Abyssal
Abyssal (R'ărgo ['ɹɚ.go]) is the language of demons, the fiendish denizens of the lowest planes. It is one of the parent languages of Infernal (Armoevog) and shares a writing system with it.
Writing System
Abyssal originally had no writing system, similar to Celestial, a language that arose at roughly the same time. This changed when devils were created and devised the Infernal language out of Celestial and Abyssal, devising a writing system along with it to create their infamous contracts. Nowadays, Abyssal shares this writing system, as they share their phonological inventory with Infernal. The Infernal alphabet ascribes one rune to each phoneme, designating meaning by inscribing angular linear symbols. Diacritics distinguish rounded, unrounded, and lax versions of vowels from one another, and similarly produced consonants often look similar in design. Vowels are usually written partially below the consonant baseline, and word separators and other punctuation are utilized to distinguish words and sentences.
Phonology
Abyssal has a complex phonological system that sports a large vowel and consonant inventory with some fairly subtle phonemic contrasts. Even so, the language favors voiced sounds, especially voiced velar fricatives, which tends to lead to foreign speakers describing it as a harsh sounding language.
Vowels
There are twelve recognized phonemes in the Abyssal vowel system, which takes into account roundness, laxness and backness. There are seven unrounded vowels /a, ɛ, i, ɤ, ɯ, ə, ɪ/ and five rounded vowels /ɔ, u, ɶ, œ, y/. Many of these sounds are not found in English, but are found in its related Germanic languages.Consonants
Abyssal sports 26 phonemic consonants in its sound inventory. Every sound has a voiced and unvoiced counterpart present, when possible, and the language is rhotic, though /ɹ/ is sometimes realized as a tap or trill in connected speech. Below is a list of consonant sounds by type. /ŋ/ is present in some words, but is not phonemic in nature, instead classified as an allophone. Similarly, /ɚ/ is present when /ə/ combines with /ɹ/ but there is no minimal pair to distinguish a phonemic difference.- 6 Stops: /b, p, d, t, g, k/
- 11 Fricatives: /v, f, z, s, ʒ, ʃ, ð, θ, ɣ, x, h/
- 4 Affricates: /gz, ks, ʤ, ʧ/
- 3 Approximants: /l, ɹ, j/
- 2 Nasals: /m, n/
Transliteration
Below are the phonemes that do not match their IPA symbol when transliterated, and their appropriate transliteration.- /ɛ/ is written as e
- /ɔ/ is written as o
- /ɤ/ is written as ö
- /ɯ/ is written as ü
- /ɶ/ is written as ä
- /œ/ is written as ë
- /y/ is written as ï
- /ə/ is written as ă
- /ɪ/ is written as ĭ
- /ʒ/ is written as zh
- /ʃ/ is written as sh
- /ð/ is written as ŧh
- /θ/ is written as th
- /ɣ/ is written as gh
- /x/ is written as kh
- /gz/ is written as ӿ
- /ks/ is written as x
- /ʤ/ is written as j
- /ʧ/ is written as ch
- /ɹ/ is written as r
- /j/ is written as y
Morphology
Abyssal is a heavily gendered language. All articles and adjectives, as well as most pronouns, have three forms to fit the three gender classifications: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Many nouns that refer to animals or people also have three forms to accommodate this system. Adjectives must match their modified noun in gender.
Gender indication is somewhat complex, relying on the first vowel in the noun to distinguish the noun's gender. When nouns or adjectives change gender, their first vowel changes based on a set of three related vowels. In general, rounded vowels tend to be masculine, unrounded are feminine, and the lax central vowels, as well as /œ, ɤ/ are neuter. The full list can be found below:
- Neuter Vowels: ă, ö, ë, ĭ /ə, ɤ, œ, ɪ/
- Feminine Vowels: a, ü, e, i /a, ɯ, ɛ, i/
- Masculine Vowels: ä, u, o, ï /ɶ, u, ɔ, y/
Tenses
Abyssal verb conjugation, like most other aspects of the language, is fairly complex. Each verb is structured with the phoneme /ʃ/ "sh" in the center of it before a vowel and a consonant ending. Regular conjugation has two possible routes, depending on whether the verb begins with the phoneme /g/. Below are tables showing the basic conjugations for both types in the indicative simple and imperfect present tense.
Regular Present Tense
Example verb: mashakh "to eat"; simple "I eat", imperfect "I am eating"| Person | Subject | Simple | Imperfect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Sing | ozh; zhă/i | makh | makh'e |
| 1st Pl | ă/o/izhă | makhă | makha'yă |
| 2nd Sing | on; nă/i | mgakh | mgakh'e |
| 2nd Pl | ă/o/ină | mgakhă | mgakha'yă |
| 3rd Sing | og; gă/i | mgakh | mgakh'e |
| 3rd Pl | ă/o/igă | mgakhă | mgakha'yă |
Variant: G Verbs Present Tense
Example verb: geshek "to wear"; simple "I wear", imperfect, "I am wearing"| Person | Subject | Simple | Imperfect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Sing | ozh; zhă/i | gek | gek'e |
| 1st Pl | ă/o/izhă | gekă | geka'yă |
| 2nd Sing | on; nă/i | gnek | gnek'e |
| 2nd Pl | ă/o/ină | gnekă | gneka'yă |
| 3rd Sing | og; gă/i | gnek | gnek'e |
| 3rd Pl | ă/o/igă | gnekă | gneka'yă |
Irregular Verbs
Some verbs do not follow either of the patterns above, notably by lacking the vowel and consonant ending after /ʃ/ in their infinitive form. Verbs like yesh "to be", lash "to do", pash "to have" and püsh "to go" fit this pattern. Each one is handled differently, so they must be handled on a case by case basis. For example, to form the simple 1st person present tense, most of these just drop the "sh" off the end to become something like ye "I am" or la "I do", but once you begin conjugating for the imperfect, some add a g to the end, while others add a b or another consonant, such as yegă "we are" and lakă "we do".Other Tenses
To form other tenses, Abyssal adds prefixes similar to adjectives onto the beginning of a conjugated verb. Examples are böl for future tense, lab for past tense, and ar for the imperative. Below are some examples of fully conjugated and marked verbs, using mashakh "to eat".- böl'makh "I will eat"; böl'makh'e "I will be eating"
- lab'makh "I ate"; lab'makh'e "I was eating"
- ar'mgakh "Eat!" (2nd person singular)
Sentence Structure
Abyssal follows a general Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) structure that puts a great emphasis on rigid word order due to its lack of distinguishing declensions on nouns and verbs.
Ex. Mgakh ăӿ ănopk ghü büheg. "A child eats the fruit."
In the sentence above, mgakh is the verb "to eat" conjugated for the third person singular, ăӿ ănopk is "a child" with the article in front, and ghü büheg is "the fruit" with the article also in front of the noun.
As demonstrated above, articles come before their modified nouns, as do adjectives. Adjectives are generally attached to their modified nouns with an apostrophe to separate them. When adjectives are added in this way, they come between the article and the noun, as in this example: zïg rosa'bïhupk "a big animal"; zïg "a" comes first, then rosa "big" added as a separated prefix, and finally bïhupk "animal". Notice that the article vowel has matched the first vowel in the word for animal, in order to match gender, and the adjective has also taken on its masculine vowel from the set ë, e, o (neuter, fem, masc) to do the same.
In contrast to adjectives, adverbs come after their modified verb. Adjective can be used as adverbs in this case, but they will always be neuter, and must only match the verb in number. There are also purely adverbial words that need not be neuter in construction. Ex: Jal tămb zhi. "I walk slowly." vs. Jală tămbă izhă. "We walk slowly."
As a result of the second and third person singular and second and third person plural conjugated forms of verbs being identical, Abyssal has a strict rule that prevents pronoun dropping - though there are a few exceptions, most notably in casual conversation and greetings.
When forming questions, the VSO word order changes to SVO, the subject moving to the front of the sentence along with its modifying adjectives and articles, but no other word order changes.
Dictionary
Successor Languages
Common Phrases
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments