Old Elvic

The Old Elvic language is the oldest remaining Elvic language, and the last common ancestor of the Nesarian, Eshérian, High Elvish and Avamorian languages, as well as the now-extinct Vampiric language. It survives as the liturgical language for Elveta, and the language the Ticae Baca is written in.

When the Nesarians and High Elves made contact during the reign of Emperor Athdus III, they mutually analysed each other's versions of Old Elvic that they had preserved. It was decided that the version the Nesarians had preserved was more accurate to the original language, although some Elves still stubbornly stick to the small variations that exist in their version of Old Elvic.

Black Elves do not use Old Elvic, as their religious tradition is rooted in their own language.

Compared to modern Nesarian and High Elvish, Old Elvic has more complex grammar, less rigid pronunciation rules and longer words. Especially compared to Nesarian, the sound of the language is also much softer, and some sounds appear that were later dropped by both Nesarian and High Elvish. It shares the trait of having the meaning of words changed predominantly through suffixes, and it maintains a system of vowel harmony in the suffixes, which High Elvish maintains but was lost in Nesarian.

Old Elvic also has a great number of compound words, particularly vowels, which results in typically very long words but less of them, as entire sentences can be shortened down to one or two words. Probably to make the words easier to remember and more flexible, these compound words were broken up by Old Elvic's descendants into much shorter words that express more basic concepts.

## Pronunciation

* C is pronounced as a hard "k", unless it is immediately following a consonant, where it makes a "ch". This rule is ignored if an R immediately follows the C. To signal that it should always make a "ch" regardless of placement, CC is used, or Č in the High Elvish version. To signal that a C should be a hard "k" even if it would violate the rules, a K is used instead.
* Q is pronounced "ch" or "kh" (x), as in lo**ch** or **kh**an. Sometimes, in Old Elvic, to avoid confusion, this is represented as KH instead.
* T is pronounced as a hard "t" regardless of the letters around it.
* G is pronounced as a hard "g", unless it is at the start of a word or immediately following a consonant, where it becomes "dj" (dʒ), as in **g**iant.
* O is pronounced as a short "oh" (ɒ), like in p**o**d.
* AU is pronounced "ow" (aʊ), like the "ou" in m**ou**th.
* Œ is pronounced "oer" (œ) as in b**ir**d or German k**ö**nig.
* EU is pronounced "ew" (ju) as in the British English pronunciation of kn**ew**.
* AE is pronounced "ay" or "ey" (eɪ), as in f**a**ce.
* AI is pronounced "ai" (aɪ) as in **i**ce.
* EA is pronounced "aya" or "aea" (eɪæ), as in Plat**aea**
* SZ is pronounced "zh" (ʒ), as in plea**s**ure.
* IR is pronounced "ear" (ɪər), as in, well, **ear**, or f**ier**ce.
* ÉR is pronounced "air" (ɛə), as in squ**are** or M**ar**y.
* TH is pronounced like the "th" (θ) in **th**igh, unless it is at the start of a word or immediately following a consonant, where it is the "th" (ð) in fa**th**er.
* NG is pronounced "ng" (ŋ) as in si**ng**.

## Sound Shifts

*This segment is duplicated on the Elvic page.*

Old Elvic would undergo significant sound shifts in its transition into Nesarian (through Old Eshérian) and High Elvish and Avamorian (through Old Elvish). In many cases, the same sound shifts occurred, but there are also several cases where one branch underwent a sound change that the other did not.

The sound changes are listed below. For simplicity, Old Elvic will be shortened to OE, and the modern form of the language will be shortened to ML (Modern Language).

### Eshérian Branch

This consists of Nesarian and its dialects, and Eshérian.

#### Consonants

* **OE** /f/ → **ML** /v/
* **OE** /t͡ʃ/ → **ML** /k/
* **OE** /x/ → **ML** /k/
	+ Note that this sound shift only occurred in the Northern (i.e. Standard) dialect of Nesarian
* **OE** /ʒ/ → **ML** /s/
	+ Note that this did not occur for all words, and many words derived from native Nesarian use /ʒ/
* **OE** /ʃ/ → **ML** /s/
* **OE** /ð/ → **ML** /θ/
* **OE** /x/ → **ML** /k/
	+ In some isolated dialects this has remained as /x/, but in modern times this practice is almost extinct
* **OE** /ks/ → **ML** /k/
	+ Shifted in the more common words that use /ks/, others which were rarely used or hold high importance (e.g. "Rexada") remained unchanged

#### Vowels

* **OE** /ɪ/ → **ML** /j/
* **OE** /ɑː/ → **ML** /æ/
	+ This is /a/ in some dialects
* **OE** /æ/ → **ML** /ɛ/
* **OE** /ɔː/ → **ML** /uː/
* **OE** /œ/ → **ML** /ɒ/
* **OE** /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ → **ML** /iː/
	+ This did not occur in all cases, particularly with the names of places and people

### High Elvish Branch

This consists of High Elvish and Avamorian.

#### Consonants

* **OE** /f/ → **ML** /v/
	+ Only for Avamorian, not for High Elvish
* **OE** /ʃ/ → **ML** /s/
* **OE** /b/ → **ML** /v/
* **OE** /x/ → **ML** /ɣ/
	+ In all dialects except Fesoran and Alafian
* **OE** /x/ → **ML** /ç/
	+ Only in the Fesoran dialect of High Elvish
* **OE** /x/ → **ML** /ʃ/
	+ Only in the Alafian dialect of High Elvish
* **OE** /ʒ/ → **ML** /s/
	+ Only in some cases, typically only at the end of words
* **OE** /z/ → **ML** /ʒ/
* **OE** /t/ → **ML** /d/
	+ Not in all cases
* **OE** /h/ → Gone entirely

#### Vowels

* **OE** /ɪ/ → **ML** /i/
	+ Sound shift did not occur in Helaran dialect of High Elvish
	+ Sometimes this sound is deleted entirely
* **OE** /ɑː/ → **ML** /æ/
	+ This is /a/ in some dialects
* **OE** /æ/ → **ML** /ɛ/
* **OE** /ɔː/ → **ML** /ɜ/
* **OE** /ɛː/ → **ML** /iː/
	+ This did not occur in all cases, particularly with the names of places and people

### Examples of Shifts

* **OE:** Ragátó, /ɾægɑːtɔː/, meaning Emperor
	+ **Eshérian:** Regatu, /ɾɛgætuː/
	+ **High Elvish**: Regadø, /ɾɛgædɜ/
* **OE:** Neíó, /nɛɪɔː/, meaning Him
	+ **Eshérian:** Niyu, /niːyuː/
	+ **High Elvish:** Neø, /nɛɜ/
* **OE:** Alfáta, /ælfɑːtæ/, meaning Elves
	+ **Nesarian:** Elvate, /ɛlvætɛ/
	+ **Eshérian:** Elfate, /ɛlfætɛ/
	+ **High Elvish:** Elfade, /ɛlfædɛ/
	+ **Avamorian:** Elvade, /ɛlvædɛ/

## Suffixes

Here is a list of all the suffixes that can modify the meaning of a word in Old Elvic. There are more suffixes in Old Elvic than in its modern descendants, mainly relating to variants on verbs. The second suffix will be the version of the suffix that you add if the word ends in a vowel or a soft consonant such as "r".

An "ae" at the end of a word becomes "a" when adding a suffix unless the original word is just one syllable that ends in "ae".

For all of the verb suffixes, the "f" becomes a "v" if the syllable immediately before contains an "f".

These are the suffixes, where ▯ is a vowel that changes depending upon the vowels preceding it to maintain vowel harmony:

* "a" or "ta" makes a singular noun into a plural noun. If following a syllable which begins with "t", it becomes a/ra rather than a/ta.
* "szir" turns a noun into its possessive form. If the word ends in an "s" or "sz" followed by one vowel, the vowel is dropped and replaced with "szir". This suffix is the same regardless of whether it follows a consonant or vowel.
* "▯sz" / "f▯sz" makes a noun into a present tense verb ("they ride" or "he cleans"). Note that the "sz" is always dropped if it is immediately followed by a word beginning with a consonant.
* "▯szé" / "f▯szé" makes a noun into a past tense verb ("they rode" or "he cleaned"). In the High Elvish version of Old Elvic, this suffix is "▯szau" / "f▯szau".
* "▯szá" / "f▯szá" makes a noun into a future tense verb ("they will ride" or "he will clean").
* "▯szó" / "f▯szó" makes a noun into a past participle verb ("they have ridden" or "he has cleaned").
* "▯ng" / "f▯ng" makes a noun into a present participle verb ("they are riding" or "he is cleaning").
* "▯ngé" / "f▯ngé" makes a noun into a present participle verb, but in the past tense ("they were riding" or "he was cleaning"). In the High Elvish version of Old Elvic, this suffix is "▯ngau" / "f▯ngau".
* "▯sá" / "r▯sá" makes a noun into an adverb. If the word ends in "s" by itself or followed by a vowel, this is removed and replaced with whichever form of the suffix fits.
* "sz▯" makes a noun into an adjective.
* "cá" makes an adjective into a comparative adjective ("great" to "greater"). This is added onto the "▯sz" that turns a word into an adjective.
* "cé" makes an adjective into a superlative adjective ("great" to "greatest"). This is added onto the "▯sz" that turns a word into an adjective. In the High Elvish version of Old Elvic, this suffix is "cau".
* "ai" makes a place name into a demonym.

Note that third person present verbs (e.g. "he runs" or "she eats") also do not exist, you simply use the standard form of the present verb ("he run" and "she eat").

### Vowel Harmony

Wherever a ▯ is used, the immediately prior vowel is repeated in place of ▯. In the case of "krœná", the word for "war", to turn this into its verb form it would become "krœnáfász".