Bright languages

Bright languages are constructed languages often intended to be aesthetically pleasing, predictable, and phonologically stable. Examples are the elvish languages from J R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.

Introduction

Bright Tongue vs Dark Tongue

• lack of gutturals vs lack of labials
• synthesis vs agglutination
• words don't repeat vs words repeat
• diphthongs allowed vs diphthongs forbidden
• only sonorants as coda vs anything as coda except sonorants
• constraints

The catch is that no Bright or Dark Tongue is fully understood. The former is far too complicated (though steady) to be learned by Men, while the latter is easily taught in vain, as its dialects change rapidly compared to a human's life span.

Dark tongues may access /ɥ/

K [associated with choking

P [associated with kissing

In Veno's Dark Tongue gog yoguguluk "the man speaks to me about them"

yo- "speak" + -gu- [first person] + -g- [epenthetic particle] +-ul- [third person] + -uk [generic person]

sebeze paddaen adres nirdasbar vs zhogodosh kaktatona atrosh nurtaskara

ídrā naiaris "I was bitten by a serpent", siverae aebidis "I was bitten by a mosquito" ...

nazil "flower", naevalla "sword"

belep (nom) bellī (pl) albā (col)
bel (acc) parabel (pl) ambī (col)
elbī (gen) il (pl) pasadarvā (col)
vs gog, gog-nagog
gogash, gog-nagogash
gogu, gog-nagogu

• Belep vs gog
• Balardemea vs kalaradunga

Vocabulary drawn from the Lovecraft Mythos, Tolkien's Legendarium ...

rleh "city", kthullu "god", galrog "demon", nazg "ring", gul "ghost", shug "goat", nugurath "black",

Laiberim Ungrauzuru Trizandir Naevalla

If without D-equilibrium:

• Language rich in consonants and no vowels
• Language rich in vowels and no consonants

• Language rich in intersegmentals and no metasegmentals