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	n̪d̪	nd	ɳɖ	ɲɟ	ŋɡ	ɴɢ
	Voiceless	n̄ /n̪t̪/	n /nt/	ṇ /ɳʈ/	ṅ /ɲc/	ṋ /ŋk/	ṉ /ɴq/
	Alone	n̪	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
Stop	Lenis	d̪	d	ɖ	ɟ	ɡ	ɢ
	Tenuis	t̄ /t̪/	t /t/	ṭ /ʈ/	ṫ /c/	ṱ /k/	ṯ /q/
	Fortis	t̪ʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ	cʰ	kʰ	qʰ
Fricative	Lenis	ð	z	ʐ	ʝ	ɣ	ʁ
	Tenuis	s̄ /θ/	s /s/	ṣ /ʂ/	ṡ /ç/	s̭ /x/	s̱ /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.

Lenis is shown with a preceding h and fortis with a succeeding one: ht /d/, t /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/

Orthography

In academic world, Lordlang is written with hexagons whose sides indicate one of the parameters.

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)...

Pronoun

• 1PL.EXCL,1PL.INCL, 1SIX.EXCL (Lords), 1SIX.INCL (only in interlordic communication), 1SG
• 2PL, 2SG
• 3PL, 3SG

Modality

influential spell-mood: "O become true, what I desire"