Maj Nouns

Plural

Regular nouns can change coda to "e" or "i" to represent the plural form. Though not all nouns have a plural form and some nouns do not have a singular form. Most nouns that do not end with the vowel "a" do not have plural or does have an irregular plural.

• pana/pane = bread / breads
• idea/idei = idea /ideas
• Alum = garlic (no plural)
• Muska/Mucte = fly/flies
• Vaka/Vatc = cow/cows
• Virus/ Viruc = virus/viruses
• lyna = wool (no plural)
• Moise = family name (only plural)

Notes:

• Words ending with "i" do not always represent plural;
• Nouns ending with "ea" change to "ei" for plural;
• Nouns ending with "ska" change to "cte" for plural;
• Nouns ending with "s" can change "s" to "c" for plural;
• Family names should be plural and can not be singular;
• Some nouns do not follow these rules and may have a distinct plural form;

Gender:

You can use an adjective to specify gender of a person or animal, but also Maj have different words to identify different genders. In the next two examples, gender is implicit.

• Tcika = girl (female)
• Gatsa = boy (male)
• Dona = woman
• Jeta = gentleman

Maj has generic words used to specific gender but also neutral things or objects.

• fema = female
• femo = feminine
• masa = table
• beka = object
• koza = thing

Names:

For names there are some rules: Names of persons or animals ending with consonants or vowel "o" are male. Names ending with "a" are female. Family names ending with "e" are neither feminine nor masculine but plural. It may be used for boys and girls as well.

• Moise Elucian = name (male)
• Moise Laura = name (female)

Names that contain W or Q must be translated in Maj by replacing W with U and Q with K. This rule is for English names, but German names must replace W with V. That is, pronunciation takes precedence over the written name. If a name has numbers in it these numbers will be translated into Maj numbers.

• Wolf = Volf
• William the Third = Uiliam al Rio
• Oliver Queen = Oliver Kuin

In names we replace X with Z. Unlike places where we replace X with Ks. This is to preserve the length of the name. For example:

• Xena = Zena
• Axia = Azia
• Alexandru = Alezandro

Germanic names of places will be altered to follow Maj rules of abbreviation. We replace X with Ks and "y" with "i". Letters Z and S are converted to "Ts" and "Z". Group "St" is converted to "Ct" and Qu is converted to Ku or K. We will have a special dictionary of names. Group "sch" is converted to "tc".

• Leipzig = Laiptsig
• Stuttgart = Ctutgar
• Quedlinburg = Kedliburg
• Deutschland = Doitcland

Maj is a phonetic language. We approximate the original names with Maj writing to get the best pronunciation possible. So in English we make Deutschlang = Germany. This is not how Maj will do it. Instead we preserve the original name pronunciation with slice modification as you can see above. In Maj a noun can end with a consonant so the name Doitcland is a perfect valid Maj name and it has almost the same pronunciation as the German word Deutschland. English names of persons and places are more difficult to convert into Maj because Maj do not have letter W and letter Y. Both frequent letters in English. We replace "W" with "U" and "Y" with "i". For example:

• Wesley = Uesli
• Wilma = Uilma

Some names look like English names but also German names. In this case, W is converted in V, but it depends. If a person has this name but is born English then U can be used. We also apply the "r" modifier for letter "e" and "a", that will convert to "h".

• Walter = Ualthr (Englishman) or Valthr (Germanic)
• Wagner = Uagnhr (Englishman) or Vagnhr (Germanic)

Acuzativ:

Acuzativ is used when we state something about somebody. For acuzativ you use prepositions: "de/la" = "from/to" and "po /pe = for/ on". These can be in front of the noun to highlight the object. The object can be a noun or a pronoun.

• el bera sonu po alde = the beer is for grown ups;
• ni-ora daru bere la gatse or thike = never give bears to boys or girls;
• ke posu moa sevu la tua? = what I can serve you?
• po me una bera rogu-te = for me one bear please.

Dative:

Dative case is used when somebody is giving something to someone else. For dative we do not use particles. Instead we use a special form of pronoun

• Noh ne paju el bera apo freo; = We like the bear only cold;
• Mie ym paju el bera lex freo; = I like the bear less cold;

Genitive:

The genitive case represents a relation between nouns. Sometimes it represents the ownership relation with the object. Sometimes we use the particle: "al"/"ale" to represent genitive cases.

• este sonu al gace = these belong to the boys.
• kela sonu al mia = that is mine.
• kele sonu ale mia = those are mine.
• zhi venu ale eno = they arrive first.
• noi venu ale bio = we arrive second.

Composite words

You can create new words by linking one adjective with one noun or two nouns together. The new word may have a related meaning but the new meaning is not always easy to guess so you must learn these words from Lexicon.

• novo-jora = today
• novo-sera = tonight
• nejo-tepa = winter
• primo-urba = capital city