Ælis

Preliminary Remarks
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Ideology
hAnWnArAsAiA2tE (Welcome!) k1lISK [Ælis] is a constructed a priori language with a very particular approach on grammar. As such, it might be very interesting for aficionados of theoretical linguistics to use Ælis as a tool to start philosophizing about and exploring the boundaries of human grammar. Ælis has no nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs in a grammatical sense; verb conjugations, inflections, declensions, tenses, moods or voices; (hardly any) stress in words which is relevant; no tones, no fixed word order, (hardly any) punctuation, and no spaces to divide words or sentences from one another. Nonetheless, Ælis has a solid, very consistent and unambiguous grammar. The entire language is built on a few hundred root words. These roots are not fusional but independent, which means that every root is always a morpheme and always has the same meaning. They do not depend on the words to which they are attached.

Apart from the philosophical aspect, the language aims to be an artlang, aesthetically appealing both to the ear and the eye; as well as an auxlang, equally easy to learn for speakers with a variety of native backgrounds.

Phonemes
The table below contains all the phonemes that the Ælis language features (IPA). Bold-faced phonemes represent the preferred pronunciation, phonemes in brackets are allowed variations that will not cause ambiguity.

Alphabet and syllabic writing
The alphabet has 21 letters, of which 6 vowels and 15 consonants. Technically, [aɛ] is a diphthong, but it is regarded as a common vowel. All written letters should always be pronounced and vice-versa. The table below follows the Ælis alphabetical order. Letters in bold are those where the Romanisation differs from the actual IPA phonemic symbols.

The two bottom rows of this table represent the so called primary  and secondary case. Ælis is written in an alternation of these two cases in order for the different root words to be visually distinguishable. The writing style follows this pattern: the first phoneme of every root word is written in the primary case, every other letter is written in the secondary case. The characters were designed to fit this pattern. Compare the following clusters:


 * aM = [am] eN = [en]  iR = [ir]
 * mA = [ma] nE = [ne]  rI = [ri]

In Ælis, every root is at the same time a morpheme and a syllable. Root words can have either two or three phonemes/letters, for which only certain patterns are admissible:

Two letter root words: Three letter root words: Exceptions to these patterns are given names, possible borrowed words and number concepts (which will be covered below).
 * CV:  tW [tæ] (colour)
 * VC:  aR [ar] (reason, causality)
 * VV:  uA [ua] (centre, half)
 * CVC:  lIS [lis] (concept, notion)
 * CVV:  gOE [goe] (water)

Punctuation and the name tag
Ælis has a full stop ( . ) and a comma, but these are used only very sporadically. There is not even an obligation to use these punctuation marks at all.

There is, however, a set of two fairly important symbols which are used as a name tag: the rea. These two (mirrored) symbols enclose any type of proper name or borrowed word in order to mark it as such. The rea may be literally pronounced. E.g.:


 * eG1lIS [egælis] = peaceful language;
 * eG k 1lIS K [eg rea 'ælis] = the language (that is named) Peace. (=Ælis)

By itself, [rea] ( rEA ) is a root word which means "name":

iA1mAhA rEA kfREDERIQK ==> My name is Frederic.

Structure of root word clusters
Ælis' words are nearto always clusters of several roots, constructed with one simple but fundamental guideline: the head of the root word cluster has a nominal value; the tail of the root word cluster is dependent, adjectival or adverbial. An example:  tE [te] means 'human/person'. uBlE [uble] means 'strong'. An interesting and possibly unique feature of the Ælis root word approach is that semantically related words are nearto always lexically similar. The following words are lexically related, which in correlation means that they have a certain amount of root words in common:
 * tEuBlE [te>uble] means 'a strong person'
 * uBlEtE [uble>te] means 'human strength'

tEnAiO [tenaio] ==> person>quality>little; a bad person --> enemy

tEnAlE  [tenale] ==> person>quality>much; a good person --> friend

mAnAlE  [manale] ==> male>quality>much; a good man --> male friend

nInAlE  [ninale] ==> female>quality>much; a good woman --> female friend

nInArA  [ninara] ==> female>quality>total; a perfect woman --> female best friend / girlfriend

etc.

Qualifiers
Qualifiers are a set of five roots used as suffixes to nearly any other morpheme which express a certain amount, degree or quality of something. Qualifiers are essential building stones of the Ælis morphology. There are five levels:

sI (nothing) - iO (little) - uA (moderate/middle/half) - lE (much) - rA (all) One of the previously presented roots is [na], which means quality. By itself, the root has no connotation. A qualifier has to be suffixed to add a 'level' of quality:
 * nAsI [nasi]: no quality --> worthless
 * nAiO [naio]: little quality --> bad
 * nAuA [naua]: moderate quality --> neutral
 * nAle [nale]: a lot of quality --> good
 * nArA [nara]: all/total quality --> perfect

Another previously presented word was [uble], 'strong'. This too is a combination of the root [ub], 'a (degree of) strength', with a qualifier suffix. According to the pattern, the qualifiers create the following words:


 * uBsI [ubsi]: no strength --> powerless
 * uBiO [ubio]: little strength --> weak
 * uBuA [ubua]: moderate strength --> moderately strong
 * uBle [uble]: a lot of strength --> strong
 * uBrA [ubra]: all/total strength --> very strong, allmighty

A very big part of the vocabulary relies on the use of qualifiers.

Number concepts
Along with the 21 common letters of the alphabet, Ælis uses a set of ten additional symbols called number concepts, from now on referred to as "Lisqa". Lisqa are proper root words which all have a numeric value:

Lisqa constitute a fairly important aspect of the languages' morphology, mainly because the underlying idea doesn't share any common ground with concepts found in the English grammar (or probably most human languages' grammar, for that matter). A first important remark is that these number concepts are not the same as cardinal numbers. Instead, lisqa are used to form certain types of words in which the corresponding numeric value is somehow conceptually present. A noteworthy example can be found in the very name of the language: 1lIS consists of 1 (1) and lIS (concept, idea), the concept of one meaning as much as 'peace' or 'harmony', or of course ' uni ty'.

Counting
Though lisqa aren't proper numbers, they are used to create them. The Ælis counting system could technically be called bi-quinary (5x2), although probably decimal is easier and also accurate. The numbers from 0 to 9 are formed by prefixing a number concept to the morpheme qA [qa], which can mean 'number', 'amount', 'countable' or 'unit'.

Accordingly, the first ten cardinal numbers are:

For all positive numbers 10 and up, multiple number concepts are combined as if they were digits. E.g.:

To distinguish positive from negative numbers, the root word clusters qElE [qe-le] and qEiO [qe-io] can be suffixed, which are to be interpreted as meaning positive addition and negative addition, respectively. Therefore:
 * 1qAqElE = +1
 * 2qAqElE = +2
 * 1qAqEiO = -1
 * 2qAqEiO = -2

The root word [qa] always dilineates different numbers. For instance, while 12qA [æ'eqa] is the number 12, a formulation like 1qA2qA [æqa'eqa] could be used for enumerating lottery numbers, for the results of a sports game, etc.

Personal pronouns
Another aspect where the number concepts play an important role is in personal pronouns. These exist in 6 grammatical persons and three genders. The genders are purely semantical, so they don't govern the declension of nouns or the like. The undefined pronouns are not to be confused with the neuter grammatical gender. They are used if a speaker is either unaware of the gender, doesn't wish to specify, or, in plurals, for referring to a group where both sexes are present. Furthermore, the personal pronouns are only used for arguments that can be interpreted as having a character: people, or sometimes animals, anthropomorphized objects (in literature), ect.

Axial paradigm of time and space
The linguistic continuum of time and space in Ælis is shaped by 'dimensional' axes. The key root word in this domain is dA [da]. Bear in mind the theory of both the number concepts and the qualifiers. Look at the table below, and the paradigm will become clear.

Pluralization
The topic of pluralization is peculiar, as it differs from the 'traditional' singular/plural pattern. Ælis, root words are principally ambiguous as long as they're not specified. For instance, '[te]' can mean both 'person', 'people', and 'human'; '[ma]' can mean both 'man', 'men', 'manly', 'manliness', etc. E.g.:

lA mA hAaNdAuA [la ma ha'andaua]
 * ==> There is a man here
 * ==> There are men here
 * ==> There is male presence here

By adding the root qA [qa], with either a number concept or one of the qualifiers, these roots transform into precise (countable) and imprecise (non-countable) amounts, respectively. Compare:

...
 * 1qAmA [æqama] (one man)
 * 2qAmA [eqama] (two men)
 * qAiOmA [qaioma] (a few men)
 * qAlEmA [qalema] (many men)
 * qArAmA [qarama] (all men)
 * etc.

Moreover, [qa] can be combined with a number concept and a qualifier at the same time, by which both nuances will be incorporated:


 * lA 9qAiOmA hAaNdAuA [la uoqaioma ha'andaua] (nine men (not much) are here) --> There are only nine men here.

Topicalization
To cover for the facts that there are no word classes; that the word order is free; and that there are no spaces to divide words and sentences, Ælis places a very big emphasis on the semantic functions that different words have within a sentence. There is a high rate of 'topicalisation', or function marking, which in this case means that each word has one or more prefixed function markers that point out the semantic function of the respective word within the sentence.

As opposed to the 'traditional' grammatical functions of subject, verb and object, it is noteworthy that none of Ælis' semantic functions must be obligatorily present in a sentence for it to be grammatically correct. Furthermore, none of the functions is restricted to one use per sentence.


 * -->Main article: /Topicalisation/

Vocabulary

 * -->Main article: /Root word list and vocabulary/.

Example text: The Lord's Prayer
 Ælis 

lA2tEhAtEuE2dAlE lAeMaNeAnArAtA hAnArAiArEAiAvW2tEtA iRaMdIlEhA1lISiRiIaNuAtA iRaNlWlA2tEhAdIiWhAaSdArAtA iRaNtEiRaNEAnArAtA iRaMdIlEiA6tEiRaSqArAdOhAqAnAlEtA hAiInAlEiAlWhAnAiOlA6tEiWlA2tEtA iAlWhAnAiOiA6tEiWlA6tEtA iA6tEhAaQrAhAvWqArAeInAiO hAvWqArAnAiOtA iRaMdIlE.  Romanised la'ete hateue'edale la'emaneanarata hanara iarea iavæ'eteta iramdile ha'ælis iriianuata iranlæ la'ete hadiiæ ha'asdarata irante iraneanarata iramdile iauæte irasqarado haqanaleta haiinale ialæ hanaio lauæteiæ la'eteta ialæ hanaioiauæteiæ lauæteta iauæte ha'aqra havæqaraeinaio havæqaranaiota iramdile.

 Analytic translation 

You are the father - (you) at the abstract place of perfection - the best to the name that is yours - by will, peace and eternity be in this place and at the place where you exert will - on the place of people - on the abstract place of perfection - by will, the good befall us every day - you restore that what we do bad - that what has been done bad to us, we restore - for us the biggest possible distance from improper thoughts - and from bad things (in general) - by will.

Writing Ælis on the computer
If you're interested in writing Ælis in your own text editor, you can download the ttf font and the corresponding kerning table. The keyboard keys have been assigned as follows:
 * Lowercase letters correspond to the primary case;
 * Uppercase letters correspond to the secondary case;
 * Number concept symbols have been assigned to the numbers from 0 to 9;
 * The letter [æ] has been assigned to the w-key. Lowercase 'w' for the primary case w and uppercase 'W' for the secondary case W ;
 * The rea symbols have been assigned to the k-key. Lowercase 'k' for the opening rea k and uppercase 'K' for the closing rea K.