Editing Novial (section)

==Novial compared to Esperanto and Ido==
{{See also|Comparison between Esperanto and Novial|Comparison between Ido and Novial}}

Jespersen was a professional linguist, unlike Esperanto's creator.{{POV-inline|date=September 2019}} He disliked the arbitrary and artificial character that he found in Esperanto and Ido.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jespersen |first1=Otto |title=An International Language |date=1929 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=0-415-40246-8 |pages=21–27 |edition=2007 |doi=10.4324/9780203715888 |url=https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/books/mono/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9780203715888&type=googlepdf |access-date=18 May 2022}}</ref> Additionally, he objected to those languages' [[inflection]]al systems, which he found needlessly complex. He sought to make Novial at once euphonious and regular while also preserving useful structures from natural languages.

In Novial:
* Syntax is largely a matter of word order, as in [[English language|English]] and modern [[Scandinavian language]]s. There is no obligatory [[Accusative case|accusative]] marker as in Esperanto, but the accusative may optionally be marked with either an accusative ending or an accusative preposition.
* A [[genitive]] or [[possessive case]] is available as an alternative to the preposition {{lang|nov|de}}. This is based on Jespersen's observation that many modern languages have lost complex noun inflections, yet retain a possessive form.
* Auxiliary particles express most [[verb]] [[Grammatical tense|tenses]]. An inflectional ending is available as a shorthand for the simple [[past tense]].

A major difference between Novial and Esperanto/Ido concerns [[noun]] endings. Jespersen rejected a single vowel to terminate all nouns (-o in Esperanto/Ido), finding it unnatural and potentially confusing. <ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/54694/54694-h/54694-h.htm|title=The Project Gutenberg EBook of International Language and Science}}</ref> Instead, Novial nouns may end in {{lang|nov|-o}}, {{lang|nov|-a}}, {{lang|nov|-e}}, or {{lang|nov|-u}} or {{lang|nov|-um}}. These endings may be taken to indicate natural sex according to the custom in Romance languages, though there is no grammatical gender or requirement for [[adjective]]s to agree with nouns.