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Grammar rules

In most cases the grammar is fairly simple when speaking basic Roumanhi, although there are many variations depending on the formality of the conversation, the region the speaker comes from and any slang. There are also a variety of words that can be used to create the same meaning. The language does not assign gender to nouns and often follows the subject before object sentence construction e.g. the cat (subject) sat on the mat (object) - this can change in extremely formal speech or ancient Roumanhi however.

Here we will deal with general modern speech.

Tenses
Generally follow a standard format:

To show the past tense the pre-fix el is added to the root verb e.g. (root verb) to look:
Present = libia
Past = ellibia (looked)

To show the past perfect al or ala is added to the root verb:
Present = libia
Past perfect = allibia (had looked)

The present perfect uses the present tense of the verb 'have' which is 'da', together with the past tense of the verb
Present perfect = da ellibia (have looked)

To show the participle (ing) la or ela is added to the root verb, unless the verb ends in a vowel, when a single l is added.
Present = libia
Participle = libiál (looking)
It is quite usual to have an accent mark on the last vowel of a participle.

To show the future simply add either ta (before a consonant) or t (before a vowel) to the start of the root verb.
Present = libia
Future = talibia (will look)


Commands
To express an order add a t or at to the end of the root verb.
Look (order) = libiat

Negatives
To show a negative add the word dokh to the start of the sentence.
Don't look (negative order) = dokh libiat

Plurals
To show something is plural, the simplest method is to add on to the start of the noun e.g. rou (tree) onrou (trees)

Adjectives, adverbs and comparisons
Adjectives are set words but adverbs add po to the end.
Adj = desh (quick) Adv = deshpo (quickly)

Comparatives are formed by adding iki to the end of the adjective and removing the last letter of the adjective.
Adj = shasta (fast) Comparative = shastiki (faster)

The superlative is formed by el adding to the front of the comparative
Comparative = shastiki (faster) Superlative = el shastiki (the fastest)

Personal pronouns
These can be quite complicated because some of the pronouns are irregular e.g. 'we' = loua if the sentence is positive and 'louas' if the sentence is negative. Also plurals are sometimes irregular as well as some of the subject and object pronouns. They will therefore not be described in detail here.

Additional rules
If a word ends with the same letter as the next word, an apostrophe is added and the first letter of the second word is removed, e.g. ar roma var (I love you) would be ar'oma var. This makes it easier to pronounce, especially with the consonant R which has to be rolled.