Bridal

The novial is an artificial language created by the prominent Danish linguist Otto Jespersen in order to facilitate communication between peoples. The word novial comes from the combination of the prefix nov (new) and the initials of the term international auxiliary language (in Spanish: international auxiliary language; therefore novial means new international auxiliary language). Jespersen, who had previously participated in the design of the Ido language as a replacement for Esperanto, designed the noial using words from Romance and Germanic languages and a grammar very close to that of English and the Germanic languages.

History

Flag of the Novial.

The Novial language was brought to light in the book An International Language, which was published by Jespersen in 1928. Later some reforms were introduced in his first dictionary, Lexike Novial, which was published in 1930. Jespersen later introduced changes in 1934 by distinguishing between a phonetic (1928 and 1930 versions) and an orthographic novial. This last one incorporates the letters Ç, S and Z but that created problems in the writing that followed a phonetic principle, in addition to changes in the endings (affixes) that produce important morphological discrepancies.

In 1934 the old magazine in Ido Mondo published in Stockholm changed its name to Novialistes and served as an organ for discussion and dissemination of the new language, closing in 1939. After After Jespersen's death in 1943, the language stopped gaining followers and was forgotten until the 1990s when, thanks to the Internet, it gained new followers. Recently a new version of the language has been popularized on the net under the name novial 98.

Alphabet and Pronunciation

The novial (according to the 1928 and 1930 versions, which are the ones generally accepted as the norm) uses the Roman alphabet with certain modifications to adapt it phonetically. It is composed of 26 letters (21 consonants and 5 vowels). Distinguish three digraphs that are: Ch, Sh and Qu. The latter instead of Q. For Ch and Sh, in the case of writing, both are valid if the exact letter is not known or remembered. The C and Z are used only and exclusively in foreign names.