Varyan
Varyan (Varyelar) is a High-Elven language that developed on the isle of Varyenon. The namesake of the language are the Varyans (sing. "Varya", plur. "Varyar"), the High-Elven people that migrated to the island. Although its beginnings were humble on such a small island, it eventually became the language of the intelligentsia across the Western world with the establishment of the Dragon Empire.
Varyan evolved from Proto-High-Elven, spoken on the continent thousands of years prior. High-Elves are one of two cultural-linguistic groups among all elves, the other group being the Free-Elves - the cultural-linguistic relation between these groups is quite distant, seemingly traceable back to the Ancients.
While in any 'language' there is a great variety of dialectal variation, 'Varyan' here refers to the standard variety formalised in Eldras the cultural and original political capital of Varyenon; this is the only formalised variety, the only one to be given a proper orthography, and the only one to be used in an official capacity throughout the united kingdom and eventual empire. Due to the proliferation of education and its importance for engagement with large scale organisations, it eventually displaced local dialects in real terms as well, save for minor phonological differences. However, since this has happened, there has begun to develop a lower class "Vulgar Varyan" characterised primarily by relatively minimal phonological changes; namely to simplify and remove almost all word initial clusters.
Varyan is set in a fictional world where all people, cultures, religions, and languages derive from a common ancestor, refered to as The Ancients. The Ancients are identical in every way to the real-world Proto-Indo-Europeans, other than their existing in this fictional world.
Phonology
Consonant Inventory
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive/Affricate | /p, b/ | /t, d/ | /tʃ/ (c) | /k/ | |||
| Fricative | /f/ | /s/ | /ʒ/ (j) | /ɣ/ (g) | /ħ/ (h) | ||
| Nasal | /m/ | /n/ | |||||
| Approximant | /w/ | /ʋ/ (v) | /ɾ, l/ | /j/ (y) |
Letters in brackets indicate orthography when it differs from the IPA.
Details
- All consonants can be geminate except /f, h, w, ʋ, j/, written with a double letter. Among those that can, some change their quality:
- /ʒ/ becomes /dʒ:/
- /ɣ/ becomes /g:/
- /ɾ becomes /r:/
- Unvoiced plosives become geminate when forming the first part of a consonant cluster intervocalically. e.g. "napa" (apron) /nä:pä/ vs. "dopre" (deep) /dɔp:ɾe/
Vowel Inventory
| Front | Centre | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | /i/ | /u/ | |
| Mid | /e/ | /o/ | |
| Low | /ä/ |
Details
- All vowels in open, stressed syllables become phonetically long.
- Phonemic length is only found in monosyllabic words ending in a consonant, and is marked by an acute accent. It universally runs along the lines of word class; all monosyllabic nouns and verbs have long vowels, and all other words (primarily prepositions) have short ones. e.g. "ven" - "because of" vs. "vén" - "(I) know".
- /i/ and /u/ may be centralised a bit when short.
