Elvarri

Elvarri
elvariu / elvarriu
Pronunciation	[elˈvarju]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2026
Setting	Hamanna
Native to	Elvod
Ethnicity	Elvars
Language family	Luxelvic North Luxelvic Elvarri
Early forms	Proto-Luxelvic Proto-North Luxelvic
Writing system	Nagri

Elvarri (elvariu or elvarriu [elˈvarju]), also called Levarian, is a classical language of the Luxelvic family. Elvarri was originally spoken by the Elvars, a tribe of Fairelves native to Elvod, a region at the mouth of the Separ river on the island of Haparod. It then became a dominant language of Haparod through the short-lived empire of Nagripon, who also oversaw the invention of Nagri script. After the death of Nagripon, his empire fractured into the Nagripu city-states, which then spread Elvarri as a dominant trade language across the Inner Waters as these city-states developed into seafaring trade empires. It was the most spoken language in Hamanna in the Age of Stone, and has a large influence on most modern languages, especially the various elf languages. It also still has considerable use as a liturgical language of the Sun Temple (Vasnadom) and the Great Bay Nation (Duvargamiod).

Similarly to Latin in the real world, Elvarri did not undergo language death, but rather evolved into regional dialects and then distinct languages, including Hoklevar, Hespadrin, Whitereed, Tasparin, Macatranese, Amtarese, Moonhind and various isolated Inner Water island languages collectively called Insular Levarian. However, it remained a significantly used common language long after it was no longer spoken as a native language, due to its large influence on scientific, economic, military, horological and naval vocabulary; this dominance remained till the 12th century, when modern languages largely supplanted its traditional use.

Elvarri is a synthetic, strictly VSO, adjective-noun and informally pro-drop language with a complex system of case inflections, verb inflections, and a twoway animacy distinction of animate and inanimate.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveolar		Retroflex	Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal	m				n		ɳ	ɲ		ŋ
Stop	p	b			t	d				k	g	(ʔ)
Fricative			f	v	s	z	ʂ			x	(ɣ)	(h)
Rhotic					r		ɽ
Liquid					l		ɭ
Semivowel								j		w

The retroflex consonants (/ɳ ʂ ɽ ɭ/) were originally marked with an underdot as ⟨ṇ ṣ ṛ ḷ⟩. However, these were rarely used, and by the Age of Stone most inscriptions did not mark the retroflexes at all, save for /ɽ/, which was often written ⟨r⟩ while trill /r/ was written ⟨rr⟩.

Various consonants were also prone to mutation after /r/, a process called hurdaski ([xr̩ˈðaski] "r-changing") or hurhassi ([xr̩ˈxaʂi] "r-morphing"):

Process	Resultant phoneme	Examples
/r/ + /g/	/ɣ/	arga "also" meiurge "garbage, trash"
/r/ + /k/	/x/	urkamo "to split, to cut" murkambet "aqueduct"
/r/ + /t/	/ʔ/ > /∅/	gort "container" ennart "within"
	/θ/ or /ts/	ennarto "to insert" vertuk "healer"
/r/ + /d/	/ð/ or /dz/	tordaski "helm-changing; (figuratively) a boring but necessary task" murdo "to water"
/r/ + /f/	/h/	farfa "flatbread" ollerfa "onlooker"
/r/ + /z/	/s/ > /ʂ/	irzevet "period between winter and spring" asmurzu "religious offering"

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

/ɛ ɔ/ become /e o/ in unstressed syllables. /u/ was also often dropped between a velar consonant and any other consonant, rendering the latter consonant syllabic, as in kuruk "tailor" [ˈkr̩uk].

Grammar

Grammatically, Elvarri is a synthetic, mostly fusional nominative-accusative language. Nouns (malor), adjectives (hemerei) and pronouns (yomalor) are inflected on animacy, number and case. Personal pronouns are also often dropped in spoken or colloquial speech, though only if the subject could be inferred; this is discouraged in standardised literary language. Verbs are inflected on tense, mood, and (to an extent) person.

Nouns

Nouns are primarily infected on case, which then differentiates based on the animacy (broadly, whether the noun is living or not living) and the grammatical number (singular, paucal or plural) of the noun. There are, traditionally, eight noun cases in Elvarri: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental, perlative and vocative.

		Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative	Locative	Instrumental	Perlative	Vocative
Singular	inanimate	—	-i	-os	-ta	-si	-es	-ess	-to
	animate		-a	-u	-i	-ea	-si	-se	-va
Paucal	inanimate	-ur	-ir	-sro	-tra	-sia	-sur	-sra	-tor
	animate	-om	-am	-nem	-nis	-nye	-ams	-ems	-va
Plural	inanimate	-or	-er	-ro	-tar	-sa	-sor	-srat	-tor
	animate	-i	-e	-iu	-im	-ses	-is	-ise	-vai / -ve*

*The plural animate vocative -vai was written as -ve in the Book of Whitereed and other literary works and inscriptions. This practice expanded in use across most literary societies during the Age of Twilight due to the dominance of Whitereed literature, the sole Elvarri literary institution still sponsored by the state in the Twilight.

Case inflections on regular animate noun dud ("tree")

	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative	Locative	Instrumental	Perlative	Vocative
Singular	dud	duda	dudu	dudi	dudea	dudsi	dudse	dudva
Paucal	dudom	dudam	dudnem	dudnis	dudnye	dudams	dudems
Plural	dudi	dude	dudiu	dudim	dudses	dudis	dudise	dudvai / dudve

Case inflections on regular inanimate noun rukum ("bread")

	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative	Locative	Instrumental	Perlative	Vocative
Singular	rukum	rukumi	rukumos	rukumta	rukumsi	rukums	rukumss	rukumto
Paucal	rukumur	rukumir	rukumsro	rukumtra	rukumsia	rukumsur	rukumsra	rukumtor
Plural	rukumor	rukumer	rukumro	rukumtar	rukumsa	rukumsor	rukumsrat

Numerals

n.	Numeral
	cardinal	ordinal
1	hond	honder
2	nei	neidet
3	sis	siser
4	kev	kevet
5	hum	humer
6	ves	vest
7	nart	naher
8	skov	skovet
9	kiam	kier
10	poz	pozoi

Ordinal numbers are derived from cardinal numbers and are generally inflected with -er if odd and -et if even.