Classical Wood Elven language

Classical Wood Elven was the stage of the Wood Elven language from 700 BEKE to 200 AEKE. While most languages at the time had one or a few sudden early sound shifts that marked their evolution, Classical Wood Elven was known or being phonologically rather unstable, with a fluidly and gradually shifting standard pronunciation, sharply contrasting its solid grammar and large amount of written literature.

Unlike in Classical High Elven, Classical Wood Elven did not have diglossia, the vernacular language and the literary language never deviated too much from each other. In fact, written Classical Wood Elven is still intelligible by speakers of Current Wood Elven.

Evolution from Archaic Wood Elven

 * In Late Archaic Wood Elven, the language started having prosthesis - /e/ became /je/ when no consonant preceded it.
 * The real shift from Archaic Wood Elven to Classical Wood Elven started with the shift of /tp tt tk/ clusters to geminated consonants /pː tː kː/ and the fricatization of ungeminated /p/ to /ɸ/ in all environments around 700 BEKE.
 * Around 650 BEKE, intervocalic /ɸ/ became /w/. Around the same time /w/ became silent before all vowels but /a/ and /o/. Hence, /jepu/ would become /jeɸu/, then /jeu/, and finally /joː/ in the later vowel shift.
 * Around 600 BEKE, a vowel shift happened simultaneously along with the palatalization and sulcalization:
 * /au/ became /ɔː/, /jai/ became /jɛː/, /ou/ became /oː/, /ei/ became /eː/, /eu/ became /joː/, /iu/ became /juː/
 * /n t d s z/ palatalized to [ɲ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ ɕ ʑ] before /i/ and the glide /j/. As such, /si/ became /ɕi/. /djɛː/ (originating from /djai/) became /d͡ʑɛː/, etc.
 * /t d/ sulcalized to /t͡s d͡z/ before /u/
 * In Late Classical Wood Elven (around 100 BEKE), several mergers happened
 * /ɛː/ merged with /eː/ and /ɔː/ merged with /oː/.
 * Loss of distinction between voiced affricates and fricatives - merger of /z/ and /d͡z/ into one phoneme, /ʑ/ and /d͡ʑ/ into one phoneme.

Phonology
This represents the pronunciation of Classical Wood Elven around 400 BEKE. Most sound shifts were gradual.

Consonants
The voiceless bilabial stop /p/ appeared only in foreign words, or when geminated.

Late Classical Wood Elven (around 100 BEKE) lost the distinction between voiced affricates and fricatives - merger of /z/ and /d͡z/ into one phoneme, /ʑ/ and /d͡ʑ/ into one phoneme.

Vowels
In Late Classical Wood Elven (around 100 BEKE), /ɛː/ merged with /eː/ and /ɔː/ merged with /oː/.

Grammar
Classical Wood Elven was a flexible subject-object-verb and agglunative language. It had also preserved the vowel harmony of its ancestor Proto-Elven in grammar, having most (but not all) conjugations come with two variants, depending on what kind of vowel did the Proto-Elven root word end with.

Nouns
The various cases had the following functions:
 * The nominative case usually marks the subject of the sentence.
 * The genitive case marks ownership. For example, "yôbyoan piomyanyo" means "(the) male elf's manliness".
 * The dative case usually marks indirect objects, similar to the use of English "to" and "for"
 * the accusative case usually marks direct objects, ones that are being directly targeted.
 * The locative case is used in conjunction with various suffixes, in itself it has no meaning at all.

Verbs

 * The infinitive is marked by -iri, just like Present Simple.
 * Adding an extra -i at the end turns the verb perfect. An example:
 * "seppiri" means "to make someone/something beautiful". It is in Present Simple.
 * "seppigyo" is the same verb, but in Future Simple instead. For example, "you will make her beautiful".
 * "seppigyoi" is the same verb, but in Future Perfect instead. For example, "you will have made her beautiful".

The present simple also has a secondary role - being used for ordering. For example, in Archaic Wood Elven, there was no distinction between stating that someone is doing something and ordering someone to do something. The difference between stating facts and ordering/commanding is indicated by context and tone of voice.

Adjectives
Adjectives had three forms in Classical Wood Elven:
 * Normal adjective: -ani / -(y)ani
 * Comparitive adjective: -anori / -(y)aneri
 * Superlative adjective: -anogi / -yanyogi

Adverbs
Adverbs had three forms in Classical Wood Elven:
 * Normal adverb: -ann / -(y)ann
 * Comparitive adverb: -ainn / -(y)ênn
 * Superlative adverb: -ôga / -(y)ôga

Inclusive or vs Exclusive or
Classical Wood Elven - and by extension, all of its descendant languages - distinguish between the "inclusive or" and the "exclusive or". The earlier means, "either A, B, or both of them", while the latter means "either A or B, but not both of them - never both of them".
 * The word for the inclusive or is
 * The word for the exclusive or is

Numerical system
Classical Wood Elven used a hexadecimal system.

Numbers larger than 16 would be formed by chaining up multiple numbers and adding a postfix. Numbers larger than 16 and smaller than 256 are divided into two numbers that are smaller or equal to 16. Numbers larger than 256 but smaller than 65536 are divided into two numbers that are both smaller than or equal to 256. Similiar segmentation goes on with numbers larger than 65536 but smaller than 4294967296, or numbers larger than 4294967296.

Numbers from 0 to 16

 * 0: myoi
 * 1: ô
 * 2: fô
 * 3: gon
 * 4: nai
 * 5: sai
 * 6: zoi
 * 7: goi
 * 8: té
 * 9: rógô (greater 1)
 * 10: rópô (greater 2)
 * 11: rógon (greater 3)
 * 12: rónai (greater 4)
 * 13: rósai (greater 5)
 * 14: rózoi (greater 6)
 * 15: rógoi (greater 7)
 * 16: róté (greater 8)

Numerical postfixes

 * hexadecimal up: -awa / -(y)awa
 * Used to separate the upper and lower segments of a hexadecimal number larger than 16 but smaller than 256. For example, "ôawa-ô" - "1 up 1" - is the hexadecimal number 0x11, equivalent to the decimal 17. Logic and consistency would suggest that 16 (or 0x10) be said as "ôawa" - "1 up", but it is actually said as "róté" - 16. The reason for that is that the concept of zero was discovered by the Proto-Elves roughly at the same time as they transitioned from octal to hexadecimal, and the use of the number carried over.
 * double: -í
 * Used to separate the upper and lower segments of a hexadecimal number larger than 256 but smaller than 65536 - both segments being numbers smaller than or equal to 256. For example, "ôawa ôí ôawa ô" - "1 up 1 double 1 up 1" - is the hexadecimal number 0x1111, equivalent to the decimal 4369. Both segments are 0x11, and the usage of the word "double" combines them into one number: 0x1111.
 * quad: -kotsu / -kyotsu
 * Used to separate the upper and lower segments of a hexadecimal number larger than 65536 but smaller than 4294967296 - both segments being smaller than or equal to 65536. For example, "ôawa ôí ôawa ôkotsu ôawa ôí ôawa ô" - "1 up 1 double 1 up 1 quad 1 up 1 double 1 up 1" - is the hexadecimal number 0x11111111, equivalent to the decimal 286331153.
 * octa:-échi
 * Used to combine the upper and lower segments of a hexadecimal number larger than 4294967296 but smaller than the second power of 4294967296. Used similarly to quad and double, with both segments being smaller than 4294967296.
 * negative: -nyú
 * Used to postfix a negative number. For example, '"ôawa ô" - "1 up 1" - is the equivalent to the decimal 17, while '"ôawa ônyú" - "1 up 1 negative" - is the equivalent to the decimal -17.
 * Ordinator: -izhi
 * Turns a cardinal number into an ordinal number. For example, "ô" means "one", while "ôizhi" means "first".
 * Radix point: tsui
 * Literally means "full", it separates the integral part of a number from the fractional part. For example, "ô tsui róté" means 0x1.F, equivalent to the decimal 1.9375.