The Dreaded Draconic


    This is an IkkLib first; I'm working on the profile for Draconic before I have a sizable amount of notes. Of course, there hasn't been too much here anyway, so it's no big deal.

    Draconic, by definition, is a very difficult language. More difficult than Venyarin. A good example is the language's own name, Dyárkodhi Tshuredhas, which basically means 'dragon talk'. This word-pair, however, is relatively easy to English speakers; the language has an abundance of difficult clusters like ptk, ktr, and svr. It also has þ and ð (t and d with umlauts in my notes) which are pronounced by putting the tip of the tongue to the hard pallate, which can be very difficult. On top of that, most words in the lexicon are trisyllabic, and many others have even more.

    But, that's just the phonetics. The grammar is scarey.

Speaking of phonetics...

Phonetics

    First of all, when a dragon speaks, you don't hear words. You hear what a large reptile would sound like if it made noise. The imprint of words is left behind as they speak. Plug that imprint into one of the five races, and you get the 'phonetics'. Which go something like this:

Plosives: p, t, k, þ, b, d, g, ð

Frickatives: f, th, kh, þh, s, v, dh, gh, ðh, z, sh, zh

Affricates: tsh, ç (þ + þh)

Approximants: l, r

Clicks: !(alveolar), '(dental), :(pallatal)

Pallatized Consonants: py, ty, ky, by, dy, gy

Vowels: a, i, u, e, o, á, í, é


    That's about as many sounds as English, making it the broadest phonetic system in Lovarin so far (wait until you see proto-Halfling). An interesting thing to note is that there are no nasals, giving the language a somewhat inhuman(oid) feel. I forgot whether this was on purpose, or because I simply missed them.

    The syllabic structure is almost too hard to put in (C)VC terms. Any of the devoiced plosives or clicks can exist as syllables alone, the plosives doing so by the force of aspiration alone. A frickative can combnie with a plosive or another frickative at the start, and then attach to an approximant for the wonderful tirple clusters. Only one vowel is allowed medially, and the end can be a frickative, two, or a frick/plosive combo.
 
    It's something like this: (F)(C)(A)V(F)(C), or any devoiced plosive. Clicks count as C.

Now that that's out of the way...

Basic Grammar

    Draconic is mainly an isolating language, and depends on particles rather than word order to represent word function. There are a lot of these particles.

Pronouns

    Draconic has six genders, each corresponding to a race or classification. In order of importance, they are:

1. Dragons and Gods

2. Night Elves, Wood Elves

3. Men, Dwarves, and Halflings

4. Orks, monsters, animals, and plants

5. Inanimates (rocks, dirt, etc.)

6. Abstracts (time, emotions, etc.)

It all makes a nice table of 14 pronouns:


 First
 Second
 Third
I
 kaghlatokh
 fðutídhi
 pkáþhdi
II
 falakhid
 gásfithdi
 asvrághlu
III
 tkuvréþ
 tgáshdíf
 kuléðíshth
IV
 þífrudékhk
 þhpedluchta
 ktashdu
V

tshrikhdu
VI

kathriðe

    The speaker's classification is important - a Dragon uses set I, and a Halfling uses set III. If an abstract or inanimate is personified, it's classification is moved up depending upon how much presence the speaker wants to give it.

     The pronouns are assumed to be singular. They have their own plural indicators - dashduvrí for dual, tyukhdathédh for triple, and kufvadri for anything more.

Nouns

    Draconic tends to neglect nouns. There are many verbs that mean things like 'to be a stone' or 'to be a Dragon'. They're used when something is being referred to, rather than being described, as in 'Pass the salt.'.
    Nouns are just blank vessels of concept in Draconic. They aren't even assumed to be singular. A noun is always accompanied by a numerical indicator. þasdákhlo is singular, :ugyézda is dual, tshístudof is triple. These are also the nubers 1 through three in Draconic.. Dhgoridost covers any more than three.
    A noun's function in a sentence is represented by more indicators, but I'll get to that later.

Verbs

    There are two types of verbs, stative and active. Statives describe a state, actives describe an action. Not very confusing. Like nouns, however, they don't have any qualities implied. They generally have an indicator that shows tense (not time), affirmitivity or negativity, and must agree in gender with the subject of the verb. More on these later.

Adjectives

    Adjectives usually go before the word they modify, and they can modify nouns as well as verbs. They, too, have an indicator that can indicate duration, an increase or decrease in the quality, or relativity between two objects. All these indicators are covered in the next section.

Indicators

Nouns


 Active
 Stative
I Sub. Indef.


4-20-2003: That's all for now. This table's pretty big, so it will be a while. The next update will have some real sentences, and some nouns and verbs to play with.

Copyright 2003 by Ikkakujyu