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Rules
The letters and their sounds
Fluidian is read as it is written and the reading is close to Romanian. One letter represents one sound, with the exceptions set out below.
| Written | Sound | Condition | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| c | /k/ | before a, o, u and at the end of a word | foc /fok/ |
| c | /t͡ʃ/ | before e and i | cinc /t͡ʃink/ |
| qu | /k/ | always; it keeps /k/ before e and i | quatre /ˈka.tre/ |
| g | /g/ | before a, o, u | grad /grad/ |
| g | /d͡ʒ/ | before e and i | idrogen /i.ˈdro.d͡ʒen/ |
| x | /ʃ/ | always, in every position | abaxa /a.ˈba.ʃa/ |
| j | /ʒ/ | always | jizde /ˈʒiz.de/ |
| tz | /t͡s/ | always | curtz /kurt͡s/ |
| h | /h/ | pronounced, never silent | hiza /ˈhi.za/ |
| r | /r/ | trilled | regula /re.ˈgu.la/ |
| doubled | single | a doubled consonant is read as one | Ravelluri /ra.ve.ˈlu.ri/ |
The five vowels are /a e i o u/ and each keeps its value unstressed. Written i and u before another vowel are a full syllable of their own, so statiun is three syllables, /sta.ˈti.un/. The one exception is at the start of a word, where they glide: ia is /ja/.
Stress
Stress falls on the second syllable from the end. There are no exceptions in native words, and a loan that resists the rule is written with an acute on the stressed vowel until it settles. materinu /ma.te.ˈri.nu/, panelcu /pa.ˈnel.ku/, xuclar /ˈʃu.klar/.
Nouns and articles
There is no gender. The definite article is se and never changes, and it stands before a direct object: me no jizde, I do not ride, against me no se jizde, I am not taking the ride. The indefinite article is un.
The plural adds -s after a vowel and -es after a consonant: persone, persones; statiun, statiunes. Numerals leave the noun alone where the number is already given: tri anu as readily as tri anos, and the survey of 2023 found the shorter form ahead in speech and the longer ahead in print.
Possession is marked by de and by nothing else: se colines de Belvacius, the hills of Belvacius; se ramu de porta, the door frame. There is no case ending anywhere in the language.
On the eastern seaboard a noun ending in a vowel takes -es as well, so cosa gives coses and porta gives portes. Both are understood everywhere and neither is corrected.
Pronouns
One set serves for subject and object alike, and the pronoun is never dropped.
| Form | Sense | Note |
|---|---|---|
| me | I, me | subject and object alike: me no jizde, skuza me |
| ia | I, emphatic | for stress and in set phrases: ia dan zasta |
| tu | you, singular | - |
| vos | you, plural | also the form used to a stranger |
| el | he, she, it | no gender is marked anywhere |
| nos | we, us | - |
| els | they, them | - |
| ipse | himself, herself, itself | emphatic, never reflexive |
| sese | oneself | the reflexive |
The possessive determiners are mie, vostre, nostre and sue, and they stand before the noun: se dum sue is also current, with the determiner after the noun, and both are printed.
Et points at a thing present, esto at a thing already named: et tren, this train; en esto loc, at the place just stated.
Adjectives
The adjective follows the noun and does not change for number: vent fort, strong wind; placa vetu, old signs. An adjective made from a noun normally takes -ak. A hundred and seven nouns refuse it and take an inherited form instead, and those are set out in the register.
Comparison uses plus with quam, and mas for the highest degree: plus grande quam, larger than; mas comun, commonest. The lesser degree has no word of its own and is said by turning the sentence round.
Two adjectives break the order. Prexa stands before its noun, giving prexa statiun, and the eastern prexim keeps the rule, giving statiun prexim. Nove is the adjective after a noun and the numeral nine in a designation, so un vuz nove is a new tram car and autovuz nove is bus nine.
Adverbs
The adverb is made from the adjective with -ment. An adjective ending in a vowel or in l, n, r or s takes the suffix whole, giving simplement and finalment. Everything else takes a linking -a-, giving certament and rapidament. The adverbs of time and degree are separate words and take no ending: nunc, ja, ancora, sempre, jamas, anque, circa, solmente.
The verb
The verb has one form. Person and number are marked by the pronoun and nothing else.
| Tense | Formed | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present | bare stem | me jizde | I ride |
| Past | es and the participle in -t | se tectu es cadut | the canopy fell |
| Future | va and the stem | se tren va ariva | the train will arrive |
| Negative | no before the verb | me no comprende | I do not understand |
An object pronoun stands before the verb it belongs to: me no vole vos desturba, I do not want to trouble you.
The bare stem is also the instruction, with no ending and no pronoun: abaxa e tena, get down and hold on; prende tot vos coses, take all your things. Broadcast wording uses it throughout.
A second form in -r stands after another verb and after a preposition: vole restar, wants to stay; sin tocar se placa, without touching the slab. It is listed as a separate entry in the lexicon wherever it is in use.
The participle is regular in -t on the bare stem: lesa gives lesat, cade gives cadut, prende gives prendet. One common verb divides by sub-region: the participle of fa is fat in most of the country and facit on the eastern seaboard.
One verb has a set of forms that no other verb has. Jizde gives jizdu, jizder, jizdons, jizdez, jizdont, jizdent and jizdaie, all of them informal and all of them current. They are set out on the quirks page.
Numerals
The units are zero, un, du, tri, quatre, cinc, ses, sete, oct, nove, dece. The teens are compounded with a hyphen, dece-un, dece-du, and the same joint serves above the tens, vinte-quatre. The tens are vinte, trinta, quaranta, cinquanta, sesanta, setanta, octanta, novanta, and above them are cent, mil, miliun and miliard.
A counted noun may stay singular, because the number has already been given: tri anu and tri anos are both current, with the shorter form ahead in speech and the longer ahead in print.
The hour is said with hora and the minutes bare: hora quatre e dece-du minut, 04:12. A decimal is read with punt, and a thousands mark is a full stop in print.
Suffixes
What a suffix does depends on what the word was before it. Two endings compete for the abstract noun: -tate is the ordinary one, and an adjective ending in -al takes -ite, so actual gives actualite and total gives totalite.
| Ending | On an adjective | On a noun | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| -y | makes a place name | makes an adjective of property | huclav → Huclavy |
| -ak | - | makes the ordinary adjective | tren → trenak |
| -tiun | - | makes the action noun from a verb | evacua → evacuatiun |
| -tor | - | makes the agent from a verb | jizde → jizdator |
| -nik | - | diminutive | motor → motornik |
| xu- | prefix: done on purpose | clar → xuclar | |
| no- | prefix: negation | valid → novalid | |
| -tate | makes the abstract noun of a quality | - | calitate, sanitate |
| -ite | the same, after an adjective in -al | - | actual → actualite |
| -ment | makes the adverb | makes the action noun from a verb | final → finalment; paga → pagament |
| -ev | - | attributive form, irregular nouns only | jizde → jizdev |
| ex- | prefix: former | ministru → ex-ministru | |
Densification
One word in Fluidian often has several senses that another language would separate. The academy named this densificatiun in 1968 and prefers the term to polymorphism.
| Word | Senses | What decides |
|---|---|---|
| abaxa | get down; lower a thing; slow a vehicle | the object, or its absence |
| tena | hold; hold a post; keep going a while longer | whether a thing is named |
| jizde | a ride; riding; to ride | the article: se jizde is the ride, bare jizde is the act |
| trembuja | construction; a highway; works in progress | the sentence around it |
| nove | new; nine | position: after the noun it is the adjective, in a designation it is the numeral |
| praca | work as a thing; work as an act | the article |
Fluidian densifies less than several of the languages around it and compresses almost nothing. A word is given more to do; the sentence keeps every word in its place, and the subject is not dropped. This affects emergency broadcast, where a sentence has to stay clear through a poor loudspeaker.
Word order
The order is subject, verb, object, and it does not move for a question or for emphasis. A question is marked by the question word and by nothing else: que es esto, what is this; quante dura, how long does it take. A yes-no question is a statement said as a question, and the answer is si or no.
The subject stands even where another language would drop it. An emergency broadcast keeps it too, which is why the wording runs longer here than the equivalent abroad.