High Elven dialects

The High Elven language is a relatively unified language with much lesser amount of dialectal divergences than other languages, such as Etrandish.

North-Western dialect / Yanus dialect
The North-Western dialect is virtually identical to Standard High Elven in all respects except pronounciation and slang, as the latter is based off the earlier, the Yanus dialect to be specific.


 * While Standard High Elven preserves all vowels the way they are written, the Yanus is somewhat lazier, often deleting the short vowels before the sonorants, especially in casual speech, creating syllabic consonants. In other contexts, unstressed short vowels may be reduced to a schwa , though this is neither consistent nor systematic.
 * Yanus speech has some slang vocabulary that is absent from the standard language.
 * is a fricative indeterminate with respect to centrality, surfacing as either of the two in free variation. Upper-class speakers prefer the lateral fricative, lower-class speakers more often use the central fricative.

South-Western Dialect

 * is preserved
 * The diphthongs are pronounced as
 * is dissimilated to retroflex before back vowels and, alveolo-palatal  before front vowels other than.
 * is somewhat centralized, or even
 * is realized as an alveolo-palatal lateral consonant, but it can be either a fricative or an approximant in free variation

Deep-Western dialect
Spoken in the westernmost parts of Froturn near the mountains, it is perhaps the most divergent dialect of all of them, the Deep-Western dialect features conservativism and innovations alike.
 * Conservative features:
 * The Middle High Elven is preserved as a separate sound, pronounced as.
 * The Middle High Elven have evolved into  in this dialect, as opposed to the Standard.
 * The diphthongs are pronounced as
 * is pronounced as a fully back - as opposed to the standard  - except after the palatal
 * The voiced plosives are consistently pronoucned as stop-consonants, never as fricatives like in other dialects
 * is consistently pronounced as an alveolo-palatal lateral approximant, unlike in other dialects, where it has a more fricative(-like) pronounciation and often loses its lateral quality.
 * Innovative features:
 * are fronted to after
 * is retracted to unless it's following or followed by a front vowel, where it either remains  or gets palatalized (see below).
 * is palatalized to before, but not.
 * are depalatalized to before back and central vowels other than, but are further palatalized to  before front vowels and  (which are fronted to  in this environment).
 * remains unaffected, consistently pronounced as regardless of the environment.
 * may be pronounced as a retroflex as opposed to the standard denti-alveolar, but it's not universal: most speakers of the dialect also use  rather than.
 * The dialect uses the word "noi" (pronounced, written by speakers of the dialect,  by outsiders) for "yes", as opposed to the Standard "lá".

North-Eastern "High Elven High Elven"
Spoken by the High Elves who reside in the area.
 * are typically pronounced uvular
 * syllable-final nasals in closed syllables are always elided, nasalizing the preceding final vowel.
 * Nasalized also gets backed to
 * Nasalized is consistently rounded
 * Other vowels do not change their quality when nasalized.
 * The diphthongs are pronounced as
 * is realized as a non-lateral fricative with optional assibilation . The geminated is typically realized as an affricate.

Halfling dialect
Spoken by the Halflings who reside in the area.
 * The final nasal always gets elided in a closed syllable, but the preceding vowel gets nasalized.
 * Five / ten-vowel system: (and their nasalized equivalents) instead of the Standard
 * The diphthongs are pronounced as
 * Lack of medial lention of voiced stops and affricates - they are consistently pronounced as stops / affricates
 * Lack of aspiration on voiceless stops and affricates
 * Just like in Halfling, consonants are dissimilated to velarized and palatalized allophones depending on the quality of the vowel that follows (front vs back).
 * are pronounced before front vowels,  before back vowels
 * are pronounced before front vowels,  before back vowels
 * are pronounced before back vowels,  before front vowels
 * is a retroflex, is a uvular
 * is reinterpreted as before front vowels,  before back vowels, pronounced as a palatalized nasal  in both cases.
 * is reinterpreted as before front vowels,  before back vowels, pronounced as a palatalized lateral approximant  in both cases.

South-Eastern dialect

 * Lack of aspiration on voiceless stops and affricates
 * Lack of medial lention of voiced stops and affricates
 * become
 * become
 * are realized as diphthongs
 * The original Middle High Elven have consistently fronted to, as opposed to the standard.
 * is lowered to.
 * The diphthongs are pronounced as
 * is realized as a non-lateral fricative with optional assibilation . The geminated is typically realized as an affricate.