Old Elvish

Old Elvish [araem'atal, uh-RAYM uh-TAHL, "the magical language"], as it is now known, was a language spoken by the nomadic Green Elves during the period of 005 OA - 340 OA (Old Age, or approximately one millenium before the crowning of Queen Tarista) between the rules of Queen Ava of the Wooded Elves and King Aristeus of the Landburrow Elves. Queen Ava was known to be the one who promoted the speaking of Old Elvish, and during the Abstergens Days this language was the only spoken, until a few decades after Aristeus's death, where Early Elvish began to appear amongst the Water Elves. In fact, written on Ava's tree-tomb is such: Iso Avam'banetas a ekem'ildo îyechein, meaning "Thus is an inscription of Ava's language over her grave." A much more intricate phrase was written onto Aristeus's tree-tomb: Nîyelenein ildo'é Aristeusam'banetas a teres'avat sîtereros cua, or "This inscription is written over Aristeus's tomb in honor of everything he has done."

The first few dialects of Old Elvish appeared around 7 or 8 OA, where the nouns had three genders: masculine, feminine, and non-living, or as it is known now, the neuter. All three genders were declined heavily in what is thought to be six declensions, but over time, Prince Asfar of the Landburrow Elves pushed into being a new dialect, which is the largely-surviving one, where the nouns do not have any gender and do not decline as heavily. However, most of the verbs have the same conjugations, and almost all irregularities have been stripped away, leaving only a few incredibly irregular verbs.

Phonology
All letters in Old Elvish are pronounced exactly as their English counterparts. There are, however, less "z"s than there are "a"s, less "x"s than there are "s"s, and so on.

== There are no unacceptable consonant clusters, but "harsh"-sounding syllables, such as "zt" or "zf", etc., are never found in Old Elvish. Aelfen, a distant relative to Old Elvish, has many of these harsher sounds, most of which too have died away into a soft, smooth flow of words that can be spoken both rapidly and in a slow, lilting tone.

Grammar
Old English is a OVAdvSAdj. These five parts of speech must always be placed together, the preopositional phrases, clauses, etc. coming anywhere else.

Old Elvish grammar is not too hard to learn, but it does have some noun declensions and a unique system of verb conjugations because it has been proven to actually be a branch of Ancient Elven.

There are no articles in Old Elvish.

Nouns decline, and there are two separate sets of declensions, though they do not have a name. The first set of noun declensions is those concerning nouns ending in a vowel. The second set is those concerning nouns ending with a consonant.

First declension nouns can end in any vowel, thus the blank in "Nominative-Singular". The genitive case shows possession; "the dog's ears": "dog" is in the genitive case. '''In Old Elvish, the genitive case always goes before the noun and is attached to it with an apostrophe ('). '''The accusative case shows objectivity. "The dog has ears": "Ears" is in the accusativecase-plural. The locative place shows the position of an object at rest, most commonly used in English as "in", "on", "at", etc.

The same thing goes for the second declension, which is shown above.

Adjectives do not decline, and they do not agree in number with the nouns they modify. It has been widely reputed by well-known scholars the position of adjectives in Old Elvish, because the Tenesur Prophecies, a saga written by the renowned Azar of the Ice Elves, places its adjectives in front of the noun it modifies. Likewise the Amaron Chronicles, written by a distance cousin of Azar's, placed the adjectives directly behind its governing noun. Perhaps most controversial is the Quaem Cerod, which written in what the English call "iambic pentameter", has the adjectives either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence, making it unclear which noun they modify.

The comparative and superlative cases of the adjectives are formed by adding ö and ön respectively to the end of the adjectives.
 * However, scholars comparing many works of Old Elven priests and sorcerers agree that adjectives almost always come after their governing nouns. In poetry, they conveniently come before the nouns they modify to help stress rythmn patterns or end-rhymes.

Adverbs come directly after their verbs, no matter what the situation, and take on the ablative case: +æ.

All prepositions come directly after their objects, which take on the dative case.

Personal Pronouns are only very rarely used in Old Elvish. They are:

When used, personal pronouns almost always are used solely in the dative case, and sometimes in the locative case. Genitive case personal pronouns are never used, unless for emphasis or poetical purposes.

Verbs are the most important parts of Old Elvish. They take precedence over all other parts of speech. All verbs end in "-en".

In order to conjugate a verb, one must take what the elves call the "precedent" - the prefix - and attach it to the beginning of the verb. The "successor" - suffix - of the verb changes according to the tense. The suffix of infinitive verbs is "-en".

Verbs can be changed into nouns by changing the "-en" to an "-on". For example, toren means "to eat". Therefore, toron means "the eater" or "he/she/it who/which eats". For further example, a puzzling inscription is found over the grave of an unknown elf: Îmorestkos almes’toron, which literally means, "He who eats the apple will sing." Scholars have been puzzling over the phrase for centuries, though they believe it is a reference to Almetrus, the wise elf who wrote the Alcandor Chronicles.

Present: (I write, you write, he/she/it writes, etc.) - Rule: Change "-en" to "-ein". Remember, personal pronouns are never used when they are the subject of the sentence. Note: The Present and Present Progressive are the same, except for convenient poetic uses, poets have been known to use the appropriate for of "to be" and then make a participle from the main verb.

elenen: to write

ê'lenein - I write

â'elenein - you write

îyelenein - he/she/it writes

etc.

Note: This verb is not irregular. As you might have noticed, it starts with a vowel. Unless it is an "ae" (without any diatrix or macron), vowels barely go together. One exception is the "-ein" found at the end of a present-tense conjugated verb. It is simply pronounced "-in".


 * Two of the same vowels cannot go together, unless one of the has an umlaut, and that too is very rare. Therefore, the first-person-singular present-tense requires an apostrophe after the first letter, because two "e"s cannot go together and none of them have the umlaut. It is a common rule that if the first-person takes on an apostrophe, so does the second person. In the third person, îyelenein is just one of those morphing words; when one says "ie" (separating both vowels; sounds like ee-eh) quickly, a natural "y" sound appears between the vowels, which is why it is spelled like that. The same concept applies with the plural.

Past: (I wrote, you wrote, he/she/it wrote, etc.) - Rule: Change "-en" to "-os" and conjugate with the same precedents. Note: There is no difference between the past and the past progressive, although Azar is known to sometimes have used the correct past-tense form of "to be" with the present participle of the main verb.

Future: (I will write, you will write, he/she/it will write, etc.) - Rule: Change "-en" to "-kos" and conjugate with the same precedents.

Passive Present: (I am written, you are written, he/she/it is written, etc.) - Rule: Place a "t-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" does not change.

Passive Past: (I was written, you were written, he/she/it was written, etc.) - Rule: Place a "t-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. Change "-en" to "-os".

Present Perfect Simple: (I have written, you have written, he/she/it has written, etc.) - Rule: Place an "r-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" does not change.

Past Perfect Simple: (I had written, you had written, he/she/it had written, etc.) - Rule: Place an "r-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" changes to "-os".

Present Perfect Progressive: (I have been writing, etc.) - Rule: Place an "m-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" does not change.

Past Perfect Progressive: (I had been writing, etc.) - Rule: Place an "m-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" changes to "-os".

Future Progressive: (I will be writing, etc.) - Rule: Place a "d-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" does not change.

Future Simple: (I will have written, etc.) - Rule: Place a "d-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. Change "-en" to "-os".

Future II Progressive: (I will have been writing, etc.) - Rule: Place a "d-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" changes to "-ein".

Conditional: (I would write, you would write, etc.) - Rule: Place a "pr-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" does not change.

Conditional Progressive: (I would be writing, etc.) - Rule: Place a "pr-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" changes to "-ein".

Conditional Simple: (I would have written, etc.) - Rule: Place a "pr-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" changes to "-os".

Conditional II Progressive: (I would have been writing, etc.) - Rule: Place a "pr-" as a prefix to the precedents of the verb. "-en" changes to "-o".

Imperative: The verb does not take on any precedents. Change the "-en" to "-ein".

Present Participle: Change "-en" to "-kós". There are no precedents for this tense.

Past Participle: Change "-en" to "-kosos".

Gerund: There is no "gerund" in Old Elvish. Simply use the infinitive of the gerundive verb.

There are 2 special tenses in Old Elvish, call the "Conjunctive Simple" and the "Negative Simple".


 * Just like prepositions, conjunctions and relative pronouns come directly after the whole clause they modifiy.


 * Because some clauses can get pretty long, the elves used the Conjunctive Simple on the verbs in the clause. The Conjunctive Simple is formed by adding an "s-" as a prefix to the precedent of the verb.


 * There is no word for "no" in Old Elvish. Therefore, in order to express negativity, one must place an "n-" as a prefix to the precedent of the verb.

Example text
The following is a tribute to the late Robert Jordan.

"Wash the spears, while the sun climbs high.

Wash the spears, while the sun climbs high.

Wash the spears, while the sun sinks low,

Wash the spears, who fears to die?

Wash the spears, I know none!"

Sendesê deurein sîyardein atol lerus it

Sendesê deurein sîyardein atol lerus it 

Sendesê deurein sîyonein atui lerus it 

Sendesê deurein ial chaelenas îyenorein?

Sendesê deurein delalas êtarein!

The following is a dissection of this short passage:

sende: spear - deuren: to wash - arden: to wash - atol: high - lerus: sun - it: while - onen: fall - atui: low - ial: who - chaelen: to die, death - enoren: to fear - delal: no one - taren: to know

Note: Please note the Conjunctive Case in the first three lines, and how it - meaning "while" - is placed at the end of its governing clause. Also notice the morphology of the "y" in both the third and fourth lines.

Please visit http://conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Elvish_Challenge for more fun with this language!

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