Circular Gallifreyan

Introduction

Gallifreyan is the language spoken by the Time Lords of Gallifrey from the British TV show Doctor Who.

The Time Lords are a time-aware species capable of traveling through time and space who have taken upon themselves to protect the Web of Time from other time traveling species.

This is a fan created language made for the fans without any intention to be legally bound or profiting from it.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-Dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Labio-Velar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m			n		[ɳ]1	ɲ		ŋ
Plosive	pʰ / b			t / tʰ / d					k / kʰ / kʲ / g		ʔ 2
Fricative		v	θ	s / z	ʃ / ʒ		ç		x / ɣ	[χ]3	h
Affricate				t͡s	t͡ʃ / d͡ʒ				k͡x
Lateral approximant				l			[ʎ]4
Approximant				[ɹ]5			j	w
Thrill	[ʙ]6			r							h͡r 9
Implosive	[ɓ]7								[ɠ]8

1. a) Only between or before vowels. b) For cases markers.
2. Only between or before consonants
3. Used when b is before any vowel at the beginning of a word, allophone of /b/

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i / y				u
Near-close		ɪ / [ʏ]1		[ʊ]2
Close-mid	e / [ø]3				ɤ / o
Mid			[ə]4
Open-mid	ɛ				[ɔ]5
Near-open	[æ]6
Open	a				ɑ7

Epenthesis

Epenthetic vowels are a common occurrence in Gallifreyan. Each vowel has its own rule for epenthesis:

• [e]

     - between consonants + θ, ç, ʃ, ʒ
     - after final d͡ʒ or t͡ʃ 
     - after orthographic i between v, θ, s, z, ʃ, x

• [a]

     - after [t] if next vowel syllable has [e] if not then [e]

• [ɑ]

     - before kr + consonant - 
     - after final j

• [o]

     - If word begins with tr + consonant add o after tr

• [ə]

     - after words ending with ts, b, θ, v, k͡x, g preceded by consonants
     - before l preceded by consonant (if not in final position)

Some words might experience irregular occurrences of epenthetic vowels.

Elision

[ə] at the end of a word is dropped when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. [n] and [ɲ] are also elided when they begin intervocalic consonant clusters.

Consonant Mutation

Gallifreyan takes a lot from the Welsh and Gaelic consonant mutation ruleset, and, as the Celtic languages, the mutation is mostly initial in Modern Gallifreyan except in some archaic words that still play by the Old High Gallifreyan agglutinative system. This exceptions are mostly rare and are commonly dropped in casual speech. Gallifreyan has three mutations which are only phonetical and not represented on writing.

Standard	1st Degree	2nd Degree	3rd Degree	English
porʏm	borʏm	vorʏm		cable
tod͡ʒeθiesk	dod͡ʒeθiesk	θod͡ʒeθiesk		mouth
kɒmor	gamor	xamor		child
t͡siria		ziria		aunt
t͡ʃoupri	d͡ʒoupri			elbow
xejuvχan	ɣejuvχan			ask
ɲad͡ʒe	ɳad͡ʒe			fish
brialenk			ɓrialenk	cage
goneθ			ɠoneθ	sun

1st Degree Mutation

The general rule is that voiceless consonants become voiced or disappear entirely. The only exception is the nasal phoneme [ɲ] that becomes [ɳ]. This devoicing mutation is common when any word is next to any of the following situations:

• Nature or People class singular nouns with the article "due" or the word for one.
• Quality nouns accompanied by a quantifier.
• Momentary quality nouns used with nature or people class singular nouns.
• Words following spatial prepositions.
• Nouns following the number two
• Nouns after the 2nd and 3rd singular possessives.
• The second or third element of compound words.
• Verbs with aspect markers.
• Verbs in the negative form.

2nd Degree Mutation

Voiceless stops and the affricate [t͡s] become fricatives. This mutation happens in any of the following scenarios:

• After the conjunction "and".
• After any of the "with" prepositions.
• Singular nouns of the Space class after the number three.

3rd Degree Mutation

• after consonant ending prepositions.
• after consonant ending pronouns or possessives.

Prosthesis

Modern Gallifreyan has two forms of prosthesis:

r-

[r] is added if a word begins with a vowel after the 3rd singular and all plural possessives. Also for concepts about time after the preposition "in".

u-

The vowel [u] is added before words beginning with voiced fricatives [s] and [ʃ] when followed by another consonant.

skegletorah (language) — [uskegletorah]

Orthography

Circular Gallifreyan is mostly written in a series of interlocking circles. Each word is composed of other circles and a sentence is encapsulated by a yet bigger circle. A word is written inside a word denoter and each word goes inside a sentence paradigm, which will be explained later on.

Consonants

They are classified by consonant bases and then sub-divided by consonant add-ons.

On the following table we have to the right the bases and on the top the add-ons. The straight line under the base symbols represents the word denoter and its relation with the bases:

	m	b		t	d	p
	n		ŋ			ɲ
	k			w	g	pʰ	tʰ	kʰ
	r	x	ɣ	ç	h͡r
	ʃ			l	ʒ
	s	z	t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ	t͡s
	v			θ
	h	kʲ		k͡x	j
		ʔ

Vowels

They are as well classified by a base called dot bases and these divided by directional lines. Each vowel is written along the consonant that comes before. If the word starts with a vowel or there are no consonants before the vowel is placed on the word denoter instead. On the table, the right column represents the dot bases and the top arrows the directional lines. The semi-circles on the right symbolize the consonant bases.

Romanization

Latin Alphabet

m

n

ñ

ń

p

ph

b

t

th

d

k

kh

kj

g

'

v

f

s

z

ś

ź

ç

x

y

h

ts

tś

dź

kx

l

j

w

r

hr

IPA

m

n

ɲ

ŋ

p

pʰ

b

t

tʰ

d

k

kʰ

kʲ

g

ʔ/χ

v

θ

s

z

ʃ

ʒ

ç

x

ɣ

h

t͡s

t͡ʃ

d͡ʒ

k͡x

l

j

w

r

h͡r

Morphology

Nouns

Noun Classes

Nouns are classified into 5 different classes:

• Time: all nouns referring to telling time and time travel, even compound words like “time machine”. Examples: day, hour, spans, season, TARDIS, time travel, time vortex, Time Lord.

• Space: all nouns referring to space and planet names except for Gallifrey. Examples: planet, orbit, universe, stars, sun, Sol III, chaos.

• Gallifrey: everything that's related to the planet Gallifrey or its culture, time lord's titles, names of Gallifreyan cities or natural wonders; plants, animals and minerals native to Gallifrey. Examples: Gallifrey, language, Gallifreyan, The Doctor, Lord President, The Master, white point star diamond, The Capitol, Prydonian Academy, Mount Cadon.

• People: parts of the body, objects only created by humanoid hands, meals, proper names, clothes, emotions. Example: speech, word, war, peace, love, heart, foot, chair, Romana, soup.

• Nature: plants, animals, earth formations. Examples: water, woprat, balance, mountain, sand, rose.

Natural Gender

All nouns are gender neutral (no masculine or feminine) in their original form but in the case one wants to mark the specific gender of a being or object there are two different pairs of particles that could be used.

kz – kl could be added after a noun to identify if something is feminine or masculine respectively.

'hu (feminine) – 'ha (masculine) on the other hand, are only used with family and relationships related nouns. For example: The word “bandfro” [band.θro] means parent but if we add the feminine particle 'hu it becomes mother = bandfro'hu [band.θrou]

Plurals

Plurality in nouns is expressed in different manners. One thing is certain though, there are 5 suffixes that always be added to the end of the noun when pluralizing, one for each noun class: f (time), r (space), g (gallifrey), l (people) and ń (nature).

To indicate the exact quantity is necessary to use “Numerical Particles”, otherwise, the pluralized noun's meaning is ambiguous. Note that not adding a numerical particle is totally acceptable (but mostly frowned upon among the upper class).

Numerical Particles

Below is the list of the numerical particles with their respective pronunciation and meaning.

• wersmontn [wers.mon.tn̩] – a pair of the same thing
• çortéf [çor.tɛθ] – a pair of different things
• yatn [ɣɑ.tn̩] – three of the same thing
• sumntri [su.mn̩.tri] – three of different things
• diprathon [di.pra.tʰon] – a group of/a set of/several
• kalñū [kal.ɲjʊ] – a group of different/a set of differing
• ikporr [ik.porː] – a chain of/a line of
• trnźo [tron.ʒo] – a chain of different/a line of differing
• xertíhrns [xer.ty.hrɑ.ns̩] – a web of/a mass of
• volśbitś [volʃ.biʧ] – a web of different/a mass of different
• tśiskales [ʧi.skæ.les] – a chaotic/incoherent group or mass of (used when something is all wibley wobley)
• subźarm [sub.ʒarm] – absolutely no quantity of
• ñuikjrr [ɲui.kʲrː] – zero quantity of
• patoluhko [pa.to.luh.ko] – very few of
• çetyri [çet.ɣri] – few of
• al'ledîrh [alχ.led.ɪrh] – some/average quantity of
• soljyarzçi [sol.ʎarz.çi] – many of
• śarhothū [ʃar.ho.tʰjʊ] – very many of
• rhasisî'ta [re.ha.si.sɪʔ.ta] – all of
• tenforxa [ten.θor.xa] – absolutely/extremely all of
• tondiok [ton.diok] – almost impossible to determine amount of
• kjepk [kʲepk] – unknowable amount of
• ñunmrag [ɲu.nm̩.rag] – nowhere near the desired amount of
• zoalg [zoalg] – hard to pinpoint / hard to determine amount of
• dwefwenuin [dweθ.we.nuin.] – fluctuating / ever-changing amount of
• grotjo [grot.jo] – a single one *
• on [on] – a/an *

• These last two numerical particles are exceptions. They refer to a single quantity and therefore they don't need any of the 5 plural suffixes at the end of the noun.

Honorifics

Honorifics encode the relative social status of the participants of the conversation. In this case, they don't specifically express a higher status or politeness, but they mark animacy of the noun through the Universe's timeline, the one that never changes. There are 11 different honorifics in Skegletorahh'gallã.

• sgproid [usg.proid] – now living (optional)
• vlyproid [vleɣ.proid] – once living (optional)
• tźudproid [ʤud.proid] – never living (optional)
• gçkdproid [geθ.kad.proid] – will be living (optional)
• barfw [ʙa.reθ.wə] – parallel universe
• lélaefr [lɛ.lɔ.fr̩] – time lord
• gala [ga.lɑ] – gallifreyan
• trkja [tro.kʲa] – TARDIS
• brakp [brakp] – non-native
• tsrh [t͡sarh] – 4th person (disambiguation of the third person referents)
• rhsj' [rehs.ʎɑ] – universal reference (every single one of [...] in the universe)

Articles

In English there are two articles: the definite (the) and indefinite (a, an).

The definite article is rarely used in Skegletorahh'gallã. Only when referring to someone's title like “The Doctor” or “The Lord President”. The gallifreyan word for “the” is due [dʊ].

Indefinite articles, on the other hand, don't exist at all. But we already saw that there is in fact a word for a/an in Gallifreyan so, how does this work? Well, despite on having the same meaning as the indefinite article it is only used when answering a question about quantity or as emphasis in the case of grotjo. So, instead of saying on labeljyou (a house) you'll say simply labeljyou ([a] house).

Possession

Possession comes in 3 different flavours in Gallifreyan: Basic Possession, Indicative Possession and Complex Possession. The easiest way to understand them is with examples.

Basic Possession is pretty much what its name says, basic. It's composed of the preposition fagts [θagt͡s] (of) and a personal pronoun on its Indirect Object form.

• My book → fagts pawah vuranovi

Indicative Possession is exactly like Basic Possession except this one is used with demostrative pronouns and the suffixes 'heç [eç] for nouns ending in a vowel and 'ehç [ʔehçə] for nouns ending in consonants.

• This is my book → niat fagts pawah vuranovi'heç

Complex Possession is used when talking about an object owned by a third party generally not present. It's formed with the particle abo [abo] after the owned object.

• The mother's book → abo vuranovi bandfro'hu

It is also possible to mix all 3 in a sentence like the following example:

• This is my mother's book → niat abo vuranovi'heç fagts pawah bandfro'hu

Emotional Words

In the early days of the Skegletorahh'gallã language, Time Lords only expressed their feelings telepathically. With the invention of a writing system for, the until then, spoken language, they started coming up with words to describe the way they felt themselves and towards others. For a Time Lord, a feeling isn't just an emotion, it's a state of being. For example, instead of saying “I'm in love” they say “I'm love”. A more literal translation would be: “I am as the state of love”.

As a result, Time Lords don't use adjectives to say if they are sad or happy, they utilize these especial words called “emotional words”. These words used as adjectives of emotion are different than their noun counterparts. For example the word “anger” in its noun form is tsaptbri [ʦap.te.bri] but if you would like to say “I'm angry” then you should use the emotional word ńaafrík [ɳɑ.fryk], which also means “anger” in Gallifreyan. The difference is that the latest could only be used to say that one is angry and not to talk about anger itself. There's even a unique to be verb used for expressing emotions but that's a whole other story that will be discussed on the Verbs sections.

Adjectives & Adverbs

For most languages, adjectives and adverbs are two different grammatical classifications. In Gallifreyan, however, they are both a sub-category of nouns and are called Quality Nouns. A normal noun becomes a quality noun when it is used to express, as its name suggests, a particular quality of another noun. They are classified by Inherited and Momentary.

• Inherited Quality Nouns refer to a quality that's timeless and is not prone to change at any time. They are the equivalent of what we know as adjectives. Inherited QN are always the subject in a sentence and come right before the noun they modify. The later needs to change its class to agree with the QN. They also need the verb am (to exist) to make sense. Example:

dodagçaś eiminr am → Amy is beautiful (Lit. beauty exists [in] Amy)

“Beauty” is a nature noun so the name “Amy”, a people noun, changes its gender with the suffix nr. This also helps to identify the QN and head noun in more complex sentences.

• Momentary Quality Nouns refer to qualities that are just currently being exhibited. They could be interpreted as adverbs. Momentary QN come right before the noun they modify and are accompanied by the postposition nivh (with). Opposed to Inherited QN, Momentary ones change their own gender to agree with their head noun. Example:

vogh gulth frek nivh irgyu → he runs with quickness [right now/for now] – he runs quickly [right now/for now]

In this case, “quickness” and “he” share the same grammatical gender so there's no need to add a suffix.

Suffixes for gender agreement:

• Time: pr [pr̩]
• Space: tr [tr̩]
• Gallifrey: sr [sr̩]
• People: lr [lr̩]
• Nature: nr [nr̩]