Introduction

Krestia is a formal language inspired by Lojban, with a focus on syntactic clarity and expressiveness; its grammar allows speakers enough flexibility without risking introducing ambiguity. It also has a focus on minimalism and approachability, so that it can be learned with relative ease.

Linguistic characteristics

Krestia has the following linguistic properties, with some taking advantage of the fact that it is constructed and introduces several features to ease learning and usage:

Agglutinative morphology. The two primary word types in Krestia, nouns and verbs, may have additional suffixes (bound morphemes) attached to them to undergo inflections that alter their meanings, or to derive new words.
Word type indicators. Inspired by the similar feature in Esperanto, each word has an ending that indicates its word type, which can distinguish two words that may be similar in meaning and spelling, but different in grammatical function.
No separate type for adjectives. In Krestia, nouns can directly modify each other (like “bank teller” in English), eliminating the need for a separate word type to represent descriptors. Grammatical constructs that are exclusive to adjectives, such as comparisons and superlatives, are also achieved using nouns.
Unambiguous syntax. Each sentence has exactly one way to be interpreted, which avoids sentences like “The man saw the elephant in his pyjamas”.

Pragmatic characteristics

The vocabulary and grammar elements of Krestia are geared towards one central goal of communication: the exchange of information. While its design attempts to make utterances sound natural, it ultimately focuses on serializing the speaker’s thoughts as cleanly as possible, to be interpreted by the listener without any loss of meaning. Because of this focus, Krestia’s pragmatics have the following characteristics, which may significantly differ from those of natural languages:

Literal interpretations. As idiomatic expressions vary from culture to culture, they become a point of confusion when people of different backgrounds communicate with each other. To avoid misunderstanding that arises from metaphoric use of words, all expressions are interpreted by their denotations.
Well-defined responses to inquiries. A speaker who wishes to seek information from a listener may do so by issuing a request using a “response-seeking verb”, and the listener will have a finite number of ways to respond that may be considered acceptable. Thus, if the listener fails to use one of these valid responses, the asker can explicitly point out that the listener did not answer the question. In all cases, the listener will also be able to refuse to answer or indicate a lack of sufficient knowledge to answer.
No polysemic words. Each word in the lexicon has one well-defined meaning, which may not be extrapolated to denote concepts unrelated to its meaning.
Objectiveness in modifiers. Descriptors that imply biased preferences will be explicitly marked in the dictionary to indicate that they reflect personal preferences. For example, one person’s “tasty” food may not be the same as any other person’s perception of “tasty” food.

Origin of the name “Krestia”

The word “Krestia” is simply one that I pulled out of thin air; it has a pleasing sound (although I am aware that this is highly subjective) and conforms to the phonotactic rules of the language. It has no basis in existing languages or even in Krestia itself. It also is not the name of any fictional people or civilization. In other words, it serves no purpose other than to uniquely identify this constructed language.

About this book

This book serves as the standard reference to Krestia’s grammar. Changes to the book will be indicated in the changelog.

Conventions used in the book

Example words and sentences frequently appear in the book, which look like the following:

epi	buvlitro	lepansa
1PS	eat-COMP	apple-POSS
I have eaten my (own) apple.