User:Juhhmi/Lordlang
Lordlang is a polysynthetic language used by the six Ancient Elemental Lords. They lack(ed) all ways for biological messaging (no mouth, nose, ears or eyes) and use(d) telepathic communication instead. The emotional part of their communicational transmissions as well as their use of elemental magic affect their skin color (different shades of gray from white to black), and it has been described as their way of raising voice or shouting intensively. Lords rarely use the native language of a listener as it requires a greater degree of mind-penetration and mental manipulation, which is impossible in common, non-magical environments, and they resort to simpler distortions in the auditory areas of a brain.
Parameters
The actual language was used telepathically so speaking of phonology is in vain. Originally, a hexagon script system was constructed to help humans focus on what they are receiving and to create a way of documenting and sharing messages. According to the archives on the Isle of Fire, if one is not familiar with the system, their brain will construct a personal experience, which is hard to grasp and remember. A person's mother tongue has also a great effect on how one defines the "sounds" thus giving monasteries a reason to raise children with Lordlang as their mother tongue to decipher Lords' speech with more certainty. The following romanization was developed later.
The syllabary parameters are classified in six classes with inspiration from Godlang:
- "Places": dental, alveolar, retroflex, palatal, velar, uvular
- "Manners": nasal, stop, fricative
- "Voices": lenis (voiced), tenuis (voiceless), fortis (aspirated voiceless)
- "Frontness": front, central, back
- "Openness": close, mid, open
- "Tones": low, medium, high
1458 base syllables with different meanings
Consonants
| Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (pre-)Nasal | Voiced | ņ /n̪d̪/ | n /nd/ | ṇ /ɳɖ/ | ṅ /ɲɟ/ | ṋ /ŋɡ/ | ṉ /ɴɢ/ |
| Voiceless | n̪t̪ | nt | ɳʈ | ɲc | ŋk | ɴq | |
| Alone | n̪ | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | ɴ | |
| Stop | Lenis | ț /d̪/ | t /d/ | ṭ /ɖ/ | ṫ /ɟ/ | ṱ /ɡ/ | ṯ /ɢ/ |
| Tenuis | t̪ | t | ʈ | c | k | q | |
| Fortis | t̪ʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | cʰ | kʰ | qʰ | |
| Fricative | Lenis | ș /ð/ | s /z/ | ṣ /ʐ/ | ṡ /ʝ/ | s̭ /ɣ/ | s̱ /ʁ/ |
| Tenuis | θ | s | ʂ | ç | x | χ | |
| Fortis | θʰ | sʰ | ʂʰ | çʰ | xʰ | χʰ | |
Some systems prefer voiceless nasals, but experience has shown that prenasalization is easier to deceive for an unaccustomed ear.
Tenuis is shown with a preceding h and fortis with a succeeding one: t /d/, ht /t/ and th /tʰ/
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i /i/ | ị /ɨ/ | ï /ɯ/ |
| Mid | e /e̞/ | ẹ /ə/ | ë /ɤ̞/ |
| Open | a /a/ | ạ /ä/ | ä /ɑ/ |
Tones
Three tones:
- low a, /à/
- medium a /a/
- high a’ /á/
Morphology
Lordlang is a polysynthetic language whose morphemes are agglutinated (little fusion), and pronouns, nouns and adjectives are easily incorporated into verbs.
Verb
Person
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th (unknown=passive)
Voice
active, reflexive, reciprocal, causative (spell), passive (4th person)...
Tense
Aspect
Pronoun
collective mind thingy
Nominal
Modality
influential spell-mood: "O become true, what I desire"
Phonotactics
Every syllable has to have an onset, but never contains a coda.
Orthography
In academic world, Lordlang is written in hexagons, where each side indicates one of the parameters.
Orthography
Lords are able to imprint magical hexagon glyphs which encode entire sentences in fractal packages. Humans only use a featural abugida where each side of a hexagon indicates one of the six parameters.
Romanization
Morphophonology
combinations of morphemes, consonant gradation
Morphology
logical language which serves as a source of inspiration for Akekatans
polysynthetic verbs form sentences by agglutinating morphemes