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Seanil - Elvish
https://archive.holyworlds.org/viewtopic.php?f=244&t=3400		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Novadar [ June 4th, 2011, 8:11 am ]
Post subject:  Seanil - Elvish
Monta Tervedhis, ie tahlen elleama vel selen silen loestel!

This will be an attempt at explaining the only language from my book that I have taken time to develop, Seanil Elvish. For those of you who don't know, I am working on a fantasy novel, you can read an excerpt here viewtopic.php?f=117&t=3311. The elves don't fully enter the books until the third, if all goes as planned, so I have quite a long time to work on developing the language and my technique for describing it, both of which are in their most incipient forms. There are three different areas of the language that I am going to talk about today, the vocabulary, the grammar, and the alphabet.

I am basing the vocabulary off of three languages that I am blending together, chosen because the first word I ever "translated" to Elvish was the word hope, and I chose the three coolest-sounding languages (for that word). They are Finnish, Norwegian, and Croatian. You may be thinking "WHAT?!?!?! Scandinavian languages for elvish?" yeah, that's what most people think, but it sounds pretty cool. Attached at the bottom of this page is my running alphabet (always subject to change) so take a look and let me know what you think!

The grammar structure is the hardest for me to describe, mainly because I can never get the parts of the sentences straight (I have the basics, but not enough to describe a whole new language), so what I am going to do is write out the sentence for each grammar structure that I have developed so far in Elvish, and then write the literal English translation of that sentence.
Past tense: Arvel teava (tee-AY-vuh) meien (my-EN) mavenel Ovar
English: Killed (past tense version of verb) you I could have.

Present tense: Monta Tervedhis, ie (eye) tahlen elleama (el-ee-AY-muh) vel selen silen loestel (low-STEHL)! (Correct version, all previous greeting lines dropped the word shine... :blush: )
English: Many greetings, the Star (of) Life on our meeting shine!

Future tense: Alantíl (ah-lahn-TEEL) meien eidír (eye-DEER) Essíl
English: Surrender I never will

As far as the alphabet goes, I invented that in a brief spell of boredom (which I hope I am not giving to you), so it is entirely made out of the whims of my will... Let me know what you think, and what I need to improve. A pronunciation guide for the elvish alphabet is underway, but I am having trouble writing it (it's finals week... 'nuff said).

Attachments:
Elvish Alphabet - Second Draft.jpg
Elvish Alphabet - Second Draft.jpg [ 537.36 KiB | Viewed 680 times ]
Elvish Dictionary.docx [33.09 KiB]
Downloaded 31 times
Author:  Princess Arante Weneve [ June 4th, 2011, 9:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Really nice. :) I really like how your Seanil dictionary was made. :)
Author:  Novadar [ June 4th, 2011, 11:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Thank you! Any suggestions for improvement?
Author:  Princess Arante Weneve [ June 5th, 2011, 6:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Esílis wrote:
Thank you! Any suggestions for improvement?

None that I can think of right now.
Author:  Novadar [ June 5th, 2011, 10:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Now that all y'all have the alphabet AND the dictionary, you should try decoding this (and alerting me to all the mistranslations, I know of at least three... :blush:). This came about as a result of two weeks of boredom, and a need to see what an entire page of elvish would look like... Please let me know if any of you in holy worlds can read it... I'm dying to see if anyone other than me can read my language... :D

Attachments:
Psalms 139 23 24.jpg
Psalms 139 23 24.jpg [ 1.32 MiB | Viewed 680 times ]
Psalms 139 13 22.1.jpg
Psalms 139 13 22.1.jpg [ 2.99 MiB | Viewed 680 times ]
Psalms 139 1 12.1.jpg
Psalms 139 1 12.1.jpg [ 2.87 MiB | Viewed 680 times ]
Author:  Sam Starrett [ June 5th, 2011, 11:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Two things:

1. Technically, just so you know, the way to give a reference to a Psalm is as Psalm X:Y, not Psalms X:Y. The reason being that Psalm 135, for instance, is the 135th Psalm, not merely the 135th chapter of the book of Psalms.

2. I tried to decipher your version of Psalm 139:23. Here's what I have so far:

23 mion pail, i hirfsion, ae l

As you can see, I'm completely stuck on the second letter of the sixth verb. What is it? And did I get the rest of it right?
Author:  Novadar [ June 6th, 2011, 12:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Ok, I will remember that when I rewrite it (normally Elvish writes left to right and bottom to top, I totally spaced out on that...). And no, that is not correct, the elvish for v23 is Meien paríl, Í Híroshen, ae meien... (well, when it is converted to normal characters...) Good luck on the rest! Would you say that my alphabet has too many similar characters? Or is it that my thing is merely unclear? Let me know if there is a better way to write that...
Author:  Sam Starrett [ June 6th, 2011, 10:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Well, on the one hand, you do have a lot of similar letters. Look, for instance, at the glyphs you have created for B, J, L, M, and N . They are virtually identical, especially the former two to each other and the latter three to one another. Your glyph for T also resembles these five. Your letters for ae and ea are also somewhat similar, particularly when written in cursive. Speaking of which, I think you need to consider how the letters will change when written in cursive, as it appears their distinctions become even more muted there.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, you probably don't need a letter Q and possibly not even C. There's really no reason to have, C, S, and K, unless you assign them to different sounds from those they carry in English, though you can if you want.
Author:  Novadar [ July 1st, 2011, 4:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Ok, I will keep that in mind as I prepare to write a third draft. Also, most of the letters that sound the same are there in order to differentiate between similar sounding words... I will re-evaluate the pronunciations and see if perhaps some of the letters can be dropped.
Author:  Neil of Erk [ July 3rd, 2011, 10:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Actually, you'll need to keep /s/ separate from /c/ and /k/. /s/ is a different sound, a fricative, while /c/ and /k/ represent the same sound, a stop.

Incidentally, Finnish and Welsh were Tolkien's greatest influences while creating Quenya and Sindarin. (Note: possible misspelling. I'm not exactly a huge Tolkien-language buff. Never could get a grasp on Elvish grammar.)
Author:  Sam Starrett [ July 12th, 2011, 2:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Neil of Erk wrote:
Actually, you'll need to keep /s/ separate from /c/ and /k/. /s/ is a different sound, a fricative, while /c/ and /k/ represent the same sound, a stop.


Sort of. C, S, and K do not all represent the same sound, it's true, but C switches based on context between the sounds of S and K, in English anyway. I'm referring to the English letters here, not their IPA equivalents, BTW. Anyhow, S and K can take over for C, or C can take over for K, but you really don't need all three as C only duplicates the sound of K in some cases and S in others.
Author:  Neil of Erk [ July 12th, 2011, 5:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Samstarrett wrote:
Neil of Erk wrote:
Actually, you'll need to keep /s/ separate from /c/ and /k/. /s/ is a different sound, a fricative, while /c/ and /k/ represent the same sound, a stop.


Sort of. C, S, and K do not all represent the same sound, it's true, but C switches based on context between the sounds of S and K, in English anyway. I'm referring to the English letters here, not their IPA equivalents, BTW. Anyhow, S and K can take over for C, or C can take over for K, but you really don't need all three as C only duplicates the sound of K in some cases and S in others.


Basically, what you said is true only of English (with a few exceptions here or there...mostly in Europe).

I would stress that you should only use these letters in a manner similar to English if you're trying to create a language related to, or similar to, English. Otherwise, this is a phenomena that doesn't usually develop in natural languages.
Author:  Sam Starrett [ July 17th, 2011, 2:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Seanil - Elvish
Neil of Erk wrote:
Samstarrett wrote:
Neil of Erk wrote:
Actually, you'll need to keep /s/ separate from /c/ and /k/. /s/ is a different sound, a fricative, while /c/ and /k/ represent the same sound, a stop.


Sort of. C, S, and K do not all represent the same sound, it's true, but C switches based on context between the sounds of S and K, in English anyway. I'm referring to the English letters here, not their IPA equivalents, BTW. Anyhow, S and K can take over for C, or C can take over for K, but you really don't need all three as C only duplicates the sound of K in some cases and S in others.


Basically, what you said is true only of English (with a few exceptions here or there...mostly in Europe).

I would stress that you should only use these letters in a manner similar to English if you're trying to create a language related to, or similar to, English. Otherwise, this is a phenomena that doesn't usually develop in natural languages.



To the best of my knowledge, Esílis's language is not related to any real-world language and the correspondence of his letters to ours is solely for the purpose of helping us pronounce it. Hence my belief that he could get by just fine with K and S and have no need for Q and C.
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