Iluhīya

Introduction

This language is my first attempt at conlanging after an extended hïatus. It started in early December, 2024, with the ultimate goal of creating a semetic artlang for personal religious reasons. Iluhīya is an a priori language mostly based in Arabic, Hebrew and Classical Syriac, with some other languages mixed in as well, such as Akkadian. To distinguish it from the source languages however, I invented novel structures in the morphology and grammar. Throughout the process of creation, euphony and aesthetics were first priorities for me, so that it could be used in poetry, songwriting, and scriptural recitation. Second priorities hinged around clarity and ease of pronunciation. I am a native english speaker, and since this is largely a personal language, I wanted to ensure I could recognise and speak each word in a natural manner. I also wanted enough allophonic variation to allow many different speakers to read the texts understandably.

Phonology

Orthography

Iluhīya can be written in multiple different systems, including the Latin, Cyrillic, Coptic, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac scripts.

Prosodical Prominence

A feature present in every multisyllabic word in Iluhīya is vowel prominence. Though this is intended to be a length distinction (as indicated by the macron) like in other semetic languages, a speaker can also indicate prominence through stress or tone if necessary. There is no set intonation for words since the primary stress always falls on the prominent vowel, which can be moved to convey grammatical information such as the person of verbs.