Oldspeak

Oldspeak is the archaic language of the Overlords, used as a religious-language mostly by the Mountain-Elves and Foxlings, since both species are natural polyglots with knowledge of various languages. The language is now rarely spoken, although certain regional variations of the original dialect, such as Foxspeak, are still used today. It is also known as the Language of the Old Folk, where it is written with an ancient script known as the "Folk-Script" in a nearby dimension.

Writing System

Oldspeak makes use of the Oldspeak-Alphabet. The script makes use of capital and simple forms for its letters. The 52 letters of the script are: A/a, Ă/ă, Ә/ә, B/b, C/c, Ĉ/ĉ, Ç/ç, Ç'/ç', Č/č, Ć/ć, D/d, E/e, Ĕ/ĕ, F/f, G/g, Ğ/ğ, H/h, I/ı, İ/i, Ĭ/ĭ, J/j, Ĵ/ĵ, K/k, K'/k', L/l, M/m, N/n, O/o, Ö/ö, Ŏ/ŏ, P/p, P'/p', Q/q, Q'/q', R/r, S/s, Ś/ś, S'/s', Ŝ/ŝ, Ş/ş, T/t, T'/t', U/u, Ü/ü, Ŭ/ŭ, V/v, X/x, Y/y, Z/z, Ź/ź, W/w and Dh/dh.

by C.S.De Silva (Ken D)

Geographical Distribution

The Mountains.

Phonology

The phonemes include palatalized consonants, long-vowels and soft-consonants (like " t' " and " s' ". There are also multiple front, central and back-vowels.

Morphology

Oldspeak is agglutinating with a tendency towards being fusional. Affixes are mostly suffixes or infixes, but there are a few prefixes. The language uses mostly suffixes. Most affixes are restricted to specific parts of speech. Some affixes behave as clitics. The word order is SOV. Oldspeak does not have gender, but has declension-classes and reflects grammatical gender within anaphoric-pronouns.

Syntax

Oldspeak is an ergative-absolutive language.

Vocabulary

Oldspeak has a rich word-derivation system. By using a root, and adding some definite prefixes and suffixes, one can derive many nouns and adjectives from the root. For example, from the root -kartv-, the following words can be derived: Kartveli (a person), Kartuli (a language) and Sakartvelo (a land). Most surnames in Oldspeak end in -dze ("son"), -shvili ("child"), -ia, -ani and -uri ("man/boy"). The ending -eli is a particle of nobility, equivalent to de, von or skii. Oldspeak has a vigesimal numeric-system, based on the counting system of 20. In order to express a number greater than 20 and less than 100, first the number of 20s in the number is stated and the remaining number is added. For example, "93" is expressed as "otk'h-ma-ots-da-tsamet'i" (lit. four-times-twenty-and-thirteen).

Successor Languages

• Yippish
• Foxspeak

Common Phrases

"Zeruan zeruan dagoen gure aita."
("For our Fathers", a prayer)
"Telan ay jun naq' winaq' yul sbe."
("Don't ask a river why it flows", a proverb)
"Chveni mama, romelits khelovnebis t'sashia."
("Without a mother, a child is lost.")
"Bie wrue isht auf dar Gottschəabarschər junc ar steanot shmoaronsh guur wrue auf. Ar legot shih guur schiander aanar geanot ahin uf es kirtagle."
[("Trying to understand God is like trying to understand why a river flows. You will not be satisfied with the answer.") A proverb.]
"Du hoscht Gottschəabarschər lai oin ammoin, oin attoin dərzuə du hoscht lai oin hoimət puə."
[("If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at who he gives it to.") A proverb.]