Halfling language

"Halfling language" is the term for the largely-mutually-intelligible dialects of the Forest Halflings of The Green Maw. It is an agglutinative language family, meaning words are made up of roots and affixes. The detailed attention that Halfling culture gives to both social gender and to time is built directly into its language.

Quick & Dirty Grammar Overview

Before delving into a detailed study of the Halfling language, allow me to bullet-point ten basic grammar characteristics. To help visually clarify word separation, verb phrases are in bold. Please let me know if that's confusing.

1. Basic word order is subject-verb-object (SVO).

• The sludgewhip is throwing mucus.
• blə.sla.wus gmu.no.hɛr.fərs sla
• sludgewhip+DEF throw+REAL+IMP mucus
• Literally: Sludgewhip + the throw + declarative + ongoing mucus
• Anglicized: Bluhslawus gmunoherfuhrs sla.

2. When an auxiliary verb is used, it is subject-auxiliary-object verb (SXOV).

• I hear/infer that Gwedra found an intact carapace.
• Gwe+DEF did carapace intact find+REAL(Inf)
• Literally: Gwe + the perfective-past-auxiliary carapace intact find + inferential
• Anglicized:

Note: sla: mucus blə: whip, thin tail gmu.no: throw perfective past auxiliary carapace intact find

Do we not need case markers on verbs?

Phonology & Phonotactics

With eleven vowels and seventeen consonants, Halfling has an unusually high vowel-to-consonant ratio, reflecting its now-extinct tonal history. Halfling phonology is also notable for its lack of of the voiceless bilabial plosive /p/. With the exception of a few rare dialects, affricates (consonants that begin as a plosive and release as a fricative) are also absent, but plosives and fricatives themselves are present.

Consonants

	Labial	Labio-Dental	Dental	Retroflex	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n
Plosive	b				t d		k g	ʔ
Affricate
Tap			r
Fricative		f v	θ		s z			h
Approximant					l		w

The anglicized written consonants are:

B b

D d

F f

G g

H h

K k

L l

M m

N n

R r

S s

T t

Th th /θ/

V v

W w

Z z

' /ʔ/

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Near Close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-Mid	e		o
Mid		ə
Open-Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	æ	ä

Halfling vowels are anglicized as follows:

A a /ä/

Æ æ

E e /ɛ/

Eo eo /ʊ/

Ey ey /e/

I i

O o /ɔ/

Oh oh /o/

U u

Uh uh /ə/

Y y /ɪ/

• /ä/ or A is pronounced like the "a" in "bra"
• /æ/ or Æ is pronounced like the "a" in "cat"
• /ɛ/ or E is pronounced like the "e" in "wet"
• /ʊ/ or Eo is pronounced like the "oo" in "hook"
• /e/ or Ey is pronounced like "a" in "mage" but cut off
• /i/ or I is pronounced like "ee" in "street"
• /ɔ/ or O is pronounced like "o" in "not"
• /o/ or Oh is pronounced like "o" in "smote" but cut off
• /u/ or U is pronounced like "u" in "chute"
• /ə/ or Uh is prounced like "u" in "cut"
• /ɪ/ or Y is pronounced like "i" in "bit"

Pronunciation Notes & Dialectal Differences

• Halfling does not have phonological vowel length, but speakers can lengthen a vowel in the first syllable to emphasize a word.
• /r/ is often pronounced partially devoiced between vowels.
• /ʔ/ is inserted before vowel-initial syllables within words.
• "A" becomes "æ" when it directly precedes final syllable "r," so /ær/.
• /ŋ/ or "ng" does not exist in Halfling. When words with this sound enter the Halfling language, they are pronounced /n/ and the "g" is dropped.
• Some regional varieties glottalize /t/ when followed by /r/.
• Some regional varieties articulate /n/ before /i/ as a palatal nasal [ɲ] at syllable boundaries.
• Some regional varieties pronounce /s/ and /z/ as /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ before consonants.

Syllables

Syllable types in order of frequency with canon examples. C means consonant and V means vowel. CC means two consonants following each other, i.e. a "consonant cluster."

• CV (ro, re, ma, ha, ku, ta, ka, be, no, ni)
• CVC (ther, zun, cal, len, bor)
• CCV (gwe, dra, fli, sla, sve)
• CVCC (verd, zant, gorm)
• VC (in, ar, if)
• CCVC (tris, bryn)
• V (a, i)

Abbreviations

• 1st: first person, "I"
• 2st: second person, "you"
• 3rd: third person, "halfling specific/singular they/it"
• AGE: Agentive/Active case
• PAT: Patientive/Inactive case
• IO: Indirect object
• DO: Direct object
• COP: Copula
• NP: Noun phrase
• REAL: Realis mood
• IRR: Irrealis mood
• DEF: Definite article
• QUE: question particle
• POSS_In: Possession of an inanimate object
• POSS_An: Possession of an animate being
• POSS_Kin: Possession of kin

Morphosyntactic Alignment

Intransitive sentences follow an agent-verb/verb-patient word order.

Agent-verb

• The dog is biting [voluntary]
• Knæf.θi wɔs.fərs.hɛr
• Agent [dog+DEF] Verb [bite+proximal-progressive-aspect+REAL]
• Lit: The dog biting (I see with my own eyes that the dog is deliberately biting)

Verb-patient

• The dog is slipping [involuntary]
• Dʊlo.fərs.hɛr knæf.θir
• Verb [slip+proximal-progressive-aspect+REAL] Patient [dog+DEF]
• Lit: The dog slipping (I see with my own eyes that the dog is accidentally slipping)

Word Order

Summary

• SVO, SXOV
• Suffixing
• Gen N
• OV word order in compounds
• Sentence final question particles
• N Adj Dem Num
• VO
• Aux V
• V Adverb

Indirect objects precede direct objects and occur closest to the verb.

• A farmer is bringing water to a goat.
• Farmer brings to goat water.
• S V IO DO

• We thank Mom.
• We give Mom thanks.
• S V IO DO

Copulas come between noun phrases.

• The merchant is a stranger.
• Merchant be stranger.
• NP COP NP

Auxiliaries precede the verb's main clause.

• He will leave.
• He FUT go
• S AUX V

• He has cooked meat.
• He PERF meat cook.
• S AUX O V

Adverbs follow verbs.

• He doesn't do it frequently.
• He NEG-it do frequently.
• S X-O V Adverb

Yes-no questions are marked by sentence-final suffixes.

• Is he there?
• He is there Q
• S V DEM Q

• Did he go to the market?
• He go market-Q?
• S V O-Q

Modifiers (demonstratives, definite markers, numbers, adjectives, relative clauses) follow their heads.

• I have those two large cookies.
• I possess cookies large those two.
• S V O Adj Dem Num

Relative clause example:

• The ranger I saw.
• Yr.mut kla gen.vla.hɛr
• Noun [ranger] Relative clause [I see.distal-continuous-progressive.REAL]
• Lit: Ranger I saw.

It is taboo to refer to a halfling doing something out of their gender proscribed time. If you want to refer to a halfling doing something out of their gender defined time, you must leave them unnamed while connecting them to a different halfling of the appropriate gender associated time. For example, if you want to talk about a Chaosgrown named Charleynee doing something in the past you would have to reference their Dragongrown friend Zenithdra, saying, "The friend of Zenithdra who likes to eat grubs did that yesterday."

Possession is expressed using the construction "_____of _____" as with the Spanish "de" or Japanese "no." There is a single plural pronoun for a group of halflings, they/them. the pronoun thee/theeir is used when the gender of the subject is unknown (be it because they are a child and their gender has not been assigned yet, because they are an outsider who's gender doesn't map easily onto halfling gender conceptions, or some other reason).

Halfling pronouns are incorporated as a syllable of their names, frequently suffixes at the end of their name.