Nibenese Grammar

Declension of Nouns
Feminine Singular Plural

Nominative Ø (s)esa
Accusative (e)t (s)esti
Dative (e)ļ (s)emma
Genitive (t)á (s)átta
Instrumental (t)éļ (s)ola
Vocative (t)o (s)ete

Masculine Singular Plural

Nominative Ø (t)i
Accusative (e)tt (s)attem
Dative (e)m (s)emma
Genitive (e)st (s)emes
Instrumental (e)ma (s)ena
Vocative (t)e (s)ennet

Declension of Adjectives
*note* Adjectives with "ä" in the penultimate syllable lose the "ä" in all cases
except for the masculine singular
Lärc- (Low)
Feminine Singular Plural

Nominative Lrca Lrcesa

Accusative Lrcat Lrcesti
Dative Lrcaļ Lrcemat
Genitive Lrcá Lrcátam
Instrumental Lrcéļ Lrcola
Vocative Lrco Lrcete
Masculine Singular Plural

Nominative Lärc Lrci

Accusative Lrcatt Lrcattem
Dative Lrcam Lrceļa
Genitive Lrcest Lrcemes
Instrumental Lrcema Lrcena
Vocative Lrce Lrcete

Verbs (Present)
2 Groups
-ar verbs
Tróvinar- To find
Ļo tróvino Nace tróvinamis
Te tróvinac Vace tróvinas
Ál/ Ála tróvina Áli/Álesa tróvinan

Ļicär- to build
Ļo ļicro Nace ļicrmis
Te ļicrac Vace ļicris
Ál/Ála ļicr Áli/Álesa ļicrin

Verb tenses- Indicative

Past Perfect

For -ar verbs, add "ev" before attaching the personal endings
ļo viklo (I study, viklar)
ļo viklevo (I studied)

For -är verbs, remove the ä and add "iv" before attaching the personal endings
ļo tskro (I call, tskär)
ļo tskrivo (I called)
Imperfect
For -ar verbs, add "ļante" AFTER the personal endings
ļo brvo (I eat, brvar)
ļo brvoļante

For -är verbs, add "sinte" after removing the ä and attaching a personal ending
ļo privro (I write, privär)
ļo privrosinte (I used to write/was writing)

Future
For all verbs, simply add "var" to the beginning of the verb
ļo optermo (I perfect, optermar)
ļo varoptermo (I will/am going to perfect)

Verb tenses- Subjunctive

Present
In the subjunctive present for -ar verbs, add "en" before attaching the personal
endings
ļo brvo (I eat, brvar)
Sem ujikäc de brveno ļeppukatt (I am happy that i am eating an apple)

For -är verbs, add an "en" after removing the ä from the stem
ļo patistro (I bake, patistär)
Amiro de patistreno (I love to bake)

Past Perfect
In the past subjunctive for ALL verbs, simply add te(m) to the beginning of the
verb
Sem ujikca de tebrikno- (I'm happy that i celebrated, briknar, to celebrate)

PHONOLOGY
A- /a/- As in "Father"
Á- /au/- As in "Ow"
Ä- Same as /A/ but disappears in all cases, genders, and numbers ASIDE from the Masculine
Nominative Singular
B-/b/
C- /​t͡s/- As in "Cats"
D-/​d​/
E- /ɛ/- As in "Ed, Edd n Eddy"
É- /e/- As in "Ay whaddup dog"
F-/​f​/
G- /​ɡ​/ Always pronounced hard, as in "Garbage"
I- /i/
J- /ʒ/- As in "Measure"
L-/l/
Ļ-/j/ Like the Spanish "LL" sound or the English consonantal "Y" sound
M-/​m​/
N-/​n​/
O- /o/- But it's a PURE vowel, not a dipthong as it is usually pronounced in English
Ó- /ɔ/ Open mid back vowel, Identical to the Swedish Å
P-/​p​/
R- /​r​/ Always trilled, can act as a consonant or a vowel
S- /​s​/
T-/​t​/
U- /u/- Pure vowel
V-/​v​/
X-/x/ Voiceless velar fricative, As in German "Doch" or French "Rouge"
Z-/​z​/

Word Types and Stem Derivation

Concrete Nouns- Refer to a specific object that can be found in the real world. For
example, “Apple” would be an example of a concrete noun. This will always be the
dictionary form of the noun. Different prefixes, suffixes, and circumfixes can be
added to create new meanings from the root word

Abstract Nouns- Refer to an idea, theory, thought, etc that cannot be “Held in your
hands” but can definitely be experienced within the real world and talked about.
An example of this would be “Running”, as in “I hate running”. Running, the
gerundive form of “To Run” acts as a noun in this sentence, and more specifically
an abstract noun. To form the abstract of Nibenese nouns, add “(ļ)em” for
masculine nouns to the end of the root word BEFORE attaching case suffixes. For
example
“Ceļen” Means “Dinner”
“Ceļenem” Means “Dining”
“Ceļenemär” Means “To eat dinner/To dine”

For feminine nouns, add -(ļ)áse before adding any case endings.
For example
“Ļenoc” means “Friend”
“Ļenocáse” means “Friendship”
“Ļenocar” means “To befriend

*Note* Any time you derive a verb from a noun stem, if it is a MASCULINE Noun,
it always derives into an -är verb
If it is a feminine noun, it always derives into an -ar verb
Certain adjustments may need to be made for purposes of pronunciation

Mass and Count nouns

In English, a subtle distinction is made between nouns that are “Countable” and
nouns that exist in Mass quantities. For example “A piece of information” and
“Information”. You can have 5 pieces of information, but if you say “I have 5
informations” it will not be a correct sentence. This distinction is not made in
Nibenese, and all nouns are considered count nouns in Nibenese.

Proper Nouns
Names and titles in Nibenese are subject to case (and in some instances, number)
inflection. Pronouns behave as regular concrete nouns and conjugate in the same
way according to the gender of the person in question.