Tek Riafa

Setting
Tek Riafa is a fan dialect for Hymmnos/Ar Tonelico, but is also used in a modified way by the people of Ramaine. This page will deal primarily with the Hymmnos version, (though the core differences in the Ramaine version sill be covered.)

Pronuciation
A great deal of Tek Riafa is pronounced in a similar rhythm to japanese, but with an english range of consonants. In other words, words tend to be broken quite sharply into sylables.

Vowels
When used in an emotion word, the vowel sounds are as follows:

Y can be treated as either a vowel or a consonant.

Outside of emotion sounds, for the most part things are similar but there are occasional exceptions:

When followed by a consonant, i is often pronouced ɪ as in 'six'.

With only a few exeptions, adjacent vowels are treated as seperate sylables. Eg: 'Hear' would be pronouced 'heh-ar' rather than 'heer'.

At the end of words, o is often pronounced as əʊ, as in 'no'.

Consonants
C is always soft, G is always hard. J is generally hard.

At the beginning of words, X is pronounced the same as Z, otherwise is is used as in 'six'. eg: 'xix' would be said 'zix'. When placed next to a number or symbol, it is pronouced 'ku' (see below).

When Y follows another consonant, they flow quickly together, so 'dya' would be pronouced very similiarly to 'ja'.

Merged sounds
When followed by a noun, 'Ci' is occasionally shifted into a 'sh'. This is most often seen in pronouns such as 'cienna' (us)', which can be said either as 'see-eh-na' or 'sheh-na' depending upon speed/rhythm.

At the end of words, 'ae' is often merged to may an a sound as in 'hay'. eg: Sukae (soul) would be said 'soo-kay'.

Symbols
In the Hymmnos variant, these are generally the same as in Hymmnos. The Ramaine dialect does not use symbols for the most part.

//, = and : are ignored. Words joined by _ or. are spoken as if there is a space between them.

Letter Significance
While these do not apply completely across the board, certain letters or letter combinations have implications they add to the word they're put into

The letter 'i' is one of the most used, and tends to carry a sense of importance, power, size or signifcance. These are often inserted into the middle of words for emphisis or praise (the most key use being in the pronouns to make the formal tenses). 'Y' can carry a similar sense, but tends to be more relaxed. It is less common but seems to have arisen from the words becoming slurred over time.

The letter 'i' as significant also comes into play where Tek Riafa forms nouns from verbs for those involved in the verb ('one who x', 'one who is x') as when prefixed with an i, the meaning is shifted to imply this is their only purpose: 'adorran' being 'singer' and 'iadorran' being 'one who's sole purpose is to sing'. (This method of forming nouns from verbs will be covered in more detail later.)

You also use 'i' to create the plural forms of nouns (which is done by doubling the last sound and adding i if it ends in a consonant, or si if it ends in a vowel).

Anything prefixed with a x- sound tends to be a negative or a reversal of something.

Emotion Language
An emotion word can be easily identified by the fact it ends in //

They are effectively a matrix, and formed of a number of stages, and consequently able to express complex concepts in a very short period of time.

Stage 1- Emotion
This step contains one or two concepts. They can be split into 2 types: The first, if included, is written as a vowel and contains a general tone. They rarely appear on their own. The second type is more specific and is written as either a single consonant or a collection that makes a particular sound. One special stage one element is xix-, which reverses the meaning of the rest of stage 1.

Stage 2- Intensity/Attitude
Another 2 part step. The optional first part expresses what the singer feels about the emotion:

The second part is essential and expresses the strength of the feeling

Stage 3- Subject/Subject Modifier
These can be layered up quite a way, but generally it's best to make sure it's something pronounceable. r and ch behave differently if there is an r or l in stage two— they will refer to how soon you want the feeling to be fulfilled/end. If you need them twice (you want something to be fulfilled quickly, but only be short lived, you would use a y as well (this is optional if there is no l or r in stage 2.)

Examples
ary// deeply, actively determined (ah-rye)

ikien// more than anything else, helplessly afraid of you (ee-kee-en)

xixunaotz// Not lovingly accepting the death of everything (zix-u-nah-ots)

General Grammar
The majority of Tek Riafa sentences are in SVO form, and for anything not in simple present tense, with a tense code formed much in the same way as the emotion words appended to the front.

Tenses
A tense code can be recognised in the Hymmnos version of the language by its ending in '://'. They are made up of up 3 components, arranged in various orders. The three elements signify the time being spoken about, the permenance/duration of it and finally the nature of the statement, which included commands, potential and obligation. Often this last type is the first to appear in the tense code.

Time Tense Elements
a- always have e- never before o- past i- future (blank)-now

Duraration Tense Elements
ki- This state will continue forever ka- This state will not continue beyond the now ko- This state has ceased in the past (blank)- This state goes on an unspecified time

Note: These refer to the time tense elements in their meaning, particularly with a- and e-. In otherwords, while 'aki://' means 'Always have and always will', 'eki://' means 'Never have and never will'.

Statement Type Tense Elements
rha- order/request

xarha - forbidding

tra- would/conditional

xatra - would not

twef - want/desirative

xatwef - do not want

shra- might

dan - possible

xadan - impossible

din - required/must

xadin - not required

(blank) - simple statement

Examples
cer.adorra (You sing)

o://cer.adorra (You sang)

ka://cer.adorra (You won't sing any more)

ko://cer.adorra (You stopped singing before now)

eki://cer.adorra (You never sang before and you still won't.)

eka://cer.adorra (You never sang before but now you will)

rhaki://cer.adorra (keep singing!)

adin://cer.adorra (You have always been required to sing)

dani://cer.adorra (You can sing in the future)

Passive and reflexive statements
These are rendered by using a 're:' for passive statments or a 'me:' for reflexive, placed before the pronoun but after the tense code (if there is one)

eg:

cen.alidya (I help)

re:cen.alidya (I am helped)

me:cen.alidya (I help myself)

aki://me:cen.alidya (I have always helped my self and I will continue to do so)

It should be noted that some verbs are effectively already passive or reflexive when translated, particularly in 'state' words. This will be covered in more detail later.

Pronouns
Tek Riafa pronouns have both a 'formal' and 'informal' case, though this refers more to power, importace and significance to the speaker rather than to social status. Whether they are subject or object is infered from word order.

There is also a form for places, which translates a little differently:

Cel (Here)

Cella (All around here)

Ciel (The World)

Ciella (Absolutely everywhere)

Which gender of 3rd person pronoun you use for a particular word can vary: There is a hirachy of things to decide which should be used. In order of imporance, it goes:

1) The actual gender of the thing in question. e.g. a girl would take 'ces' or 'cies'.

2) If there is a strong mood you wish to invoke by it, inanimate objects may be personified with a gender.

3) The gender of the owner of the thing in question. e.g. a book belonging to a boy would take 'cet', but if it belonged to a girl it would take 'ces'.

4) If known, the creator of the object's gender.

5) If none of the above are applicable, it will take the neuter 3rd person.

Possessives
There are a number of ways to form a possessive.

The Hymmnos only way is to join the words with a '_' such as 'cen_adra' (my song). The owner preceeds the thing owned.

In a similar format, when the owner is expressed with a pronoun, you can omit the _, but swap the 'e' in the pronoun for an 'a', e.g. 'can adra' (my song).

You can also use the words 'ar' and 'aro' to express ownership, placed between the two words. With ar, the first word owns the second, with aro the first word belongs to the second, i.e.:

Cesren ar rion (girl's star)

Cesren aro rion (girl belonging to star)

Using a possessive with a verb transforms it into a gerund, in other words 'nouning' it, e.g.

Cer adorra (You sing)

Car adorra (Your singing)

Fomality
Used on it's own, the informal case is neutral, however if a formal pronoun or article is used in the same statement as an informal, it strongly implies the informal is either worth less, weaker, subjegated or somehow inferior to the formal. ie:

Cen enviyaci car logia (I witness your actions)

Cen enviyaci ciar logia (I witness your actions, precious one)(More accurately/literally, 'unimportant me witnesses the actions of precious you')

Cien enviyaci car logia (I witness your actions, worthless one)(More accurately/literally, 'Precious me witnesses the actions of unimportant you')

Insult Case
There is also a much less common pair of cases which are actively insulting and regarded as rather course and unsubtle, reserved for objects of utmost contempt and where appropriate, implies that the speaker has set themselves in opposition to the thing in question and intends to fight. It is formed by replacing the 'c-' with 'zux-'. This can be used 'formally' or 'informally', the informal implying general hate and worthlessness, and the formal implying a personal significance to the hatred. These can be translated as colourfully and obscenely as you like, but a clean example for clarity's sake could be:

Zuxer! (You worthless peice of trash, you're going down!) 

Zuxier! (You worthless peice of trash, you're the bane of my existance, bring it on!)

Articles
Articles may be omitted in Tek Riafa, and simply infered by context. However, they do exist and carry an implication of how common the thing in question is, as well as the formality level, and are often used to voice the tone from a pronoun with a noun. They may be used with both nouns and propper nouns, and with a verb it creates a gerund in the same way using a possessive will.

Articles are formed using an appropriate pronoun, prefixed with a letter. The prefix meanings are as follows:

i - The/THIS ONE HERE, with an added implication of that thing being absolutely unique. y - (said 'ay') The/THIS ONE HERE (no article at all) - Inferred from context, no feelings given a - a/some of something not that common, or where not many are relevant to the situation u - a/some of something quite common e - one of something incredibly common

Examples:

Can iciet fillyasur (My unique and precious beloved)

Ycies cesren (This important girl)

Acied avirenje en yced kajo (A precious little bird in the cage, of the few we're talking about)

Ucied falfolin (A precious flower, one of the various flowers there are)

Ecedda falfolinini (Some common flowers, out of the many other flowers)

Icies Asterikos (Asterikos and nobody else, precious and unique)

Word Types
In general, the borders between nouns, verbs and adjectives are often a little blurry in Tek Riafa, and there are various ways of transforming words from one type to another.

State Words
A number of words in Tek Riafa are flexible as to whether they are a verb, noun or adjective. These words are refered to as states and include things such as 'nefesti' (manifested), 'logia' (action), 'tensei' (intent or plan), 'wendan' (change), 'takya' (taken) and 'xatae' (lacked). Their exact translation varies depending on how they are used.

As well as being able to be used as nouns, all state words can be used as verbs, translating roughly in for form of 'be in the state of ', though this may not always make grammatical sense in english. Such verbs might not always make sense for a person to perform. eg:

Cen.wendan ('I change' or more directly 'I am in the state of change')

Can_tensei.logia ('My plan is in action' or 'my plan is in the state of action')

A state word (and indeed almost all verbs) may also be prefixed with 'en', changing the meaning into 'Put into a state of '. eg:

Cen.takya ('I am taken')

Cen.entakya ('I take')

It should be noted that while in a lot of cases the base and en form may be translated as passive and active forms of a verb, the meanings are not always exactly so. The en- form may be used with the passive modifier, and when this is done there is the explicity implication that the the subject has been put into the state by somebody else, which is not neccisarily the case simply by using the base state word. eg:

Cen.wendan ('I change/I am in a state of change')

Cen.enwendan ('I change something/I put something into a state of change')

Re:cen.enwendan ('I am changed/I am put into a state of change')

Me:cen.enwendan ('I change myself/I put myself into a state of change')

Rha://cer.percea ('Be shown!/Be in a state of being shown!')

Rha://re:cer.enpercea ('Be shown!/Be put into a state of being shown!')

Rha://me:cer.entenira ('Show yourself!/Put yourself into a state of being shown')

Compared to the 're:' version, a base state word effectively comes somewhere between the passive and reflexive, and in some cases can subtly imply a degree of complicity or the subject actively placing themselves in the state compared to the 're: + en' form where all agency has been removed from them (rather than the more obvious implication by using the reflexive form). In other words, the 'passive/reflexive + en' forms explicitly state the subject's part in entering the state, whereas the base state verb keeps it open.

'Verbing' adjectives
Prefixing 'en' may be done to a great deal of words, where the resulting meaning makes sense. In particular, most adjectives can be used like this, rendering as a verb meaning 'Cause to be '. To get something meaning simply 'To be ' you would either preceed it by the word 'es' (which exclusively used for verbing things), or use one of the 'to be' verbs such as 'is', 'dya' or 'idya'. eg:

Cen.froi ('cold me')

Cen.enfroi ('I make something cold')

Re:cen.enfroi ('I am made cold')

Cen es froi ('I'm cold')

Cen.is froi ('I'm cold')

Cen.dya froi ('I am being cold')

Cen.idya froi ('I am made to be cold/I am made into cold')

Nouns from Verbs and Adjectives
As well as transforming a verb into a noun using an article, we can also form nouns for the things involved in that action, or indeed in an adjective. This is done by suffixing -n (where the word ends with a vowel, -un where it ends with a consonant), -na, -nu, -ne or -nae.

How these translate can vary from word to word, and not all of them can be used in every case, but in general:

-n/-un is primarily used for the result, or thing/person used by the action, or if there is not one of these, for the recipient or target of the action. It can refer to any of these, unless -ne or -nae can also be used (see below).

-na is used for the instigator of the action.

-nu is used for the cause, or what the action is 'about'.

-ne is used when there is both a result and something/someone that is used in the process of the action (and these are separate things) to mean the thing/person used in the process.

-nae is used where there is a result and a recipient/target, and refers to the recipient/target of the action.

You can also prefix the word with an 'i' to add 'One who exists only as/for' to its meaning.

Examples:

Adorra ('To sing')

Adorran ('Song')

Adorrana ('Singer')

Iadorrana ('One who exists only to sing')

Adorranae ('One sung to')

Adorranu ('Thing that moves one to sing')'

Koimao ('To kill/silence')

Koimaon ('One killed/Silenced')

Koimaona ('Killer')

Ikoimaona ('One who exists only to kill')

Koimaone ('Method of killing')

Koimaonu ('Thing that moves one to kill')

Seolta ('Wise')

Seoltan ('Wisdom')

Seoltana ('Wise person')

Tenira ('Given (state)')

Teniran ('Something given')

Tenirana ('Something which gives')

Teniranae ('Something given to')

Tenirane ('Way of being given')

Teniranu ('What moves one to be given')