Elia Eōðora

Just for fun. Enchanted tongue is an inflected language partly inspired by Romanic languages, partly by Germanic languages, especially those who make up the North Germanic languages branch and descended from Norse.

=Phonology=

E.T. consists of 16 consonants, 5 vowels and 1 semi-vowel. More than two consonants/two vowels may not be put together.

A major part of E.T. words are based on the pattern (C)VCVCV or (C)VCVCVC(V). These often consist of more than one morpheme, since most root morphemes follow the pattern (C)VCV.

Consonants
Nasal: m, n, ng

Plosive: b, d, c, g, p, ph, t

Fricative: ç, ð, f, h, s, sh, th, v Affricate: ch, ts

Lateral approximant: l

Trill consonant: r

Clusters
In E.T. the maximal amount of consonants put together is 2. When adding a consonant-starting suffix to a word that ends with a consonant cluster, a thematic vowel (either e or i) must be used.

=Alphabet=

Vowels are: A, E, I, O, U

Consonants are: B, C, Ç, Ð, F, G, H, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, Y

(Note: Y is a semi-vowel, but counted among consonants since it's used only before vowels and pronounced [j])

A macron (ē) is placed above a vowel, indicating that the vowel is long.

An umlaut (ë) can be placed above the letter e or the letter o and slightly changes the pronunciation of the word. Unlike normal o, ö is to be pronounced [œ] and unlike normal e, ë is to be pronounced [æ]

=Basic grammar=

E.T. is a fusional language. It does therefore not have a fixed word order, although SVO and SOV are the most common ones.

Genders
E.T. has got two grammatical genders: common and neuter that together with its 3 declensions determine how E.T. nouns and adjectives are to be conjugated.

Cases
E.T. has got 4 different cases in each declension: nominative, genitive, accusative and ablative/dative.

Nominative
Nominative case marks the subject or predicative of a sentence.

Note: Words of the second and third declension ending with a consonant cluster make an exception in nominative plural. When adding a plural suffix of second declension to a word of such, the thematic vowel i must be used, and in third declension the thematic vowel e is used the same way.

Examples: Second decl. Semn, ray | n. Plural: Semnine, not semnne. Third decl. Cast, raven | c. Plural: Castete, not castte.

Genitive
Genitive case marks a noun as modifying another noun.

Note: Words of the second declension ending with a consonant cluster make an exception in genitive singular and plural. When adding a genitive suffix of second declension to a word of such, the thematic vowel i must be used.

Example: Ell, finger | c. Genitive: Ellin(en), not elln.

Accusative
Accusative case is used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb and for the objects of some prepositions, expressing direction.

Note: Words of the first declension that end with -e make an exception in accusative singular and should instead be conjugated -ē.

Exampel: Mane, morning | n. Accusative: manē, not maneē.

Words of the second declension ending with a consonant cluster make an exception in accusative singular and plural. When adding a accusative suffix of second declension to a word of such, the thematic vowel i must be used.

Exampel: Semn, ray | n. Accusative: Semnitem(ne), not semntem.

Ablative/Dative
In E.T. ablative case and dative case form a common pattern of conjugation and are considered the same case. Ablative case modifies nouns of place, time, manner etc. It is modified itself by certain prepositions expressing existence. Dative case is generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given.

Note: Words of the second declension ending with a consonant cluster make an exception in abl./dat. singular and plural. When adding a plural suffix of second declension to a word of such, the thematic vowel i must be used.

Exampel: Semn, ray | n. Accusative: Semnimē, not semnmē.

Nouns
All E.T. nouns can be conjugated into 3 different patterns, called declensions. There vary quite lot depending on the termination of the noun.

First declension
First declension is the most common declension in E.T. language. Regular common or neuter words that end with vocal are conjugated according to this following pattern:

Exampel: Ama, woman | c. Acina, mountain | n.

As you can see there is little difference between common and neuter cases in the first declension, they are only differently conjugated in accusative singular. Note aswell that there are no differences between accusative plural and abl./dat. plural in the first declension.

Second declension
Second declension is a pretty common declension in E.T. language and concerns nouns ending with l, n, m and diphthong. Regular nouns ending with these letters are conjugated according to this following pattern:

Exampel: Neu, child | c. Cal, tree | n.

In second declension, not unlike first, common and neuter endings are pretty simular. The only differences are the ones in the Abl./Dat. case where common uses ē while neuter uses ā.

Third declension
Third declension is the least common of all declensions. It concerns nouns ending with d, p, r, s and t. Regular nouns ending with these letters are conjugated according to this following pattern:

Exampel: Mer, man | c. Les, lake | n.

In third declension you can notice many differences between common and neuter conjugations. They are pretty simular, though, the difference between them is the vowel they mainly use. Common uses o as in merom and meroth while neuter uses e as in lesem and leseth.

Articles
E.T. has got both indefinite article and definite article.

Ne and na, corresponding to English a/an, are own words, and should be placed before the noun they're modifying. Definite -(e)na and -(a)n, on the other hand, are suffixes. If a word ends with a vowel or diphthong, -na/-n should be placed after the word. If the word ends with a consonant, -ena/-an should be placed after the word. The definite suffix can be placed after any case.

Examples: Ne mer, a man, Merena, the man. Na acina, a mountain, Acinanan, the mountain's.

Verbs
E.T. conjugates verbs based on person, number, tense, mood and voice. The conjugation has got six tenses: Present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, future perfect, two moods: indicative and imperative, and two voices: active voice and passive voice.

Conjugation
Eliade, to speak (from elia, tongue/speech)

Imperative
1st person Talk! Eliadar! 2nd person Talk! Eliadarin!

Future perfect
=Dictionary= ...

=Example text= ...