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THE ELVEN
TONGUE
("STYRÁSH") |
Styrásh, the
elven tongue
(also called or "Elvish"), is based on these described fundamental elements. It is melodious, harmonic and based completely on nature itself. Be aware that
human translations of
elven
words are very inaccurate because translations always tend to
express the philosophicial and mythical believes of the translating race.
PRONUNCIATION/GRAMMAR
MAIN
PRINCIPLES
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Example of written Styrásh text by Koldar Mondrakken. |
Styrásh grammar is based on Latin. This includes the complex forms of declinations, conjugations as well as special cases like the vocative or the ablative.
Nouns which are put together to form a new word are separated by an apostrophe (e.g. in ánci'thyrón meaning "the sea which is being silent", the mark is separating the two words "being silent" and "sea" - the appearance of the mark varies at different elven people).
The german pronunciation scheme is the main basis for the construction of elven pronunciation. However, there are different elven tribes which have different pronunciations.
The letter è is pronounced as ö (as in german "öffnen") or as oe (as in French "oeuvre").
The last syllable of an elven word is stressed always (e.g. carpa'dosía), except two vowels meet in the last two syllables. In this case the last but one syllable is stressed (e.g. pharáia).
If words are put together the first and the last syllables are stressed (e.g. in the word móhcin'thyrón meaning the "the black(ish) sea").
The elven language has two genders: feminine and masculine, the characteristic existential nature of a certain thing discerns its grammatical gender. In general the feminine gender is associated with the vowels A, I and the masculine gender with the vowels O and U.
There are no unpersonal subjects in the elven language (it, man). So if an elf wants to express that it's raining he'd say (translated) "the sky gives water" or if it's dark he'd say "the sky negates color".
Very often elves speak in community-terms, replacing I (iú) with we (iuí). This is no majestetic plural (as human kings tend to speak) but a plural of community, expressing commonly shared feelings between the elves.
It is very typical that elven nouns are put together from two or more words, in this way expressing a philosophical or mythological issue (for example the word ó'krói means "world" in the human tongue but would be translated literally "everlasting war").
The acting word in a sentence dominates the sentence. You begin with the acting word and add the acting person(s) after the acting word (phará qué, meaning "you are travelling") or at the end of the sentence (this is because the subject is the least relevant thing due to the tight relation between the elves and nature), e.g. in the sentence: Pharanté es sá móchcin'lón énh styrín (translated: "The elves travel into the dark forest").
Elves don't know ideas in the human sense, abstraction is something strange to the elven race. An example: Altough their language posesses its own word to describe beautiful things (aváth) this is a word always implying the conrete beauty of things. The human word "beauty" and all theoretical consequences deriving from it cannot be understand directly by elves. This is the reason why they speak of "ésh-aváth" (the "false" aváth) when refering to a human abstract expression of beautiful things.
An H following a vowel is spoken as
aspirate CH (e.g. áh meaning
"in front of"). There are some special rules too where H is spoken as aspirate
CH standing in front of a vowel (e.g. in pharanhé meaning "they travel").
The ending of the past participle is completely omitted at joined nouns if the main word represents a verb used as a noun. This is a fact mainly constituted by the speaking development of the elven language ensuring its fluency (e.g. in hárf'a'chón meaning "he, who is touched by ourselves" the past participle harfanché is cut to hárf only). Be aware that this rule does in no way affect present participles("he, who is being touched by us" would be translated with hárfi'a'chón).
Joined words (single
words which contain multiple separate words) are constructed using the following rules:
a) Using the present participle, the participle begins the word (e.g. in
ánci'thyrón meaning "the sea which is being silent"). The reason for this is
that the action still takes places, therefore the acting word has to dominate the word
(see rules above).
b) Using the past participle, the main noun begins the joined word (e.g. in
cál'arthanté meaning "blessed land"). In this case the action is already over
or not that prevailing as the main noun itself.
There's an important exception to this rule: If the acting word is used as a noun or the
actor still represents this action, the acting/actor-word is set on the first place (e.g.
in the word hárf'a'chón meaning "he, who is being touched by us").
c) Using no acting word, e.g. if the joined word consists of two nouns
or of one noun combined with a preposition, the main noun is preferable positioned at the
end of the word, being the assumed least relevant part of the word (e.g. in hál'sis'cáey
meaning "more mountain than two" or in géf'fóld meaning "village lying at
a (geographical) fork").
d) Exceptions to
these rules. In certain cases the succession of the words
in a joined word doesn't match the rules above. Very often the joined word is used as a
word of its own (e.g. in names as nýermersýs meaning "the town of two battles"
or in commonly used words as marín meaning "lake").
If a declination or a conjugation of a word would produce a doubled vowel at the ending one of the vowels is omitted (e.g. the ablativ plural of carpá, meaning "beginning", would result in carpáa, but is transformed to carpá only). To discern the such generated ablativ from the nominativ grammar prescribes to mark this omission with a special sign (an X instead of the pronunciation mark, unfortunately missing on this keyboard - sorry), but in fact only human philologists follow this rule exactly.
Typical endings of nouns
Masculine endings:
-aém, -aér,
-aín, -ál, -ála, -ásh, -én, -ér, -és, -éth, -éy, -íc, -íl, -ím, -ín,
-ír, -óc, -óg, -ól, -ón, -ór, ós
Feminine
endings:
-á, -ách, -aí, -áj,
-án, -aó, -ár,
-ás, -áz, -áth, -éf, -él, -erá, -eró, -eú, -euá, -ía, -iár, -ly, -só, -thán,
-uá, -ýr
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