Shiväisith Grammar
Shiväisith is an inflected, or fusional, language. It is mostly head-final with subject-verb-object (SVO) word order. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for number and case, and verbs for tense, polarity and agreement in person and number with their subjects.
Background
Shiväisith is a constructed language designed by David J. Peterson for the film Thor: The Dark World. The language is spoken by the Dark Elves in the film. The beginnings of Shiväisith can be traced back to Peterson's work on the Dothraki language on Game of Thrones, for which director Alan Taylor directed a number of episodes. Taylor, impressed with the effect of Dothraki on Game of Thrones, envisioned a similar contribution to the Dark Elves in Thor: The Dark World. Both Peterson and Taylor shared the idea that, given Thor's roots in Norse mythology, the linguistic influence for the Dark Elves should draw from Finnish and other Finno-Ugric languages.
Phonology
Main page: Appendix:Shiväisith pronunciation
Shiväisith has a front-back vowel harmony system which draws its inspiration from the vowel harmony system in Finnish. This means that a word can only ever have vowels from one of the two sets of vowels: standard grade (back vowels) and fronted grade (front vowels). There are also two neutral vowels, e and i, which in some sense exist outside of this system, but which can trigger fronted grade vowel harmony in certain contexts. The two sets are shown below:
| Short vowels | Long vowels | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard grade | a [ɑ] | e | i | o | u | aa | ee | ii | oo | uu |
| Fronted grade | ä [æ] | e | i | ö [ø] | y | ää | ee | ii | öö | yy |
A notable phonological feature is the intervocalic spirantization rule, where stops transform into fricatives between vowels.
Additionally, the language incorporates sibilant harmony, which means that a word can only contain one type of sibilant, either s or sh, but not both at the same time. This does not apply to compounds, however, such as the name of the language, Shiväisith, which is a compound word meaning "the soft speech." Sibilant harmony is noticeable in the morphology of the language, for example in the genitive forms, in that the genitive suffix -s becomes -sh when the root contains sh:
| Nominative | Genitive | English translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-sibilant | näinä | näinäs | state |
| s | säli | säliäs | cave |
| sh | päsh | päshäsh | stone |
The language further incorporates situational phonological rules, such as the change of s to sh between rounded vowels.
Morphosyntax
The Shiväisith language has a head-final word order. The word order of the basic verb phrase is subject-verb-object (SVO). The morphology is exclusively suffixing.
Nouns
Shiväisith nouns decline for number and case. There are two numbers, singular and plural, and 15 cases. The cases are categorized into five groups: grammatical, relational, exterior, interior, and equative. The case groups are as follows:
- Grammatical: Nominative, Accusative, Dative
- Relational: Genitive, Comitative, Instrumental
- Exterior: Adessive, Allative, Ablative
- Interior: Inessive, Illative, Elative
- Equative: Essive, Translative, Benefactive
The groups have a morphological basis, in that all case forms in one group are constructed based on the same stem. The grammatical cases are based on the root, the relational, exterior and interior cases are based on the dative stem, and the equative cases are based on the accusative stem. As for plural forms, the groups differ with respect to the order in which the plural and case suffixes appear.
Verbs
Shiväisith employs an auxiliary combined with two verb stems to express ten different tense-aspect combinations. Each verb has two verb stems: the imperfect and the perfect. The imperfect is the base off which the perfect is built. The perfect is generally formed by lengthening a vowel or consonant in the imperfect stem, and if the imperfect stem has only one syllable, another syllable is added. Some examples are shown as follows:
| Imperfect | Perfect | English translation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monosyllabic | Vowel lengthening | vur- | vuuri- | see |
| Gemination | hööth- | hötte- | breathe | |
| Disyllabic | Vowel lengthening | poha- | pooha- | call |
| Gemination | deinä- | dennä- | burn | |
Examples
- Kira liljal nol. “I love you.”
- Kir dahar nole. “I curse you.”
- Geilää liivinith vathe jöhär. “The warrior attacked him with a knife.”
- Vään domonavil djossasle. “They were watching from a pit.”
- Nöönä äth ruthihi veleme. “You all will feel the darkness.”
- Äskärdhiksel livil nyrihi. “The Asgardians aren’t sleeping.”
- Lengeril mavvavil läinilevii mouhela. “The humans sent their children to the enemies earlier today.”
- Vath äth mänih vanki. “He is my former husband.”
- Jen hööthäjel köyfe käntjeriäshlä. “We always breathe air.”
- Kir ervesiinär govave. “I poisoned his blood.”