"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 potentially many 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 Language Overview

Before delving into a detailed study of the Halfling language, allow me to summarize ten basic language characteristics. To help visually clarify word separation, verb phrases are in bold.

1. Halfling has seventeen consonants and ten vowels. All consonants are pronounced exactly as they are spelled. Three Halfling vowels are written as two letters instead of one when anglicized: /ʊ/ is "eo," /e/ is "ey," and /ə/ is "uh" or "uu," depending on the anglicization system. Halfling doesn't have the sounds /p/ or /ŋ/ (ng). When Halflings speak languages with these sounds, their accent tends to pronounce /p/ as /b/ and /ŋ/ as /n/.

2. Halfling nouns are conceptualized as agents and patients rather than subjects and objects. Languages like English think of nouns by the analytic roles they play within a sentence. A subject, for instance, is what a sentence is about. This is called nominative-accusative alignment. Halfling, on the other hand, thinks of nouns by the semantic relationships they have with a sentence's event(s). This is called active-stative alignment. An agent is one who is the cause or initiator of an event, and a patient is the undergoer of an event. Agents and patients can coincidently be the same as a sentence's subjects and objects, but there's no reason they need to be.

Take the sentence "Indra casts a spell." Indra is both initiating the casting and who the sentence is about, so Indra is both the agent and the subject of the sentence. Now take the sentence "The spell is cast by Indra." "The spell" is now the subject of the sentence, but the spell isn't the initiator of the verb. The initiator of the verb is still Indra, and therefore, although Indra is an indirect object in the second sentence, Indra is also still the agent.

3. Halfling's basic word order is agent-verb-patient (AVP). This is similar to subject-verb-object (SVO).

The sludgewhip is throwing mucus.
IPA: blə.sla.wus gmu.no.hɛr.fərs sla
sludgewhip+DEF-AGE throw+REAL+PROX-IMP mucus
Literally: Sludgewhip + the (Agent) throw + declarative + proximal imperfective aspect mucus
Anglicized: Bluhslawus gmunoherfuhrs sla.
Alternative Anglicization: Bluuslawus gmunoherfuurs sla.

4. When an auxiliary verb is used, basic word order is agent-auxiliary-patient-verb (AXPV). This is similar to subject-auxiliary-object-verb (SXOV).

[I hear/infer that] Gwedra found an intact carapace.
IPA: Gwɛ.dra do mu.kav rez.lu.ær wu.te.bɪd
Gwedra did carapace intact find+REAL(Inf)
Literally: Gwedra (DEF-AGE) perfective-past-auxiliary carapace intact find + inferential
Anglicized: Gwedra do mukav rezluær wuteybyd.
Alternative Anglicization: Gwedra do mukav rezluær wuteebyd.

5. If a sentence's goal is to describing a state or a condition, a Halfling will use a verb rather than an adjective. If one's state is involuntary, the verb "to encounter" is used. If one's state is voluntary, the verb "to have" is used. For instance, if a Halfling were to describe themselves as hungry or scared, they would say "I encountered hunger" or "I encountered fear." "Hunger" and "fear" in these cases are agents and "I" is the patient. If a Halfling were to describe themselves as tattooed or married, they would say "I have tattoos" or "I have a marriage." "Tattoos" and "marriage" here are patients and "I" is the agent. These nouns may be modified with traditional adjectives, such as in "I encountered distracting hunger" or "I have a loving marriage."

6. Halfling has eight grammatical genders. These grammatical genders are:

Four adult social genders
One child and pet gender; this gender is also used when social gender is unknown or with outsiders whose cultures don't have Halfling social genders
One wild or non-intelligent animal gender
One abstract inanimate gender
One concrete inanimate gender

These grammatical genders each have a form for the agentive and patientive cases.

7. Halfling pronouns are incorporated as a suffix of their names, usually as a coda.

8. Possession is expressed using the construction "_____of _____" as with the Spanish "de" or Japanese "no."

9. Verbs in declarative statements take an evidentiality suffix, indicating whether knowledge of a fact was either personally experienced or not.

Gwedra has a dog.
Gwe+DEF possess+REAL+IMP dog ??
Gwe+DEF possess+REAL+IMP dog ??

10. Base eight counting system.

11. Adjectives often end in "ær." They come after the nouns they modify.

Phonology & Phonotactics

With ten 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	Alveolar	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
Open	æ		ɑ

Halfling vowels are anglicized as follows:

A a /ɑ/	Æ æ	E e /ɛ/	Eo eo /ʊ/	Ey ey /e/	I i	O o /o/	U u	Uh uh /ə/	Y y /ɪ/

/ɑ/ 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"
/o/ or O 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

Halfling has active-stative morphosyntactic alignment, and intransitive sentences follow an agent-verb/verb-patient word order.

While saying that Halfling has SVO and SXOV word order is conceptually helpful to the newest Halfling language learner, it must then be understand that Halfling doesn't precisely have the categories of "subject" and "object." English -- and all other languages with "nominative-accusative" morphosyntactic alignment -- classify nouns as either subjects or objects of verbs. "Subjects" and "objects" are syntactic roles. A subject is what a verb is about. Halfing perceives nouns as agents or patients of verbs. "Agents" and "patients" describe a semantic relationship. For instance, an agent is something that causes or initiates a verb. An agent is often the same as a sentence's subject, but not always. Take the sentence "Indra casts a spell." Indra is initiating the casting, so Indra is both the agent and the subject of the sentence. However, now take the sentence "The spell is cast by Indra." "The spell" is now the subject of the sentence, but the spell isn't the initiator of the verb. The initiator of the verb is still Indra, and therefore, although Indra is the indirect object in the second sentence, Indra is also still the agent.

Because Halfling classifies nouns by their semantic relationship with verbs, intransitive Halfling sentences may have agent or patient nouns as their "subjects." An agent precedes its verb, and a patient follows it.

The intransitive verb "sing" takes an agent noun.

Indra was singing.
IPA: Indra vu.nə.hɛr.væ.
Indra (DEF-AGE) sing+REAL+DIST-IMP
Literally: Indra singing + declarative + distal imperfective
Anglicized: Indra vunuhhervæ.
Alternative Anglicization: Indra vunuuhervæ.

The intransitive verb "sleep" takes a patient noun.

Indra was sleeping.
IPA: Dʊg.bə.hɛr.væ Indram.
sleep + declarative + distal imperfective Indra + DEF-PAT
Literally: Singing + declarative + distal imperfective Indra + patientive case
Anglicized: Deogbuhhervæ Indram.
Alternative Anglicization: Deogbuuhervæ Indram.

Agent-verb

The dog is biting [voluntary]
Knæf.θi wɑs.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]
Dɑlo.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.

Verbs

Verbs in Halfling are an open class. The pure verb base is a verbal noun. To become a functioning verb, the verb base is treated as a bound stem and must be suffixed for modality. If the verb is imperfective, it is also suffixed for aspect. If the verb is perfective, it is supported by an auxiliary verb that conveys aspect and tense.

In the imperfective aspect, Halfling has six realis and irrealis modality suffixes. The imperfective volitive mood is used only in magical or ritual speech.

Modality	Situation	Suffix	Example
Realis	A declarative statement (past and present tense)	hɛr	I'm eating dinner.
Irrealis	A statement not known to have happened (future tense)	hat	They'll be eating dinner eventually.
Inferential (REAL)	A statement that was inferred or wasn't directly witnessed (past and present tense)	bɪd	My mom said he was eating dinner.
Benedictive (IRR)	A statement requested in an honorific or polite fashion	æm	Would you mind kindly eating dinner please?
Hortative (IRR)	A statement encouraging or discouraging an action	me	Let's get to eating dinner.
Volitive (IRR)	Appealing to one's own will [Used in magical or ritual speech only]		By my will I am eating dinner!

In the perfective aspect, Halfling has ?? modality suffixes. These verbs must be supported by one of ?? auxiliary verbs.

Modality	Situation	Suffix	Example
Realis	A statement of fact; declarative (past and present tense)	hoi	I shut the door.
Irrealis	A statement not known to have happened (future tense)	kə	They'll shut the door eventually.
Inferential (REAL)	A statement that was inferred or wasn't directly witnessed (past and present tense)	do	It is said that he shut the door.
Benedictive (IRR)	A statement requested in an honorific or polite fashion	æm	Would you kindly please shut the door?
Imperative (IRR)	The statement is an order	lʊ	Shut the door!
Prohibitive (IRR)	The statement is a prohibition	sɛdz	Don't shut the door!
Hortative (IRR)	A statement encouraging or discouraging an action		Let's shut the door.
Volitive (IRR)	The statement signals personal intention		You intend to shut the door.

Nouns

Pronouns

There are eight 3rd person pronouns for the two cases.

3rd Person Pronoun	Agentive/Active	Patientive/Inactive	IPA Spelling
Chaosgrown	nee	neer	ni / nir
Dragongrown	dra	dram	dra / dram
Dreamgrown	tris	trim	trɪs / trɪm
Heartgrown	flee	fleer	fli / flir
Animals, Non-Intelligent or Wild	wus	wum	wus / wum *
Child/Unknown/Outsider/Pet	thee	theeir	θi / θir
Inanimate, Abstract
Inanimate, Concrete	væ	væm	væ / væm *

Fourth person is expressed using the numeral one declined for the agentive/active case or patientive/inactive case. (Is 1st person just definite 4th person? Could it be logically treated that way??)

4th person: θut / θut.a / θut.ɪm

Compound Words

OV word order in compounds.

Plurality & Singularity

Animate nouns are assumed to be singular unless specifically stated otherwise. Plurality is indicated by a specific number or a quantifier.

Inanimate objects are treated as collective nouns by default. A number or quantifier must be added to indicate that the inanimate noun is a singular item, or one part of a theoretical group, a diminutive of a group, elements of a group to be distributed, part of a dual pairing, etc. A diminutive of many indefinite nouns would be translated as, for example, a grain [of sand, of rice, etc.], a drop [of water, of blood, etc.], or a crumb [of food, of lint, etc.]. Quantifiers can be combined to mean, for example, many drops of water rather than a mass of water.

Quantifiers		Closest English Equivalent
A number between 2 and 4		a few, several
A number between 5 and 10		several, some
An indeterminate number above 10		a number of
Almost many (in the context of overall group size)		numerous
Many (in the context of overall group size)		many
At least one but maybe all		some
Every (note: not each)		every, all

Modifiers

Noun modifiers, such as adjectives and articles, come after their nouns. Directions come after nouns. However, possessives and genitives precede nouns.

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.

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