Declensions

In Sambahsa, declensions are only compulsory for pronouns. The declensions of these pronouns (demonstrative/interrogative and relative/personal) are mostly parallel, and often show similarities with their Proto-Indo-European ancestors. Thus, in all Sambahsa declensions, the neuter nominative and accusative are identical, as it was the case in PIE.^[12] There are identical forms for the relative and interrogative pronouns,^[13] as well as for the third person pronoun and the definite article (the in English).^[14]

Sambahsa has two numbers (singular and plural; the dual number of PIE has not been preserved) and four grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, neuter, and undetermined. This last gender, which is an innovation from PIE, is used when a noun of uncertain or unknown gender is referred to, and, in the plural, for groups containing elements of different genders. The creator of Sambahsa introduced this non-PIE element to avoid the "gender" dispute found in Esperanto.

Gender is attributed in Sambahsa according to the "true nature" of the noun referred to, as English speakers do with he, she and it.

Sambahsa has four grammatical cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive; however, their attribution tries to be as logical as possible, and not arbitrary as in many modern Indo-European languages. The nominative is the case of the subject, and the form under which words are given in dictionaries. Except for verbs describing a movement or a position (where the appropriate prepositions ought to be used), all transitive verbs must introduce the accusative case in the first place, before an eventual dative case. However, the dependent clause of indirect speech is considered as a direct object, leading to verbs introducing an indirect object, even if there is no visible direct object.

Compare:

• Is mi antwehrdt od is ne gwehmsiet cras, 'He answers (to) me that he won't come tomorrow'
• Is ne mi hat antwohrden, 'He hasn't answered (to) me'

In Sambahsa, all prepositions trigger the accusative.^[15]

The genitive indicates possession, and is used after adjectives that can introduce a dependent clause.

Compare:

• Som yakin od is ghehdsiet kwehre to, 'I'm sure that he'll be able to do that'
• Som yakin eysen (genitive plural) imkans, 'I'm sure of his abilities'

For substantives and adjectives, there are declined "free endings" (i.e. non-compulsory) used most often in literary context for euphonics or poetry. This system is inspired by the euphonic endings (ʾiʿrāb) found in Modern Standard Arabic.

Conjugation

In Sambahsa, all verbs are regular, except ses ('to be'), habe ('to have'), and woide ('to know', in the meaning of French savoir or German wissen). Sambahsa verbs are indicated in dictionaries not under their infinitive form, but their bare stem, because the whole conjugation can be deduced from the form of this stem. The main tenses of Sambahsa are present and past, but many other tenses can be obtained through the use of affixes or auxiliary verbs. Sambahsa uses the following endings, which are close to those found in many Indo-European languages.^[16]

Sambahsa is unusual among auxlangs because of its use of a predictable ablaut system for the past tense and passive past participles. For example, eh within a verbal stem turns to oh. Other verbs that cannot use ablaut can drop their nasal infix, or use an improved version of the De Wahl's rules. Finally, the remaining verbs simply add the past tense endings, which are optional for verbs of the categories described above.

Therefore, this system qualifies Sambahsa as a language belonging to the Indo-European family of languages, though it remains a constructed language.

Indo-European vocabulary

The core of Sambahsa's vocabulary is undoubtedly of Indo-European origin. Only a few Sambahsa words can be traced back to pre-Indo-European times (like kamwns, 'chamois', cf. Basque: ahuntz). Many basic Sambahsa words are thus very close to their reconstructed Indo-European counterparts. See (Sambahsa/Proto-Indo-European): eghi/*H₁eghis ('hedgehog'), ghelgh/*ghelghe- ('gland'), pehk/*pek ('to comb'), skand/*skand ('to jump'), peungst/*pn̥kʷsti- ('fist'), wobhel/*wobhel- ('weevil'), gwah/*gweH₂ ('to go'), tox/*tòksom ('yew wood' in Sambahsa; 'yew' in PIE), treb/*trêbs ('dwelling'), oit/*H₁òitos ('oath'), poti/*potis ('Sir, lord'). But less attested Indo-European vocabulary is found in Sambahsa too. For example, the common Sambahsa word for person is anghen, as in semanghen, 'someone, somebody', and can be derived from PIE *?*H₂enH₁ǵh, only found in Old Armenian anjn ('person') and Old Norse angi ('smell'). And motic ('hoe') may be a cognate of Old Church Slavonic motyka and English mattock.

Further development from the Indo-European background

Though Sambahsa, like any other conlang, has derivation rules, it sometimes uses backformation too. For example, the relation between Lithuanian bendras ('companion'), Old Greek pentheros ('father-in-law') and Sanskrit bandhu- ('companion') is uncertain;^[18] however Sambahsa "reconstructs" this root as behndwr from behnd 'to bind'. PIE has *dhéǵhom 'earth' and *dhinéǵh- (with nasal infix) 'to shape, to make pottery'; accordingly, Sambahsa has (di)ghom and dinegh, but the latter can be understood as "to put earth on" if we refer to yug ('yoke') and yuneg ('to join'), both from PIE *yugom and *yunég-.

The Sambahsa word for 'ice pellet' is kersnit; it rests on the word kersen 'frozen snow', itself from Old Norse hjarn, Lithuanian šarma ('frost') and Russian serën.^[19] But the suffix -it was abstracted from PIE words like *sepit 'grain of wheat' and *H₂elbit 'grain of barley';^[20] thus kersnit can be understood as 'a grain of frozen snow'.

Words common to different language families

A characteristic of Sambahsa is to include words found in different language families, while the most famous auxiliary languages tend to limit themselves to a compilation of Romance vocabulary with some borrowings from the Germanic languages. For example:

• Schkaf ('cupboard') has cognates both in Germanic and Slavic languages: Russian шкаф, Polish szafa, Ukrainian шафа, Danish skab, Icelandic skápur, Franconian dialect schaaf and Swedish skåp.
• Graf ('count', as a nobility title) is a German word from Greek grapheùs that has been borrowed into many languages including Azerbaijani qraf, Bulgarian граф, Czech hrabě, Danish greve, Estonian krahv, Croatian grof, Hungarian gróf, Finnish kreivi, Lithuanian grafas, Icelandic greifi and Russian граф.
• Bicair ('mug') is found in German Becher and many other Germanic languages. It comes from Low Latin bicarium and is at the origin of Hungarian pohár, Italian bicchiere and Romanian pahar, all meaning 'glass'.
• Saray means 'big hall, palace' and has the same Turkish and Persian origin as English seraglio but with a meaning closer to its etymology and to Russian сарай ('barn').

The Balkan sprachbund

Though they belong to different language families, the languages spoken in Southeast Europe share a number of common grammatical features and of loanwords due to their historical background. That is why Sambahsa includes words from this region.

• Schut ('hornless') corresponds to Romanian șut, Bulgarian/Serbo-Croatian šut; also Albanian shut 'hornless'.
• Potire ('pitcher') comes from Old Greek ποτήρ, like Serbo-Croatian путир, Russian потир, Romanian and Albanian potir.
• Keramide ('coating') comes from Greek κεραμίδα, which has given, among others, Romanian cărămidă ('brick') and Arabic قرميدة qirmîda(t) 'tile'.

Words from Arabic and Persian

A significant part of Sambahsa's vocabulary comes from Arabic and Persian. Both languages have extensively provided loanwords to a lexical continuum ranging from the Atlantic Ocean to Indonesia because, respectively, of the spread of Islam and the brilliance of the former Persian civilization. Sambahsa learning materials often call this stratum "Muslim".

• Amlak ('assets') comes from Arabic أملاك and is found in Turkish emlak ('estate') and Persian املاک.
• Zina ('adultery') comes from Arabic زنا and is found in Persian and many other languages spoken by a majority of Muslims.
• Adarb ('merlon') comes from Spanish adarve and Portuguese adarve from Arabic درب and ultimately Persian در which has its origin in PIE *dʰwer- like Sambahsa dwer ('door').

Sinitic vocabulary

Classical Chinese has heavily influenced the wordstock of neighbouring languages, mostly Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. As a result, Sambahsa incorporates some Sinitic vocabulary, but the phonetic differences between these various languages can be high.

• Kjingyow ('goldfish') corresponds to 金魚, which is read jīnyú in Mandarin Pinyin and kingyo in Japanese.
• Geong ('fortified palace') corresponds to the Han character 城 read chéng in Mandarin Pinyin, jō in Japanese Go-on reading, seong in Korean, and thành in Vietnamese.
• Rjienrlwey ('humankind') in an attempt to balance Mandarin rénlèi, Japanese jinrui, Korean illyu, and other renderings of 人類. This word showcases some seeming flaws of the language's approach to be reminiscent of all targeted languages at once.

Not all Sambahsa Sinitic words come from Classical Chinese. The Min Nan language of Southern China provided loanwords to some South-East Asian languages, and some of these borrowings are, in turn, found in Sambahsa.

• Sambahsa pangsit ('wonton') is an Indonesian word from Min Nan pian sit, while Mandarin Chinese (Pinyin) has húndùn
• Likewise, Sambahsa loteng ('attic') comes from Min Nan lauteng through Indonesian loteng.