Notes on the Elvish language: All the elvish you see in this story is entirely made up (and it makes sense too, if you know how to speak it). However, it is entirely unrelated to Tolkien's Elvish or other 'Elvishes' that you may see in fantasy novels. I have decided to include a short compendium of Elvish words so that if you really feel like it you can go to those places in the story where Elvish is spoken and work it out for yourself. The word order in Elvish is like that of English, except the adjectives always come after the nouns.
A: Character Diagram
i. Some notes on the elvish script: When taken together or individually, elvish letters have a sort of beauty about them. They flow with gentle curves and long, sweeping tails. Describing what it is to look at a page of elvish, or even it's letters, is very difficult without actually drawing the characters on the page (and given the shortcomings of this medium, the internet, there is, unfortunately, no way to see the letters until I find a way of getting them up.) Instead of having an alphabet that proceeds in a progression, the elvish have a chart of letters, shown below. The most common letters for the basic rows and columns. The observant will notice that the first letter in each row is a vowel. The next two letters are variations on the vowel—that is, how the letter looks when written—so that for vowel there are two consonants that share a 'base' with it, the first with a raised head and the second with a long tail. Refer to the diagram below for clarification (although what the characters look like isn't depicted).
In addition to the basic letters, there are 'special' letters that have no base, although there are several that look similar to one another and actually do share a base. The point is that there is no pattern to these letters. These letters don't make distinct sounds like the letters of the english alphabet do, but they most often represent punctuation marks, or double letters, such as sh, ch, th, dth; or combinations of vowels commonly seen, such as ie, eo, ui, iu, etc.
ii. The Elvish Character Chart:
abg.
edk
ofr
aanl
eepm
ih,
oozw
uts
yvj
gwioeo'
eyeieui
rrhc
jhshchkh
thdthgh
()ea
this letter is a connector, used to fill gaps in the writing where two adjacent letters cannot connect.
iii. More notes on the Elvish Character Chart: There are some empty spaces, either where the character designated there doesn't have a set use, and is used by different dialects of Elvish to make different sounds, or in the case of the upper, 'normal' section, there are only 3 letters to a row. Again, many of this would be more meaningful if the elvish letters were beside it so one could see which elvish character meant what.
B. Notes on Elvish Pronunciation: Elvish consonants are generally like they are in English, although the double letter group merits some explanation, which will come shortly. The elvish vowels, however, are different than English ones. For example, the sound of the Elvish 'o' has no proper english equivalent. Furthermore, whereas in English one vowel can make different sounds depending on where it is positioned in the word or what other letters suround it, elvish letters make one sound, all the time. In this sense, Elvish spelling is easier than English, because the word is spelled just how it sounds. However, this also makes writing elvish difficult if all one has is Roman Capital Letters and Carolingian Miniscule (the CAPITALS and small letters, respectively). Therefore, I will now take time to explain the pronounciation of any letters that aren't pronounced in a quite common-sense sort of way (to an English speaker, that is).
eye-not pronouced like the word eye. This letter is a combination of three and makes a two syllable sound, to the effect of "eh-yeh." Like all double vowels in elvish letters, the letters are all pronounced separately.
i.
r- this is a trilled R. Not commonly used.
rh-this is a guttural r, like the french use in saying the word, 'francais.'
c-the letter c causes a lot of confusion because it can make both the hard 'k' sound and the soft 's' sound. Therefore, the elvish use separate letters for each sound. However, if it is necessary for some reason (for an english transcription, for example), to use the letter c, this uncommon character is used.
Jh- makes the soft g sound in 'garage.' The common j makes the j sound in the word, 'jump.'
Th-makes the hard th sound, like in 'think.'
Dth-the soft th sound, as in 'though.'
Gh-a guttural g sound. Common in Arabic and Farsi.
e and a- another way to write the letters e and a, this form is used more commonly when transcribing a word from english, so that the different uses of the letters can be brought forth.
C. Nouns
i. Personal Pronouns:
I…Sol
You….Men
He…Pen
She…..Jhel
We…..Nos
You (pl.)….Veth
They…Dthiel
One….On
It….Sil
ii. Suffixes
plural…..-iel
genetive…..-ior
iii. Common Nouns:
sun…..soliar
earth…geyen
moon…..luna
house…..dom
day…..re
thing…mem
D. Verbs:
i. Verb Tenses
infinitive….-e (as in 'say')
present…No addition
imperfect…-a (as in 'as')
perfect…-ee (as in 'see')
pluperfect…-ah (as in 'all')
future…..-o (as in the french 'on')
future perfect…..-oo (as in 'you')
passive…...-eth
ongoing…-i
imperitive….-men
ii Common Verbs:
to…
be…e / en
have…a / an
want…or
like…..am
love….em
do…...fedth
make..feth
go…...ser
give….don
sleep...dorm
teach...diel
learn…liel
think...theon
write...penet
talk….palor
help….ed
get…...res
E. Other Commonly Used Words
Yes-bele
No-neka, n', ne
Good-bene
Bad-male
And-et
To-ad
From-a
Of-i
With-u
Without-n'u
For-nior
Or-or
But-iru
At-jhe
If-ith
Then-fen
In-in
Out-ek
On-uim
By-eon
Also-ado
Very-par
Now-den
Before-ante
After-tar
All-te
Well. That's all for right now. More to come.
-the Author