Celestial Language
Celestial (Movener [ˌmo.vɛ.'nɛɾ]) is the language of angels and other celestial beings from the good-aligned outer planes. It is most commonly spoken by celestials and Elouvrian citizens of aasimar descent. Many Angel-Blessed Leagues carry out official business and write legal documents in Celestial rather than Elouvrier.
Writing System
The original speakers of Celestial, the angels, had little reason to write anything down. Instead, they had a series of magical glyphs that stood for certain concepts. This lack of orthography has led to the adaptation of different systems to transliterate Celestial when required. A version of the Infernal alphabet is traditionally used, though the Elouvrier script can, as well. As with Infernal, Celestial has symbols to separate words, and vowels are traditionally written partially below the bottom line of consonants, to differentiate the two types of symbols more quickly in reading.
Geographical Distribution
This language was originally conceived at the dawn of the angels, but would subsequently spread to other celestial and extraplanar beings. The Celestial branch of languages in the multiverse includes the original Celestial tongue, Abyssal, Infernal, Sylvan, Deep Speech, and their dialects.
Phonology
Celestial phonological rules favor initial consonants and consonant clusters in their syllabic structure. Most constructions that would result in a cluster ending a word are broken up by intermediary vowels to lengthen the sound.
Syllables are considered either long or short, with diphthongs and consonant clusters creating longer syllables than simple VC combinations. Word stress is generally on the first syllable of the word, unless it is followed by a long syllable, which will modify the word's stress by receiving greater emphasis.
Morphology
Celestial is a heavily inflected language with case agreement among nouns and adjectives. Every word has many inflected forms, and particles are often added as suffixes.
Declension
Celestial nouns are inflected based upon their role in the sentence, corresponding to one of thirteen grammatical cases. Adjectives are also inflected, and must agree in case with the noun they modify. The cases of Celestial, along with their common suffix letter and examples of usage, are as follows.- Nominative (no marker): ex. nereth, volra; used for the subject of the sentence or a verb ("I saw you.")
- Accusative (-m or -vowel + m): ex. nerethem, volram; used for the direct object of a verb or for specifying a duration of time ("I saw you.")
- Vocative (-m + vowel): ex. nerethme, volrama; used for directly addressing an individual or group ("John, listen to me.")
- Dative (-m + vowel + s): ex. nerethmes, volramas; used for indirect objects or specifying who an object is for ("I gave the book to you.")
- Genitive (-s or -vowel + s): ex. nerethes, volras; used to mark possession, composition, reference, or description ("Give me your book.")
- Locative (-s + vowel): ex. nerethse, volrasa; used to indicate general location ("They were at the gates.")
- Ablative (-l or -vowel + l): ex. nerethel, volral; used to specify movement away from a person or location, specifying a time within which something occurs, concerning a subject, or by whom an action was performed ("They flew from the city.")
- Temporal (-l + vowel): ex. nerethle, volrala; specifying a time or deadline ("Meet me at 7 o'clock.")
- Comitative (-l + vowel + s): ex. nerethles, volralas; specifying with what or whom, instrumental, and similarity or likeness ("Go with him.")
- Superessive (-d or -vowel + d): ex. nerethed, volrad; specifying movement up or over, location on top of, or being after a time or event ("It is on the table.")
- Subessive (-d + vowel): ex. nerethde, volrada; specifying movement down or under, location underneath, or being before a time or event ("It is under the table.")
- Inessive (-r or -vowel + r): ex. nerether, volrar; specifying movement or position inside a location ("It is inside the house.")
- Elative (-r + vowel): ex. nerethre, volrara; specifying movement or position outside a location ("It is outside the house.")
Names
Names behave the same way as nouns and must take inflections when they are used. They must follow the same declension rules as nouns and take the endings of all 13 cases, though obviously the first five are the most common.Pronouns & Numbers
Pronouns are formed with single consonant roots, such as h and t. Besides their non-standard roots, they are treated the same as other nouns, and these roots can form special adjectives as well. Celestial pronouns exist for three persons (1st, 2nd & 3rd), two numbers (singular & plural), and the 1st person plural has inclusive and exclusive forms. They are not inflected for gender, as all nouns in Celestial are neuter. The nominative forms of each pronoun are as follows:- 1st Person Singular: ho "I"
- 1st Person Plural (exclusive): huo "we (but not you)"
- 1st Person Plural (inclusive): heo "we (and you)"
- 2nd Person Singular: yo "you"
- 2nd Person Plural: yuo "you all"
- 3rd Person Singular: no "it/he/she/they"
- 3rd Person Plural: nuo "they"
Phonetics
Consonants
Celestial has a consonant inventory consisting of the following:- 2 Nasals: /m/, /n/
- 6 Plosives: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/
- 6 Fricatives: /f/, /v/, /θ/, /s/, /z/, /h/
- 2 Approximants: /l/, /j/
- 1 Tap: /ɾ/
Vowels
Celestial has a fairly simple vowel system defined by height and backing. It has:- 2 Front Vowels: /i/, /ɛ/
- 2 Central Vowels: /ə/, /a/
- 2 Back Vowels: /u/, /o/
- 5 Diphthongs: /ɛi/, /ɛu/, /ou/, /ai/, /au/
Transliteration Rules
For the purposes of consonant transliteration from Celestial to Common, consult the following table. Note: This table contains rules only for those symbols that differ from their IPA counterparts.| Grapheme | Phoneme | Common Example |
|---|---|---|
| ⟨th⟩ | [θ] | As th in bath (/bæθ/) |
| ⟨y⟩ | [j] | As y in yard (/jaɹd/) |
| ⟨r⟩ | [ɾ] | Similar to r in Spanish pero (/pɛɾo/) |
| ⟨e⟩ | [ɛ] | As e in bet (/bɛt/) |
| ⟨ă⟩ | [ə] | As a in balloon (/bəlun/) |
| ⟨ei⟩ | [ɛi] | Similar to e in hey (/heɪ/) |
| ⟨eu⟩ | [ɛu] | Similar to eu in Spanish euforia (/eufoɾja/) |
Tenses
Celestial has five grammatical tenses, four moods, and the active and passive voice.
A Verbs
Example Verb: vida "to see"
I Verbs
Example Verb: kuori "to run"
Tense
Celestial tenses include the traditional past, present, and future tenses, but two more tenses have been added. These tenses are known as Old and Distant, to indicate events further in the past and future, respectively. These two tenses are uncommon, mostly reserved for information and stories regarding the creation or end of the universe, prophecies, or other events that might be seen as being anchored outside of the typical understanding of time.Mood
Celestial includes the imperative, subjunctive, imperative, and jussive moods. All four are present in all tenses.Aspect
All tenses of Celestial have perfect and imperfect aspects, while all tenses except for the present also include a pluperfect.Voice
Most verbs in Celestial have a passive version that turns the subject into the object of the verb. More details coming soon.Verb Conjugation Examples
The following are examples of the conjugation paradigms for each verb ending. Verbs end in the vowels a, e, and i. Each ending has its own collection of conjugations for each of the parameters above. Present Tense E Verbs Example verb: ibe "to have"| Subject | Simple | Imperfect | Subj Simple | Subj Imperfect | Imperative | Jussive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ho (I) | ibe | ibel | ibo | ibol | ibes | ibos |
| heo (we, ex) | ibie | ibiel | ibeo | ibeol | ibies | ibeos |
| huo (we, inc) | ibea | ibeal | iboe | iboel | ibeas | iboes |
| yo (you) | ibye | ibyel | ibyo | ibyol | ibyes | ibyos |
| yeo (you all) | ibyie | ibyiel | ibyeo | ibyeol | ibyies | ibyeos |
| no (he/she/it) | ibne | ibnel | ibno | ibnol | ibnes | ibnos |
| neo (they) | ibnie | ibniel | ibneo | ibneol | ibnies | ibneos |
| Subject | Simple | Imperfect | Subj Simple | Subj Imperfect | Imperative | Jussive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ho (I) | vida | vidal | vide | videl | vidas | vides |
| heo (we, ex) | vidia | vidial | vidie | vidiel | vidias | vidies |
| huo (we, inc) | vidai | vidail | videa | videal | vidais | videas |
| yo (you) | vidya | vidyal | vidye | vidyel | vidyas | vidyes |
| yeo (you all) | vidyia | vidyail | vidyie | vidyiel | vidyias | vidyies |
| no (he/she/it) | vidna | vidnal | vidne | vidnel | vidnas | vidnes |
| neo (they) | vidnia | vidnail | vidnie | vidniel | vidnias | vidnies |
| Subject | Simple | Imperfect | Subj Simple | Subj Imperfect | Imperative | Jussive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ho (I) | kuori | kuoril | kuoru | kuorul | kuoris | kuorus |
| heo (we, ex) | kuorie | kuoriel | kuoruo | kuoruol | kuories | kuoruos |
| huo (we, inc) | kuorei | kuoreil | kuorua | kuorual | kuoreis | kuoruas |
| yo (you) | kuoryi | kuoryil | kuoryu | kuoryul | kuoryis | kuoryus |
| yeo (you all) | kuoryie | kuoryiel | kuoryuo | kuoryuol | kuoryies | kuoryuos |
| no (he/she/it) | kuorni | kuornil | kuornu | kuornul | kuornis | kuornus |
| neo (they) | kuornie | kuorniel | kuornuo | kuornuol | kuornies | kuornuos |
Sentence Structure
Word Order
Celestial sentence structure follows a generally Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) pattern, with some SOV constructions for topicalization of the subject. The language places more importance on words coming before the verb, and word order often conveys emphasis more than intonation or stress. For example: Satatham petorna senath reads from left to right as "The cat chases the dog". However, the word satatham "the cat" comes before the verb and is in accusative case (see Declension above), while senath "the dog" comes after the verb and is in nominative case. This means the sentence reads correctly as "The dog chases the cat".Adjectives, Genitives & Clauses
Other syntactical elements follow a Head-Final construction: the object always comes before the verb, adjectives and genitives generally precede their modified nouns, and relative clauses precede their nouns. Examples:- Mankni nobrest senath. "The black dog eats."
- Mankni hos senath. "My dog eats.
- Mankni vidanam senath. "The dog (that) I had seen eats."
- Ta senath "a dog/one dog"
- Ba seniath "two dogs"
- Senath ta "the first dog"
- Senath ba "the second dog"
Dictionary
Successor Languages
Common Phrases
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