Ælis

Preliminary Remarks
While this article page is being updated, feel free to read the full PDF document on the principles of the language by downloading it here.

General information
Ælis is a philosophical a priori language with the aim to rule out as many grammatical aspects as possible. Nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs do not exist in a grammatical sense, neither do verb conjugations, tenses, moods or voices. Instead, the focus is on semantical aspects such as agent, patient, action/state, ...

The core units of the language are root words, a few of which have no lexical meaning but a purely grammatical, structural function.

The word "Ælis", in Ælis, means 'peace'. "egælis" means 'harmonic' or 'peaceful language'.

Consonants
The letters used in this table are the ones used for transcribing Ælis with Latin letters.

Alphabet
The alphabet has 21 letters in a proper writing font. For the proper front, please visit the download link posted under the header "Preliminary Remarks". For this page, the Romanisation will be used.

Phonotactics
The language is built with root words, for which only certain patterns are admissible:

Two letter root words: Three letter root words:
 * CV: ni (woman, female)
 * VC: am (manner, way)
 * VV: ii (target, goal, destination)
 * CVC: lis (concept, idea)
 * CVV: rea (name)

Structure of words
Words are 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" means 'human/person'. "uble" means 'strong'. Words that are conceptually related will mostly be lexically similar too. An example: the word "tenale", which means 'friend', consists of three root words: "te" (person); "na" (a certain amount of quality); and "le" (a lot). Switching the first root to "ma" (man/male) we get "manale", a male friend; or with "ni", "ninale", a female friend. Replacing the root word "le" (a lot) with "io" (not much), we get "tenaio" (an enemy); "manaio" (a male enemy); or "ninaio" (a female enemy).
 * Teuble means 'a strong person'
 * Ublete means 'human strength'

Nearto all words are clusters of root words. For example, we could prefix the root word "ii" (goal/target) to the previous example to form "iitenale", 'to become friends with'.

Personal pronouns
All personal pronouns exist three genders: male, female, and neutral/undefined.

Syntax
The grammar strongly focuses on syntactic functions. There are 4 basic functions, which each have a proper root word that will be prefixed to the lexical roots: An example phrase:
 * The topic is usually a description of an action or a state. The corresponding morpheme is ha.
 * The agent is who or what the topic originates from. The corresponding morpheme is la. Usually, this is the initiator of an action or a sender of a message.
 * The patient is at whom or what the topic is targeted. The corresponding morpheme is ia. Usually, this is the object of an action or the receiver of a message, but also the subject of a state.
 * The modifier is an additional piece of information to the utterance. The corresponding morpheme is ir. Ususally, modifiers correspond to adverbial constituents of space, time, manner, reason, etc. The equivalent of time tenses is harboured in this category.

Haeleanale laæma iaeni irasdaio = I loved you.

Analytically, the sentence can be understood as follows: the love (=topic) by me (=agent) for you (=patient) in the past (=modifier of time).

Because all words are 'marked' with a function in sentences, word order is completely irrelevant.

Example text


The Lord's Prayer