Devera

Brief Information

Devera is a relatively new language, formed from a number of other languages. Its main purpose is to have the ideal grammatical system. While there are still some kinks that need to be addressed, it is generally very clean and orderly.

EXAMPLE:

Nalan heivet Deveral melor.

"I speak with Devera."

Pronunciation

===Vowels=== - (when not following or being followed by a vowel)

A – always pronounced as in, 'father.'

E – always as in 'bet.'

I – always as a long E, as in 'be.'

O – always as in 'go.'

U – always as in 'boot.'

===Diphthongs=== - Unless one of the four diphthongs outlined here, two or more subsequent vowels are pronounced separately (e.g. ae = 'ah-eh', ie = 'ee-eh', ou = 'oh-oo', etc.).

AI – long I sound as in 'climb,'

AU – as in 'cow.'

EI – as in 'bay.'

OI - as in 'toy.'

Consonants

C – always pronounced as a K. Pronouncing as S or any other letter is unacceptable.

R – When at the the end of a word, pronounced as in ‘for.’ When at the beginning or middle of a word, pronounced as in ‘lady’ or the Japanese R. Can also be rolled, as in the Spanish word ‘rojo,’ for extra formality.

Grammar

Basic Introductory Notes

Devera is free-order, which means that the parts of the sentence can be in any order and it will still work (SVO, SOV, VSO, whatever). This is because each type of word in a sentence has its own ending-letter conjugation so that it can be identified easily within a sentence.

Every root word (unconjugated) in the language starts with a consonant and ends with a vowel. Therefore, the dictionary forms of all of the words can easily be combined to make new meanings.

Devera does not use the letters J, K, Q, W, X, Y, or Z.

If something is already understood in a conversation, it may be omitted from statements. For instance, if you and a friend are talking about cats, you can simply say 'are furry' instead of 'cats are furry'. It is implied that you are talking about cats, even though you didn't specifically say so.

Stress in the pronunciations of words varies depending on conjugation, compounding, and the speaker, so there is no standard stressing for any word.

Adjectives and adverbs precede the nouns or verbs they describe. No matter where the subject, object, or verb is located in the sentence, modifiers precede them.

Much like Japanese, consonants must be followed by a vowel unless they are a conjugation at the end of a word. This rule doesn't apply to 'LD', 'ND', 'SH', 'ST', and 'TH' (because they are actually represented by one character in modified Tengwar, but two letters in Roman lettering).

Conjugation

Verb conjugation:

O - Root

S - Past

R - Present

D - Present Alternate ("I am doing")

C - Future

Noun conjugation:

A - Root

N - Subject

L - Object

Root/conjugated others:

I/TH - Adverb

I/V - Adjective

E/ST - Conjunction

E/LD – Article

E/T – Preposition

U/M – Particle

U/ND – Phrase

Special Notes

THE LD, ND, AND ST ENDINGS: The letters L and D are only ever found directly next to each other as a conjugation. It will never be at the beginning or in the middle of a word, and is only found in articles. Likewise, the letters N and D are only found next to each other as the phrase conjugation, and S and T are only used as the conjunction conjugation.

NOUN CONJUGATION: If there are a number of nouns in a sentence, but they are not identified as subjects or objects, they are all given the subject conjugation (N). For example, in “language and money,” neither ‘language’ nor ‘money’ are objects. In fact, there isn’t even a verb. So, both of the nouns are given the subject conjugation: “veran vest vunan.”

Also, if the subject or object of a sentence is made up of a list of nouns, each noun uses the conjugation of whatever element it's part of. So in 'I like apples, bananas, and oranges,' the words 'apples', 'bananas', and 'oranges' would all be conjugated as objects.

PLURALIZATION: To make a noun plural, use the indefinite articles ‘these’ and ‘those’. So literally, a plural noun like daseld hirodan would be translated as ‘these woman’. However, it just implies that there is more than one woman, and they are nearby. If they are farther away, you would use ‘those’ (dateld) to indicate such. Indefinite plurals (‘cats are furry’) are not typically used. Singularity and plurality are understood through context. However, the same effect as in English can be achieved using the rarer practice of placing words like ‘most’, ‘all’, or ‘some’ in front of the noun to be pluralized.

USING HIRIV: The adjective hiriv means ‘belonging to the aforementioned noun.’ When used in a sentence, it describes a noun as the possession of a noun mentioned in a previous sentence.

‘Dateld hinodan lagith melor. Nalan hiriv hasal moror.’

This literally translates into:

‘Those men unappealingly speak. I (belonging to the aforementioned people) darkness hate.’

Which can then be understood as:

‘Those men speak unappealingly. I hate the darkness that belongs to those men.’

And finally simplified as:

‘Those men speak unappealingly. I hate their darkness.’

Script

Devera uses a modified form of Tolkien's Elven Tengwar script. The charts are below.

USING THESE CHARTS: The vowels shown are in their standard form. When they follow a consonant, the bar is dropped and the symbol is moved above the consonant.

In the consonant chart, each row designates a certain type of sound (except the last one).

1: Sounds produced by a short burst of air.

2: Nasal sounds produced by exhaling through the nose with your tongue against the roof of your mouth or with your lips closed, as well as the ND sound.

3 and 4: Sounds produced by a short, quick exhale.

5: Sounds produced by a short burst of air along with a flick of the tongue.

6: Sounds produced by exhaling through the mouth with your tongue against the roof of your mouth.

7: R and G sounds.

Also, one might note that all characters with a thick underline require either your teeth and lips to be touching or your lips to be shut.

NOTE ABOUT R: The chart has two different characters for R. This is because the first is for use at the beginning or middle of a word, and the second is for use at the end of a word. This is reflected in the samples.

Devera Nation Federation

The Devera Nation Federation (or DNF for short) is a collection of nations, all of which have Devera as a major spoken language.