Létë

Setting
Létë is a language spoken a humanoid alien race, the Valatan, in another galaxy. They are beyond what any human could dream of - tall, slender, beautiful eyes and flowing hair. In fact they love nature and delight in all its beauty, and this is reflected in their language. When they first became civilised, they were experimenting with all sorts of sound they could make, taking delight from being able to speak and sing. As their civilisation evolved, so too did their language, moulding around their specific aesthetic taste. Thus producing Létë ("Flowing". Note that this is a very approximate meaning and will be discussed more in the dictionary). This had evolved from Old Létë, which evolved from Ldetē. This ancient language was among five daughter languages - Deyhâ, Ledrê, Ldetē, Dlêdê, and Upavî - that evolved from the most primitive and ancient language, Detegh.

Consonants
Notes

 1.  n is always pronounced as in never except when before g, in which case it is pronounced as in English anger. However, it is always spelt “n”.

 2.  hl is just voiceless l as in lamp; hw is just voiceless w as in some English dialects which, white; hy is just voiceless y as at the start of the word, before pronouncing the vowel, hue; and hr is just a voiceless alveolar tap (explained below).

 3.  d, b, and g cannot exist by themselves in words; they are only present in consonant clusters such as nd, mb, ng

 4.  r is pronounced as an alveolar flap or tap, as in Japanese ri, some English dialects in words like better and ladder, where tt and dd are pronounced pretty much the same. Hr is just a voiceless version of this. When geminated (lengthened) it will appear as rr in which case it is pronounced as an alveolar trill, which is just an alveolar tap repeated several time quickly, as in many European languages.

* dh is a sound not often used in modern Létë. When it is used, it has a distinct lateral release, so that it almost sounds like an l rather than a dh.

Vowels
Notes

<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> 1.<span style="font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">  i is pronounced as in bit, when it is between two consonants, but even then it is still pronounced closer to see than bit. When at the start of a word, in a diphthong, or next to a vowel which it is not in a diphthong with, it is pronounced see but shorter.

<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; text-indent: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> 2.<span style="font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">  Long o and e, when pronounced correctly, are not only longer, but “closer” than their short counterparts. Diphthongs are au, iu, eu, ai, ui, oi, are pronounced as [au, iu, eu, ai, ui, oi] respectively. Any other group of two sequential vowels cannot form a diphthong. These vowels consequently always belong to separate syllables.

Orthography
While it has its own script, this is for the romanised version. Consonants and vowels appear as above. E has a diaeresis when at the end of a word to show it is pronounced, and when with a or o to show they are pronounced separately. However, when in proper names and this e would be capitalised, the diaeresis moves to the a or o. E.g. enë, harëa, Eönwë. This diaeresis has no effect on the pronounciation. "Qu" is used to represent a "cw" sound, and "x" is used to represent a "cs" sound.

Phonotactics
Létë has a strict set of phonological rules. It is restricted to a fixed set of cosonant and vowel clusters that are allowed, and if a conjugation or declension would violate those rules, the consonants or verbs would have to change.

Vowels can never be three in a row; and this includes diphthongs and long vowels as well; ie, you could not have a word like pëao, laio, or naó. Diphthongs and long vowels can never end a word, nor can they ever precede a consonant cluster (note, this does not include ly, ny, ry, ty).

Permissible vowel clusters are: uo, ia, io, ië, oa, oë, ëa, ëo, the lengthened vowels, and diphthongs.

Consonants are confined to a strict set of consonant clusters. Note that while the semi-vowels y and w are consonants and never vowels, when preceded by one consonant, the consonant cluster does not act as a cluster for the clusters with y, when applying the rules for stress. The following consonants (and clusters) may start a word: c, f, h, hl, hr, hw, hy, l, ly, m, n, nw, ny, p, qu, r, ry, s, t, ty, v, w, y.

Hl and hr can only be found at the starts of a word, never anywhere else. Dh can only be found within words, not at the start or end. Hl, hr, and dh, along with hy and hw, are single consonants, not consonant clusters.

These are the only consonants that can be found on the end of a word: l, n, r, s, t. Neither i nor u may end a word, except for a dual, in which case u may end the word. Likewise, no diphthong or long vowel may end a word. This leaves us with l, n, r, s, t, a, ë, o, and sometimes u, which may end a word.

Certain consonants can be geminated (lengthened): ll, mm, nn, rr, ss, tt. These count as consonant clusters.

Allowable consonant clusters are: x (cs), ht, lc, ld, ll, lm, lp, lqu, lt, lty, lw, ly, mb, mm, mn, mp, nc, nd, ng, nn, nqu, nt, nty, nw, ny, ps, qu (cw), rc, rd, rm, rn, rqu, rr, rt, rty, rw, ry, ss, st, ts, tt, ty. In the cluster ht the h is fully realised; that is, it is pronounced full before the t.

As can be seen, there is quite a limited set of allowable clusters and strict rules for word formation. When adding suffixes, words change in order to comply with these rules. For example, the word nés "person" with the locative ending -llo would supposedly be nésllo but this is completely wrong. Firstly, long vowels cannot precede consonant clusters so we have nesllo, which is still wrong as sll is not a viable cluster. So, s assimilates with the locative ending, which results in nello "in/on/at a person".

As noted above the consonants b, d, and g cannot exist by themselves. They are only found in the following clusters: mb, ld, nd, rd, ng.

Stress
Stress is always regular. To know which syllable to stress, the length of a syllable must be understood.

The syllable is long if it contains: So the stress is as follows: Some examples (stressed is bold):
 * a long vowel
 * a diphthong
 * a short vowel followed by a consonant cluster
 * a monosyllabic word is stressed on that syllable
 * a disyllabic word is stressed on the first syllable
 * a word with more than two syllables is stressed on the penultimate syllable if it is long, but if it is short, the syllable before it (the third-to-last syllable) is stressed

The penultimate syllable is short:

The penultimate syllable is long: The special consonant clusters ly, ny, ry, ty are considered consonant clusters when determining stress: These rules also imply that it is not always a syllable with long vowel that is stressed:
 * harëa "a fight" > ha-rë-a
 * lintulë "will chant" > lin-tu-lë
 * Nenálë "Shimmering Halls (their capital city) > Ne-ná-lë
 * anára "failing (adjective)" > a-ná-ra
 * lavalya "most beautiful" > la-va-lya
 * allassë "upon a leaf" > al-las-së

Nouns
Nouns do not have gender. Nouns have four numbers and eight cases.

Number
Létë has four numbers numbers: single, plural, world plural and dual. Single is used for a single thing. Plural is used for two or more things, as a general plural. Plural can be translated in a variety of ways. In some contexts it can be translates as some, or a few. It can also refer to a particular group. World plural differs from plural in that it refers to the entirety of something (e.g. all the trees in a forest). Dual is used for a natural pair. When talking about two things, dual is more often used than plural, especially when taking about two specific things, even if they are not a "natural pair".

Nouns in singular form are unchanged.

Nouns in plural form take the ending -ië if they end in a consonant, and -n if they end in a vowel.

Nouns in world plural form take the ending -asta if they end in a consonant, and -sta if they end in a vowel.

Nouns in dual form take -uli. If they also have a case, then this is shortened to -u- if they end in -a/o/u or lengthened to -ulí- depending on the case

When saying specific numbers, use plural followed by the number. For example, "three halls" would be álen vë.

Case
There are eight cases: nominative, genetive, dative, locative, ablative, allative, instrumental, and comitative. In earlier forms of the language, there was an accusative case however, as to form this case one would lengthen the stem of the vowel, and add on final m, it disappeared (or merged) with other transformations. This is because, many nouns have consonant clusters in them and long vowels cannot appear before clusters, and final m became final n, which is the same as nominative plural. So, nouns declined in accusative and nominative cases are the same. It should be noted that not all nouns will be used with all cases; that is, they can all still be declined in every case, it's just that some meanings will not make sense and so never be used, or only when speaking abstractly.

Nominative
This is used to denote the subject and, due to phonological changes, the object too. Because nouns are identical in both nominative and accusative case, word order is important. Subjects precede the verb and objects follow it, following a SVO pattern. Nominative singular, plural, and dual are formed as descibed in "Number" above.

Example: sg. alla "leaf"; pl. allan "leaves"; dual allu "a pair of leaves"

Genitive
This is used to show possession, or what something contains. It is often translated as "of, made of". With possession, the possessor always takes the genitive case, and follows what it possesses. So for "the bear's claws" would be "claws of bear (claw-PL bear-GEN)"

Example: sg. allar "of a leaf"; pl. allarin "of leaves"; dual. allant "of a pair of leaves"

Dative
This is used to show the indirect object, or beneficiary. It is often translated as "to, for", as in "he sent it for me", or "he gave me it (or he gave it to me)". It is also used in the Dative of Possession construction. This is where the noun in dative is followed by the copula so it appears as "to noun is noun". This construction is used as the language lacks the verb "to have", and will be covered in more detail in Verbs.

Example: sg. allanna "to/for a leaf"; pl. allannar "to/for leaves"; dual allanta "to/for a pair of leaves"

Locative
This is used to show something's location. It has inherent physical implications, meaning it is used to describe something's physical location. It is often translated as "at, in, on". Because of how it isn't exactly precise, it can be followed by postpositions which can further make precise where exactly the noun is. However, this is often not needed, as the locative case usually suffices, and the position of the noun can often be determined by context. It should be noted that it is not often used with the meaning "on", as allative case covers this.

Example: sg. allallo "at/in/on a leaf"; pl. allallon "at/in/on leaves"; dual allalto "at/in/on a pair of leaves"

Ablative
This is used to show motion away from something. It has inherent physical implications, like the locative case. It is often translated as "off (of), (away) from". It can be used with a copula in this construction: "noun-a copula noun-b-ABL". This is short and compact way to say "noun-a is further (away) from noun-b than noun-c", with noun-b and noun-c often "me" and "you" respectively. Noun-c is often obvious by context, but when it needs to be clarified, decline in the comitative case. So, for "the tree is further away from me than you" would be "tree is me-ABL (you-COM)".

Example: sg. allammë "off/from a leaf"; pl. allammer "off/from leaves"; dual allummë "off/from a pair of leaves"

Allative
This is used to show motion towards something. It has inherent physical implications, like the locative and ablative cases. It is often translated as "to" (short for towards; not to be mixed up with dative "to"), but it can also imply "on/upon" insofar as an object that rests "upon" something is pressing "towards" it, as in "darkness lies on the foaming waves". It can also be used similarly to the above ablative construction, using "nearer" instead of "further". So, for "the tree is nearer to me than to you" would be "tree is me-ALL (you-COM)".

Example: sg. allassë "to/upon leaves"; pl. allassen "to/upon leaves"; dual allatsë "to/upon a pair of leaves"

Instrumental
This is used to show the tool used, the cause of something, the means by which something is achieved, among other meanings. As such, it can be translated in many ways: "by, with, because of, due to, through (not as in "I walked through the park" but as in "i did it through the help of my peers")" among others. How it came to encompass so many meanings is not entirely known, but is widely accepted that there were once three or more cases with similar meanings and similar declensions which merged together over time. Even with so many meanings, the meaning intended is usually easily understood. In the following example, it will only be translated as "by/with". Example: sg. allava "by/with a leaf"; pl. allavan "by/with leaves"; dual alluva "by/with a pair of leaves"

Comitative
This used to show companionship, or association. It is often translated as "(together) with, in the company of". This is not to be confused with the Instrumental "with", which is used in sentences like "I hit it with a hammer". The Comitative case can also denote "next to, beside", when context allows. Note that "next to, beside" is often translated with the locative case followed by a certain postposition.

Example: sg. allo "(together) with a leaf"; pl. allio "(together) with leaves"; dual alluo "(together) with a pair of leaves"

Here is a link to all the types of nouns fully declined Létë Declension Paradigms

Verbs
<p class="MsoNormal">Verbs in Létë often have many subtle undertones and/or connotations, and so a deeper understanding is needed for every verb, beyond its formal definition. They are the most complex parts of the language. Often exact translations of the conjugations aren’t possible (or are rather difficult) due to the way the Valatan think, and their perspective on language and the universe, and how they interact.

<p class="MsoNormal">Létë verbs have tense, aspects, and moods, though they often have a different way of describing them, some of which are slightly different to the human conception of tense/aspect/mood. They have ‘The Five Ways’, described in terms of their Flow, a Descriptive Condition, which acts on three Ways, and numerous Operators (three of which are Flow operators, the rest are Context operators).

<p class="MsoNormal">Verbs can take personal endings, which are suffixes.

<p class="MsoNormal">There are four classes of verbs: primitive, ya-verbs, o-verbs, and ta-verbs.

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The Five Ways
<p class="MsoNormal">Flow is related to the directedness and temporal properties of the Way. Flow is difficult to describe in non-native languages (i.e. not Létë), and so the descriptions below will not be adequate. However, English descriptions that capture the gist of each Flow are also below.

The First Way
<p class="MsoNormal">This Way has directed high Flow. That is because of its continuous/ongoing nature and that it is not bound to one temporal point (i.e. it is continuously changing its temporal ‘location’).

<p class="MsoNormal">This is used to indicate an ongoing/continuing action, one of duration, and that the action will continue into the foreseeable future. This does not necessarily imply a changing action, merely one that continues.

<p class="MsoNormal">It is closest to the Present Progressive.

<h4 class="MsoNormal">The Second Way <p class="MsoNormal">This Way has a non-directional, uniform, and low Flow. This is because it refers to states and processes as wholes, rather than as continuous actions/states.

<p class="MsoNormal">This indicates general existence, states, as well as laws, customs, and so on.

<p class="MsoNormal">It is closest to the Gnomic aspect.

<h4 class="MsoNormal">The Third Way <p class="MsoNormal">This Way has an interesting Flow. It has a continuous flow from a fixed temporal point, but which can be terminated during the present.

<p class="MsoNormal">This indicates a past action that still continues, or that has finished without consequences.

<p class="MsoNormal">It is closest to past progressive or present perfect, depending on its usage.

<h4 class="MsoNormal">The Fourth Way <p class="MsoNormal">This Way has a low flow. It is fixed by two temporal points and has no more flexibility to move. However, it can ‘overflow’ and affect other flows.

<p class="MsoNormal">This indicates a past action has finished but still has consequences.

<p class="MsoNormal">It is closest to present perfect or past perfect (and a sort of proxy passive).

<h4 class="MsoNormal">The Fifth Way <p class="MsoNormal">This way has an unknown, or perhaps chaotic, Flow. This is due to the many potentialities that could be realised.

<p class="MsoNormal">This indicates both near and distant future. It is closest to future tense.

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The Descriptive Condition
<p class="MsoNormal">This acts on verbs to change them to descriptors. Thus, they can act as adjectives, adverbs, and relative clauses (which act as adjectives/adverbs anyway). They act on the First, Third, and Fifth Ways, and are essentially participles (i.e. Present, Past, and Future participles).

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The Flow Operators
There are three Flow operators. They are essentially aspects.

Inceptive/Inchoative
This means a change in general, usually indicating the beginning of an action or new state. There is no explicit information as to whether this change is gradual or sudden. However, operating on the Second Way, it indicates sudden change.

Cessative
This indicates that the action or state has stopped, but not necessarily completed. To indicate completion, this needs to operate on the Fifth Way.

Habitual
This has numerous meanings dependent upon which Way to operates on. With the First Way, an action is done repeatedly/habitually. With the Second Way, an action is done repeatedly/habitually. The difference in meaning between the First and Second Ways is that the Second Way is usually used for laws/customs/social norms, whereas the First is a little more free. With the Third Way, it describes something which happened repeatedly/habitually but which no longer occurs. With the Fourth Way, it describes something which has happened at least once before, but is not currently happening (although it may still be relevant to the present). With the Fifth way, an action is going to be done repeatedly/habitually.

The Context Operators
There are numerous context operators. They are essentially moods.

Conditional/hypothetical
This expresses a hypothetical state of affairs or event that is either contingent on another set of circumstances, or is known not to be true but could have been. It can also indicate logical conclusions.

Potential
This expresses something’s capability or ability to do something.

Dubitative
This expresses doubt or low probability. This is subjective. Interestingly, doubt has no negative connotations; it is merely one’s subjective evaluation of an action having low probability. Objective low probability must be explicitly stated.

Speculative
This expresses an unknown probability. This is subjective. Objective unknown probability must be explicitly stated.

Probable
This expresses high probability or expectancy. This is generally objective. Subjectivity is usually expressed via something like “I think…”

Imperative
This expresses a command. When used with the First Way it implies that the command be done now, while with the Fifth Way it implies that the command be done soon.

Desiderative
This expresses a desire. This implies that whatever one is desiring will have a direct effect on them. Thus it is inherently more personal, and focuses on the ‘now’.

Optative
This expresses a wish. As opposed to desiderative, this is more of a goodwill expression, it is not as personal (it is more general), and focuses on future events.

Necessitative
This expresses a necessity. It covers necessity, requirements, and obligations. When used in the sense of being compelled or forced however, the causative verb is used with a reflexive pronoun.

Permissive
This expresses allowance or permission.

Propositive*
This expresses a proposition or suggestion.

Adhortative*
This expresses encouragement or urging. It is stronger than Propositive.

Exhortative*
This expressive avid encouragement or strong urging. It is stronger than Adhortative.

*Note that these need not be direct. For example, "they should really go", you are urging "they" to go but you are not directly talking to them (rather to someone else).

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