Elanoon

In Elanoon, one’s tongue being like stone is an idiom for having difficulty raising one’s voice. This saying suggests that it can be more effective to leap past an obstacle rather than try to make incremental progress.

• Oldtale (imumakalíro)
• Phonetics
• Charts (Pronouns, Determiners, Suffixes)
• A Bit of Vocabulary
• Writing System
• Since Dawn (velammataynim oda)

Of those conlangs that I’ve developed enough to be basically usable, Elanoon (literally ‘Newlandish’) is my least developed. It sprang up half-accidentally in connection with a fictional world; its speakers are high-tech and very socially stratified.

Some miscellaneous notes:
(Or click here for further notes. They’re more detailed and probably less comprehensible.)

Basic word order is SOV by default, although this is flexible when the meaning is made clear elsewise.

Adjectives and direct adverbs are the same thing (AD1); adverbial modifiers of adjectives and adverbs are a different thing (AD2).

AD1s can be nouns directly: ‘the person or thing that is this AD1’. AD1s can also be stative verbs directly: ‘to be this AD1’.

Initial syllable reduplication on verbs marks ongoing action. Final syllable reduplication on nouns is associative (includes associates). Mid-word syllable reduplication (vowel-consonant if possible, to rhyme) is a kind of silly speech; it more or less adds ‘ish’.

Oldtale

imumakalíro
nuyalahee mee jem assov, ahij somiv. ayaduomma, mazya.
mamuhoyam vuaya nuyalaheeell tussav, dee hem vua tidov. ummúa assayay.
mamuhoya rooyuav nuyalahee jissaka zesima, mom oahalyos aness luamee uha lovov.
nuyalahee luamee hososoyka.

imuma-kalíro
old-tale

nuyalahee mee jem ass-ov, ahij somiv. aya-duomm-a, maz-ya.
slow-fast all place run-PST, far ago. sky-hill-PL, tree-PL.

mamuhoy-a-m vua-ya nuyalahee-ell tussa-v, dee hem vua tido-v. umm-úa assa-yay.
god-PL-ERG tooth-PL slow-fast-DAT gift-PST, but each tooth cost-PST. more-NEG run-act.of.

mamuhoy-a roo-yuav nuyalahee jissa-ka zesima, mom oah-alyo-s aness lua-mee uha lov-ov.
god-PL know-NEG-PST slow-fast amount-such lazy, anyway move-water-LOC for when-all stay want-PST.

nuyalahee lua-mee hos-os-oy–ka.
slow-fast when-all trick-ish–inclined.

Oldtale
Long ago, crocodile ran everyplace. Mountains, trees.
Gods gifted crocodile teeth, but each tooth cost. No more running.
Gods didn’t know crocodile so lazy, wanted to stay in river forever anyway.
Crocodile always tricksy.

Phonetics

all consonants: l m n v y h k s d t j r c z ss mm ll nn jj
all vowels: e a o i u ay ee oy oo

word-anywhere consonants: m n v s j z
word-beginning-and-middle-only consonants: l y h k d t r c
word-middle-and-ending-only consonants: ll ss mm
word-middle-only consonants: nn (jj)

word-anywhere-vowels: o a
word-beginning-and-middle-only vowels: e i u
word-ending-only vowels (except in compounds): ay ee oy oo

Consonants are pronounced more or less like in English, except that c is IPA [q], j is closer to ‘zh’ than ‘dzh’, and the r is tapped or briefly rolled. Doubled consonants are held longer / pronounced doubly. Long vowels are as in English; a and o are clean. The i is the i in ‘bit’, e is the e in ‘bet’, and u is close to the u in ‘push’; i or u partially diphthong when they come before another vowel. The only allowable consonant clusters are when a mid-word non-doubled C is followed by y.

Charts

Pronouns

Although Elanoon society is divided into several classes, the only distinction officially embedded in the language is that between (the rough equivalents of) ‘commoners’ and ‘nobles’.

In casual speech, when talking about multiple third-persons, it’s common to literally add numbers to them to disambiguate (they-one, they-two…): jovo, jones, joall.…

Determiners

Suffixes

Elanoon is heavily suffixing (as opposed to prefixing). These aren’t all the affixes, by a long shot, but it’s a starting set.

General Suffixes

having, -ful: -(e)z
tending, inclined: -(u)ka
cause to be: -(a)ma
-ify, become: -(o)mm
-ify, cause to become: -(o)mma
-ist, worker: -(i)za
AD2ify: -(a)ho
piece, part of: -(a)ree
-ness, abstract nounify: -(e)mo
diminutive: -(e)tee
augmentive: -(y)oo
AD1ify / present participle: -(a)n
past participle: -(o)van
future participle: -(u)man
stuff, material: -(a)voo

Suffixes on Nouns

ergative: -(a)m
genitive: -(e)n
possessive (only used with proper names and pronouns, otherwise use genitive): -(a)v
locative: -(a)s
ablative (from, starting at): -(a)nim
dative (nonplaces): -(e)ll
lative (places): -(a)nya
instrumental -(a)ca
reflexive (pronoun): -(a)ra
comitative (pronouns only): -(a)na
plural: -(y)a; consonant doubles instead of the y if it can (v and z pluralize with vya and zya). If singular ends in a double consonant, then -(a) suffixes on the plural start with -aya.

Suffixes on Verbs

reciprocal: -(o)do
future: -(u)m
imperative: -(i)ss
past: -(o)v
irrealis/unknown: (a)j
the act of (nounify): -(y)ay
negative: -(y)ua

A bit of vocabulary

n = noun, v = verb, a = AD1, o = other

Writing System

The Elanoon writing system is an abugida with an inherent a, written left-to-right. Onset consonants are written on a base line, connected above to the vowels that follow them. Vowels can be written on their own, in which case their direction is reversed. The vowel combinations ay-a (oy-a, etc.) and a-ya (o-ya, etc.) are spelled differently; most transliteration loses the distinction, but an apostrophe can be used to clarify: a’ya, o’ya, o’yu, etc.

Where this gets fun is the stress patterns! By default, consonants are written on the base line; but when not followed by a vowel (such as at the end of a word), they’re written in a top form that goes above the previous vowel. The other use of top consonants is to indicate unusual stress, as in ‘kalíro’, meaning story; by default, it would be written ka-li-ro, but to show that the stress is on the middle syllable rather than the default first syllable, the syllables are grouped as ka-lir-o. Vowels can be grouped in a similar (although not identical) way. Unusual stress is transliterated with an accent above the relevant syllable.

(Stress is on grouped/accented syllables, excluding ending consonant; else double consonant syllables, including (C)Y; else long vowel syllables; else first. This has some ambiguity between major and minor stress, which isn’t usually an important distinction.)

(Original notes on the orthography: more detailed, less comprehensible.)

Since Dawn

I translated this poem from English (original version below).

velammataynim oda
visible-become-bright.spot.of.light-ABL since
sunrise-from since

keekee velammataynim oda medoya doyna.
REDUP-be visible-become-sun-ABL since thing-PL happen-AD1-PL.
there.have.been sunrise-from since things happening.

yuhillam inimovan ovenyan oleeca ilayoyv.
dolphin-ERG lose-PST-AD1 marriage-GEN jewelry.piece-INS play-PST.
dolphin lost marriage-of piece.of.jewelry-with played.

ihivessaya menyo ojommov aness a anno
silent-bird-PL stably hide-PST for.duration.of the diffuse.light
owls settling.in hid for the daylight

ta dayua esyunov uzaya ay davyasanna.
and leave-NEG decide-PST cloud-PL the.PL hollow(-PL)-LOC-AD1-PL.
and leave-not decided clouds the hollows-in.

es neteeya kee ay nicomma a akemmas yesuss
where small-PL be the.PL space-PL the soil-LOC within
where small are the spaces the soil-in within

akemm esessadamm lee nusa hevila acuss.
soil REDUP-where-else-become while yellow ants crawl.
soil is.shifting while yellow ants crawl.

azellayam yooyan ta helenooyan azellayam
edge-PL-ERG sea-PL-GEN and lone-land-PL-GEN edge-PL-ERG
Edges oceans-of and islands-of edges

a oahoatee hay tita nananna ulullesay.
the move-air-DIM 3P.I.PL trap with-AD1-PL REDUP-plot.
the wind-small they trap together are-plotting.

a ayas mooho yekeen kee a áyatay, kass,
the sky-LOC down-AD2 look-AD1 be the sun, above,
the sky-in down looking is the sun, above,

ay atooya asujja nunúan lee zay ass.
the.PL baby-PL gazelle-PL REDUP-see-AD1 while 3P.C.PL run.
the baby gazelles watching while they run.

mee nee doydoy, ta velammataynim hua oda,
all this REDUP-happen, and visible-become-sun-ABL only since,
all this has.been.happening, and sunrise-from only since,

ta lua ojommum a tay han tuzelya hohódom.
and when hidden-become-FUT the sun 3P.I.S pause-less REDUP-carry.forward-FUT.
and when set-will the sun it pause-less carry.on-will.

ladayn ta tamamman, duzanim yass avisanya,
turn.around-AD1 and mixed.up-become-AD1, bottom-ABL very top-LAT,
turning.around and mixed.up-becoming, bottom-from very top-to,

han dioj dee iluya sell… luayua… soo….
3P.I.S try-IRR but entire stop… when-no… can….
it might.try but entirely stop… never… can….

Poetic license taken

The original is metered, with four beats per line; Elanoon uses meter in a similar way to English, so I prioritized keeping that, although it stretched to five beats per line. The original also rhymes; Elanoon doesn’t much care for strict rhymes, but I did make sure to end with either consonance or long vowel assonance, which (I have now decided) are Elanoon conventions. I accomplished this mostly by messing with the word order; word order within a sentence isn’t even particularly important in Elanoon. I also shifted some AD1s to follow their nouns, which isn’t done in general speech, but works in a poem (much as in English).

I had made up all the vocabulary beforehand, but I did outright change some stuff as I went. The second line in particular was much too long, so I singularized it and decided that instead of ‘wedding rings’ they had ‘marriage jewelry’ (which then let me coin a convenient word for jewelry). In rephrasing some sections I also made up a couple words that fit better. A few words, like dolphin and cloud and gazelle, I also just decided were shorter actually.