Létë

Setting
Létë is a language spoken a humanoid alien race 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).

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
There are no articles in Létëso 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. allarn "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. So, for "the tree is further away from me than you" would be "tree is me-ABL".

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 id 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".

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 allatwa "by/with a pair of leaves"

Comitative
This used to show companionship, 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"

A page of declension tables and more thorough notes on the phonological characteristics of applying case endings to certain words will be coming soon.