a | nós | las | calba-s |
do.3p.PRS
|
wrong | to | 1p
|
DEF.PL
|
heart-PL
|
| nosa-Ø | canda | cêatams-nos | quesa | ||
ours-ATTR
|
when | see.1p.PRS-1p
|
this | ||
| una | ambra | ia | sid | fa | simb |
INDF.SG.M
|
man | DEF.SG.M
|
master (M)
|
do.3s.PRS
|
3.REFL.DAT
|
| un | cêapot | cun | ea | lan | da |
INDF.SG.F
|
coat (F)
|
with | DEF.SG.F
|
wool (F)
|
of |
| la | uavey | ||||
DEF.SG.F
|
sheep | ||||
| et | la | uavey | no | ten | lan |
| and | DEF.SG.F
|
sheep | NEG
|
have.3s.PRS
|
wool |
| uayanda | quesa | la | uavey | fearó | par |
hear.GER
|
this | DEF.SG.F
|
sheep | flee.3s.PST
|
towards |
| ea | cam | ||||
DEF.SG.F
|
countryside |
Giarbís version
An adaptation to the Giarbís dialect. Since grammar is mostly unchanged, separate glosses are not provided.
L’uvḗ e las quiavalas
En’a culina, un uvḗ ca no tianí lan quiató quiabalas: una ca tērabe d’un quiaraç tiaquil, una ca carējab’ una farda grande e una muntata d’un’ ambra.
L’uvḗ diça a las quiabalas: – A mibe fa mal mē calba quiatand’ un ambra qu’areyexi quiabalas.
Las quiabalas diaxíran: – ¡Uvḗ, yesmá-us! Fan mal a nós las calbas nosas canda quiatames quesa: un’ ambra, ia sije, fa sib’ una quiasaca cun ia lan da l’uvḗ. E l’uvḗ no ten lana.
Uyanda quesa, l’uvḗ fōjó par ia campa.
| IPA and translation: |
|---|
| L’uvḗ e las quiavalas |
| [luˈbeː e las cjaˈba.las] |
| The Sheep and the Horses |
| En’a culina, un uvḗ ca no tianí lan quiató quiabalas: |
| [ˈe.na kuˈli.ɲa un uˈbeː ka no tjaˈɲi lan cjaˈto cjaˈba.las] |
| On a hill, a sheep that didn’t have wool saw horses: |
| una ca tērabe d’un quiaraç tiaquil, |
| [ˈu.na ka teːˈɾa.be dun cjaˈɾas tjaˈcil] |
| one that pulled a heavy wagon, |
| una ca carējab’ una farda grande |
| [ˈu.na ka ka.ɾeːˈʒa ˈbun.a ˈfaɾ.da ˈɡɾan.de] |
| one that carried a great burden |
| e una muntata d’un’ ambra. |
| [e ˈu.na munˈta.ta duˈnam.bɾa] |
| and one ridden by a man. |
| L’uvḗ diça a las quiabalas: |
| [luˈbeː ˈdi.ʃa a las cjaˈba.las] |
| The sheep said to the horses: |
| – A mibe fa mal mē calba |
| [a ˈmi.be fa mal meː ˈkal.ba] |
| “My heart hurts |
| quiatand’ un ambra qu’areyexi quiabalas. |
| [ke̯aˈtan ˈdu ˈnam.bɾa ka.ɾeˈje.ʂi cjaˈba.las] |
| seeing a man that drives horses.” |
| Las quiabalas diaxíran: |
| [las cjaˈba.las diˈʂi.ɾan] |
| The horses said: |
| – ¡Uvḗ, yesmá-us! |
| [uˈbeː jesˈma.us] |
| “Sheep, listen! |
| Fan mal a nós las calbas nosas |
| [fan mal a nos las ˈkal.bas ˈno.sas] |
| Our hearts hurt |
| canda quiatames quesa: |
| [ˈkan.da cjaˈta.mes ˈke.sa] |
| when we see this: |
| un’ ambra, ia sije, fa sib’ una quiasaca |
| [un ˈam.bɾa ja ˈsi.ʒe fa si ˈbu.na cjaˈsa.ka] |
| a man, the master, fashions a warm garment |
| cun ia lan da l’uvḗ. |
| [kun ja lan da luˈbeː] |
| with the wool of the sheep. |
| E l’uvḗ no ten lana. |
| [e luˈbeː no ten lan] |
| And the sheep has no wool.” |
| Uyanda quesa, l’uvḗ fōjó par ia campa. |
| [uˈjan.da ˈke.sa luˈbeː foˈʒo paɾ ja ˈkam.pa] |
| Hearing that, the sheep fled towards the countryside. |
The Tree and the Fruit
Ia árbara et las fruts
Un mouxer cêató fruts en’a árbara. Couyó-ey las fruts et lás miatió en’ ciastey. Lega, una ambra cêató ia árbara. Enmoda qu’ia árbara no tianí fruts, lá teayó-el. Da uacás, la mouxer dió un frut a ia ambra. La frut era dolç. Ia ambra fiá cuantena da lá cuamer. Canda breguntó-el: – ¿Do truabasi ques frut dolç? La mouxer diça bearablas eamars: – En ia árbara ca teayasi.
| IPA and translation: |
|---|
| Ia árbara et las fruts |
| /ja ˈaɾ.ba.ɾa e las fɾus/ |
| The Tree and the Fruit |
| Un mouxer cêató fruts en’a árbara. |
| /un mowˈʃeɾ ke̯aˈto fɾus ˈe.na ˈaɾ.ba.ɾa/ |
| A woman saw fruits on a tree. |
| Couyó-ey las fruts et lás miatió en’ ciastey. |
| /kowˈjo.ej las fɾus e las mjaˈtjo en sjasˈtej/ |
| She picked the fruits and put them on a basket. |
| Lega, una ambra cêató ia árbara. |
| /ˈle.ɡa ˈu.na ˈam.bɾa ke̯aˈto ja ˈaɾ.ba.ɾa/ |
| Later a man saw the tree. |
| Enmoda qu’ia árbara no tianí fruts, lá teayó-el. |
| /eˈmo.da kja ˈaɾ.ba.ɾa no tjaˈni fɾus la te̯aˈjo.el/ |
| Since the tree had no fruit, he cut it down. |
| Da uacás, la mouxer dió un frut a ia ambra. |
| /da waˈkas la mowˈʃeɾ djo un fɾut a ja ˈam.bɾa/ |
| At sunset, the woman gave a fruit to the man. |
| La frut era dolç. |
| /la fɾut ˈe.ɾa dols/ |
| The fruit was sweet. |
| Ia ambra fiá cuantena da lá cuamer. |
| /ja ˈam.bɾa fja kwanˈte.na da la kwaˈmeɾ/ |
| The man was happy to eat it. |
| Canda bregountó-el: |
| /ˈkan.da bɾe.ɡownˈto.el/ |
| Then he asked: |
| – ¿Do truabasi ques frut dolç? |
| /do tɾwaˈba.si kes fɾut dols/ |
| “Where did you find this sweet fruit?” |
| La mouxer diça bearablas eamars. |
| /la mowˈʃeɾ ˈdi.sa be̯aˈɾa.blas e̯aˈmaɾs/ |
| The woman said bitter words: |
| – En ia árbara ca teayasi. |
| /en ja ˈaɾ.ba.ɾa ka te̯aˈja.si/ |
| “On the tree that you cut down” |
| Glosses: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ia | árbara | et | las | fruts | |
DEF.SG.M
|
tree (M)
|
and | DEF.PL
|
fruit.PL (F)
|
|
| un | mouxer | cêató | fruts | en-’a | árbara |
INDF.SG.F
|
woman (F)
|
see.3s.PST
|
fruit.PL
|
LOC-INDF.SG.M
|
tree |
| couyó-ey | las | fruts | et | lás | miatió |
pick.3s.PST-3s.F
|
DEF.PL
|
fruit.PL
|
and | 3p.ACC
|
put.3s.PST
|
| en-’ | ciastey | ||||
LOC-INDF.SG.F
|
basket (F)
|
||||
| lega | una | ambra | cêató | ia | árbara |
| later | INDF.SG.M
|
man (M)
|
see.3s.PST
|
DEF.SG.M
|
tree |
| enmoda | qu’-ia | árbara | no | tianí | fruts |
| since | REL-DEF.SG.M
|
tree | NEG
|
have.3s.IPF
|
fruit.PL
|
| lá | teayó-el | ||||
3s.ACC
|
cut.3s.PST-3s.M
|
||||
| da | uacás | la | mouxer | dió | un |
| at | sunset (M)
|
DEF.SG.F
|
woman | give.3s.PST
|
INDF.SG.F
|
| frut | a | ia | ambra | ||
| fruit | to | DEF.SG.M
|
man | ||
| la | frut | era | dolç-Ø | ||
DEF.SG.F
|
fruit | be.3s.IPF
|
sweet-F
|
||
| ia | ambra | fiá | cuanten-a | da | lá |
DEF.SG.M
|
man | be.3s.PST
|
happy-M
|
of | 3s.ACC
|
| cuamer | |||||
eat.INF
|
|||||
| canda | bregountó-el | do | truabasi | ques-Ø | frut |
| thenn | ask.3s.PST-3s.M
|
where | find.2s.PST
|
this-F
|
fruit |
| dolç-Ø | |||||
sweet-F
|
|||||
| la | mouxer | diça | bearabla-s | eamar-s | |
DEF.SG.F
|
woman | say.3s.PST
|
word-PL.F
|
bitter-PL.F
|
|
| en | ia | árbara | ca | teayasi | |
LOC
|
DEf.SG.M
|
tree | REL
|
cut.2s.PST
|
Horace’s Ode 11
Horace’s Ode 11 is a Latin poem about enjoying the present over caring too much for the ever uncertain future, best known for its line about ‘seizing the day’ (carpe diem).
Oda 11m (d’Huarac)
No bregountar-us (seaber es una biacada) cal fin mimb ut timb las déusas dáran, Leucónoi, n’et cunsoultar las numbras da las vats babeilisas. ¿Queamoda ha a meiyoriaxiar ia álam tuy seaber si Xúpitar dió timb muis eivernas ut sola quesa yarer qu’iaroy las betas ber ea mar teiren? Sé saimb, biabé ia vina et restreixé a un luangur curt las rexas longas tuy. Eancan biarsams, ea vid cun ianvit far. Couyá ia dïa et crey mínem en el geyada.
| IPA and translation: |
|---|
| Oda 11m (d’Huaraç) |
| dwaˈɾas/ |
| Ode 11 (by Horace) |
| No bregountar-us (seaber es una biacada) cal fin mimb ut timb |
| se̯aˈbeɾ es ˈu.na bjaˈka.da | kal fin mim u tim/ |
| Do not ask (knowing it is a sin) what end to me or to you |
| las déusas dáran, Leucónoi, n’et cunsoultar las numbras |
| /las ˈdew.sas ˈda.ɾan lewˈko.noj ne kun.sowlˈtaɾ las ˈnum.bɾas/ |
| the gods have given, Leuconoe, nor seek the numbers |
| da las vats babeilisas. ¿Queamoda ha a meiyoriaxiar ia álam tuy |
| /da las bas ba.bejˈli.sas ke̯aˈmo.da a a mej.jo.ɾjaˈʃjaɾ ja ˈa.lam tuj/ |
| of the Babylonian soothsayers. How shall alleviate your sorrow |
| seaber si Xúpitar dió timb muis eivernas ut sola quesa yarer |
| /se̯aˈbeɾ si ˈʃu.pi.taɾ djo tim mujs ejˈbeɾ.nas u ˈso.la ˈke.sa jaˈɾeɾ/ |
| to know if Jupiter has given you many winters or only this last one |
| qu’iaroy las betas ber ea mar teiren? |
| /kjaˈɾoj las ˈbe.tas beɾ e̯a maɾ tejˈɾen/ |
| which erodes the rocks beyond the Tyrrhenian Sea? |
| Sé saimb, biabé ia vina et restreixé a un luangur curt |
| /se sajm bjaˈbe ja ˈbi.na e ɾes.tɾeiˈʃe a un lwanˈɡuɾ kuɾt/ |
| Be wise, drink the wine and restrain to a short length |
| las rexas longas tuy. Eancan biarsams, ea vid cun ianvit far. |
| e̯anˈkan bjaɾˈsams e̯a bid kun jamˈbit faɾ/ |
| your long hopes. While we speak, life enviously flees. |
| Couyá ia dïa et crey mínem en el geyada. |
| /kowˈja ja ˈdi.a e kɾej ˈmi.nem en el ɡeˈja.da/ |
| Seize the day and believe the least in tomorrow. |
| Glosses: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| oda | oundéxim-Ø | d’ | Huaraç | ||
ode (F)
|
eleventh-F
|
of | Horace | ||
| no | bregountar-us | seaber | es | una | biacada |
NEG
|
ask.INF-2s
|
know.INF
|
be.3s.PRS
|
INDF.SG.M
|
sin (M)
|
| cal | fin | mimb | ut | timb | |
| which | end (F)
|
1s.DAT
|
or | 2s.DAT
|
|
| las | déus-as | dáran | Leucónoi | n’et | cunsoultar |
DEF.PL
|
god-PL (M)
|
give.3p.PST
|
Leuconoe | nor | consult.INF
|
| las | numbra-s | da | las | babeilis-as | |
DEF.PL
|
number-PL (M)
|
of | DEF.PL
|
Babylonian-PL (M)
|
|
| queamoda | ha_a | meiyoriaxiar | ia | álam | tuy |
| how | FUT.3s
|
improve.INF
|
DEF.SG.M
|
pain (M)
|
2s.POS
|
| seaber | si | Xúpitar | dió | timb | muis |
know.INF
|
if | Jupiter | give.3s.PST
|
2s.DAT
|
many |
| eiverna-s | ut | sola | quesa | yarer | |
winter-PL (M)
|
or | only | this.SG.M
|
last | |
| qu’ | iaroy | las | beta-s | ber | ea |
REL
|
erode.3s.PRS
|
DEF.PL
|
stone-PL (F)
|
beyond | DEF.SG.F
|
| mar | teiren-Ø | ||||
sea (F)
|
Tyhrrenian-F
|
||||
| sé | saimb | biabé | ia | vina | et |
be.IMP.2s
|
wise.F
|
drink.IMP.2s
|
DEF.SG.M
|
wine (M)
|
and |
| restreixé | a | un | luangur | curt-Ø | las |
restrain.IMP.2s
|
to | INDF.SG.F
|
length (F)
|
short-F
|
DEF.PL
|
| rexa-s | long-as | tuy | |||
hope-PL (M)
|
long-PL.M
|
2s.POS
|
|||
| eancan | biarsams | ea | vid | cun | ianvit |
| while | talk.1p.PRS
|
DEF.SG.F
|
life (F)
|
with | envy (F)
|
| far | |||||
escape.3s.PRS
|
|||||
| couyá | ia | dïa | et | crey | mínem |
take.IMP.2s
|
DEF.SG.M
|
day (M)
|
and | believe.IMP.2s
|
least |
| en | el | geyada | |||
| in | DEF.SG.M
|
tomorrow (M)
|
Other phrases and excerpts
Sample sentences
The following are four sample sentences to showcase some aspects of Curtuvan’s morphology and syntax.
| Sample sentences: |
|---|
| (1) Una ambra et un mouxer íban. |
| /ˈu.na ˈam.bɾa et un mowˈʃeɾ ˈi.ban/ |
| A man and a woman were walking. |
| (2) ¿Las mouxers catan las ambras? |
| /↗ las mowˈʃeɾs ˈka.tan las ˈam.bɾas/ |
| Do the women see the men? |
| (3) No dey timb ea beta tiaquil. |
| /no dej tim e̯a ˈbe.ta tjaˈkil/ |
| I didn’t give you the heavy stone. |
| (4) La biarson quin cêatasi eistad la uacey ca truabó las dos fiyas miy. |
| /la bjaɾˈson kin ke̯aˈta.si ejsˈtad la waˈsej ka tɾwaˈbo las dos ˈfi.jas mi/ |
| The person you saw is catching the bird that found my two children. |
| Glosses: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| una | ambra | et | un | mouxer | íban |
INDF.SG.M
|
man (M)
|
and | INDF.SG.F
|
woman (F)
|
walk.3p.IPF
|
| las | mouxer-s | catan | las | ambra-s | |
DEF.PL
|
woman-PL
|
see.3p.PRS
|
DEF.PL
|
man-PL
|
|
| no | dey | timb | ea | beta | tiaquil-Ø |
NEG
|
give.1s.PST
|
2s.DAT
|
DEF.SG.F
|
stone (F)
|
heavy-F
|
| la | biarsón | quin | cêatasi | eistad | la |
DEF.SG.F
|
person (F)
|
who | see.2s.PST
|
hunt.3s.PRS
|
DEF.SG.F
|
| uacey | ca | truabó | las | dos | fiya-s |
bird (F)
|
REL
|
find.3s.PST
|
DEF.PL
|
two | son-PL (M)
|
| miy | |||||
1s.POS
|
Giarbís version
| Sample sentences: |
|---|
| (1) Un’ambra e un mōxeh íban. |
| /uˈnam.bɾa e un moːˈʂe ˈi.ban/ |
| A man and a woman were walking. |
| (2) ¿Las mōxehs catan las ambras? |
| /↗ las moːˈʂes ˈka.tan las ˈam.bɾas/ |
| Do the women see the men? |
| (3) No dey a tibe ia beta tiaquil. |
| /no dej a ˈti.be ja ˈbe.ta tjaˈcil/ |
| I didn’t give you the heavy stone. |
| (4) La biahson quin quiatasi ēstade l’ucē ca trubó las dos fiyas miyas. |
| /la bjaˈson cin cjaˈta.ʃi eːsˈta.de luˈseː ka tɾuˈbo las dos ˈfi.jas ˈmi.jas/ |
| The person you saw is catching the bird that found my two children. |
Other
- The opening lines of El Cid (known in Curtuvan as ia Sid de Burgas or ‘the Cid/master from Burgos’ as sid remains a common term of address in the language):
En can forta bioranda de sus oxas,
/eɲˈkan ˈfoɾ.ta bjoˈɾan.da de sus ˈo.ʃas/ While tearing up so much in his eyes,
tuarnamb-el la cêabeç et eistamb-el los cêatanda. /twaɾˈna.mel la ke̯aˈbes et ejsˈta.mel los ke̯aˈtan.da/
he turned his head and would see them.
Cf. the original Old Spanish version (whose wording this translation seems to approach as much as possible): De los sos ojos tan fuerte mientre lorando / tornava la cabeça e estava los catando.
- A paragraph about how this conlang was originally inspired by an interaction with an Argentinian Cordobés Spanish speaker:
In a now-outdated form of the conlang (extrafictionally):
Eistamb-yeu a Tourin, n’Eichay, canda truabé’m cun’a oc d’Arxiantina. Enmoda ca cumpeartéyams ia fabla, comiançams biarsar. N’ia canta d’él, xara nuaté qu’er corduabés. Ça xiabó’m biasar n’eaquel dialeta et n’eaquel courosa troca cu’la luangur de las vuacals faç un sílamb tónic. Et easin, sens desiaxarla misma, comiançé-yeu enfuarmar ques eijé.
In updated Curtuvan:
Eistamb-yeu a Tourin, n’Eichay, canda me truabey cun’a oc d’Arxiantina. Enmoda ca cumpeartíams ia fabla, comiançams biarsar. N’ia canta sua d’él xara nuatey qu’era corduabís. Quesa me xiabó a biasar n’eaquel dialeta et n’eaquel courosa troca cun la luangur da las vuacals faç un sílamb tónic. Et easin, sens misma lá desiaxiar, comiancey-yeu enfuarmar ques eijé
/ejsˈtam.jew a towˈrin nejˈtʃaj/ /ˈkan.da me tɾwaˈbej ˈku.na ok ˌdaɾ.ʃjanˈti.na/ /eˈmo.da ka kum.pe̯aɾˈti.ams ja ˈfa.bla/ /ko.mjanˈsams bjaɾˈsaɾ/ /nja ˈkan.ta swaˈdel ˈʃa.ɾa nwaˈtej ˈke.ɾa koɾ.dwaˈbis/ /ˈke.sa me ʃjaˈbo a bjaˈsaɾ ne̯aˈkel djaˈle.ta/ /et ne̯aˈkel kowˈɾo.sa ˈtɾo.ka/ /kun la lwanˈɡuɾ da las bwaˈkals fas un ˈsi.lam ˈto.nik/ /et e̯aˈsin sens ˈmis.ma la de.sjaˈʃjaɾ/ /ko.mjanˈsej.jew en.fwaɾˈmar kes ejˈtʃe/
I was in Turin, Italy, when I came across a guy from Argentina. Since we shared the language, we began to talk. I noticed clearly in his accent that he was from Córdoba. That led me to think about that dialect and that curious thing with vowel length before a stressed syllable. And, like that, without even intending to, I began shaping this idea.