Proto-Elven language

The Proto-Elven language was the language of the Proto-Elves. It's descendants are Proto-Human language, High Elven, Wood Elven and Neressan.

Despite being a proto-language, it was surprisingly well-attested, although the majority of written records come from foreign, non-Elven sources, and overwhelmingly attest transitional periods between real Proto-Elven and one of its four descendant languages. Because they come from non-Elven sources, they are very often plagued with inconsistency, loss of several distinctions, and native language-influenced biases.

As such, most of the written records fail to give an accurate representation of what actual Proto-Elven may have sounded like.

Nevertheless, attempts to reconstruct the language date back to as early as just two centuries after it's extinction, and these reconstructions have proven to be accurate enough to make spells written in it stronger - as Arcane Magic is stronger when the spell is written and recanted in an extinct or ancient language, the older the better.

Consonants
/n tʰ t d/ are actually denti-alveolar [n̪ t̪ʰ t̪ d̪].

It is important to note that the post-alveolar series was special in the allophony involving the place of articulation - they were retroflex before back and central vowels, palatal before front vowels.

As such, /ṉ t͡ʃʰ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ʃ ʒ ḻ r̠/ were realized as retroflex [ɳ ʈ͡ʂʰ ʈ͡ʂ ɖ͡ʐ ʂ ʐ ɭ ɽ~ɻ] before back and central vowels, as alveolo-palatal [ɲ t͡ɕʰ~cʰ t͡ɕ~c d͡ʑ~ɟ ɕ ʑ ʎ ɺʲ] before front vowels. Syllabic /r̠/ was always realized as an R-coloured vowel [ɚ].

The laryngeal /ʕ̞ʷ/ was a labio-pharyngeal approximant [ʕ̞ʷ]. It had the allophones [ɒ̯] in syllable coda and [ɒ] when syllabic.

The laryngeal rhotic /ʁ/ was highly subject to allophony, being realized as a trill/flap [ʀ~ʀ̆] in the syllable onset, vocalized to [ɐ̯] in the syllable coda, and realized as [ɐ] when syllabic.

Vowels
Proto-Elven had vowel harmony, meaning that a word ending with a front vowel would be conjugated by a postfix consisting of exclusively front vowels, and the same rule going for words ending with back vowels - postfixes consisting of back vowels.

The only exceptions to this rule are the non-syllabic glides /ɪ̯ ʏ̯ ʊ̯/, which remain unchanged and unaffected by vowel harmony. This is convenient, considering that unlike /i y u/, /ɨ/ does not have a non-syllabic variant.

The mid vowels /e ø ə o/ are truly mid - neither [ɛ œ ɜ ɔ] nor [e ø ɘ o], but between the two: [e̞ ø̞ ə o̘].

/a/ may be more accurately described as [ɑ], or even [ɒ] between labial consonants and rounded vowels.

Grammar
Proto-Elven was a flexible subject-object-verb and agglunative language with vowel harmony. Most root words within the vocabulary had one basic meaning associated with them, which could be altered if the word was used as a verb, noun or adjective.

For example, the Proto-Elven root-word sepph could be modified the following ways:
 * sepphöz/sepphä (masculine/feminine noun) - handsome man / beautiful woman
 * sepphöm (neutral noun) - beauty
 * sepphäni (adjective) - beautiful, handsome
 * sepphätn (adverb) - beautifully
 * sepphiri` (verb) - to make beautiful, to beautify

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, "älböŕn piëmänöz" means "(the) male elf's manliness".
 * The dative case usualy marks indirect objects, similiar 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 -ïrï / -iri, just like Present Simple.
 * Adding an extra -r at the end turns the verb perfect. An example:
 * "sepphiri" means "to make someone/something beautiful". It is in Present Simple.
 * "sepphińö" is the same verb, but in Future Simple instead. For example, "you will make her beautiful".
 * "sepphińör" 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 Proto-Elven, there is 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 have three forms in Proto-Elven:
 * Normal adjective: -ani / -äni
 * Comparitive adjective: -anëri / -äneri
 * Superlative adjective: -anońi / -änöńi

Adjectives
Adjectives have three forms in Proto-Elven:
 * Normal adjective: -atn / -ätn
 * Comparitive adjective: -artn / -ärtn
 * Superlative adjective: -ańg / -äńg

Vocabulary
Work under progress

Legacy
Work under progress