E'hwelos: Difference between revisions

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===='''Consonants:''' (the following are as English)====
===='''Consonants:''' (the following are as English)====


b k d f g h l m n p s t v w x z
b k d f g h l m n p r s t v w x z


There is no '''y''' (except perhaps in the sound created by palatalization) or '''qu'''. The pronunciation of voiced consonants is hard to replicate in our tongue. Its almost 'breathy' like, as if the lips and throat with plosives and fricatives are not completely closed.
There is no '''y''' (except perhaps in the sound created by palatalization) or '''qu'''. The pronunciation of voiced consonants is hard to replicate in our tongue. Its almost 'breathy' like, as if the lips and throat with plosives and fricatives are not completely closed.
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====='''Palatalization'''=====
====='''Palatalization'''=====


Palatalized consonants are: '''d,l,m,n,p,s''' and '''z''', and are rendered as follows:
Palatalized consonants are: '''d,l,m,n''' and '''p''' and are rendered as follows:


'''d-di l-li m-mi n-ñ p-pi s-š z-ž''' (for those who do not know what palatalization is, listen to the '''n''' in the Russian '''nyet''')
'''d-di l-li m-mi n-ñ p-pi''' (for those who do not know what palatalization is, listen to the '''n''' in the Russian '''nyet''')


====='''Syllable stress'''=====
====='''Syllable stress'''=====

Revision as of 00:20, 11 October 2008

Category: Fiction

Overview:

E'hwelos is an Earth-like planet that exists within the second dimension (a universe similar to ours, but unseen or felt) on a higher vibration than that of the Earth. It has a single moon, but its energy is drawn from our own sun, whos radiation particles penetrate into the E'hwelian atmosphere and interact with its 'salenian' gasses, creating a wonderous purple hue in the evening, and a reddish hue during daylight. E'hwelos is actually situated partly within our Earth (see image below) and is dragged along in our orbit. Its size is roughly 1/3 than that of Earth. Although the second dimension is attatched to our universe and timeline, the higher vibration means that E'hwelos and indeed its own universe cannot been seen or felt by us. However, E'hwelian beings are a good deal more biologically advanced than us, and can lower their biological vibrations, enabling them to interact with us on Earth (though only for short periods of time, and its often thought that spiritual or ghostly sightings are actually E'hwelians in visitation).

Earth ehwlos interaction copy.jpg

Quick facts:

  • The E'hwelian timeline is equivalent to Earth's, but E'hwelos revolves faster making its full day 23 hours. However, because the planet spins within our Earth and not in its own orbit around the sun, this makes the E'hwelian year around 15 days longer than Earth's. Therefore an E'hwelian year is equivalent to approx 381 earth days.
  • The planet consists of 4 continents: 1 whole continent lies in the northern hemisphere, 2 whole continents in the southern, and the 4th lies mostly in the southern hemisphere with approx 1/3 lying in the northern hemisphere.
  • E'hwelos experiences similar seasons to ours, that is to say they have a winter, spring, summer and autum, although the climate is between 5 and 8 degrees warmer. If we were to experience an E'hwelian summer, it would be somewhat uncomfortable.
  • The population is approx 2.5 billion.
  • There are 22 countries.
  • There are only 2 official languages: Utan (the original language of the Utai) and Ithibu. Utan is spoken naturally by the Utai, and an Utan dialect known as Hutan is spoken naturally by the H'wero. Ithibu has a standard form, but many dialects. (Note: The Utai do not speak Utan exclusively; if an Utai is born in an Ithibu speaking country, then they will learn that as their 1st language).
  • The official auxilliary language (similar in which English is classed as an international language) is Utan.
  • Most of the animals and plants that exist on earth also exist on E'hwelos, although there are plants and animals that exist on E'hwelos that do not exist on Earth.
  • E'hwelian atmospheric gasses that do not exist on Earth create its violet hue.
  • E'hwelian water consistency is different, almost mercury-like. Its oceans are crystal clear, due to an ocean dwelling bacteria called 'delingamellanoin' that devours dirt particles.
  • It never gets dark, only the colour changes in the evening to a purple/violet hue compared with a lighter hue in the daytime.

A stunning evening view of the Eth'hwaani lake

A stunning evening view of the Eth'hwaani lake

Civilisation

Speaking in an 'evolutionary' sense, the E'hwelian civilisation is not that disimilar to our own; that is to say, they are Human. However, there are 3 specific types of human (or 'race' as in 'human race', not as in 'ethnicity) on E'hwelos. In fact, one could say there are 3 'species' of human, but its difficult to determine whether we label them 'species' or 'race'. They are:

  • The Uta
  • The H'wero
  • The Ithibu

The reason I don't say they are different 'races' is because their DNA is inherently different to the point where they cannot cross-breed (reproductive isolation). For example: on earth, although they have different facial characteristics, skin tone and in some instances, genes, Caucasians, Negroids, and Mongoloids can mate with each other and successfuly produce fertile offspring. Therefore, the E'hwelian humans (for now) should be refered to as 'species' since technically speaking, different species cannot produce offspring. That said, it is actually possible for Utai and H'werai to produce offspring, although they will only produce a female who will be infertile. For this reason, strict precautions are taken to ensure non pregnacy between the 2. Fertilization between Utai and Ithibu unfortunately brings about misscariage.

Uta

The Uta race is, in comparison with ourselves, a highly advanced form of Human, and the most numerous at around 800 million. Here are some Uta facts:

  • They have very distinctive facial features, such as: thin lips, small-slender eyes (most males have violet colour; the females silver or white), small-rounded ears, and have either very dark to black or blonde hair.
  • Their senses are very acute: eyesight is around 3-4 times sharper than that of ours, as is their hearing and sense of smell.
  • Physically, the males are tall (over 6 feet), generally quite stocky with good muscular definition, and up to 5 times stronger than ourselves. The females are mostly of the same height, though slender in build, and have thinner noses but thicker lips, and also quite strong.
  • There are 2 very distinct traits of the Utai which set them apart from the other species: their telepathic and healing abilities. All Utai are born with these abilities, and is inherent in their DNA. They are capable of telepathically communicating over hundreds of miles, though only to other Utai. However, this is not something that is used on a 'willy nilly' basis, as it takes a great deal of concentration and can leave the user quite drained. They also have a strange affinity with animals (though not through direct communication; its thought that they can make their feelings known to animals through telepathy).
  • The Utai can heal up to ten times faster than ourselves, and their immune system is capable of tackling and destroying diseases equivalent to our cancer.
  • Utai can 'transfer' feelings to other E'hwelians simply by touch. In other words, if an Uta wishes another person to 'feel' how they are feeling, they can do this by holding the hand of the recipient. (If only we humans could do that)!

Personality

The typical Uta personality displays friendliness, happiness, respect, and love. It's extremely rare for Utai to fall out with each other. In fact, like their telepathic abilities, these traits are inherent in their DNA.

  • A downside to this is their lack of abillity to understand 'hate' and 'malice', something which sadly still exists in the race of the Ithibu. This can often lead to shameful ridicule towards the Utai, as they often dont understand when they are being ridiculed under sarcasm from the Ithibu.

Below: typical Uta males or Uto

Uta male.jpg Uta maleb.jpg

and typical Uta females or Uti

Uta female.jpg Uta female 2a.jpg


H'wero

The H'werian race are similar to the Utai, exept that they do not posess the abilities of telepathy or self healing. Another distinct difference is that the H'werai are acutely aware of the emotion of hate, unlike the Utai. Physically, they're almost identical except that they are not as strong. The Ithibu find it difficult to distinquish the difference between the two, but Utai and H'werai can instantly tell one another apart by instinct.

Personality

The H'werai share similar personality traits with the Utai, save for their better understanding of hate and sarcasm.


The Ithibu

The Ithibu are almost identical to our human race, except that they're physically stronger and their immune systems are much more efficient. There are no distinquishing features to note, like those of the Utai and H'werai.

Personality

The Ithibu are just like us. They are capable of all traits we humans have and display. However, there is a tendancy for greater tolerance and understanding than we have.


Generally speaking, all 3 races get along quite well, (although there tends to be a stream of jealousy towards the Utai from the Ithibu, but this is more like a childish, sneering or 2 faced situation, nothing too serious).


Languages

Utan overview

The language of the Utai is the most widely spoken language on E'hwelos. Utan is mainly agglutinative with inflectional features. Verbs inflect for, person, number, tense and modality, and nouns agglutinate for prepositional values, cause and possession. Because of this, word order is of no great importance but there is a tendancy to follow an SVO sequence. Presently, I have no examples of written Utan, therefore, for presentation and transliteration purposes, I have developed the following guidelines:

Vowels:

  • a as in bat
  • e as in wet (word initial is pronounced as ay in way)
  • i as in wit
  • o as in boat
  • u as in up
  • aa as in father
  • ee as in street
  • oo as in school
  • oe as in the German schön, or the er in runner

NOTE: Where the vowel is long (and therefore represented as a doubled vowel), this will by default be a stressed syllable. This also applies to diphthongs and triphthongs.

Dipthongs:

  • oi as in loin
  • ae as in ay-ee (wait as in English received pronunciation)
  • ai as in why

Tripthongs:

  • aiu as in ey-oo
  • oia as in oy-ya

Consonants: (the following are as English)

b k d f g h l m n p r s t v w x z

There is no y (except perhaps in the sound created by palatalization) or qu. The pronunciation of voiced consonants is hard to replicate in our tongue. Its almost 'breathy' like, as if the lips and throat with plosives and fricatives are not completely closed.

Palatalization and syllable stress

Palatalization and syllable stress are extremely important grammatical features of Utan. They can mean the difference between a verb and a noun, a verb tense, and especially with stress, the difference between numbers. Voice intonation also goes hand in hand with stress.

Palatalization

Palatalized consonants are: d,l,m,n and p and are rendered as follows:

d-di l-li m-mi n-ñ p-pi (for those who do not know what palatalization is, listen to the n in the Russian nyet)

Syllable stress

This is quite predictable in Utan-unlike in English where it is lexical and has to be learned with the word. However, when I say predictable, this means where it is important. In verbs, (and all verbs are trisyllablic in an uninflected state) syllable stress always falls on the 2nd syllable (uninflected). Where the verb is conjugated, stress shifts to accommodate its original position, although for emphasis, stress may also be given to the person inflection:

behiilna-to exist, ebehiilna-I exist, ébehiilna-I DO exist

It should be noted that syllable stress is only grammatical in verbs, numbers, and verbal nouns. With other word classes, including free nouns, stress may naturally fall on the 2nd syllable, and although this can change due to dialect, it will have no specific meaning. In written Utan, syllable stress is only marked in foreign correspondance-unlike palatalization which is always marked. Athough the rules of syllable stress are fairly rigid, I have decided to mark this in transliteration, but only if it is grammatically necessary. To show this, the vowel in the stressed syllable will be marked as follows:

á, é, ii, ó, ú

NOTE: ii does not make the vowel long. The above characters only represent syllable stress, they do not change the vowel sound. For long and short vowels, see the vowel section above. However, by default, a long vowel will normally always be part of a stressed syllable.

Verbs

All verbs are very regular. Verb stems or infinitive conatin 3 syllables, and the present tense always begins with a voiced consonant. This is important in pronunciation, as unvoicing changes the verbs meaning. (Utan ears are extremely sensitive to this syntactic rule, much more so than ouselves. In fact, Utan pronunciation is hard to replicate in our tongue). As said, palatalization also plays an important role in meaning. The present indicative also carries the present progressive tense ‘ing’.

Tenses:

Eg verb: behiilna-to extist/live

Present:

  • behiilna-infinitive-to exist
  • ebehiilna-I exist/am existing
  • abehiilna-you exist (singular)
  • ambehiilna-you (all) exist
  • obehiilna-he exists
  • ubehiilna-she exists
  • eibehiilna-it exists
  • enbehiilna-we exist
  • onbehiilna-they exist
  • inbehiilna-one exists

Simple past:

Unvoicing of word initial consonant. This tense doesn’t always denote completion of an action:

  • epehilna-I existed/did exist/was existing (then same for all conjugations)

Perfect present:

Formed by way of palatialization of the last consonant:

  • epehiilña-I have existed (pronounced 'epehilnya')

Future:

Adds n to the stem:

  • ebehiilnan-I will exist

There is no perfect future tense.

Copula and the verb 'to be'

The verb vaana-to be, has 3 uses in Utan. It’s main use is to act as a copula to adjectives, but is also used to link nouns and pronouns to a prepositioned noun, and as a copula for stative/intransitive verbs. It’s quite hard to directly translate this into English. Vaana roughly denotes the 'state' of something, or the current status of the subject, and only conjugates for tense when used with nouns.

  • vaana-am/is/are
  • faana-was/were/had been
  • faaña-have/has been

With adjectives:

  • Faen-hot (adjectives denote the was/were state with the ending o)
  • Hwen vaana faen-I am hot (rough translation: I'm in a state of being hot)
  • Noi vaana faen-you are hot
  • Ema vaana faen-he is hot
  • Hwen vaana faeno-I was hot

With verbs:

Zihoina-to own, gehuna-to kick

  • Ezoina vaana olatse-I own a house (vaana needed as own is stative)
  • Ogehuna oitak -He kicks a ball (vaana not needed as kick is an action verb)

NOTE: The Utai are very literall people, and this transcends into their language. For example, an Uta would never say: Evenoida vaana gwel-I feel ill. They would simply say: Hwen vaana gwel-I am ill.

Modality

Modality or the mood of a verb is rendered with an n inflection followed by a mood indicating vowel or dipthong. Modals rendered in Utan are:

  • Can (to be able to)
  • May (to be allowed to)
  • Should (to ought to)
  • Like (to like/enjoy)
  • Would like (would like to)
  • Want (to want to)

Other moods are:

  • conditional-would
  • subjunctive-expresses wishes or hypotheticals

Modal inflections are indicated below with galiina-to love (because all verbs are regular, the 1st person only will be used in examples; one simply adds the appropriate person prefix)

galiina-to love egaliina-I love

Can-na

  • galiinana-to be able to love
  • egaliinana-I can love
  • Past:
  • ekaliinana-I could love (was able to)
  • May-no
  • geliinano-to be allowed to love
  • egeliinano-I may love (am allowed to)
  • Past:
  • ekaliinano-I was allowed to love

Should-ni

  • galiinani-to ought to love
  • egaliinani-I should love

Past:

  • ekaliinañi-I should have loved (note the palatialized ñ here)

Like to-nu

  • galiinanu-to like to love
  • egaliinanu-I like to love

Past:

  • ekaliinanu-I liked to

Perfect present:

  • ekaliinañu-I have liked to love

To want to-ne

  • galiinane-to want to
  • egaliinane-I want to

Past:

  • ekaliinane-I wanted to

Perfect present

  • ekaliinañe-I have wanted to

Would like to-noi

  • egaliinanoi-I would like (to)

Past:

  • ekaliinañoi-I would have liked to
Subjunctive

There are 2 subjunctive moods in Utan.

Subjunctive 1 is used to render hypothetical wishes or expressions. Eg:

  • If I were rich, I’d buy a forest.
  • If I were you I’d tell the truth.
  • I wish there was a lake of chocolate.

With the 'if' clause, there are 2 ways in which this is rendered. With adjectival statements, the adjective itself inflects to denote 'if' and person. For example: the adjective toin-rich, normally takes an inflection to denote its state (are you currently rich, or were you rich/no longer rich), which is an additional o meaning 'was/were'. To make it subjunctive, the adjectives final consonant is palatalised:

  • toin-rich
  • hwen vaana toin-I am rich
  • hwen vaana toino-I was rich (but am no longer)
  • hwen vaana toiño-if I were rich (currently not rich, but would like to be)

Subjunctive 2 is for modal expressions such as: should/ought to be, able to be, allowed to be, want to be etc. Fot this type of construction, the modal inflection prefixes to vaana. Look at the following examples, which are all subjunctive 2 in Utan:

  • Ololat na'vaana doik e kedoik. Houses can be big or small. (literally: Houses can be in a large or small state)
  • Ema ni'vaana nuhon. He should be there by now.
  • Uma ne'vaana asoilum. She wants to be famous.
  • Hwen noi'vaana nelien. I would like to be happy.
  • Sukois hwenda no'vaana vaeti kwemba. We're allowed to be a little crazy sometimes.

With prepositioned nouns:

  • Hwen vaana olatninoi-I'm at home
  • Hwen faana olatninoi-I was at home

Pronouns

Nom:

  • I hwen
  • you noi
  • you (pl) noida
  • he ema
  • she uma
  • it ama
  • we hwenda
  • they uvaiu
  • they (inanimate) uvoik
  • one aru

Acc:

  • Me hwense
  • You noise
  • You (pl) noidase
  • Him emase
  • Her umase
  • It amase
  • Us hwendase
  • Them uvaiuse
  • Them (inanimate) uvoikse
  • One aruse

Dat:

  • To me hwesu
  • To you noisu
  • To you noidnasu
  • To him emasu
  • To her umasu
  • To it amasu
  • To us hwesu
  • To them uvasu
  • To one arusu

NOTE: The above are the basic grammatical categories for pronouns. However, Utan pronouns can inflect with any of the noun cases.