Galadisian Quenya

Overview

Galadisian Quenya is a dialect of the High-Elven language of Quenya spoken in The Socialist Commonwealth of Caras Galadon. It has retained most of the grammar and structure of the original tongue but nothing can remain unchanged and Galadisian Quenya is no different. Most of the deviations are in vocabulary and usage although some grammar has changed to make the language easier for those trying to learn it.

History

The ancient Quenya began its transformation in Galadisian Quenya at the time of the founding of The Empire of Greater Lothlorien. At the time Quenya was a language learned only by scholars and excessively inquisitive teenagers. However, when the Empire was founded there was a great deal of trouble between men and elves concerning language. Mortal men found the Elven Sindarin to be very difficult to learn and the Elves tended to regard the languages of men as uncouth and ill-ordered profusions. Therefore it was deemed that a compromise would be best. Men and Elves agreed to use Ancient Quenya as the official tongue of the empire because to the Elves it retained all the qualities of being Elvish but at the same time it had a much simpler grammatical structure and was much easier for Men to learn to speak. Adaptations, changes, and new vocabulary were added as time went on the suit the transformation from a language of ceremony and scholarship into a living language spoken by a large group of people.

Deviations from Quenya Standard

Galadisian Quenya differs from the mother tongue in several ways. Galadisian Quenya has had a bit of obscure grammar removed or simplified. Also, literally thousands of words have been added to the language to cover modern words that were not neccissary in the ancient language.

Forms

Grammar simplifications in Galadisian Quenya were mostly made to make the language easier to learn. The accusative form of nouns was completely done away with as it had even fallen out of usage in the ceremonial tongue. Also, the genitive form of nouns was changed to be an "of" structure rather than possesive and the regular possesive is now used in all instances of possesive nouns. The respective form of nouns was also dropped as it was considered useless and superfluous to a spoken language. Coincidentally the partitive plural and dual tenses of words were also removed as their functions could be handled easily enough by the standard plural tenses of words.

Tenses

In verbs the aorist tense replaced the present tense as it was decided that two tenses for the present tense were simply pointless and the present tense may be translated (using carë as an example from the basic verb car meaning "to make or do") as "makes, is making, does make." Much in the same way as the French simple present tense is translated. The infinitive was eliminated and the extended infinitive became the gerund of verbs. Subject pronouns also had a simplification. In the third person singular the gender specific pronouns were eliminated and must now be filled in from context. Also in the first person plural the distinction between the inclusive and exclusive form has been eliminated and the exclusive form is now the only form. Coincidentally any time pronoun endings have an inclusive or exclusive form it has been eliminated with the exclusive form becoming the only form and the actual intent implied.