The Introduction to the Ancient Language

3. A Grammar Guide to the Ancient Language

Author Note: When you get to section 3.1.5, you will see examples with a bunch of dots. Please ignore them, they are only there so that the spacing on the columns stay correct. For without them, the lines run together and are difficult to read. Also, when you see these examples, theses forms will have annotations, ex: -DIM. There will be a key at the very BEGINNING of each set.
Footnotes are in parenthesis and are explained at the VERY END. Thanks for reading!

This chapter contains a basic grammar guide of the Ancient Language. Many topics can be elaborated, but for now this is perfect to get an idea of this language.

The Ancient Language is on most points relatively easy - especially for the English speaking world (and therefore most English speaking actors!) . It follows the word order and many other contractions from English. When one knows the basis, this makes it definitely easier to speak and to expand the language.

3.1 Nouns

3.1.1 Gender

Nouns do not have morphological visible genders. Any information concerning the gender of an entity, for example a kona "women", can be derived from the semantics or from the context, like in the case of skulblaka "dragon", which is a gender-neutral word from the semantic point of view although dragons definitely have genders.

Consequently, the way you perceive the entity determines the pronoun. Kona is referred to with a feminine pronoun, madr "man" with a masculine pronoun, skulblaka(1) with both (depending on context) and inanimate or "less" animate entities with a neutral pronoun.

Interestingly, there are many instances of words that are equally used for males and females, like skulblaka or elbrithil "master" or Shur'tugal "Dragon Rider", or of two completely different words for the same profession to emphasize gender equality, like dröttning "queen" and könungr "king"(2). This is a huge advantage, for no feministic fan has something to complain about!

3.1.2 Plurals

Plurals are formed in two different ways, depending on the ending of the noun. Nouns ending on a consonant are pluralized with the suffix -ar. For example, sverd "sword" becomes sverdar "swords" and Shur'tugal "Rider" becomes Shur'tugalar "Riders".

However, this becomes a bit of a problem when one attempts to do this with nouns ending on -r. After all, stenrar as plural of stenr "stone" does not really sound that great. Therefore, when these nouns are pluralized, an -a- is put between the rest of the word and the final -r. So stenr becomes stenar instead of stenrar and skölir "shield" becomes sköliar "shields".

Finally, nouns ending on vowels are pluralized by substituting this vowel by the suffix -ya. For example, fricai "friend" becomes fricaya "friends" and oro "arrow" becomes orya "arrows".

Of course, there are some exceptions(3):

~Fell "mountain" becomes fells "mountains";

~Niernen "orchid" has niernar as plural form, simply becomes niernenar is practically unpronounceable because of the ridiculous amount of "n"-sounds. Besides, in natural languages forms like these are usually shortened anyway after a while;

~Words like solus "sun" and deloi "earth" do not have plural forms, for reasons related to the world of Alagaësia and the common worldview there;