Introduction

Ven’na [文話] is the language of the elves of Halvanai, also known as the Tianyuan Continent (天元大陸). It is spoken by elvenkind in East Aseron in the material plane, as well as the equivalent regions of the twilight realm, east of the Kunnuu Mountains (崐峿山).

天元大陸靈族之言者，雖異於凡間，同承古字，與人類古篆、龍家金爪竝，因有所似所異。其假於人文，亦假於人音，故有讀者謂訓謂假。訓者本音，假者燕音，可見古二界所交交也矣。

Phonology

Ven’na has a syllable structure of (C)V(V)(C), with long vowels being treated as VV.

The vowels are:

• a, aa, e, ee, i, ii, o, oo, u, uu, ae, oe, ie, ou, io

The consonants are:

• …

Emphasis. Emphasis is not strict, but usually placed on the last syllabel in a word-proper, before any particles. Long vowels take precedence and are always emphasised. When another syllable needs to be strictly emphasised, an áccent is used in romanisation.

Readings. Having a common inheritance of Yan glyphs with Aseron on the material plane, most Yan-origin words and characters will have a borrowed loan reading and a native elvish reading. These are used side by side depending on situation.

Pitch accent. Ven’na has pitch accent, with high and low pitch.

• Usually, the first syllable is lower pitched to the rest of the word.
• Single syllable words are generally high pitch, except particles, and loan readings which are in the 去 or 入 tones.

Quiet vowels. Some (usually monosyllabic) words can begin with a “quiet vowel”, denoted as an apostrophe before the first consonant, or as the vowel written in brackets. This is usually a short i or a and cannot be treated as a separate consonant. For example, [日] “sun” is read ‘lan or (i)lan.

Some words can also end in “quiet vowels”, which are only enunciated when that word is spoken before a pause. This is usually a short e. For example, [吾] “I” is read val’ or val(e). This is not written unless such a quiet vowel should be said.

Writing

Ven’na words can be written either with Yan “borrowed characters” chaavin [假文] or phonetically with “flowing script” (a)laenvin [流文] or “cloud script” yumvin [雲文].

chaavin is used for writing Classical Chinese, formal government documents, and the philosophies. ‘laenvin or mixed-script is used for all other uses.

In romanisation, square brackets are used to show the borrowed characters inline.

Purely due to reasons of certain text processing being difficult to write easily in MD, for particles Japanese hiragana are used when written inline with chaavin. Usually, a small han character would be used in its place, similar to manyogana.

Topic-Comment

Ven’na is an SOV topic-comment agglutinative language, that roughly tracks to Japanese.

1. Ven’na is a pro-subject drop language.

2. Every phrase without particles is inherently a comment sentence with a null topic.

3. There are two noun genders

   • duun (D) “earth” is the gender used for physical things and places and standard way to refer to oneself, people of lower ranks or friends
   • hála (H) “heaven” is the gender used for abstract concepts and polite way to refer to equals and superiors.

4. The topic marker -sa (D) and -se (H) indicates the previous noun phrase is the topic. This must agree with gender of the subject of the topic clause.

5. -na (D) -ne (H) is a sentence final modal that turns a statement into a question.

6. ask an open ended question by replacing the queried part with ina. ina is a H noun.

• When in the comment position, it does not require na/ne

7. imas means “where” and imal means “who”. These are also H.

8. The third person pronoun tai does not inherently encode for gender.

9. -mat (D) -mata (H) is the sentence final modal that negates the comment.

10. When -sa/-se is appended after a word ending in -s, the two ss are read as one in speech, but written separately.

玄陽海蛟

詩云
　　日墨雷鳴風嘯嘯　　電揚水裂岭摇摇
　　冥空雲散威平海　　暴主玄陽義善寥

話說龍祖之神金帝　安有三子、是生三龍。長曰天、次曰地、三曰人。

天也虛生、空海覺靈、巍巍蟒蛟、神威滔滔。長也不知幾千里、神龍見首不見尾。