Ljóðsmálið

Ljóðsmálið Ljóðsmálið
Pronounced:	[ljɔu̯ːs.m̥ɔu̯.liː]
Species:	Human
Spoken:	Shetland
Writing system:	Latin
Genealogy:	Proto-Germanic Old Norse Old West Norse Ljóðsmálið
Typology
Morphological type:	Fusional
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Nominative
Basic word order:	SVO basic
Credits
Creator:	Lumi
Created:	November 4th, 2025

Ljóðsmálið is a North Germanic language, relatively close to Faroese and Icelandic, and like those two it remains relatively conservative, especially in spelling, where it very rarely makes any changes at all.

Etymology

"Ljóðsmálið" is a compound of "ljóð" ("song" or "poem") and "mál" ("language", the "-ið" is the definite ending), thus making it roughing "the language of song", a poetic way of saying "the beautiful language".

Phonology & Orthography

Consonants

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		(ŋ)
Plosive	Aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	t͡ʃʰ	kʰ
	Plain	p	t	t͡ʃ	k
Fricative	Voiceless	f	s		ç	h
	Voiced	v
Approximant	Voiced		r, l	j
	Voiceless		r̥, l̥

Vowels

Unlike most vowel tables, this is made corresponding to Old Norse. This is largely due to orthographic complications arising from it being extremely historic, for example, the eð vowels are only treated differently due to the way they're written, normally such things would be disregarded, but here they're not as it is a rather important aspect of interacting with the language.

This first table is the vowel orthography, it applies to all the following phoneme tables. It's shown as a phoneme table so you can more easily see the value of each letter when put against the phoneme tables.

Vowel orthography

	Front				Back
	Unround		Round
	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long
High	i	í	y	ý	u	ú
Mid-High	e	é	ø	ǿ	o	ó
Mid-Low		æ
Low					a	á

Eð vowels are those historically containing eð as the coda.

Plain Vowels Front Back Unround Round Plain Long Plain Long Plain Long High ɪ ɪi̯ ʏ ʏy̯ ʊ ʊu̯ Mid-High ɛ ɛi̯ œ œy̯ ɔ ɔu̯ Mid-Low Low ɑ ɔɑ̯

Eð Vowels Front Back Unround Round Plain Long Plain Long Plain Long High iː ɪi̯ː yː ʏy̯ː uː ʊu̯ː Mid-High eː ɛi̯ː øː œy̯ː oː ɔu̯ː Mid-Low ɛː Low ɑː ɔɑ̯ː

Next are vowels in contact (contained in the same syllable) with labial consonants, the labels here are slightly misleading, but are again based on Old Norse.

Labial Vowels Front Back Unround Round Plain Long Plain Long Plain Long High ʏ ʏy̯ ʏy̯ ʏy̯ ʊu̯ ʊu̯ Mid-High œ œy̯ ʏ ʏy̯ ʊ ʊu̯ Mid-Low Low ɔ ɔu̯

Labial Eð Vowels Front Back Unround Round Plain Long Plain Long Plain Long High yː ʏy̯ː ʏy̯ː ʏy̯ː ʊu̯ː ʊu̯ː Mid-High øː œy̯ː y̯ː ʏy̯ː uː ʊu̯ː Mid-Low Low oː ɔu̯ː

Next are vowels in contact with a velar.

Velar Vowels Front Back Unround Round Plain Long Plain Long Plain Long High ʊ ʊu̯ ʊ ʊu̯ ʊu̯ ʊu̯ Mid-High ɔ ɔu̯ ɔ ɔu̯ ʊ ʊu̯ Mid-Low Low ɔ ɔu̯

Velar Eð Vowels Front Back Unround Round Plain Long Plain Long Plain Long High uː ʊu̯ː uː ʊu̯ː ʊu̯ː ʊu̯ː Mid-High oː ɔu̯ː oː ɔu̯ː uː ʊu̯ː Mid-Low Low oː ɔu̯ː

Another important note is irregular length, gemination was lost word finally, this happened prior to long vowel breaking, so when a geminate is present (in writing), treat it like an old long vowel, eg: "skegg" = "skég".

Spelling Orthography

The spelling orthography is a simplified form of the written language, it's largely limited to informal situations.

Orthography

	Front								Back
	Unround				Round
	Monophthong		Diphthong		Monophthong		Diphthong		Monophthong		Diphthong
	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long
High	i	í	ì	î	y	ý	ỳ	ŷ	u	ú	ù	û
Mid-High	e	é	è	ê	ø	ǿ	ø̀	ø̂	o	ó	ò	ô
Mid-Low		ę								ǫ
Low									a	á	à	â

Phonemes

	Front								Back
	Unround				Round
	Monophthong		Diphthong		Monophthong		Diphthong		Monophthong		Diphthong
	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long	Plain	Long
High	ɪ	iː	ɪi̯	ɪi̯ː	ʏ	yː	ʏy̯	ʏy̯ː	ʊ	uː	ʊu̯	ʊu̯ː
Mid-High	ɛ	eː	ɛi̯	ɛi̯ː	œ	øː	œy̯	œy̯ː	ɔ	oː	ɔu̯	ɔu̯ː
Mid-Low		ɛː								ɔː
Low									ɑ	ɑː	ɔɑ̯	ɔɑ̯ː

Grammar

Syntax

Ljóðsmálið's basic word order is SVO, but this becomes VSO in questions, however, due to inflections, the word order is actually incredibly free.

Despite that freedom, V2 word order is inflexible, so take the following sentences (subject in yellow, verb in blue, object in red):

Mannfjoldinn var 1.500 — The population was 1,500

However (prepositional phrase in green):

Árið 2000 var mannfjoldinn 1.500 — In 2000, the population was 1,500 (lit. The year 2000 was the population 1,500)

But for questions, SV inversion is used, so:

Stefan er svangur — Stefan is hungry

and when turned into a question:

Er Stefan svangur? — Is Stefan hungry?

Questions

As seen above, questions are formed through SV inversion (SVO > VSO), an example being:

Þú talar Ljóðsmálið — You speak Ljóðsmálið

Can be turned into:

Talar þú Ljóðsmálið? — Do you speak Ljóðsmálið?

Inversion is still used even with interrogatives, which are simply placed at the start of the sentence:

• hvat? — what?

Hvað ert (þú) (at) gera? — What are you doing?