Novial

1. Introduction & History

Novial is a constructed international auxiliary language created by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), one of the most eminent grammarians and phonologists of his era. He introduced Novial in his 1928 book An International Language,¹ presenting it as a reform and improvement upon Ido — itself a reform of Esperanto. The name "Novial" is a blend of Nov (new) + International + Alternative (or Auxiliari Lingue), though Jespersen himself sometimes glossed it simply as "new international auxiliary language".

Jespersen was uniquely qualified to design a language of this kind. As the author of The Philosophy of Grammar (1924) and a lifetime of linguistic scholarship, he was deeply critical of the artificial, overly schematic quality of Esperanto and Ido. His goal was a language that felt natural and familiar to European speakers — vocabulary drawn primarily from the Romance and Germanic branches, grammar stripped of unnecessary complexity, and phonology free of exotic diacritical marks. He famously complained that Esperanto's grammatical gender-like distinctions, mandatory accusative endings, and complex tense system were burdens no international language needed to carry.

Novial gained a modest community in the late 1920s and 1930s. Jespersen revised the language in 1930 with Novial Lexike, a combined dictionary and grammar, and in 1934 introduced further adjustments in Progress in Language. The language never achieved the large following of Esperanto, but it remained respected in the international-language movement as an intellectually serious proposal. After Jespersen's death in 1943 and the upheaval of World War II, Novial largely fell dormant.

Interest revived in the 1990s with the growth of the internet. A new generation of constructed-language enthusiasts discovered Jespersen's texts and established an online community, producing a revised Novial — sometimes called Novial 98 — that updated the vocabulary and made minor grammatical adjustments. Today Novial occupies an honoured place in the history of the interlinguistics field, and its clean grammar remains instructive for anyone studying language design.

Novial's Place in the Auxlang Family

Novial belongs to the naturalistic tradition of constructed languages, which prioritises recognisability over perfect regularity. This distinguishes it from the schematic tradition (Esperanto, Ido) that invents uniform endings and roots, and from purely analytic languages like Basic English.

2. Alphabet & Pronunciation

Novial uses the standard 26-letter Latin alphabet with no diacritical marks — a deliberate design choice Jespersen made to ease typewriting and printing. Every letter has a consistent pronunciation, though the correspondence is somewhat more naturalistic (and therefore slightly less rigid) than Esperanto's.

The Alphabet

Key Pronunciation Notes

• C is pronounced /k/ before a, o, u and /s/ before e, i — following the common Romance/English convention.
• G is always hard /ɡ/ as in "go", never /dʒ/ as in "gem".
• CH represents /ʃ/ (as in "shoe") in many adopted words: chefa (chief).
• Stress generally falls on the last full vowel before any final consonant cluster, or on the penultimate syllable — closely following the pattern of the source languages. In practice, stress in Novial is less rigidly defined than in Esperanto and is guided by the word's origin.
• Final -e on nouns is a light schwa-like sound, often nearly silent in fast speech, as in French or Italian unstressed final vowels.

Vowels & Diphthongs

The five core vowels a, e, i, o, u are each pronounced consistently. Diphthongs are not specially marked: au (/aʊ/), ai (/aɪ/), oi (/ɔɪ/) appear naturally in borrowed words.

3. Nouns & Articles

Nouns

Novial nouns typically end in -e (singular), though many borrowed words retain their natural endings. There is no grammatical gender — no masculine or feminine distinction in nouns, articles, or adjective agreement. This was one of Jespersen's most important simplifications over Latin-derived naturalistic languages.

• libre — book
• hom — person
• lande — country
• munde — world
• dome — house
• urbe — city
• lingue — language
• amike — friend

Plural

The plural is formed by adding -s after the final vowel, or -es after a consonant. This directly mirrors English and the Romance languages.

No Case Endings

Novial has no case system. There is no accusative, genitive, or dative ending to learn. Word order (Subject–Verb–Object) does the work, as in English and French. The genitive (possession) is expressed with the preposition de: le libre de Maria (Maria's book / the book of Maria).

Articles

Novial has both a definite article and an indefinite article — a feature that distinguishes it from Esperanto (which has only a definite article).

The definite article le is invariant — it does not change for gender (there is none), number, or case. The plural form les is optional and used for clarity; le can also precede plurals. The indefinite article un doubles as the numeral "one".

4. Adjectives

Form & Placement

Adjectives in Novial are invariable — they never change form to agree with the noun in gender or number. An adjective looks exactly the same whether the noun it modifies is singular or plural, subject or object. Adjectives typically precede the noun, as in English:

• un grand dome — a big house
• les grand domes — the big houses
• un bon amike — a good friend
• le internasional lingue — the international language

Adjectives may also follow the noun in a more Romance style, especially in formal or literary usage: un lingue internasional.

Predicate Adjectives

After a linking verb (like es, to be), the adjective is unchanged: Le libre es grand. (The book is big.) Les domes es grand. (The houses are big.)

Comparison

Comparison is analytic — formed with separate words, not endings.

Example: Lo es plu rapid kam me. — He is faster than I.

Common Adjectives

5. Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

Novial's pronoun system is one of its most distinctive features. Jespersen was careful to derive these from widely recognisable international forms. Subject and object forms differ slightly.

The subject and object forms are identical — word order makes the role clear. Jespersen drew me/nos/vos from Latin/Romance traditions, and the third-person forms lo/la/lu/les from French le/la/les.

The Generic Pronoun On

On corresponds to English "one", French "on", or impersonal "they": On parla Novial ici. — One speaks Novial here. / Novial is spoken here.

Possessive Pronouns

The shorter possessive forms (mi, vi, lui, etc.) precede the noun as adjectives: mi libre (my book), lesi amikes (their friends). The longer -um forms stand alone: Le libre es meum. (The book is mine.)

Reflexive

The reflexive pronoun is se for all persons: Lo lava se. (He washes himself.) Nos ama se. (We love ourselves / each other.)

Demonstrative Pronouns

6. Verbs

Novial verbs are the most radical simplification Jespersen made. Verbs do not conjugate for person or number — the same form is used for every subject. Tense is expressed partly through endings and partly through auxiliary verbs, giving Novial a hybrid analytic-synthetic system.

The Infinitive

The infinitive ends in -ar (for verbs of Latin/Romance origin) or simply appears as a bare stem. Jespersen also used -ir for some classes. In practice the most common pattern is -ar:

• parlar — to speak
• amar — to love
• venir — to come
• essar / es — to be
• avar — to have
• far — to do / make
• dar — to give
• idar — to go

Tenses

The present tense uses the bare verb stem (dropping -ar/-ir). The past and future are formed with suffixes added to the stem. Jespersen's tense system draws on the analogy of English auxiliaries but encodes them as endings:

All these forms are identical for all persons and numbers: me parla, vu parla, lo parla, nos parla, les parla — I speak, you speak, he speaks, we speak, they speak.

The Verb Es (To Be)

Es is the most common verb and follows the same rules:

The Verb Avar (To Have)

Avar / av serves both as a lexical verb ("to have / possess") and as the perfect auxiliary (ha):

• Me av un libre. — I have a book.
• Me ha parlad kon lo. — I have spoken with him.
• Los had arrivad ante nos. — They had arrived before us.

Participles

Novial has two participles derived from the verb stem:

Active participles function as adjectives and are invariable: un home parlant Novial (a person speaking Novial).

Passive Voice

The passive is formed with bli (to become / be) + past participle:

• Le libre bli lektad. — The book is read / The book gets read.
• Lo blid arrestad. — He was arrested.

Alternatively, es + past participle expresses a state: Le porte es klused. (The door is closed.)

Negation

Negation uses non before the verb: Me non parla Germani. (I don't speak German.) Non can also negate other elements: non me, sed vu (not me, but you).

7. Adverbs & Prepositions

Adverbs

Many adverbs in Novial are unchanged adjectives used adverbially, or adjectives with the suffix -men (corresponding to English -ly, French -ment):

• rapid / rapidmen — quickly
• bon / bonmen — well
• klare / klarmen — clearly

Many common adverbs exist as independent words:

Question Words

Prepositions

Prepositions govern the nominative (there are no case changes after prepositions in Novial). Common prepositions:

8. Word Formation

Novial's vocabulary derives overwhelmingly from Latin, Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese), and to a lesser extent Germanic languages (English, German). Jespersen selected the form of each word that would be most recognisable across European languages. Vocabulary is built up with a set of productive prefixes and suffixes.

Compound Words

Words are combined freely, with the most important element last: fervia (railway, from ferre + via), dormishambra (bedroom, from dormir + shambra).

Prefixes

Suffixes

Numbers

Numbers combine in a regular way: 21 = dukad un, 345 = trikad-sint kvarkad sink. The decade suffix -kad (from Latin decas) is a notable Novial feature: dukad = twenty (two-tens), trikad = thirty.

9. Example Sentences & Useful Phrases

Basic Sentences

• Me parla Novial. — I speak Novial.
• Lo es un bon amike. — He is a good friend.
• Les libres es sur le table. — The books are on the table.
• Nos venis ex le grand urbe. — We came from the big city.
• Me non kompren vu. — I don't understand you.
• Quel lingue vu parla? — Which language do you speak?
• Ube es le stasion? — Where is the station?
• Lo ha parlad por tri hores. — He has spoken for three hours.
• Si lande es tre bel. — This country is very beautiful.
• Me sal venir deman. — I will come tomorrow.

The Lord's Prayer (Novial)

Nusen Patre, qui es in siele, mey vun nomen bli sanktifad, mey vun regno venir, mey vun volie bli fasad, kom in siele samim sur tere. Dona ad nos hodie nusen pan omnidiali, e pardona ad nos nusen debites, kom etim nos pardona ad nusen debitores; e non dukted nos in tentasion, ma liberisa nos ex le malum.

Useful Phrases

Worked Grammar Analysis

Consider: Me salad parlar plu bon si lingue, si me had plu temp.

Breaking it down: Me (I, subject) salad parlar (would speak — conditional auxiliary + infinitive) plu bon (better — comparative adverb) si lingue (this language — demonstrative + noun) si (if — conjunction) me had plu temp (I had more time — subject + pluperfect auxiliary + adjective + noun). Translation: "I would speak this language better if I had more time."

10. Learning Resources

Novial has a small but dedicated community and a body of primary sources available online. The following are genuine resources for the language:

Primary Texts by Jespersen

• An International Language (1928) — Jespersen's founding book, introducing Novial in detail with full grammar and vocabulary. Available in digitised form via the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg.
• Novial Lexike (1930) — A combined dictionary and expanded grammar, Jespersen's most thorough treatment of the language. Also available at the Internet Archive.
• Progress in Language (1934) — Contains Jespersen's later refinements and reflections on Novial's development.

Online Communities & Reference

• Novial Wikipedia — The Novial-language Wikipedia (nov.wikipedia.org) contains articles written in Novial and is one of the best places to read the language in extended prose. It has several hundred articles covering geography, history, and general knowledge.
• novial.fandom.com — A Fandom wiki dedicated to Novial, covering grammar, vocabulary, and the language's history. Useful as a quick reference alongside Jespersen's original texts.
• Langmaker / Conlang archives — Several archived pages from the constructed-language community discuss Novial 98 (the 1990s revision) and the debates around modernising Jespersen's vocabulary.
• CONLANG mailing list archives — The CONLANG email list, active since the early 1990s, has extensive historical discussions about Novial and the revisions made in the late 1990s. Archives are searchable online.
• Reddit r/auxlangs and r/conlangs — Occasional threads on Novial appear in these communities; searching "Novial" turns up discussion of its grammar relative to Esperanto and Interlingua.

Comparative & Historical Context

• Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Languages (2009) — A readable popular history that covers Novial and situates it in the broader auxlang movement.
• Interlinguistics literature — Academic journals such as Language Problems and Language Planning contain scholarly articles on Novial's linguistic design.

11. Learning Tips

• Start with the verb system. Novial's tenses are the most distinctive feature for learners of Esperanto or Ido. Getting comfortable with sal (future), -ed (past), and ha (perfect) unlocks the grammar quickly.
• Lean on your existing vocabulary. If you know any Romance language — or even substantial English — you will recognise a large fraction of Novial roots immediately. nation, rapid, liberal, problem, korrekt, possibel — these words are essentially international and appear in Novial with only light adaptation.
• Read Jespersen's An International Language first. It is clearly written, historically fascinating, and gives you the language's design rationale, which helps you understand why rules are as they are. The digitised version at the Internet Archive is free.
• Use the Novial Wikipedia for reading practice. It provides extended natural prose in the language, which is more valuable for internalising structure than isolated word lists.
• Accept the variation. Novial was never fully standardised, and the 1928, 1930, and 1998 versions differ in details. When you encounter inconsistencies, treat them as windows into the language's development rather than errors to resolve.
• Compare with Interlingua. Novial and Interlingua (1951) share a naturalistic philosophy and overlapping vocabulary. If Novial interests you, Interlingua's larger community and more abundant learning materials make it a natural parallel study. Many learners find the two illuminate each other.
• Focus on comprehension before production. Novial's naturalistic vocabulary means that reading and listening comprehension come faster than speaking. Prioritise input early — especially Jespersen's own prose, which is elegant and representative.

"Un lingue es non nur un sistem de kommunikasion — it es un maniere de vider le munde." — A language is not only a system of communication — it is a way of seeing the world.

Notes

1. "Otto Jespersen," Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed June 3, 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-Jespersen. ↩

Bibliography

Encyclopædia Britannica. "Otto Jespersen." Accessed June 3, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-Jespersen.