The Story Of Nevoulain and Grammar

Nevoulain is the name of the island kingdom of my new language Jelardin.

(nevoulain < nevou "new"  glain "land")

The story is as follows (the beginning of it at least)

STORY:
The great empire of the south fell and waves of barbarian tribes swept into the
country of the Jelarz. A long war was fought between the various chieftains of
the Jelarz and the tribes that were forcing their way into the country.

Lavidañ an louda voweth bedravou as kouestawont traozh o vewgol gouil tan alouesad
jelarzou. Godañ revael hier an goured navo añdh bistevik Jelarz as im mewgol
s/kaz nouañ eo dorfaldawont nei hemeurv ta/n alouesad.

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Interlinear:

lavi-da-ñ   an louda +L-goweth +L-pedravou as
fall-P-3rds the great  empire    southern  and

+M-goues-ta-wont traozh o +L-mewga-ol gouil tan aloue-sad
come-P-3rdp     waves OF  tribe-pl foreign into country

jelarz-ou. Go-da-ñ   revael hier an gour-ed na-vo añdh
jelarz-ADJ. get-P-3rds war long the fight-GER to-it from

+L-pistevik jelarz  as in +N-mewga-ol es kaz nouañ eo
chieftains of-jelarz and the tribe-pl it was they that

+L-torfal-da-wont nei hemeurv ta an aloue-sad
  force-P-3rdp    their way   into the country

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Some Morphology:
PAST TENSE SUFFIX:
-da (-ta after voiceless)
 -ñ: nasalizes preceding [a] third person singular [da~]
 -wont: third person plural [daBon]

PLURAL:
plural is formed in many ways. The three present here are umlaut, -ol, and collectives.

gouel: foreign > gouil  UMLAUT
pestavek: chieftain > pistevik UMLAUT
mewga: tribe > mewgol   -OL
traezhidh: wave > traozh: waves  COLLECTIVE
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MUTATIONS:
mutation exists in five classes:

Lenition, Nasalization, Spirantization, Provection, and Mixed.

The only ones that occur here are Lenition, Nasalization and Mixed:

lenition:
t > d   d > dh
p > b   b > v   m > v
k > g   g > 0   go > vo  gou- > ou-

nasalization:
t > ndh  d > n
p > mbh  b > m
k > ngh  g > ng

mixed:
t > th/z d > t
p > ph   b > p
k > ch   g > k

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Lenition is triggered in many circumstances:

1) When the adjective precedes its noun:

louda voweth: great empire < goweth: empire

2) When an adjective follows a masculine singular noun:

goweth bedravou: southern empire  < pedravou: southern

3) After the partitive particle: o

traozh o vewgol: waves of tribes < mewgol: tribes

4) After certain prepositions:

añdh bistevik: from chieftains < pistevik: chieftains

5) After eo: that

eo dorfaldawont 'that forced'

6) Many other places not shown here.
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Nasalization is triggered in the following circumstances:

1) After the plural article: in

 im mewgol : the tribes. Here it doesn?t show to well, but it does in the
phrase: in nhraozh: the waves < traozh: waves

2) Many other places not shown in this example.

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Mixed Mutation:

1) After the conjunction: as

  as kouestawont: and they came  <  gouestawont: they came

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One notable quirk of Jelardin is the lack of relative pronouns:

In this excerpt, the phrase: the tribes that were forcing their way into the
country, is translated:

as im mewgol s/kaz nouañ eo dorfaldawont nei hemeurv ta/n alouesad.

Literally this means:
     And the tribes (it was they that) forced-they their way into the country

This construction is used in almost every place where the relative pronouns is the
subject of the clause:

 S/aez or S/kaz:  it is/it was + appropriate subject pronoun + eo (conjunction) + sentence


To translate ?whose?  The construction is:

S/aez or S/kaz: it is/it was + article + NOUN + na- ?to? + pronominal ending

Thus:

Oudh brez s?kaz an aemen navo Krouivel
There was a man whose name was Krouivel

Where ?aemen?  is  ?name?

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The language is basically apriori, except of course it resembled breton a lot in
pronunciation, orthography and in some grammatical points. I have also borrowed
a few worlds from Cornish, Welsh, and Breton...although it's hard to say which
ones are borrowed! :)


THATS IT!

Elliott