No Free Ice Cream Today

Sorry I haven't been able to post anything much recently. I've been focused on finishing up my home theater, getting electronics installed and configured, etc. No time for writing or other casual pursuits.

Posting may be pretty thin for the next couple of months, as we're working to finish the entire basement. The theater is getting most of our attention right now, but we still have a little drywall to hang in other parts of the basement, and plenty of other tasks to work on. I don't think I'll have much time for working on my novel, much less this blog, except very occasionally.

A *Very* Rough Draft of Elefdar Poetry

The lovely and talented Geekwif was kind enough to write a bit of a song for me, in English, intended to be an Elefdar song. She gave me a basic melody to go with the words, so I know what the sound and tempo are supposed to be. I can't reproduce that here, so it will lose a little in translation. But here's the English and Elefdar words in an interlinear layout:

My lady is fairer than any queen
[my lady (is) fair more than (any) queen]
Imi therdan cele sur den admer

But far from her beauty my feet must roam
[but far from her beauty my feet must roam]
Del mar con nei selen imi bod nu dan

She shelters me now in her train of green
[she shelters now me in (the) green her train]
Ne missen cep ima abell ne seder

And beckons her traveler homeward
[and (she) beckons her traveler to-home]
Hai fella nei banya melarro

Elefdar: Articles, Particles, and Conjunctions

Definite Articles

There are no indefinite articles in Elefdar; the indefinite article (“a” or “an”) is assumed, unless the definite article (“the”) is used. The definite article always declines to the same case and number as its connected noun. The definite articles are declined in the next table.

	Single	Plural
Nominative	da -	dar -er [-r]
Genitive	dai -i	dair -ir
Accusative, Dative	da -a [-]	darn -ern [-rn]

By virtue of the nominal declensions, there is no specific word order prescribed in the Elefdar tongue when constructing phrases and sentences. Rather, the importance of certain words in the phrase or sentence is what determines their position. If the subject is of paramount importance, then it will be placed at the head of the phrase. But if the object is considered by the speaker to be more important, then it will be placed at the head. Generally, the subject and object will be separated at least by the verb, and possibly by other things like the indirect object – but this is not always the case. It is also possible to emphasize a word by placing it at the end of a sentence or phrase – thus, the verb could be placed at the end, following any combination of subject, object, and modifiers.

Particles

Elefdar uses a particle to negate a verb or phrase. The negation particle can be placed either at the beginning of a phrase, or just before the verb which is to be negated for extra emphasis.

	Negation (“no”, “not”)
Particle	ni

Conjunctions

Conjunctions, like particles, are neither conjugated nor declined. Elefdar makes use of conjunctions to express a simple “this and that”, a simple “this or that”, an inclusive “this and/or that”, and a simple “(neither) this nor that”. The conjunctions are listed in the following table.

	And	Or	And/Or	Nor
Conjunction	hai	hu	hïu	hüin

Elefdar Personal Pronouns and the Definite Article

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns include the universal first, second and third person. The second person singular pronoun has both polite and intimate forms, much like old English 'you' and 'thou'. The intimate forms are only used by husband and wife, lovers and close friends, and near relatives. The second person plural pronoun has no such distinction.

The following table declines the personal pronouns.

	Singular (I, you, he, she, it)	Singular Intimate (you)	Plural (we, you, they, they, those)
Nominative, Genitive	im, su, fe, ne, se -	du -	imer, sur, fer, ner, ser -er [-r]
Accusative, Dative	ima, sua, fa, na, sa -a	dua -a	imern, suren, fern, nern, sern -ern [-rn, irreg. -ren]

Note that fe/ne/se (he/she/it) are irregular, in that the final vowel assimilates the accusative/dative ending rather than joining it as a double vowel sound (as with "you": su/sua). Other pronouns decline the same way as the regular personal pronouns. The second person singular intimate form, of course, does not exist among the non-personal pronouns.

Definite Articles

There are no indefinite articles in Elefdar; the indefinite article is assumed, unless the definite article is used. The definite article always declines to the same case and number as its connected noun. The definite articles are declined in the next table.

	Single	Plural
Nominative, Genitive	da -	dar -er [-r]
Accusative, Dative	da -a [-]	darn -ern [-rn]

By virtue of the nominal declensions, there is no specific word order prescribed in the Elefdar tongue when constructing phrases and sentences. Rather, the importance of certain words in the phrase or sentence is what determines their position. If the subject is of paramount importance, then it will be placed at the head of the phrase. But if the object is considered by the speaker to be more important, then it will be placed at the head. Generally, the subject and object will be separated at least by the verb, and possibly by other things like the indirect object – but this is not always the case. It is also possible to emphasize a word by placing it at the end of a sentence or phrase – thus, the verb could be placed at the end, following any combination of subject, object, and modifiers.

Elefdar Nominal Declension

Declension of Nouns and Adjectives

Nouns and adjectives decline with case and number. The adjective always matches the noun that it is modifying. There are two case endings used with the four major cases: nominative/genitive, and accusative/dative. There are two numbers, as with verbs.

The following table declines the nouns adom, adan, and efda (man, woman, and child), in order to show all three words in their cases and numbers. The plural ending for words ending with a vowel is -r, and for words ending with a consonant the ending is -er. The exception to this rule is words ending with the letter r – in this case, the plural ending is a long trilled double-r.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative, Genitive	adom, adan, efda -	adomer, adaner, efdar -er [-r]
Accusative, Dative	adoma, adana, efdo -a [-o]	adomern, adanern, efdarn -ern [-rn]

Elefdar Verb Conjugation

The Elefdar tongue is analytic, meaning that most grammatical relationships are conveyed syntactically through the addition of linking verbs and other functional words. As such, verbs conjugate only with simple tense and number. There are two simple tenses: past (I walked) and present (I walk, or I am walking), and two numbers: singular and plural.

The following table conjugates the verb abet, to walk, demonstrating the two simple forms for past and present, as well as additional forms utilizing auxiliary verbs.

	First Singular “I walk”	First Plural “We walk”	Second Singular “You walk”	Second Plural “You (all) walk”	Third Singular “He/she/it walks”	Third Plural “They walk”
Past (“walked”)	abetel [-el]	abeter [-er]	abetel [-el]	abeter [-er]	abetel [-el]	abeter [-er]
Present (“walk”)	abet -	abet -	abet -	abet -	abet -	abet -
Future (“shall walk”)	cal abet	cal abet	cal abet	cal abet	cal abet	cal abet
Perfect (“have walked”)	ben abetel	ben abeter	ben abetel	ben abeter	ben abetel	ben abeter
Future Perfect (“shall have walked”)	cal ben abetel	cal ben abeter	cal ben abetel	cal ben abeter	cal ben abetel	cal ben abeter

Elefdar Names and Change Management

There's a title you probably never expected to see. But in fact the two go quite well together, due to my decision to focus for a time on the Elefdar language. One of the drivers behind that decision, was the fact that I had several (not all) Elefdar characters and places with names that I had borrowed from JRR Tolkien's Sindarin and Quenya Elvish languages. Quite simply, I knew that the names I had chosen could only be temporary place-holders until such time as I developed a basic Elefdar language of my own. Once that was done, I would be able to rename all my Elefdar names, taking the original intended meanings of those names and translating them into the new tongue.

Well, that time is fast approaching. I have the basic syntax worked out, not that it was particularly difficult. I also have a set of pronunciation rules and phonological constraints (i.e. rules stating which types of sounds will never be found together). And finally, I am well into the grammar of the language. I've got verb conjugation rules for regular and some irregular verbs, I've got noun declensions for several cases, in both singular and plural forms. I've got grammatical rules for the use of pronouns, definite articles, particles and conjunctions. And I'm slowly working my way through the creation of a lexicon with about 2,000 words.

The first words I'm focusing on for the lexicon, are those which will be required to re-do the names that I've "borrowed" thus far. For example, Meldarion's name will be changing. As will the name of the city Fanyalone. And there are a few others. Some of the names will change a lot, some only a little bit. I probably won't go back through my previous posts to correct those names, but I will post a list here of all the names that are changing, so there's one central "translation list" of old to new names.

As far as how this relates to change management, well, clearly there is a change coming. Fortunately for me, none of my writings are "in production" at this time - everything I've written, whether posted here or not, is still in my dev/test environment, so I can pretty much change whatever I want, when I want, as long as I have good backups and keep a few prior versions for reference.

Anyway, I just thought I'd give y'all a heads-up that the change is coming.

Elefdar Language - Consonants and Vowels

Elefdar Syntax

Consonants

To begin, we will define the consonantal sounds of the language:

	Labial	Labio-Dental	Dental	Alveolar	Palato-Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	P, B			T, D		C, G
Fricative		F	T (Th),  Ð (Dh)	S			H
Approximant				R, L	Y
Nasal	M			N

Note that [T] is aspirated, like 'th' as in myth or wreath, while [Ð] is voiced, like 'th' as in them or those. [H] is slightly harder than the typical sound in Common, being closer to (though not quite as hard as) the German [Ch] sound in Bach.

Vowels

Next, we define the standard vowel sounds, which default to a “long” sound:

Vowel:	A	E	I	O	U
Pronunciation:	father	fate	feet	rote	boot

On Vacation This week

Not going anywhere, but I'm working on house projects and not doing any writing or language work at the moment.

Another Language Sample

Still working on the Elefdar language, and still having fun. I've written a script that generates all possible phonemes, based on the list of available letters and a set of restrictions about certain letter combinations that are not allowed.

Now, I'm working on a script that reads from a text file of 2,000 common English words, and generates Elefdar words based on one or two (combined) phonemes. This script is not fully functional yet, as I need to add in the rules to prevent restricted phoneme combinations. For the moment, it is still only generating words based on a single phoneme - effectively, it randomly chooses a phoneme from the Elefdar list, and that is the word.

And so, we have a list that looks something like the below. Each time I run the script I get a different list of course, and at this point I am basically just playing with it to ensure that I can get words that are aesthetically pleasing to me. If I don't like them, I throw them out - which is one of the advantages of creating a constructed language, of course. Once I'm happy with 80% of the words being generated, I will call it "gold" and start building the official lexicon.

So without further ado, here's a simple sample of single-syllable (heh... alliteration) Elefdar words as randomly chosen for the list of English words.

"find","if"
"back","smaig"
"most","len"
"right","glais"
"man","maut"
"small","gam"
"life, live","plud"
"much","grin"
"down","pat"
"day","claig"
"between","com"
"many","dhaub"
"before","flac"
"need","eid"
"because","plaun"
"want","neid"
"mean","meim"
"even","peib"
"through","clap"
"yeah","thruc"
"big","blaim"
"three","crog"
"thing","flas"
"tell","snic"
"such","oth"
"feel","smauc"
"under, below","stam"
"leave","gril"
"must","frain"

Pronunciation notes:

• DH is a voiced sound like "th" in "that".
• TH is always aspirated and unvoiced, like "th" in "bath".
• C is always a hard "k" sound.
• A is always a long vowel like the "a" in "father".
• E is short as in "bet".
• I sounds about half-way between the "i" in "fit" and the "ee" in "feet".
• O sounds about half-way between the pronunciation of "dote" and "dot".
• U is always long, like the pronunciation of "boot".
• AI is a diphthong that sounds like the English word "eye".
• EI is a diphthong that sounds like "ei" in "weigh".
• AU is a diphthong that sounds like "ou" in "out".

I'm Still Here

I'm up to my eyeballs in the details of my constructed Elefdar language: working different aspects of syntax, grammar, and a lexicon all at once. What a blast!

You'll hear more on this soon, I promise. I'm taking some time off from work next week, so I'll have more time to work on this language, the novel, and other personal projects. More to come soon....