Lefaneie

Lefaneie ([lɛfaɲɛ:]) is a personal artlang created by Hope C. Dixon for her Einea science-fantasy setting, spoken in various forms by different Lefan-descended peoples throughout Einean history. Earlier and later forms will be touched on, but the majority of what will be discussed here concerns Old Lefan, spoken from the late days of Einea's middle age until the cataclysm of the Sudden Shock which began the Lus Desper movement and the current, modern era.

Consonants

 * 1) /n/ becomes [ɲ] before long frontal vowels /y ɪ ɛ/.
 * 2) All stops are slightly aspirated - less so than English, but more so than Spanish.
 * 3) /k/ becomes [x] after back vowels [u, ɒ].
 * 4) /s/ becomes [ʃ] before the lateral approximant [l] and velar plosives [k g].

Vowels

 * 1) The vowel clusters, , , , <üiü>, and the  cluster equivalent, <ï>, sound as [ɛʔjɛ], [aʔja], [ɒʔjɒ], [uʔju], [yʔjy] and [ɪʔjɪ] respectively. These are known as 'person clusters,' after , meaning 'person.'
 * This differs in final position, when person clusters become long versions of the first vowel, e.g. is pronounced [ɛ:].
 * Central vowels /a, ɐ, ə/ that occur after frontal person clusters -, <üiü> and <ï> - are reduced.
 * Vowels at least two syllables away from the stress in a given word often reduce into a schwa.
 *  becomes /j/ intervocalically.
 * Word stress is usually on the penultimate syllable, and here the vowel is lengthened and can change character:
 * [ɪ] becomes [i:].
 * [ɒ] becomes [o:]
 * [ɐ] becomes [a:]
 * [ʊ] becomes [u:]
 * /y ɛ/ keep their vowel sound and lengthen.

Phonotactics
Lefaneie syllables follow a (C) V (C) structure, with these stipulations:
 * Onset (C) can be any consonant.
 * V can be any vowel.
 * Coda (C) can be nasals /m n/, fricatives /f v s z ʃ ʒ/ and stops /t d/.

Reverent Speech
In Old Lefaneie, the kind of Lefaneie written of on this page, voiced consonants (barring nasals and the lateral approximant) are not used in every day speech. These are generally reserved for a formal register known as Reverent Speech. In Reverent Speech, often shortened to Reverent, all non-nasal consonants become voiced word-initally and intervocalically, but not word-finally. Archaic features of Ancient Lefaneie have been preserved, including individually pronouncing the phonemes in person clusters as written, and devoicing nasals intervocalically. Rhotics become trilled and occasionally uvular, and /l m j/ become palatalised word-initially.

Reverent Speech also uses older, 'fancier' pronouns, and in general doesn't reflect many of the changes that have affected Lefaneie between the First Empire and the Second.

Orthography and the Lefan Cultural Preservation Society
The Lefan Cultural Preservation society, or the Leiei tü Roaipeme tü Fen tü Lefaneie'e, literally 'those who preserve the blood of the Lefaneie,' often abbreviated in modern texts as the LRFL, was one of the most influential forces on the written Lefaneie language before it collapsed with the fall of the third and final Lefan Empire in 10 NM.

The LRFL's main focus was on the maintenance of the orthographical standards that their founder, Fasele Amoio Tomixo, decided upon with the Society's inception in the late Second Empire. Arguably, these standards were based on fetishisations of the strength and supposed nobility and austerity of the early Second Empire and the entirely of the First, but they were highly influential all the same.

A notable basic rule laid out by Tomixo was that he believed no single sound should be represented by anything more than one single letter - therefore, no digraphs were allowed. This functioned perfectly fine when Lefaneie used a syllabary adapted from the Shinshic logography from inner Akkand, but became more complicated when Lefaneie officially adopted the Nymric Alphabet, Einea's equivalent to the Latin Alphabet, which had descended from runic transcriptions in south-west Tokarey. There weren't enough Nymric letters for every Lefaneie sound, so some of them were modified - the 'u' was given a diaresis to represent /y/, and the lateral alveolar fricative was represented by an  with one extra line for its unvoiced version and two for its voiced version, so <ł ⱡ> /ɬ ɮ/.

Adjectives
The infix -ipe- will transform a noun into an adjective, e.g. xaie,  'injury,' becomes xaipe,  'in an injured state.' This can be combined with the past-tense suffix -ele to create xaipele, meaning 'the state of being injured in the past.'

Noun Class
Lefaneie nouns can either fall into a class, or be classless root words - these are known as teke (hand) and aian (arm) words, respectively. Classless nouns have less nuanced meaning, and require less affixation - classed teke nouns agree with their verbs, and, notably, teke and aian verbs themselves also exist, and their nouns agree with them. This makes the affixation involved potentially quite complex. Let us start with the classes themselves. Common shorthand for each is shown at the start.

Classes of Abstraction As stated previously, the affixation of verb and noun classes can be complex - I'll try to break it down as simply as I can, with a table showing the various affixes.
 * Pillaric - solid and unmoving: immovable rocks, mountains, places - the concept of death is seen as this
 * Congealic - solid, but moveable: flora, fauna, smaller rocks, ice, snow, fallen leaves - any solid matter that gathers in a mass
 * Liquidic - substantial + visible, but able to be moved through: water, mist, light, units of time (seconds, minutes, days, months, etc.)
 * Echoic - invisible, but felt: wind, heat, cold, thoughts, emotions, vibrations
 * Confundic - transcendental, intangible: the gods, the void, libraries in general, writing (though this may be reduced in less formal speech or writing to save time)

When a noun is teke, or has a class, it takes a prefix depending on what class it falls into - (v) here is marked for vowel harmony, where there is a simply front vowel for front vowel, back vowel for back system - and whatever verb is affected by that noun takes a corresponding affix in agreement with the original noun's class, whether that verb is teke or aian.

In the same way, if a verb is teke, having a class, the noun it acts on will also receive an affix.

If both the noun and verb are teke constructions, both will have their original class affixes as well as whatever class affixes agree with their complimentary noun/verb.

For example:

Metene łe osmoło po oine sunułumu.

‘He writes in the dark.’

Sunułumu here means 'writes,' from the teke root sune,  'to mark,' and gains the -ułumu suffix as it is in Confundic class. Os means 'darkness,' and is an aian or classless noun. However, it gains the suffix -moło because, as stated, the verb acting on it is of the Confundic class.

Adverbs
The -ipe- infix can also be used to convert nouns that represent numbers (e.g. one, four) into quantitative adverbs - for example, fa,  'one,' with an adjectivising infix, becomes fipea,  'once.'

Verbs
The prefix i- will transform a noun into a verb. For example, ren,  'thought, wish,' becomes iren,  'to think.'

Syntax
Lefaneie is typically SOV, but due to the fact that it has subject and object markers and a consistent placement of adjectives/adverbs relative to nouns/verbs, Lefaneie syntax can be quite fluid within clauses. The SOV format is broken in order to place emphasis on different parts of a clause.

Here is an example of syntax shifting within a glossed sentence.

Aurin    ła     ukaxa     e        po       leos-ele       łatese   oine.

Aurin   SBJ  musket   DEF  OBJ    shoot-PST   sky       within.

Aurin ła ukaxa e po leosele łatese oine.

'Aurin fired the musket into the air.'

Ukaxa e po Aurin ła leosele łatese oine.

'Aurin fired the musket into the air.'

Leosele łatese oine Aurin ła ukaxa e po.

'Aurin fired the musket into the air.'

Lexicon
aian - arm

akłaian - headland

akłame - glacier

akłanes - parenthood

akłanfe - stillbirth

ame - cold

anes - birth (n.)

anfe - life

aslaian - a mass of something deposited in a line, e.g. a moraine, snow drift, mud, sand bar, etc.

aslame - snow

aslanes - infant

aslanfe - life in motion, as in humans and animals - most common ‘anfe’ word

maraian - familial or romantic comfort

marame - cold air

maranes - parent-child attachment

maranfe - excitement

moros - unease

okłos - blindness

os - darkness

oslos - shade (of wood, stone, solid substances)

tamaian - a limited period of time

tamame - icy water, boring periods of time

tamanes - labour

tamanfe - pregnancy

tomos - shade (of leaves, fabric, etc.)

łanaian - writing posture

łaname - existential loneliness (as in; experience in the void)

łananes - the birth of planets, worlds, and gods, and also the completion of great works of writing

łananfe - the concept of life in a religious, sacred sense

łonos - the void

Example text
Leie łe osren om po luele fipea lapexin tü eine xaipeiem om.

‘Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me.’

Leie       ła       os-ren                     om           po       lu-ele

person   SBJ   unknown-thought   1.SG        OBJ   tell-PST

f a            lapexin   tü      eine      xa ie-m               om.

one     roll          of     land      injure-FUT    1.SG.

Om ło lüri sumita tü nakosake roxiperelo pe iren!

‘I wish you all a wonderful Pride Month!’

om      ła      lüri    sumi-ta         tü  nako-sake                        rox relo              po    i-ren!

1.SG  SBJ   2.PL  moon-travel  of  powerful-justification    strongbeauty OBJ VERBZ.wish

Metene łe meiperosele po reneramele niuiren tü łonos ło e.

‘He felt uneasy when thinking of the void.’

Metene    łe      me ros-ele          po        rene-ram-ele

man       SBJ     unease.ADJZ-PST    OBJ      thought-heart-PST

niu  -  i-          -ren            tü     łonos        ło      e.

TRA-VBLZ*  thought       of     void        OBJ  DEF

‘He writes in the dark.’

Metene łe osmoło po oine sunułumu.

‘I saw a merchant while travelling.’

Om ło temeie pe foafoinele silimiunele.

‘I ate beans in the shade of a tree.’

Om ło bini pü lomele oine tomos tü asulenere.