Elvish

Classification and Dialects
Elvish, being just the human name for the language, is a complex, but relatively simple to learn language with few irregularities, all of which are predictable. The Elvish language is spoken on Caelyn Dar, a continent named by the dwarves.

Elvish comes in 4 dialects; traditional, eastern, western, and southern

the traditional dialect is used during Elvish festivals, religious ceremonies, and legal documents, it is the oldest dialect, but fell out of practical use as a vernacular

The eastern dialect is the second oldest, spoken mostly on the eastern side of Caelyn Dar ( /kælɪn dɑɹ/ ), which is mainly made up of wasteland. It was created when the elves went into hiding and created a second sun, as the original was weakened by the shroud they had magically placed around their planet. They made a mistake in the first casting, however, and what used to be many thousands of acres of forest burned, leaving cracked mud in its place. This was one of the factors that led into the War of Hwotlakistophr. The history of the lands of "Nibiru" and its relation with Earth's will be located on the Caelyn Dar wiki page.

Elvish has multiple native names, all of which will be in the lexicon.

Consonants
consonants vary by dialect, all are listed, but none of the dialects use them all.

Vowels
vowels started complex with the traditional dialect and simplified over time, shifting from change in value to change in length. All vowels, including traditional ones are shown below. None of the Elvish languages use all of them.

Phonotactics
Exists, but varies by dialect, each having predictable and regular phonotactics.

Nouns
Nouns are declined by case, number, definiteness, and gender. Traditional Elvish will be used for example purposes only, with the lexicons being touched on later.

Case:

in Elvish, there are the following cases:

_______________

nominative        denotes subject position

accusative         denotes object position

genitive             denotes ownership

possessive        denotes contents or makeup

allative                denotes movement away

ablative               denotes movement to

locative                denotes location, like "at" in English

instrumental       denotes the use of an object or tool as aid in an action

comitative            denotes the use of a companion or ally as aid in an action

_______________

When declining nouns in traditional Elvish, roots are used "improperly", the roots are placed as a prefix rather than a different word.

The nominative case does not have a root, it is the default form of a noun

The accusative case has the root "ä" ( /ɑ/ ), which means "to, for"

The genitive case has the root "n"( /n̩/) which means "of, 's"

The possessive case has the root "ṿa" ( /βa/ ) which means "made of, containing"

The allative case has the root "la" which means "to, toward, into, through"

The ablative case has the root "lo" which means "away, from"

The locative case has the root "le" meaning "at, on, in, under, near"

The instrumental case has the root "þo" ( /θo/ ) meaning "with (inanimate object)"

The comitative case has the root "þa" ( /θa/ ) meaning "with (animate object)"

Number:

Elvish has three numbers; singular, dual, and plural.

singular is left unmarked, but dual and plural is marked directly in front of the word (not like a prefix though) using the following:

dual: ṿa ( /βa/ )

plural: ri ( /ɾi/ )

 Definiteness: 

Elvish has 2 particles for the English equivalents "a" and "the". They are mostly optional, but used when necessary

ba: used when the thing in question is generic

än: used when the thing in question is specific

 Gender: 

Gender is strange in the traditional dialect, as it is the only Elvish dialect that marks gender using a vowel infix (all roots have a spot with a capital V, which is where this infix is appended). There are 5 grammatical genders, each given it's own infix.

feminine: ä (/ɑ/)

masculine: ö (/ɔ/)

animate: a

inanimate: o

irregular: e

for better understanding, I give an example using the root kadVk

kadVk is a root denoting words related to rocks in some way, shape or form, each gender gives the root a more specific meaning

kadäk denotes "stone mason (f.)"

kadök denotes "stone mason (m.)"

kadak denotes "crab"

kadok denotes "rock"

kadek denotes "stone mason (no gender)"

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Verbs

In traditional Elvish at least, conjugation of verbs may seem difficult at first. When being conjugated for voice, mood, person, number, tense, AND aspect, this is an understandable first impression. When looking into the method by which all 6 are encoded into verbs, it looks almost mindbogglingly simple, though verb conjugation is still the most difficult aspect in traditional Elvish to learn.

 Voice: 

Voice is encoded by the presence or absence of the Elvish verb un- ("to be") merged with the main verb.

Passive voice is marked with un-, active voice is not

 Mood: 

there are 4 moods in traditional Elvish; imperative, negative imperative, optative, and interrogative. Each one is marked using a different particle.

Imperative: a

negative imperative: va

optative: na

interrogative: an

Person:

Unlike English, Elvish makes no real distinction between the 3rd person pronouns he, she, they, it, etc. (this is a form of politeness that has been retained in all dialects). Use of person is straight forward, with the first form appended as a particle before the verb, and the second form after tense or other person marker for transitive verbs (to spare anyone a search in the rare event one is needed, a transitive verb is any verb that denotes an action being done by one person or thing, to another person or thing).

1st: nan, -n-

2nd: nas, -s-

3rd: nar, -r-

Number:

verbs are marked for number, which is appended to the person particles only. Verbs are marked for either singular or plural, not dual (which is marked as if it were plural). Context is received through gesturing toward anyone who is addressed who is a part of the conversation (another form of politeness that is present in all dialects.)

singular: -e

plural: -ë ( /e/ )

Tense:

tense is relatively easy to memorize with only past, present, future, and aorist. 3 of the tenses have reasonably logical roots (look back to noun case and translate the spatial relationships into temporal ones, see anything familiar?). The odd one out is aorist, and it may take some time to memorize, but shouldn't take too long.

past: -o

present: -e

future: -a

aorist: -è ( /ə/ )

Aspect:

For those who thought that that was all with the verbs, they probably just skipped right over the word ASPECT. Doesn't that word just roll off the tongue? Such a nice word, am I right?

Did I just hear someone boo back there? Come on! Language is language, who cares! You only live once, so the elves decided to stir some good ol' aspect into the mix (Much to the chagrin of many out there who despise it, along with mood for some reason.)

Lucky enough for the whiners out there, the elves kept it simple. Only 4 aspects exist.

perfect :      nothing happens, the tense remains the same, nothing changed and nothing appended.

imperfect:   the vowel changes to long form (o to ö, e to ë a to ä)

habitual:  -va is appended to the tense (it is basically a repeater of the verb by adding the particle for "re-, again")

Note that aorist verbs have no aspect. This is because the elvish version of aorist is the one meaning "non-temporal". a rather clunky example of what this would look like in English is "to play is fun", notice that the verb is in the basic form "to play", it has no place in time attached to it, so it can't have aspect (or at least for sake of argument, assume this means it can't).

Syntax
Finally, we have come to the end of the lecture. You can end it off with the classic fade out of syntax:

S-V-O

adjectives are listed after the noun that they modify, unlike in English.

stress is placed on the penultimate syllable, or if a particle or word has only one syllable, that syllable is stressed.

All done, unless you would like to do some practice, in that case I have some practice below on grammar and syntax.

Otherwise, enjoy the well earned lexicon, I will be updating it regularly as I learn each dialect.

Na meryävasë än ro

may you love the days forevermore.