Mêlázêla
| Celestial Mêlázêla | |
| Spoken in: | Celestial Realm (Môlé) |
| Conworld: | Dombellus |
| Total speakers: | unknown, likely millions or more |
| Genealogical classification: | Immortal
|
| Basic word order: | SOV |
| Morphological type: | isolating |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | topic-comment |
| Writing system: | Celestial script (logographic; still under construction) |
| Created by: | |
| Enrique Gamez | circa 2018 (revised 2025) |
Mêlázêla (also known as Celestial, but generally referred to as Mêlázêla here to avoid confusion with other "Celestial" languages by other conlangers) is a non-naturalistic, but nevertheless diachronic, artlang (perhaps with some engelang elements) by Enrique Gamez. It is spoken by angels and other celestial beings that inhabit the Celestial Realm in the conworld of Dombellus, as well as by mortal souls in the afterlife and by various other mortals in religious contexts, especially in the nation of Orision.
The most prominent feature of Mêlázêla is that it is obligatorily sung. It functions similarly to a tonal natlang, except that there are five level tones which correspond to the notes of a major pentatonic scale. The language is meant to sound melodic and pleasant regardless of what is said in it, which affects many features of the design, such as the sentence-final particles.
Phonology
The only permissible syllables in Mêlázêla are V and CV. Vowel hiatus is allowed in almost all circumstances; the only restriction is that the tone must differ between adjacent vowels in hiatus (though this is often required even for vowels not in hiatus or with different qualities; see the discussion of tone differentiation below). For instance, êä and dúùúà are both legitimate Celestial words (meaning "forgive" and "very many archangels", respectively), but *lóó would not be permitted.
The stress system of Mêlázêla is still being studied, but it seems that stress, if it occurs at all, tends to occur on the first and/or last syllable of a phrase, with individual words not being stressed in any particular way. In general, all syllables are about the same length except for the last in a phrase or sentence, which may be held for some time.
Celestial's phonemes are listed below. (Parentheses indicate the typical romanization, if different from the IPA symbol.)
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ (ng) | ||
| Plosive/affricate | p b | t d | tʃ~dʒ (ch) | k g | |
| Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ (sh) ʒ (j) | h | |
| Lateral | l |
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i y | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Open | a |
All vowels carry one of five tones, corresponding to the notes of a major pentatonic scale. For instance, if the scale is sung starting on C, the tones would correspond to C, D, E, G, and A. In the romanization, these tones are indicated by diacritics. The table below uses the scale starting on C for convenience, although Mêlázêla allows any key or octave with only the relative pitches being important, similar to much Western art music.
| First Tone | Second Tone | Third Tone | Fourth Tone | Fifth Tone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diacritic | None | Umlaut | Circumflex | Acute accent | Grave accent |
| Note | C | D | E | G | A |
| Example | a | ä | â | á | à |
For instance, the name of the language, Mêlázêla, is sung on the notes E-G-E-C if starting on C. The audio file below has me singing the five tones twice, once with the fourth and fifth above the first tone and once with them below. (The fourth and fifth tones are the most likely to be shifted in octave depending on the notes around them.)
In most dialects, Mêlázêla employs a sort of tone sandhi called tone differentiation, which causes front vowels to shift up to the nearest tone and low vowels to shift down under certain conditions. This is especially prominent in poetry where nearly any vowel can be shifted as needed for melodic purposes, though the direction is still based on vowel quality. See the dictionary below for more details.
Grammar and Lexicon
The grammar of Mêlázêla is still being documented. A dictionary with some grammar information, the current lexicon, and numerous example sentences can be found in File:Celestial Dictionary.pdf (Still under construction.)
Texts
Mêlázêla (under the name Celestial) was used in the Poetry Relay of the LCC11 Relay; the text can be found and listened to in the official relay video. Note that this version of the language is outdated, but it still has the proper feel of Mêlázêla poetry. Other texts include:
