Text
Ñe sheválÿ nòs órá társáxná. Hólef kázálÿ, móv kelyâ blesqën ddá yáránsán kelyenón. Kerálÿ elñ móv dhón ïnáqâ zhla móv kályâ.
Vòlásválÿ ghílâ myávánÿ desh álznâ, he dzeláyná levsá ttòsnë myádhren zhë táválá.
Nálÿ ershásválÿ lhíyá társárányán pólef léntâ xím çábáthësáxná zhë shevená. Léválÿ eref zhë kénán náshâ lhënÿ lháls-yáshunen.
English Translation
I do not live by many rules. When I sleep, I can do strange and wonderful things. I believe if I can imagine it, I can accomplish it.
I have tried to find where I must go, but all the landmarks of the plain were false.
So I have made my own small set of rules in order to find my way through the insanity of life. I therefore allow sleep to show me my path.
Grammar and Vocabulary
I’m not going to cover pronunciation as it’s immaterial to the relay. Alurhsa is an inflected language similar in that vein to something like Russian or Latin, although the verb forms and tenses don’t match up, and the use of the cases doesn’t match up either. Sentence structure is generally SVO but frequently slides into VSO or even VOS, so it’s pretty fluid.
Nouns and adjectives have 6 cases. Adjectives normally come before their noun, but can come after, or even separated by some words, and always agree with their noun object in case, but never number. Generally the language is pretty agglutinative in how case endings are added, but there are some rules.
Number is a funny thing in Alurhsa, and generally the only time you use plural endings is when you have to indicate that there is more than one of something AND there is no other word or context in the phrase that would make that obvious. For example, a plural verb, or a number, or even context from a previous sentence, would be enough to not bother with plural endings and leave the word singular.
The endings are:
Singular:
Nom. —
Gen. -(y)á
Dat. -(á)nÿ
Acc. -(á)n
Instr. -(á)xná
Abl. -(á)ç
The only plural ending used in this is the accusative, which is -(y)ón
The letters in parentheses are inserted when needed to separate a vowel from another vowel, or a consonant from another consonant. In other words, if the word ends in a vowel, the genitive becomes -yá not just -á, and if the word ends in a consonant, the remainder insert the -á- between the end of the word and the case ending. An interesting exception to that is nouns (but not adjectives!) ending in -ë, which drops, and then the ending is added with the vowel/consonant rules to the letter before the -ë. For adjectives, this is only true in the genitive case, the remainder retain the -ë and join the endings to that.
The case endings are also used as is with pronouns and even adverbials like “where”, as needed. For these, however, any ending in -ë retain the -ë as though it were a regular vowel like all the others, unlike nouns.
Case usage is a bit different than the IE norm. Technically the genitive is really a locative case, or at least a genitive/locative case. It shows static location. Dative shows motion towards, and thus is used for indirect object. Instrumental is really showing motion through or throughout, which then is used for the instrument of some action. Ablative shows motion from. Think of the cases in that way, and the usage will seem more logical.
Verbs have a wide variety of voices, aspects, moods, and tenses that I won’t cover here, I’ll just focus on the pertinent bits. Infinitives almost all end in -â other than a couple irregulars (to be, and to be able, listed in the vocabulary). To inflect the verb, drop the -â, and add endings agglutinatively. There are three moods (not the right word but I haven’t found one that really covers it): indicative, conditional, and continuous/imperative. For this piece, almost every verb is just using the first person singular indicative -álÿ other than one use of the third person plural continuous -áyná.
These persona/modal endings are plugged either directly onto the stem for the present tense, or onto a temporal ending plugged onto the stem for other tenses. The simple past tense, for example, adds -el- as a temporal ending, the recent past tense (equivalent to English “I have X’d”) adds -ásv-, and the future adds -án-.
A couple more notes of interest:
Alurhsa uses an accusative+infinitive construction in subordinate clauses that is similar to the Latin one. So, for example, “I know he read the book” becomes “I know him to-have-read the book”.
Alurhsa also isn’t afraid to drop pronouns out of a sentence where you think one should be and let context imply its existence.
You can make a noun out of most verbs by simply adding -en to the stem.
VOCABULARY
álznâ – to go, to walk
blesqë – strange
çábáthës – insanity, unbalance
ddá – and
deshâ – must, have to (irr. in present tense: desh – 1st person present)
dzel- – past tense irregular stem of delzyû (to be)
dhó – it
elñ – if
eref – therefore (normally not placed first in a phrase)
ershâ – to make
ghílâ – to find
he – but, however
hólef – when
ïnáqâ – to imagine
kályâ – accomplish
kázâ – to sleep
kelyâ – to do
kén – sleep (general state)
kerâ – to believe
lháls- – 1st person singular possessive
léntâ – to navigate, find one’s way
lévâ – to allow, permit
levsá – false
lhe, lhá, lhë – first person singular pronoun (masc., fem. neut.)
lhí – myself
móvrî – to be able (irr. in present tense: móv – 1st person present)
myádhren – landmark
myává – where
nálÿ – so, therefore
náshâ – to show
ñe – negative particle
nòs – according to
órá – much, many (numeric, indecl.)
pólef – in order to, for the purpose of
shevâ – to live, be alive
társ – law, rule
távál – plain, prairie
ttòsnë – each, every, all
vòlâ – to try
yáránsá – wonderful
yáshune – destiny, path
zhë – definite article (indecl.)