Fén Ghír

"An bhé chuc cún dhér dó gil me dí. Och tel lé gérul del ténan me dí, lú chím ag lú ba lú lé bhoc del lór me dí cór tol. En gar dí me gon."-Lúdhí Fén Ógil Níradh.

"We take from Iron it's rightful prize. And if we sail to the wide world's end, all know that we'll return from the depths a thousand times. Death cannot keep us."-Old Fén War Song.

Introduction
This is my first attempt at a conlang, originally conceived as a part of a larger game that never took off. It is the only language from the game that reached anything nearing completion. Inspiration and influence were drawn from Irish [Alphabet style and Head First Order], English [Lack of Genders, Conjugation Method] and some French [Particularly the G/W was taken from the Norman shift]. Also, the Copula, while originally inspired by Irish, mirror from Symbolic logic. However word roots and grammar are original.

This being my first conlang, made a few months before stumbling on this, my linguistic vocabulary may be lacking at certain points, however I've done my best and would be open to suggestions on how to either better clarify my meaning, represent phonetic sounds [should it seem inconsistent], remove ambiguities and generally make a more natural sounding language on my next go around. However for now, here's my first serious effort;

General Information
The language was initially inspired by Irish Gaelic and so much of the terminology reflects that still, though it may no longer necessarily be accurate. Copula in this case serve as a sort of verbal punctuation, appearing at the start of the sentance, they make it positive or negative, a statement or interrogative and can serve to tie it to a second clause. Aspiration is used to modify sounds of consonants, similar in some ways to "long" and "short" vowels, while some consonants might be pronounced differently depending on what vowel they come before [similar to "c" in English].

Initially it was designed as an isolating language which relied heavily on syntax to determine the nature of a word, it still does in many ways rely on the position of the word in the over all structure of the sentance. While work arounds have been added since to prevent ambiguities where they arise, most can still be dropped in order to shorten a sentance.

History
An early adopter of Iron forging, the Fén culture spread during the early iron age. Only to eventually be driven to the lands west of the mountains by the Empire of Toryl. Their pantheon is complex and legends often invovle the rise and fall of heroes, including gods, but fundamentally finds itself based around four elements; with Fire composing the Human soul and serving as the root of their demonym. These elements can be seen as the root for many objects, based off the beliefs of early philosophers on their composition and nature. Ancient Fén words ended on a vowel which marked them as adjectives/adverbs, nouns or verbs, however this was dropped in all but the Highlands [who use a consonant based alphabet]. Since then, they have been slowly shifting away from their previously tribal life style, developing three primary dialogue groups.

To Do
Vocabulary. At least enough to finish a Swadesh List.

Consonants
The following is a rough approximation of Standard Midlands Dialect Fén;

Fén Alphabet
Slender/Broad sounds are similar to Irish Gaelic though where phonetics are written identically, a foreign speaker could make no differentiation and still be understood. Slender and Broad consonants are determined by the vowel which follows them, a consonant is slender if followed by i or e, Broad in all other cases, including the end of a word.

It should be noted that the bh and mh and a broad "g" while being noted as making a "w" sound when aspirated have a slight "b", "m" and "g" sound preceding them, as if the speaking had said "bW" or "mW" or "gW".

Generally the intended native accent of individual words in this language, one should imagine a heavily French influenced Irish.

Phonotactics
Smallest Syllables Possible, Diaphongs are avoided even in the construction of compound words.

In larger words, the consonant of root words will be; C-V-C.

In some cases shorter additions will consist of a two letter consonants either C-V or sometimes V-C depending on the etymology of the individual word. Single vowel consonants however, do not occur.

In the Highlands dialect, the consonants are either C-V or V.

Copula
A Sentence begins with a Copula, this gives the context of whether the sentance is positive, negative or comparative. An is often dropped if the speaker feels that the sentences are clearly divided by his tone. Someone speaking fast, with an accent or with a complicated sentence and meaning, will use "An". Writers will use it to create a sense of formality, especially in accounts and reports. Sometimes it will be added in order to emphasize the division or contrast with the between to sentances.

These serve as basic contrasts and correlatives, In and On are often used to imply causality between two sentances though technically only state the correlation of two clauses. Depending on the truth value of a the first sentance, it can either be a causal "thus" statement or a conditional "if" statment.

Subcopula
Subcopula are for individual causes of negatives or causal statements within verb or noun phrases that do not affect the truth value of the entire sentance.

Grammatical Cases
In Fén there are grammatical case is determined by the preposition preceding the noun phrase according to their relation to other objects in the sentance. Below lists the general purposes of the cases whichs should become more apparent with the preposition list, this is more for general illustrative purposes but for the most part serves to determine the order in which prepositions come in a sentance. The above four are "framing" cases. These are similar to a dependant clauses in English, though necessarily not conditional; these frame the place, time and reason why an action happened as well as an original source. It should be noted that if a place is part of the action or only partial, then that place should be either a Accusative/Dative [I went to the field] or relative [I went to the person who was at the field] Contrary to general Fén word order, Genative precedes "ba" ([Possessor] ba [Possessed]) rather than follows it. It is unique in that it has no fixed position in syntax and can occur at any point.
 * Vocative case; Refers to who is being addressed. Precedes the Sentance.
 * Nomative case; The subject of a sentance. Almost always preceded by "me".
 * Accusative Case; The direct object. Usually identified by syntax.
 * Dative case; The most direct cases of indirect object.
 * Instrumental case; Objects which are used as instruments in order to perform an action. Similar to Dative case, it marks an indirect object.
 * Locative case; Objects which indicate where the action is taking place.
 * Temporal case; Objects which indicate when the action is taking place. Closely related to Locative.
 * Causal case; Objects which indicate for what reason an action is taking place.
 * Subjective case; Object which is the source of the information.
 * Genative case; Possessive case.

Sentance Structure
In Fén Syntax is very important in sentance lay out due to the lack of inflection in the language.

"Ag" will typically be dropped unless there is some worry about ambiguity [more common in written language] or a need for formality. "Me" can also be dropped if there is no accusative case in the sentance.

The case created by prepositions with multiple possible cases can be determined by either syntax or subject following it: It is worth noting that the translations here are done with an English subject-object relation in mind rather than the word order one:
 * Dative cases will follow an Accusative case, if there is no Accusative case before it, then the preposition marks the accusative case. If there is, then the preposition marks the dative case.
 * Accusative/Locative ambiguity is resolved by whether or not the case precedes the Nomative Noun.
 * Locative/Temporal is resolved by whether the action listed is a place or a time.

A is under B can translate to Té B cór A or Té A ce B. This translation assumes the former in order to avoid switching voices.

Because of the relatively strict word order and preposition use, there is no declension or suffixes to differenciate between adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs.

Genative Case
As noted previously, this may be inserted before any object and has no influence on sentance structure as a whole.

Determiners
In Fén, Determiners double as pronouns if the meaning is of them is made clear. Relative pronouns precede subclauses, as in English. ex. "I will give my word to whoever merits it."

The first determiner or "Current" determiner, fills the role of both "This" and "The" in English, once established in a conversation the "current" determiner sticks and is used in cases even where "That" would be used in English by the other speaker.

The Contrasting Determiner serves to emphasize a contrast, thus would be used in sentances with a current determiner or shortly afterwards in order to posit some sort of relationship between the two or simple emphasize them in contrast to each other.

The Final Determiner is used in order to switch the current. Where in English this doesn't receive any special emphasis, in Fén the first time the subject which the term "this" refers to in a conversation is changed, a "New Determiner" is used, in order to show as much. The contrasting determiner doesn't not have any indicator and may change several times over the course of a single sentence.

Ígelá and Ígel see much less use than the simpler pronouns, such as "lo" but in written word, they might follow in the sentance after a relative pronoun, though "lo" in that case is also acceptable and more common. Ígel can be used however for the sake of general neutrality and to make a more general statement, similar to the use of "one" in English.

Various cases use different determiners;
 * Vocative case; Typically uses ígel, ít might be used addressing an animal or when personifying an object.
 * Nomative case; Typically uses ígel or ít.
 * Accusative case; Determiner depends on context.
 * Dative case; Typically uses ígel or ít.
 * Genative case; Typically uses ígel, ít or íc.
 * Instrumental case; Typically uses ígel or ít or íd.
 * Locative case; Uses íc.
 * Temporal case; Uses bhocí.
 * Causal case; Uses íloc.
 * Subjective case; Uses ígel.

Relative Clauses
When a verb needs to be used outside of the initial phrase, this creates a relative clause in the sentance.

Similar to the English "I will talk to the one who did this."

Fén uses a relative clause in all cases of additional verbs in the sentance, for example;

"I went to the store because I want to buy fishing supplies"

becomes

"Bhé lé lódénen pon él med lódhén gínan chíchon éloc me di pon íloc."

"I went to the store for the reason that I want to get fishing supplies"

Quantifying Determiners
It should be noted that these do not cause a noun to pluralize.

On their own, these give an amount of something that one possesses, when a possessive "ba" is inserted then it's a quantity of the total and is used similarly to the difference in English between "A lot" and "A lot of".

There are two import cases that this can precede Cídér and Fabhan.
 * If preceding Cídér it is a general statement on how likely something is, literally how much possibility it has. "Éna ba cídér" is "rarely".
 * If preceding Fabhan it refers both how long until something occurs and how often something occurs; "(Lé bhé dén dir) Ne Én Fabhan (cur ít)" Means "(This will be done in) No Time" while "(Bhé dén dir) Ne Én ba Fabhen (cur ít)" means "This was never done" or more literally "This is done none of the time".

Tenses
Verbs are given tenses in a fashion similar to English; Have, Is or Go precede the verb in various orders to give it a tense.

+This form of Future Simple is used when there is less certainty in the matter. Something that may later change, ie. 'It looks like it will'

All adverbs not listed here are categorized as "Other". These adverbs make up the majority and do not describe the Mood, Voice or Time of an object.

Verb and Noun Phrases
Fén language branches leftwards on Verb/Noun Phrases. Adjectives, Adverbs and Possessive precede the Verb/Noun.

Verb Phrase
+Quantity in this case refers to the number of times an action is performed rather than the number of people performing it; "Hit twice" would be used rather than "Hit two times"

Verbs are modified by the adjectives preceding them and since grammatically an adjective can often be used as a noun and vica versa, the noun in a verb phrase has the first possible consonant aspirated and always precedes either a preposition or if it is a part of a list, a subcoupla.

Verbs are followed by the Accusative case. In cases where the division is unclear [due to the verb doubling as a temporal adverb for example] is when the preposition "ag" is used to make the Accusative.

Noun Phrase
Nouns work in a manner similar to verbs. A particular quality in nouns is that they are either preceded by a preposition, a relative determiner, a subcoupla or the end of the sentance.

Lentition
If a noun or verb is preceded by adjectives or an adverb, then lenition should occur in the first consonant able to do so. In the case of words where the first consonant able for lentition is already weakened, then the lentition is removed and the sound becomes more pronounced.

Pluralization
-a is added to a verb to pluralize it if it ends in a consonant, if it ends with a vowel, bh (to pronounced as a "v" rather than a "w") is used. If an uncountable quantifier is used before it (Many, Few, Some), it is not pluralized. Noun-Adjective/Verb-Adverb.

Phrasebook
“Hello” “How are you?” “I am well.” “What is your name?” "It is" ______
 * An té Úlana cór re
 * Ach té ét cór re
 * An té bér cór di
 * Ach té fémoc me ét cór re
 * An té ______ me ít.

"A pleasure to meet you."

"Please..."
 * An té bér én chím ba re cór di

An tel thé bér cór re "You’re welcome" "Good bye." "I don’t speak Fayn well" "Do you speak _______ language" "Is there a speaker of _____ with us?"
 * Och dir bér me re cór di...
 * "Thank you"
 * An tel thé lú bér cór re
 * An té bér cór re.
 * En tel bér ghír fén ghír cór di
 * Ach lúcím ____ ghír cór re?


 * Ach té ____ gír fhén bha dí

Dialects
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Featured Language
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