Yvelse (jivɛl'sɛ̥)

Yvelse is the language spoken by Velsen. It boasts two dialects to go with its species' two races: Moon Yvelse, spoken by the northern Moon Velsen, and Sun Yvelse, spoken by the southern Sun Velsen.

Yvelse was created alongside the Velsen, and has not evolved significantly from its original state. The most notable changes are the acquisition of loanwords from the Feledar and Elder tongues, and, more recently, modern Dean.

Babel Text

SEN. Sa yɾe soɾalnol sen ocremyln meɾen.
LEVY. Sa srēc honym-hoplen sϕu lotseɾen ryn srēc suntly Shynar shu cereln ny evsɾen mansɾen, sa srēc melum ny cyveɾen.
CON. Sa srēc, sen soɾal nevy nysoɾal, “Eɾan ocurnaɾan βeppōm, sa otēc lumē ansecom” vysɾen. Sa srēc anseɾa ocurnaɾan meɾen.
TANTSUTU. Sa srēc, “Eɾan uββer osoɾaly sa ōntme, tsyce shu aϕen tsen ny βōm, nohumom, sa eɾan oweta nylornom, vem oweɾan cerelnol usse hyshelcaɾo taβōm,” vysɾen.
VLY. Sa tsenvo yɾe uββer osoɾaly sa yɾe ōntme, ϕe ye soɾalec nohuɾen, peɾen.
HEVA. Sa yɾe tsenvo, “Shoper, yɾe soɾalnol sen βo, sa pyhecol sen ocremyln men, sa pyhec ceɾorshy, sa syl operc nypyhec emeɾoɾo sɾor fyn βōm, fen pyhec otem sylve,” vysren.
POL. Sa βontrun, “En cereln sɾo lunom, sa pyhec shu ocremyln melum ny neϕerom, vem pyhec nevy soɾalec shu hetseɾa tatsushonom,” vysren.
SHONCU. Vem yɾe tsenvo yɾe osoɾalec cerelnol usse hysheloɾa.
SHONSEN. Vem yɾe ōntme wetaɾo Papel βo, βereshe yɾe tsenvo yɾe soɾalec shu hetseɾa melum ny neϕeɾen, sa osrēc cerelnol usse hysheloɾa.

Writing System

The script of Yvelse is similar to both an abjad and an alphabet. Consonant symbols are its primary letters, but they are rarely written without diacritics beneath them to indicate vowels. Each symbol is consistent in its pronunciation, though one of the vowels does have two forms that can easily be inferred from context.

Due to the limitations of the writing system, long vowels and vowels positioned at the beginnings of words cannot be written. In addition, the script cannot handle diphthongs, which do not appear in Yvelse, but when adding suffixes that would cause two consecutive vowels to occur, an H or W is inserted, depending on the preceding vowel. When transcribing foreign names containing diphthongs or multiple consecutive vowels, these characters are used as "dummy" letters, which are left unpronounced.

Numerical System

Yvelse uses a base-eight number system. The names of its numbers, counting from zero, are nyc, sen, levy, con, tantsutu, vly, heva, pol, and shoncu. For numbers between nine and fifteen, the prefix shon- is applied, and so one counts shonsen, shonlevy, and so on. Starting at sixteen, the eights digit is added to the beginning of the number, creating levy shonnyc, levy shonsen, and so on. Sixty-four is showotse (which translates to eight-moon), and counting after proceeds as normal: showotse sen, showotse shonvly, showotse heva shontantsutu, etc. One hundred twenty-eight is thus represented as levy showotse.

Large round numbers may be taken as approximations in Yvelse. To show that such a number is exact, one can add zero in the ones place, as in showotse nyc.

Geographical Distribution

Native Yvelse speakers are limited to Velsen. Although the species has spread across all of Deus, the population of Moon Velsen is heavily concentrated in Astra and northern Agri, and the population of Sun Velsen is heavily concentrated in Aurum and southern Arbor. Most speakers of Yvelse as a second language thus live in those regions, though those who study the language can be found worldwide.

Phonetics

Yvelse is pronounced mainly with sounds that are familiar to English speakers, though its vowels are generally standardized and it contains the phonemes /ɸ/ and /β/. Its vowels are E (/ɛ/), A (/ɑ/ when followed by a coda consonant, /ə/ otherwise), O (/o/), U (/u/), and Y (/ji/ at the beginning of a word, /i/ otherwise). The rest of its consonants are /v f m n ts l w k t s ɹ ɾ ʃ h p/. In romanization, most sounds are written as they would be in English, with /ɾ/, /ɸ/, and /β/ written either in IPA or as R, F, and V. /k/ is romanized as C.

Tenses

There are four verb tenses in Yvelse: Present, Future, Past, and Distant Past. The Distant Past tense is typically used to express events that took place before the speaker was alive, though some consider it acceptable to use for events which occurred during the speaker's life of which they have no memory.

The present tense is the most simple, as it consists of an unmodified verb as can be found in a Yvelse dictionary. Infinitives are formed from the present tense by preceding the verb with the word me. When an infinitive verb takes a direct or indirect object, the object is placed between me and the verb. In the case that the verb begins with an E and no words lie between them, the two words are joined, as in mēnϕem (to wake up).

Other tenses make a distinction between "closed" verbs (those whose final syllables have a coda consonant) and "open" verbs (those whose final syllables end in a vowel). Future tense verbs append the suffix -om, as in enϕemom (will wake up). In open verbs, the final vowel changes to an O, forming a long O, as in reletōm (will take).

The past and distant past tenses are formed in a similar way. In open verbs, the final syllable is replaced with sɾa for past tense and sɾen for distant past tense, unless it is possible to move the first consonant of the syllable to be a coda consonant of the previous syllable, in which case it remains, or if it was a long consonant not allowable as a coda consonant on its own, in which case the consonant becomes short, an O is inserted after it, and the remainder of the verb is replaced. If the verb is one syllable, the ending is instead appended as a suffix.

In past and distant past tense closed verbs, the final consonant is replaced with an ɾ, with an O inserted before it if the final syllable ended with two consonants, and -a or -en is appended, depending on the tense.

Two affixes are commonly used in verb conjugation. The suffix -ɾo is used in forming the stative aspect, sometimes replacing a coda consonant (e.g. vylurn, "dream," becomes vylurɾo, "dreamt," and the stative is vylurɾo βo, "is dreamt"). The prefix sho- forms the imperative (e.g. tlamme, "hear," becomes shotlamme, translated as "hear" or "listen").

Sentence Structure

Yvelse grammar uses an SOV sentence structure, with no set ordering of direct and indirect objects. Instead, prefixes are used to indicate when a noun is acting as either kind of object.

Adjective Order

Adjectives and adverbs always precede the nouns and verbs they modify, with no special markers to indicate agreement. Possessors precede the nouns they possess, with the particle "shu" between them.

Structural Markers

Prefixes indicate when a noun is acting as a direct or indirect object. The direct object prefix is o- while the indirect object prefix is ny-.

Affixes

Yvelse boasts a few different plural forms. The general plural, which speaks nothing about precise quantity, is represented by the suffix -ec. The suffix -ɾan indicates a group of many of a thing, while the suffix -ol indicates a group of all of a thing.

There are a few affixes which change a word's part of speech. The most common is the prefix no- which transforms a noun into an adjective. The verb shy, or "do," can also take the form of the suffix -shy which transforms a noun into a verb. For the opposite transformation, turning a verb into a noun for someone who does a given action, the suffix -ɾu is used. To transform an adjective into an adverb, the final vowel must be made long. If the final vowel happens to already be long, an H is inserted after the vowel, followed by a short repetition of the same vowel.

Yvelse has two different negative prefixes, mu- and ta-. While ta- merely indicates an absence of the word which it modifies (e.g. taϕer means "not well" and tanoten "not alive"), mu- indicates an inverse (e.g. muϕer means "bad" and munoten "physically dead").

Dictionary

51 Words.

Common Female Names

Most names in Yvelse are usable for any gender and take the form of a noun or adjective. Names beginning with a vowel are more often feminine.

Enre (Fox)
Uto (Rain)
Aϕel (Sunset/Sunrise)
Ysha (Water)
Ytan (White)

Common Male Names

Names beginning with a consonant are more often masculine.

Shyɾa (Cloud)
Plen (Fire)
Tsentse (Happiness)
Fenner (Wolf)
Rym (Bold)

Common Family Names

Velsen family names are composed of two words: An unmodified noun and a verb with the -ɾu suffix attached. Some family names are thought to be descriptions, possibly abstract, of the job a member of that family carried out or an honor they earned, but many give no clues as to such an origin. These names are typically translated directly into Dean, unlike Velsen given names. Some examples of Velsen family names include:

Selesylneɾu (Snowdancer)
Ecsotsurɾu (Truthwriter)
Wotsemunaɾu (Mooneater)
Velsetselceɾu (Skywalker)
Sylahetweɾu (Rabbitcatcher)
Cwynβeppeɾu (Flowermaker)
Tsetsamorɾu (Starchaser)