Verbs - 2

Going against something I said previously, I'm adding distinct Infinitive form for Verbs.

These endings are -vd for Transitive Verbs and -ft for Intransitive Verbs.

Despite this, the "Dictionary Forms" are still the Present Tense forms.

I intend to implement the Infinitive in much the way Esperanto uses it, possibly including Esperanto's "-ado" forms.

I've also added the verb, ɪnt, which means "to be able" and functions like the Esperanto povi. ɪnd means "to enable."

Noun Miscellanea - 1

In this, I'm going to talk about some Noun things that I don't have 100% figured out/don't have enough done to make a whole post.

Quantitative vs Non-Quantitative

The current plan is to distinguish between Quantitative and Non-Quantitative Nouns in a method similar to English. Relevant words (Much/Many, Less/Fewer, More/[Other More]) will each have a distinct word and can be modified by correlative prefixes (in cases where that would be a thing).
My current plan is that Non-Quantitative have no distinguishing features, but may be more likely to look like plural nouns (that is, they might look like they're already plural).

Gendered Nouns

All nouns are neuter by default, but person-nouns (and animals, I guess, if you want), such as "sibling," "parent," and "cousin," and any others you might like, can be made into gendered forms ("sister," "mom") with the addition of a prefix.

Originally, the way this worked was [gender prefix] + [person root] (sister = [feminine prefix] + [sibling root]) and then the neuter was [person root] + dal. This has a nice artistry to it, but isn't very efficient, and I don't like it.

Further, familial nouns also need diminutive forms. Not sure how I'm going to bring all this together...

Syllabic Consonants and the Schwa

One last thing I guess I forgot to discuss is Syllabic Consonants.

I say Syllabic Consonant, but really I sort of mean "Consonants preceded by a schwa" (/ə/). I can't really tell the difference

In Latin script, Syllabic Consonants are distinguished by being upper case, as in lRim ("trees").

Syllabic Consonants are rarely morphemic; instead, they are a transformation of a regular Consonant caused by difficulty in pronunciation. For example: lim means "Tree" and (following normal pluralization rules) "lrim" should mean "trees." However, Elessic doesn't like having to pronounce word-initial〈lr〉, so the "r" is made syllabic. Therefore, the plural of lim is lRim.

"R" is the most common, since its use in pluralization causes it to wind up in hard-to-pronounce places.

Elessic also doesn't like "l[consonant]l." Most often, this is solved by making the second "l" syllabic. An example of this is in the word stalkLar ("death knight," a type of monster). stal means "death" and klar means "knight," but "stalklar" is difficult/unpleasant to pronounce.

Adjectives - 2

Adjectives are super important in Elessic, because Elves like to be descriptive and specific. This post will have a lot to do with Relational Adjectives, but there's something else I want to address alongside that:

In English, you can say "That smells good," or "I smell that." It's the same verb with two functions.

In Esperanto, you can say "Tiu odoras bone," or "Mi flaras tion." Different verbs for the two.

Elessic lacks "to be" verbs beyond sa (don't hold me to that), instead using sa and an Adjective. So, rather than saying "That smells good," you say, "That is good-smelling" which is awkward in English, but Elessic forms it in a more streamlined way.

tedos sa giner.

te- (that)
-dos (thing)
sa (is)
gin- (good [quality])
-er ([forms smells-like adjectives])

So, the "sensory" suffixes are as follows:

-ai - looks-like
-bwe - tastes-like
-er - smells-like
-ho - feels-like (intuition)
-sey - feels-like (physically)
-wa - sounds-like

Look familiar? No? Oh, I just realized I haven't released the post about special suffixes. Hold on.

Okay, that's out now. This is an example of Relational Adjectives, where a suffix is employed to indicate how the Noun that is used to form the Adjective describes the Noun being described.

Orthography - 1

This will just be an overview post; Later, I'll make more in-depth posts about the individual writing systems.

Elessic has four native writing systems, but (unlike Japanese), it uses only one at a time, and two of them are rarely used at all.

kyarɪþ

Kyarith ("Earth Script") is a rune-like alphabet favored by the Wood Elves for the ease with which it can be carved into hard materials. High Elves dislike for aesthetic reasons. I have this one planned out, but I don't ever do anything with it.

gwɪlɪþ

Gwilith ("Cloud Script") is an abugida favored by the High Elves for its beauty and efficiency. It is the main writing system that I focus on, and I've spent quite a bit of time refining it, including adding ligatures. Each glyph is composed of individual pieces which indicate the Place, Manner, and Voice of the sound its represents. I'll definitely do a tutorial on how to write in it... some day.

pazɪþ

Pazith ("Fire Script") is an abugida visibly similar to Gwilith, but more streamlined and with less variety of shape. It's used as short-hand, and in practicing magic. I planned this out on a napkin once, but didn't care enough to hang on to it. Mechanically, it's identical to Gwlitith, just with the "pieces" replaced with more efficient (if less immediately legible).

delɪþ

Delith ("Water Script") is still almost entirely unplanned as of yet. All I know is it will be inefficient, written vertically (as opposed to LTR like the rest of the systems), and used primarily in art for its beauty.

The Syllabic Spacer

This is something I hadn't gotten around to, yet, mostly because it doesn't come up all that often.

When I went through the language's Phonology, at the bottom was a glyph, ', which I defined as the "Syllabic Spacer."

' comes up only very rarely, and I at one point tried to remove it from the language, but eventually I decided to keep it around.

' indicates that the two adjacent sounds are part of separate syllables. For example, the "people group/race" suffix, a'i is two syllables ("ah.ee"). Another example is sa'in (a word for "Moon"), which is pronounced as two syllables, unlike sain. So far, most instances of ' occur between a and i, but some prefixes, such as e' (forms imperative verbs), use it to add a layer of separation between themselves and the word they modify.

' has a unique representation in non-Latin Elessic representations, which I'll get to when I do orthography (eventually).

Questions - 1

This one's pretty short, I guess, but oh well.

Elessic forms questions using Interrogative Particles, like the Esperanto "ĉu," or the Japanese "ka."

Like "ĉu," Elessic Interrogative Particles go at the beginning of the sentence and need no alteration to syntax.

Elessic has three Interrogative Particles:

dast - Forms a question with no special indication of an expected answer, or a non-yes/no.
dɪst - Forms a question that the speaker thinks (or hopes) will be answered with "No."
dust - Forms a question that the speaker thinks (or hopes) will be answered with "Yes."

The variation is inspired by something I read about forming questions in Latin.

One can think of the differences as this:

"Are you mad?"
"You're not mad, are you?"
"You're mad, aren't you?"

Subtle, but important. This also helps disambiguate the old terror of language-learning, negatively-formed questions. Rather than tangling with negatives to indicate a desired or expected response, it's all reduced to the neutral form ("Are you mad?"), with the other flavorings being implied, but not grammatically altering.

The particles are probably related to the archaic English "dost," as in "dost thou?" But they also are descended from bisyllabic forms which I shortened because I decided I didn't need two syllables to ask a question.

As for words like "whether," I'll get to those later.

Conculture - 1

A conlang is shaped by its conculture, if it has one (and mine does).

Obviously, this language is intended to be spoken by Elves, so Elven culture dictates many patterns and specifications of the language. My Elven conculture is for a D&D-based world (5th Edition, specifically), though certain aspects vary from standard D&D Lore. First, I'll talk about Elves as a whole, then get into the sub-types and cultural differences.

Elves live about 700 years, but in terms of cultural and linguistic development, their growth matches Humans' on a generational basis. That is, the Elven Language changes the same amount in 700 years that English does in about 80 years. I tend to round this, and do the time conversion so that Elves develop at 1/10th the rate of Humans (with the exception of physical and mental maturation until the age of ~25, which occurs at the same rate as Humans).

Elves are descended from the anana'i ("people of the sun"), the first non-plant living things on the planet. They were created by Gwaena (Elessic: gweyna), goddess of the sun, who made them to explore and enjoy the world and all the things in it. The anana'i became the ancestors of the Surface Elves (High, Wood, and Eladrin, but not Drow) and all Good Fey.

The Drow are descended from another race, made by Andolin (Elessic: andolɪn), goddess of the moon, and sister to Gwaena. They do not speak Elessic.

Elves worship Gwaena and Andolin as a sort of dual-goddess. Gwaena is Chaotic Good, and Andolin is Lawful Good. Wood and High Elves tend towards Neutral Good (rather than Chaotic Good as in standard D&D Lore).

High Elves (alodavra, "Bright Elves") and Wood Elves (kyardavra, "Earth Elves") speak separate dialects, with High Elvish being the prestige.

In terms of culture, High Elves have historically favored ambition and intelligence, with the greater part of their "modern" culture being defined by a long period of imperialism and colonialism, which ended with the catastrophic destruction of their society several thousand years ago. This imperialism was carried out by the High Elves exclusively.

After the destruction of the imperialistic society, the remnants fled east and landed on Strigana, the continent on which my stories are based. These Elves retained many of the same values of their ancestors and so tend to be less compassionate and more prideful.

A group of these High Elves saw the downfall of their culture as punishment from the gods, and spread eastward across Strigana, looking to live more peaceful lives in tune with the other races (which their culture previously looked down upon). These "Eastern High Elves" mostly settled in Selanor, a forested region inhabited by Wood Elves, and home to the First Tree, which was planted by the goddesses themselves. They formed integrated societies with the Wood Elves, and speak the language which I am describing on this blog.

So basically, there are three groups of Elves: the "Western High Elves" which still hold imperialistic values, tend to be haughty, favor intellectualism, and often look down on other cultures; the "Eastern High Elves" who have embraced other ways of thought, and live peacefully amongst the Wood Elves; and the "Wood Elves", who have always done their own thing, and favor practicality and coexistence.

Western High Elves and Eastern High Elves speak essentially the same language, though Eastern High Elves are far more likely to avoid certain problematic habits and forms.

IN CONCLUSION:

Elessic (as described here) is a language heavily shaped by imperialism and ethnocentrism, but it is moving away from these old-fashioned ideals and is becoming a more open and accepting, focusing on the peaceful sharing of ideas, rather than building ideological walls.

Special Suffixes - 1

There are certain groups of words in Elessic that possess special suffixes which function only with them to change the meaning in a specific way.

So far, there are two such groups, with a third one planned (though I intend to use this mechanic sparingly).

Senses:
For the different senses, adding an -n forms the organ which senses the sensation (making this -nd forms the verb of "to detect something using the sense," but this isn't really irregular).

(remember, all these verbs are transitive)

ai - Sight
ain - Eye
aind - to See

wa - Hearing
wan - Ear
wand - to Hear

gai - Olfaction
gain - Nose
gaind - to Smell

sey - [Physical] Feeling
seyn - Skin
seynd - to Feel [Physically]

ho - Intuition
hon - Intuition (but the other kind)
hond - to Feel [via Intuition]

bwe - Taste
bwen - Tongue
bwend - to Taste

I may add a modification for "to use sense with intent" for "to look," "to listen," "to feel [actively]" et cetera. Possibly, this could be a particle with wider use for other verbs.

Directions:
The cardinal directions are very important in Elessic, as High Elves (whose language I am describing, primarily) do not use Relative Directions (left, right) as their primary method of describing direction, but rather rely on the cardinal directions. This is dumb and impractical, so Wood Elves don't do it.
-a forms regions based on the directions (-st forms included because some are a little different)

eld - East
elda - The East
elst - Eastward

sed - South
seda - The South
sest - Southward

wai - West
waia - The West
waist - Westward

nai - North
naia - The North
naist - Northward

This post got half-written and then I got distracted with other things and now I have no momentum so enjoy.

Adjectives - 1

(some details are still up in the air, but this is what I'm going with right now)

Finally, the much-talked about Adjectives that I've been avoiding because it's complicated.

Elessic Adjectives (like many things in the language) are more specific than in English. Elessic has three categories of Adjectives: Trait Adjectives, Relational Adjectives, and Descriptors.

Trait Adjectives

Trait Adjectives describe a Trait possessed by the Noun, such as its height, density, or even altitude. These are formed by combining an Abstract Noun with a "Trait Possession" Suffix. These Abstract Nouns are the kind of things you would think of in English as Nouns formed out of Adjectives, like "heaviness" and "hardness." You know, the kinds of Nouns that only really serve as a way of speaking about Adjectives as Nouns. In Elessic, rather than these defaulting to Adjectives and then being used as Nouns, they begin their lives as Adjectives.

Trait Possession Suffixes

In English, we say "Hard" and we say "Soft," even though these two words describe the same thing, i.e. how hard something is. We also tend to use such things as the "positive" of something by default. That is, you say "How tall are they?" when "tall" automatically implies above average height.

In Elessic, when you want to describe something's height, you use the word hi ("height"), and then pick a suffix that indicates how much or little of the attribute the Noun has.

-la - indicates middling or average possession of a trait. (hila = "average height")

-mi - indicates above average possession of a trait. (himi = "tall")

-da - indicates far above average possession of a trait. (hida = "very tall")

-mu - indicates excessive possession of a trait. (himu = "too tall")

-ti - indicates below average possession of a trait. (hiti = "short") 

-fa - indicates far below average possession of a trait (hifa = "very short")

-tu - indicates insufficient possession of a trait (hitu = "too short")

Therefore, you can say say dadal sa hida, "that person is very tall." Or, if a little kid wanted to ride a roller coaster, one might say nai, vo sa hitu, "no, you're too short" (or, nai, avu sa hitu if you wanted to soften the blow). Other Trait Nouns include ser ("lightness/darkness of color"), bai (weight), mɪl (age), and such.

Trait Nouns also can take Comparative Suffixes and Superlative Suffixes.

-on - indicates "more" (like "-er")

-oþ - indicates "most" (like "-est")

-in - indicates "less" (English doesn't have a suffix that is the opposite of "-er")

-iþ - indicates "least" (like the opposite of "-est")

Relational Adjectives

These, I'll get into more at a later time, but for now I'll describe them as "Adjectives formed from Concrete Nouns." Take the phrase "Dog Collar." "Dog" is a Noun, but in English, we just slap it down in front of "Collar" and it becomes an Adjective. In Elessic, syntax doesn't change a word's Class, so you have to use a Suffix. These "Relational Suffixes" indicate how the Noun they modify is related to the Noun the newly-made Adjective modifies. So when saying "Dog Collar" you'd take the word for "Dog," add the suffix that indicates that the Adjective shows who/what uses the Noun, and then put "Collar" after it. So it would be "Dog-[user suffix] Collar."

Descriptors

Descriptors are a small class of adjectives which hold so much meaning, that they need no Suffixes to modify them (or else they are niche Adjectives which don't need Suffixes to indicate their degrees of intensity). A few examples are elæd ("old and abandoned, out of use"), ku ("dark-haired"), ket ("correct"), and nar ("incorrect").
These can take Trait Possession Suffixes in some cases, but don't have to.

History - 2

Much of my late 1st Phase work on Elessic was influenced by Latin. In high school, I bought a Latin textbook and started reading through it, and doing some online Latin courses. I hadn't had enough actual language instruction to understand what Cases were at this time (I took Spanish in school, not German) and declensions bewildered me.

However, I liked the sound of Latin, and so a lot my early verbs ended with "-it," which (if I remember correctly) is a common Third Person Singular verb ending in the present tense. This has since been removed, as my verbs now follow a more strict pattern based on Transitivity.

Despite my interest in Latin, German, and Esperanto, my recent addition of cases to Elessic doesn't come from where one might expect. The Accusative was not the first case I added, rather, the Dative 1 was, which was inspired by the use very convenient use of Adverbs to indicate direction in Esperanto.

In learning Esperanto, I wondered why the article "la" didn't match case or number with its Noun, since most other things do. German does this (though, its genders muddy things), and also has a convenient way of including "the" in with its prepositions, with things like "zu" ("to") becoming "zum" ("to the/a"). I tried to come up with an easy way of replicating this through suffixes that attached to prepositions, but anything that added a syllable defeated the purpose of the whole thing.

Eventually, I came up with what I have now: a method by which articles can express Case, which has the added benefit of giving me an out whenever a noun doesn't sound good with certain case markers. Furthermore, the articles remove the need for some of the more common prepositions ("to," "at," "towards"), which helps streamline things.

I still don't know exactly how I intend to handle verbs that have their meanings changed by prepositions, since it interacts with cases oddly. Esperanto has a mix of using prepositions after the verbs and using them as prefixes for the verb, which changes their meanings ("ĉerpi el" means "to draw out [as from a well]" and "elĉerpi" means "to completely use up," with "el-" capable of being used elsewhere for the same meaning), but every time I use a "kun-" verb and follow it up with "kun," it feels redundant.

It may be that I come up with standardized meanings for prepositions-as-prefixes, but this is something that will require a lot of working out.

Articles - 1

Articles! I almost forgot to do one on these suckers.

Mostly, they're like English, but with a few extras (which I'll cover in a bit).

The first variation from English Articles is that Elessic Articles can be left off, if you want and it won't cause confusion. The second variation is that Elessic Articles match the Case and Plurality of their Noun.

Here's a pair of tables:

So, some explanation might be needed.

First, let's cover the Negative Article. In English, its often taught to children that there are two Articles: Definite (The) and Indefinite (A/An). In fact, there's a third: the Negative Article. This features much more prominently in German (where it is a preferred form over most negative sentences, and has a unique representation as kein/keine), but English has one, too, we just don't make a big deal of it. The Negative Article is "no" as in "I have no pets," or "not a" as in "he has not a care in the world."

There's also the Zero Article, which in English is represented by not using an Article. Simply put, a Zero Article is an Article that doesn't do what Articles do (which is define the specificity of a Noun). So why have a Zero Article if it doesn't do anything? Well, in Elessic, you don't have to use an Article, so the Zero Article is used in places where you normally wouldn't use one, but might also just be leaving out the Article. It basically says "I'm not being lazy, this really doesn't need an Article." It's a rare thing to use, but can be important for disambiguation.

Obviously, there's a lot of articles, but you mostly just use two, and they all pluralize like Nouns and use the standard case endings.

Correlatives & Category Nouns - 1

(updated 17.03.25 to reflect changes to "that" correlatives)

Correlatives are an important feature in any language, but they have extra weight in Elessic.

Elessic Correlatives are conceptualized differently than in English. Each is two syllables, being formed of a Determiner Prefix (which is a Bound Morpheme) and a Category Noun.

For example:

kedal (who) is formed of ke- ("which" prefix) and dal (a free morpheme meaning "person")
kemen is "where" (men meaning "place")
kedos is "what" (dos meaning "object")

Other Determiner Prefixes include

vri- (every/all)
ki- (what)
þi- (this)
te- (that)
gir- (any)
id- (some)

Except that the second Morpheme is free rather than bound, this is not all that different from how it works in Esperanto. However, unlike Esperanto, the Determiner Prefixes can attach directly to any Noun.

In Esperanto, one would say:
tiu stelo (that star)
In Elessic, you can simply say:
tesela (that star)

Because the object being referred to ("star") is directly present, there is not need to also list its Category.

"Category" is exactly what it sounds like. Elessic has numerous nouns to refer to things by their general description. For example:

dal (though translated as "person") refers to "animate humanoids"
dos is for objects (non-living things)
bed is for animals (animate, non-intelligent beings)
tem is for "Intelligent Non-Humanoids"
vey is for fey creatures
tol is for ideas/abstract nouns

Some categories are much more broad or esoteric:

dain is for "outsiders" (any living thing not native to the Material Plane)
ram is for deities
zaf is for "any non-real thing"
tag is for "any real thing"
set is for anything, real or imaginary, that has ever been or will ever be

Obviously, most things fall into multiple categories. Generally, you choose whichever is the most specific to whatever you're talking about.

Category Nouns are interchangeable to change the meaning of any word they form a part of.

Etymology - 1

All words have origins, but some moreso than others.

In "History - 1" I discussed how some old words grew into new ones (such as "rilo" into la), but here (and in future installments) I will talk about where the words actually come from.

Elessic is designed as a predecessor (but not direct ancestor) of Easterling (the fantastical language which is presented as English). In some few cases, I have decided that Easterling derived a word or phrase from (at least in part) from Elessic. This mainly occurs when I find the English form to be the most fitting or attractive (it also occurs with some other languages as the source, too).

For example, geyt is a cognate to "gate," and means "gate." Less directly, kisa, means "kiss" (kisand being the Verb), which is derived from the Japanese "kisu," which comes from the English "kiss." ar means "magic" and comes from "arcana,"

Other sources are more roundabout or symbolic.

 ĉel (the philosophical concept of "Good") comes from Chell, the protagonist of the Portal series. See, there's no direct meaning of symbolism there, just a source for the sounds I used.

 ĉelwen ("Turtle") is derived from  ĉel + wen ("Lord/Lady, Noble"). This auspicious meaning and their association with good luck in Elven culture is derived from the use of the Turtle as a protective symbol in some of Stephen King's books.

 enor ("Raven") comes from "Lenore," whom Poe references in The Raven.

 Here's a suuuper weird one: war ("Wolf") comes from a wolf-like monster I designed in my early writings called a "warick." This came from Warrick Brown, the character on CSI, which I watched a lot in early high school.

 kwenya ("Song") comes from Quenya, Tolkien's primary Elvish language.

 dava ("Elf") came about very deliberately as I was trying to pick the form for such a very important word. I was researching Elves in other cultures to find inspiration, but came up sort of empty. I decided to branch out into other folkloric and mythological topics, and came across the Sanskrit word "deva," which I found I rather liked. Further, a Deva is a creature that is more than human, but less than a god (though, I daresay that might not be the case in all religions which recognize them). I went with dava, which I found more attractive.

Later, it came about that dava could be seen as the Actor Form of a verb, and I made this verb, dand mean "to exist." In-world etymologically, I think that long ago, a group of powerful Elven philosophers discussed the idea of solipsism, and when trying to answer the question "What can we say truly exists?" they could only answer "Ourselves." Therefore, an Elf is one who exists.

 I will definitely be doing more of these in the future.

History - 1

This is exciting, as I've never actually sat down and written out the history and process that Elessic has gone through.

Due to motor-skill issues, I got a laptop when I was a freshman in High School, which facilitated my entry into writing. At 14, I began writing a series which I would later refer to as The East, which featured the earliest form of Elessic (The East is on an indefinite hiatus for numerous reasons). Fortunately, because I hoard files, I still have some my earliest documents on the language.

Its early form was a word-replacement system, wherein I did little more than swap English words for made-up ones with little regard to phonology or grammar. This was before I had any exposure to the study of Linguistics. My philosophy in this period was to simply think up a word and then that was the word I'd use, without caring how much I actually liked the sound (or how efficient it was).

I named this language "Ralef," even though I didn't care for the name.

Elessic grew out of Ralef in many ways, although they look very different now. In 2010, I discovered Esperanto and immediately put my conlang project on hold while I studied an actual conlang.

Ralef had a developed glossary, due to the ease at which I created words. Many words were two-or-more syllables in length, which was made worse by the fact that all suffixes and verb-endings were at least one syllable in length.

Nouns pluralized with "-los" (which remained Elessic's pluralization system for a long time)
I have a record of "-ir" forming past-tense verbs, but I have no memory of this. What I do remember is "-el" being used for past-tense and "-et" being used for future-tense. This is directly related to Elessic's current endings for Transitive Verbs.

Pronouns had inflected forms, as in English, but oddly, the third-person plural was irregular. Two Pronouns that carried on in some fashion were "rilo" ("I") and "mehen" ("She"). In Elessic's second phase (after my exposure to Esperanto) I began shortening and increasing efficiency wherever I could. "Rilo" became "lo," which eventually became "la" for me liking how it sounded, and because I see it as the most basic sound combination in the language, with "l" and "a" being (possibly) the two most common sounds. "Mehen" became "mehn," then "men," but was batted around until I settled on the current "mey."

There are few words which I've always viewed as being some of the core blocks of the language. "Mehen" and "rilo" were some of these, but another was "boru," which served as the "to be" verb. This got fiddled with, but eventually was dropped altogether.

The name "Elessic" came towards the beginning of the language's second phase, which began sometime in college. It was thought up on a whim and meant to illustrate more of the sound I was looking for in the language. Still, I quickly decided that it wouldn't be the autonym, partially because "-ic" is an English morpheme. I then came up with elestɪl, but I knew that would never serve, either. After I came up with the dava ("Elf"), davrasi fell into place as a nice-sounding and logical autonym.

Verbs - 1

Elessic verbs are marked as either being transitive or intransitive. In ditransitivity or something seems worthy of being marked, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Verbs do not change form for person, only tense and transitivity.

The "to be" Verb is sa, and it holds the distinction of not holding a standard ending. Despite this, it is conjugated as an Intransitive Verb, adding the proper endings.

Most Verbs begin their lives as Nouns.
A Noun may be turned into a Verb by adding a Verb ending.

Transitive Verbs bear the -nd ending, and Intransitive Verbs bear the -nt ending. Verbs are Transitive by default, unless no Transitive form can be reasonably deduced. For such Verbs, replacing the Transitive ending with the Intransitive one forms a "passive verb," which is used to form the Passive voice. For example:

paz means "fire," pazand means "to burn."
pazant means "to be burned."
la pazand means "I burn"
la pazant means "I am burned [by something]"

(there is no distinction, at this time, between Infinitive forms and the Simple Present)

Verbs performed by plural subjects take -s at the end of their forms.

be pazands means "We burn"
be pazants means "We are burned [by something]"

In passive phrases, the Actor is preceded by the particle vu.

la pazant vu rey means "I am burned by him."

Note that la is not in the Accusative Case, as Elessic Grammar considers it to be the subject of the sentence, performing the action of being burned.

A Present Tense Verb is always considered to be Progressive, unless preceded by the Particle ɪf, which "loosens" a Verb's Tense. ɪf forms the difference between "I am running" and "I run [in general/often]" in the Present Tense, "I ran" and "I used to run" in the Past Tense, and "I am going to run" and "I will run [sometime]" in the Future Tense. In each of these examples, the second sentence uses ɪf.

For non-Present Tense Verbs, progressiveness is indicated using the particle af.

Agent Nouns are formed using the suffixes -va (Persons), -di (Nonpersons). I'll do Passive Agent Suffixes later. These suffixes attach directly to the Root, and may or may not include the Vowel that precedes the Verb Ending (depending on how it sounds)

Here's a chart of verb endings and some examples:

Pronouns - 1

Elessic has Pronouns! Novel, isn't it?

Most need no explanation, but a few do.

Instead of having a simple "we," Elessic divides this pronoun into "inclusive" and "exclusive," depending on whether or not the person being spoken to is part of the "we."

There are three second person pronouns, but rather than being separated by formality, they are used to distinguish tone. The "Admonishing 'You'" is used for scolding or "calling someone out" while the "Supportive 'You'" is used for comforting and caring for someone. All three of the Second Person Pronouns have plural forms.

The third person pronouns have distinctions between neuter animate and neuter inanimate (the plural form of the neuter animate is commonly used for "they").

The pronouns all pluralize like nouns, isn't that convenient?

The main difficulty with pronouns is in the Genitive. Genitive Pronouns display the number and case of their possession(s). This leads to a huge number of possible Pronouns, though they all follow patterns:

Click to Embiggen

Ifs, Ands, & Buts

Here's some useful words and how they work (and why some work differently than in English).

If X, Then Y.

Elessic Verbs have no distinct conditional or subjunctive forms, instead relying on words like ŝu ("if"), aid ("then"), and yed ("whether") to form conditional statements. Because of this, these words cannot be left off. "Wish" statements are marked as conditional because the Verb forces them to be conditional, no extra marking necessary.

And(s)

English has only one way of saying "and,"  but Elessic has several. The basic form is i, which functions as in English. If the preceding word ends in consonant, the form hi is used instead to prevent confusion with the Genitive Case.

There are two other "ands," which don't have corresponding uses in English. One is the "disassociative and," it. it is used to indicate that (unless restated for the second noun/verb phrase) modifiers of the first noun/verb phrase do not apply to the second. Take the example phrase "They sell red mushrooms and candy." In English, it is ambiguous as to whether both the Mushrooms and the Candy are red, or if only the Mushrooms are red. If translated using i, then both are red. If translated using it, then only the Mushrooms are red. This is more useful in complex statements, or with certain verbs, but I'm not going to do examples for that right now.

There's also the "causative and," if, which links two verb phrases to indicate that the first phrase causes the second phrase. "I got hungry and hit my head" is ambiguous as to whether or not the hunger caused me to hit my head. In Elessic, the two are unrelated unless if is used.

But

"But" is expressed by the word had, which functions as in English.

A quick note on Orthography and Phonology

Elessic has no double letters, ever. In a case where combining two words (or adding a Suffix) would result in a double letter, the produced word still only has one letter.

Sometimes, when something would result in two adjacent /s/ sounds, a /z/ may be used instead. This is simply for how it sounds, and is rarely Phonemic.

More on this later.

Cases - 1

Elessic has 5 Cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative 1, and Dative 2; which will be explained here. Excluding the Nominative, cases are "marked" in some way (that is, there is some feature that indicates the case). Different cases require different marking.

Note: Possessive Pronouns and Articles always reflect their Noun's Case, even if the Case is indicated elsewhere.

Nominative

Nominative is the default Case, and has no markings.

Accusative

The Accusative Case indicates the Direct Object of a Transitive Verb, and can be marked by Syntax (second or third position, depending on S-O-V or S-V-O syntax). If non-marking Syntax is used (Object-First Syntax), then the Noun requires either an Accusative Possessive Pronoun, or an Accusative Article.

Genitive

The Genitive Case indicates either possession, or attribution between two nouns (as in English formations using -'s or the Preposition "of"). It is marked either by the use of a Genitive Article, or the Genitive Suffix -(s)i (Suffixes with parentheses indicate that the parenthetical sound can be left off, this is mostly in the case of consonants used to buffer the following vowel when attaching to vowel-final words). 

Syntax affects the meaning of the phrase. Take the example phrases "X Y" and "Y X," where in both examples X is marked as Genitive. With the Syntax "X Y," the meaning is "X's Y," and with the Syntax "Y X" (again, the X is Genitive), the meaning is "Y of X." In both cases, the non-Genitive word is subordinate to the Genitive, but the nuance is different.

Dative 1

Dative 1 is a Case which indicates the destination of a Verb's action, where the action takes place, or marks the Object of a Preposition. It is marked either by the use of a Dative 1 Possessive Pronoun, Article, Syntax (being located directly behind the Preposition), or the Suffix -t. If the Dative 1 Noun is not the Object of a Preposition, and the Verb indicates movement, then the Dative 1 Noun indicates the destination of the action. If there is no movement implied, then it indicates the location of the action.

Dative 2

Dative 2 is a Case which indicates the direction of the Verb's action. It is marked in the same manner as the Dative 1 (Possessive Pronoun, Article, Syntax, or Suffix). The Dative 2 Suffix is -st.

Nouns - 1

Nouns are, possibly, the most important class of words in any given language.

Elessic has no complex rules for Nouns, no genders or declensions. The most difficult thing is pluralization, but I'll get to that.

Nouns can display the following cases: Genetive, Dative 1, Dative 2.
I'll cover Cases once I have Nouns to use in examples and such.

Glossary:

anan - Sun

bek - Bear

ĉira - Magnolia

dal - Person

del - Water

dava - Elf

gwɪl - Cloud

ɪksɪl - Silk

lim - Tree

men - Place

sɪma - Flower

yon - Salt

Plurals:

By default, a Noun becomes plural by receiving an -r- between its last Consonant-Noun pair. For example: dal becomes dral, bek becomes brek, sɪma becomes sɪmra. Not all words can support this method, going through the following options in order:

A word like lim, which would become difficult/impossible to pronounce (lrim can't be said as a single syllable), instead takes -R-. Therefore, "Trees" is lRim.

A word which can't support an -R-, like gwɪl, instead receives a word-final -a.

A word which cannot take a word-final -a (due to already ending in a vowel), such as ĉira, take a word-final -n.

Obviously, some words have no need for a plural form in the traditional sense (these being non-count nouns, most often), but in some cases a plural form might be used for extra meaning (such as multiple groups of the noun, similar to as in English). This may also be used for contextual detailing, such as with del, which often is used as a suffix in naming bodies of water. del is used for stationary waters (lakes, ponds), and drel is used for moving water (rivers, the ocean).

Phonology

Phonology is the basis of any spoken language, and so it seems a fair place to start in introducing someone to Elessic.

Sounds:

æ -  apple Near-Open Front Unrounded
b/p    * Bilabial Stop
ĉ - chapter Voiceless Palato-Alveolar Affricate
d/t * Alveolar Stop
e - bet Open-mid Front Unrounded
v/f * Labiodental Fricative
g/k * Velar Stop
h Voiceless Glottal Fricative
i - beat Close Front Unrounded
ɪ - pit Near-Close Near-Front Unrounded
l Alveolar Lateral Approximant
m Bilabial Nasal
n Alveolar Nasal
a - hot Open Back Unrounded
o - tote Close-mid Back Rounded
r Alveolar Approximant
z/s * Alveolar Sibilant
ŝ - sheet Voiceless Palato-Alveolar Sibilant
ð - lathe/þ - bath * Dental Fricative
u - hoot Close Back Rounded
ʌ - hut Open-Mid Back Unrounded
w Labio-Velar Approximant
y   Palatal Approximant
‘ Syllable Spacer
*indicates a voicing pair

Obviously, this isn't totally IPA, and the examples are subjective based on your own accent. For this purpose, I speak a generalized American dialect, with a degree of south-eastern influence.

Also, I should point out that there are processes like assimilation in the language. "o" before "r" still forms that funny "or" thing like it does in English. These are not accounted for in my orthographical systems, Latin or Elvish.

The glyphs in the left column are how I represent the different sounds of the language in Latin text.

When written in Latin characters, they are all lowercase and italicized, like this.

Additionally, Elessic utilizes what I refer to as Syllabic Consonants, but are functionally more like consonants preceded by a schwa (honestly, I can't distinguish the two). Syllabic Consonants are indicated by capital letters, as in the word arK (pronounced "ah-rək"). Syllabic Consonants are uncommon, and mostly used in pluralizing nouns which can't take the normal pluralization process.

The Bare Bones

So, what is Elessic? What kind of language is it? What themes and features are important in its creation? I'll talk about this and more here.

Ideology

Elessic is meant to be the language of a race of Elves, and these Elves have a very different world-view than humans do. The most important things in the language are (in no particular order) Clarity, Simplicity, and Beauty.

Clarity

Elessic is meant to be inambiguous (though not to the degree of, say, Lojban). 

Verbs have obvious transitivity and only a few possible definitions, so the meaning is clear.

Words formed from other words use specific suffixes to indicate their relationship to the original. For example, the word "Bird" in the phrase "Bird House" would have a suffix to indicate that it is an adjective describing what uses the thing the adjective describes. A different suffix could be used to indicate that the house looks like a bird, if you wanted to.

As of right now, I am not allowing any homophones.

Simplicity

The rules of the language have no exceptions when it comes to things like pluralization and verbs function. A word is defined by its form, and to change its meaning one must change its form.

Verbs do not conjugate for person, only tense and plurality of the subject noun.

Beauty

The language must sound nice when spoken, and must look nice when written. If I don't like a word I've created when I begin to use it in the context of phrases, then I'll change it. If the language does not sound pretty or magical, then it is useless to me.

Structure

Elessic is a S-V-O language, primarily, but S-O-V is also acceptable, and is required in certain formal speech forms. The cases are as follows: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative 1, Dative 2. Cases are always expressed in some manner, though some have multiple ways they can be indicated.
Adjectives and Verbs reflect the plurality of their primary nouns.
Articles and Possessive-Pronouns reflect the plurality and case of their primary nouns.

In cases where a piece of the sentence (article, subject, verb, object) would be obvious, such a piece can be left off (this is mostly used to leave out articles).

Nouns are genderless.

Gender-specific nouns (such as "brother" and "mother") are formed by adding gendered suffixes to neuter bases.

Correlatives are formed by adding correlative prefixes to "noun category" bases. When used beside a noun, the prefix attaches directly to the noun, and the category base is left out. (This will all be explained later)

Double-negatives are improper and are to be avoided.

There's plenty more to say, but I'll get to that stuff when it comes up.

My Qualifications

Can one really be qualified for language-making?

If you ask me what I majored in, I say "Linguistics," but this isn't 100% true. Technically, my degree is a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies. For my degree, I had to choose two foci, and my were Linguistics (of which I took 24 hours) and Writing (of which I took 16 hours).

I took a lot of Linguistics classes, and boy do I not remember much.

I mean, I remember a lot of the basic stuff, and how to do certain things, and certain concepts, but a lot of terminology is completely lost to me. Used to, I would try to look things up to see if there was a word for what I need, but now I've kind of just started coming up with my own terminology for things.

Especially when dealing with language features that don't exist in English.

Basically: Linguistics is an enormous field of study and I can't know it all. Instead, I have to come up with terms for things to save time. Maybe I'll make a glossary for this kind of thing.

Why Blogger?

I'm on various social media sites, including Tumblr.

So you might ask, "Ves, why are you doing this on Blogger and not Tumblr, where you already have a blog about writing?"

The answer isn't super easy to explain, though it's very obvious to me.

See, I'm a very partitioned person, and I have my own way of organizing things. Putting this on Blogger instead of Tumblr fits my need for division and organization. Additionally, Tumblr's infrastructure is cesspool and its formatting is a labyrinth of bad decisions. 

I fully expect Yahoo to close Tumblr before too much longer, and I don't want to lose what I write. Blogger is backed by Google, has fantastic formatting tools, and a nifty feature that lets me download all my posts if I want.

Blogger may not have the same sort of sharing community that Tumblr does, but I don't think I need that for this. For me, it's more important to have my own little space.

An Introduction to this Blog

This is a conlang blog, which is a new thing for me!

I've never actually been involved in the conlang community because I generally avoid other people, especially in respect to my interests. The closest I've come is my involvement with the Esperanto (the only "functional" conlang that I'm interested in) community.

I've decided to make this blog to chronicle the production my own conlang, Elessic.

I'm a fantasy writer, and it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a fantasy writer in possession of too much imagination, must be in want of a conlang.

Therefore, I'm making an Elvish conlang (and, to some degree, conculture), for use in my writing, and as an outlet for my personal linguistic energy.

This language is known (in English) as Elessic, which comes from the mistranslation of the phrase eles tres davrasi, which means "[the] language of the Elves." Autymically, the languages is known simply as davrasi, and comes in two dialects (which I will not be devoting time to distinguishing at the present), alodavrasi ("High Elvish"), which is the prestige dialect, and the one that I consider "default" in my writings, and kyardavrasi ("Wood Elvish"), which has more relaxed rules.

Whether or not this blog receives traffic, it will at least serve as an outlet for my thoughts and a record of my ideas.