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 are entirely spatial. That is, they are defined spatially, and have no temporal context. There are no articles in Létë so alla "leaf" can be translated as "leaf, a leaf, the leaf".

Nouns don't have gender either; the number and cases are declined the same way for all nouns (with a couple exceptions and changes to nouns ending with consonants when they won't combine properly with the case ending).

Number
Létë has three numbers: single, plural, and dual. Single is used for a single thing, plural is used for two or more things. Plural has an inherent meaning of "some", so can often be translated as such. Dual is used for a natural pair. When talking about two things, dual is more often used than plural (with the number two as a postposition), 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 ending in -a or -o replace them with -u, nouns ending in -ë or -i affix -ru, and nouns ending in a consonant add a -u.

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
Verbs in Létë are much more precise in meaning than most languages, and as such can only be used very specificly. They are the most complex and subtle parts of the language, and their conjugated meanings are hard to define due to the civilisation's view of the universe. Unlike nouns, which are spatial, verbs are entirely temporal, with no spatial context. Also, they have quite different terminology, which will be explained when needed.

Létë verbs have "tense", "mood", and "aspect" insofar as humans describe language. However, the Valatan have a rather different worldview and so define their verb's conjugations somewhat differently. They determine the verb's Temporal Fluidity by its Temporal Flow (the continuity, or continuous nature of the verb conjugation) and its Temporal Judgement (the liberty with which the verb conjugation can exist). These are abstract ways of describing a verb's conjugations, and so will be given an approximate human linguistic description, plus a more thorough discussion of its precise meaning.

Temporal Fluidity can be "flavoured" by a Temporal Condition.

Verbs take personal endings such as I, you, they.

There are also two classes of verbs: Primitive, and a-Stem. Within a-Stem there are three sub-classes: ta-stem, ya-stem, and wa-stem. Ya-stem verbs have both a transitive and an intransitive forms

Verb conjugations are reasonably complex so will be covered on a separate page.

Temporal Fluidity
This is determined by two factors: Temporal Flow and Temporal Judgement. Temporal Flow is basically how an action unfolds; Temporal Judgement is whether an action is locked in a certain temporal state.

There are six directions for Temporal Fluidity, which will be given an approximate human translation. There is also a spatial qualifier, and three temporal qualifiers.

First direction: General Tense
This is an odd direction as it lacks a temporal judgement (and lacks any direction). It is used for general truths, things that just happen, by nature, eg, "birds fly". Its inherent universal temporality is why it is not locked in any temporal state, and so has no Temporal Judgement. Its actions are also inherently stative; that is, they do not flow, have no continuous aspect to them. So this is not really a direction; it is more used to help describe a way of existing.

However, it may also be used to describe a change of state, eg, "he stands/stood up". The reason it can be translated as both stands and stood is due to its lack of Temporal Judgement; the exact meaning must be inferred from context.

This direction is often described as hypertemporal because it surpasses temporal restrictions.

Verbs with this direction cannot take personal endings (such as I, they, us); it is an impersonal inflection.

Second Direction: Present Tense
This direction has an inherent continuous aspect, and so has a continuous Temporal Flow. It describes ongoing actions happening "now" (it should be noted that the Valatan don't really believe in the "present" so translating this is somewhat imprecise). As the "present is undefined", it is difficult to determine its Temporal Judgement. It is certainly locked in a very specific state, but that state is constantly shifting (though this could be on account of the Flow). Nonetheless, it is still used for all human language translations in the present tense.

It roughly translates to "(it) is doing"

Third Direction: Past Tense
Like the second direction, it has an inherent continuous aspect so has a continuous Temporal Flow. It's Judgement is definitely in a fixed state, in the past, but again, the continuous nature makes it somewhat obscure. It describes actions that were ongoing (essentially, the second direction in a slightly different state). However, it is inherently inconclusive; that is, it could still be happening now, or i may have terminated, further mystifying its Judgement. Context can allow clarification though.

It roughly translates to "(it) was doing"

It also has an irrelevant aspect to it; that is, the action you are describing with this direction is not really relevent to the "present". Hence, it can be used as a perfect tense as well, but one that is irrespective of context.

This would be roughly translated as "(it) has snowed (before)"

Fourth Direction: Dead-past Tense
The fourth direction has a stative and terminated Flow. The action has happened and is finished before the current time. It has no relevance to the current time. Its Judgement is therefore deadlocked in the past. This is truly a past event, and the most clearly defined direction for Temporal Fluidity. However, it only describes the action externally; that is, it could state "the star exploded", but the only information it conveys is that the star definitely exploded some time in the past, but it wouldn't be adequate enough to describe the process of exploding.

Its well defined Fluidity gives it a more precise translation of "(it) did"

However, like the third direction, it also has an element of irrelevance. It is not relevant to the present, but due to its deadlocked nature it can be relevant to past actions. Hence, it can used in the pluperfect sense too.

This would roughly translate to "(it) had done"

Fifth Direction: Future Tense
Both Flow and Judgement are indetermined. By its very nature, the "future" is obscure, and so trying to describe an event in the future is equally obscure. It often states intentions, or probabilities. It is vague and non-linear in its Fluidity, so technically, the event described in the fifth direction does not necessarily have to happen after the present moment; it really represents some unknown temporal direction. However, it is still useful in its applications to future or obscure events, intentions, and probabilities.

It roughly translates to "(it) will do; (it) intends to do; (it) will probably do"

Sixth Direction: Perfect Tense
The Flow is in most cases stative, and the Judgement is somewhat locked in the past. However, it is still relevant in the "present"; it can almost be described as a cross between the second and third directions (which may make more sense to a human reader but to the Valatan this interpretation is wildly incorrect). Because it describes past events which are relevant in the present moment, they can be represented by both the perfect tense and the present passive (note though, that there is no such thing as a passive voice in Létë).

It roughly translates to "(it) has done; (it) is done"

Temporal Condition
As stated above, Temporal Fluidity can be "flavoured" by a temporal condition; that is, it can be modified to take on a different role syntactically. There is one spacial qualifier, and three temporal qualifiers.

Spatial Qualifier: Gerund
This describes an action with no Flow and is locked in a state of incongruous temporality. It takes an action out of a temporal context and places it in a spatial context. Remember that nouns are spacial and verbs are temporal, so this essentially transforms a verb into a noun.

It roughly translates to "(the act of) doing"