Hollywood may tell you that you can cast spells in Latin, or even your own language, but nothing could be further from the truth. To send messages to the spirits and forces beyond, you must speak in their language—the Language of the Book. Below is an introductory guide. Please use this information for good.
Phonology
The pronunciation of the Language of the book should not be too difficult, though it does contain some sounds that may be unfamiliar to the English speaker. These sounds are presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet; please consult that link if you are unsure of their meaning.
The native script of the Language of the Book is highly intricate and can take a great deal of time to master. However, the lower-level incantations such as those presented at the end of this guide require only verbal recitation, not textual inscriptions; accordingly, the Language has been transcribed into the Latin alphabet for ease of use.
Consonants
The Language of the Book has twenty consonants:
- Stops: /p b t d k g/ (spelled p, b, t, d, k, g)
- Fricatives: /ɸ β θ s z x ɣ/ (spelled f, v, th, s, z, kh, gh)
- Nasals: /m n ŋ/ (spelled m, n, ng)
- Liquids: /l r j w/ (spelled l, r, j, w)
The spelling ng only indicates /ŋ/. The combinations /ŋg/ and /ŋk/ are written ngg and ngk.
Vowels
The Language of the Book has six vowels:
- /a e i o u y/ (spelled a, e, i, o, u, y)
The vowels have "short" forms used when unstressed or when in closed syllables; these forms are [ɑ ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ ʏ].
Vowels may also combine to form diphthongs. The three legal diphthongs are ai, au, and ou.
Stress
The stress is always on the penultimate syllable in a word.
Syllable structure
All syllables have a vowel or diphthong at their nucleus. They may begin and end with various consonants and clusters. The structure of a syllable is as follows:
(K)(C)V(L)(G), where K is a plosive or fricative; C is any consonant; L is a nasal, l, or r; and G is a stop, fricative, or nasal (nasals are not allowed in the G position, however, if L is also a nasal). Consonants cannot geminate within a syllable.
Morphology
Nominal morphology
The Language of the Book is an inflecting language that declines both for case and for number on its nouns, pronouns, and sometimes adjectives.
Gender
Though it is not indicated in the inflectional endings, all nouns in the Language of the Book are divided into two genders: animate and inanimate. Unlike languages such as French or German, these genders are not arbitrary. Animate nouns are nouns referring to living beings such as people, animals, gods, and spirits; also categorized as animate are natural forces that move on their own (such as water and other liquids; fire; wind, etc.) and, perhaps idiosyncratically, the heart (because it beats on its own; other organs are inanimate. Corpses are also categorized as animate, because they were once living beings. All other nouns are inanimate (including plants, even those such as Venus flytraps that exhibit motion).
Case endings
The case endings are as follows:
| Case | Sg. | Pl. |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | -el | -ul |
| accusative | -a | -o |
| dative | -er | -ur |
| genitive | -it | -yt |
| vocative | -e | -u |
They immediately follow the root of every noun and pronoun, and predicative adjectives (attributive adjectives do not decline).
Determiner suffixes
The Language of the Book does not have separate words for articles or other determiners; they are indicated by suffixes that follow the case ending. They only attach to nouns, not pronouns or adjectives (unless the adjective is functioning syntactically as a noun). Unlike the case endings, these suffixes do not differ based on number; they do differ, however, based on whether they are following a consonant or a vowel.
| Suffix | After vowel | After cons. |
|---|---|---|
| indefinite article | -wa | -a |
| definite article | -k | -ak |
| this (animate) | -f | -af |
| this (inanimate) | -v | -av |
| that (animate) | -m | -em |
| that (inanimate) | -n | -en |
| interrogative (animate) | -th | -eth |
| interrogative (inanimate) | -z | -ez |
Pronouns
Pronouns are not complete words by themselves; like nouns, they are roots that must take case suffixes to be complete.
- 1st person: kor-*
- 2nd person: vus-
- 3rd person animate: tir-*
- 3rd person inanimate: dur-*
- interrogative animate: thir-*
- interrogative inanimate: zyr-*
- relative animate: sal-
- relative inanimate: zol-
Thus, the nominative word for "I" is korel, while "we" is korul. Those roots ending in r (which are starred in the above list) change the r to an l in the dative case to ease pronunciation; this rule does not apply, however, to nouns or adjectives.
Verbal morphology
The Language of the Book is a pro-drop language; this means that the subject of a clause may be omitted if it is obvious or unimportant. Verbs are only conjugated if the subject has been dropped; if the subject is present, the verb is unconjugated.
Verbs do not conjugate for tense or aspect; the conjugational endings only indicate the subject.
| Subject | Sg. | Pl. |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | -ra | -ro |
| 2nd person | -se | -su |
| 3rd person (animate) | -thi | -thy |
| 3rd person (inanimate) | -the | -tho |
Tense may be optionally indicated by a special time adjective before the verb; this is never required.
- past: fer
- present: uth
- future: vyk
Imperative verbs always have conjugational suffixes, even when they have a subject:
- 1st person plural ("let's"): -laro
- 2nd person singular: -si
- 2nd person plural: -sy
The past participle is formed with the suffix -myn, which turns the verb into an adjective that may decline. There is no present participle; "the running dog" must be translated as "the dog that runs".
Syntax
Basic word order
The language's basic structure is SOV; the verb phrase is always the final element in the sentence. Noun phrases may appear in any order within the main clause (shifting a noun to the first position in the sentence for emphasis is common), but the basic (standard) order is vocative—nominative—dative—accusative.
Within a noun phrase, the noun comes at the end. Adjectives precede their nouns. The Language of the Book is prepositional, meaning the preposition begins rather than ends the prepositional phrase; the object of the preposition is almost always accusative. Genitive nouns and pronouns precede their referent ("my house", not "house my").
Adverbs precede verbs; the tense adverb, if any, is the very first element of a verb phrase. If one verb is "modified" by a modal verb, the modal comes at the end and, if appropriate, is conjugated; it is immediately preceded by the head verb, which is unconjugated. For example, the sentence "I want to offer you (sg.) my heart" appears as follows:
- Korel vuser korit wonga jur bau; or:
- Vuser korit wonga jur baura
—literally, "(I) you my heart offer want". In the second example, the modal bau, whose subject "I" has been dropped, is conjugated, while the verb jur remains unconjugated in both examples.
Sentences are negated by placing the adverb ka (meaning "not") after the verb; this is the only time where a verb is not the last word in a main clause.
Relative clauses
A relative clause is formed with a relative pronoun (sal- for animate nouns, zol- for inanimate). The relative pronoun appears at the beginning of the clause, declined for its syntactical use within the relative clause; it is followed by any other elements, then the verb, and then finally a repetition of the relative pronoun, this time uninflected. The whole clause appears before the noun. Some examples:
- Korel sala korel vige bau sal krinit wonga vri—I took the heart of the creature that I wanted to kill
- Korel salel kora vige bau sal krinit wonga vri—I took the heart of the creature that wanted to kill me
The only difference between the two examples is the opening relative pronoun and the first person pronoun within the relative clause. In the first example, the relative pronoun is accusative and the personal pronoun is nominative, because "I" is the subject within that clause and the creature is the object. In the second example, the cases have reversed, because now it is the creature that wants to kill, and the speaker whose death the creature desires.
Questions
Questions that require a simple yes or no for an answer are posed not by rearranging the sentence order or adding in a particle but simply by changing the inflection; the tone of the final verb has a falling contour. A particular element in the question may be emphasized by placing stress on it ("Is THIS the book you're looking for?"). There are no words for "yes" or "no". An affirmative response restates, at minimum, the verb, as well as any other information desired (if the subject is not repeated, the verb must be conjugated, even if it wasn't conjugated in the question).
- Krinelaf koru?—Koruthi. or Krinelak koru. or Tirel koru. (Does this creature live?—Lives. or The creature lives. or It lives.)
A negative response can be patterned the same way, but with the negative adverb following the verb. It may also instead be a correction: "Is this creature alive?—It's dead."
Open-ended questions are formed by interrogative pronouns. The animate pronoun (thir-) is roughly equivalent to "who", though remember that it refers to anything animate, not just humans. The inanimate pronoun (zyr-) is roughly equivalent to "what". These pronouns are placed in the sentence in place of the noun phrase they're asking about, and are always declined (singularly unless they are asking about something explicitly plural). For example, from the sentence Vusel klathanurak jyrtaf fo "you gave this offering to the spirits" we can produce three different questions simply by substituting a noun or personal pronoun with an interrogative pronoun:
- Thirel klathanurak jyrtaf fo? "Who gave this offering to the spirits?"
- Vusel thiler jyrtaf fo? "Who did you give this offering to?"
- Vusel klathanurak zyra fo? "What did you give to the spirits?"
Similarly, to ask "where" in The Language of the book, the interrogative pronoun is placed in a prepositional phrase:
- fa zyra "where", e.g. "where is it"
- glo zyra "to where", e.g. "where did she go"
- le zyra "from where', e.g. "where did you come from"
If the word in question is a verb, the verb is itself replaced by the interrogative pro-verb turu. For example, the question "What are you doing?" may be worded Vusel turu? or Turuse? This pro-verb may also be modified by modals: Turu bause? "What do you want to do?"
If the noun in question is one that must stay in the sentence—roughly equivalent to English "which", such as "which book is yours?"—this function is performed by a suffix on the noun in question. This interrogative suffix (-th or -eth for animate nouns, -z or -ez for inanimate nouns) is morphemically equivalent to the article and determiner endings, which cannot be attached to a noun with an interrogative suffix. The suffix can also be attached to the word ghau ("time") to mean "when", or to the word voran ("purpose, reason") to mean "why". Likewise, it may be attached to a plural pronoun to mean "which one of [us, you, them]", or to a genitive noun or pronoun to mean "which one of [mine, ours, that man's]".
Vocabulary
- aun book (noun; animate if referring to a spell book, inanimate otherwise)
- bau want (verb)
- bon will (noun, inanimate; refers to intent or volition, not a legal document)
- emin dead (adjective)
- eru die (verb)
- fa at, on, in (preposition; general locative)
- fo give (verb)
- fyr time (noun, inanimate; refers to time in the general sense; e.g. "it has been a long time", "this is not the best time")
- ghau time (noun, inanimate; refers to instance: "I'll do it this time", "he sneezed four times")
- ghur deep (adjective)
- glo to, onto, toward (preposition; general preposition for motion toward [object])
- iro read (verb)
- jur offer (verb)
- jyrt offering (noun, normally inanimate, but animate if the thing being offered is animate)
- ka not (adverb)
- kantor language (noun, inanimate)
- kert life (noun, animate)
- klathan spirit (noun, animate)
- koru live (verb)
- krin creature, being (noun, animate)
- ktuwa write (verb)
- kune speak (verb)
- le from, out of, away from (preposition; general preposition for motion away from [object])
- me and (conjunction)
- sa be (verb)
- sry together (adverb)
- stu freeze (verb)
- tse bind (verb; also metaphorical)
- turu [interrogative pro-verb]
- vige kill (verb)
- voran purpose, reason (noun, inanimate)
- vri take (verb; in construction "take x from y", "y" is in the dative with no preposition: take y-dat x-acc)
- wong heart (noun, animate)
Sample incantations
Reproduced below is a set of incantations recently performed to great success, presented here as an illustration not only of their grammar and structure but of their power.
- Klathanu ghuritak, jyrtav vrisy me koryt wongo sry tsesy!
- klathan-u ghur-it-ak jyrt-a-v vri-sy me kor-yt wong-o sry tse-sy
- spirit-voc.pl deep-gen.sg-the offering-acc.sg-this.inan take-imp.2pl and 1-gen.pl heart-acc.pl together bind-imp.2pl
- Spirits of the deep, take this offering and bind our hearts together!
- Prior to performing the incantation, the practitioners used salt to form a ring around the vicinity and draw a pentagram within it. This allowed them to make contact with the spirits of the deep. Then, they recited this incantation in unison, which mingled their souls and allowed them to communicate without words.
- Klathanu ghuritak, stumyn krinuraf kertak fosy!
- klathan-u ghur-it-ak stu-myn krin-ur-af kert-a-k fo-sy
- spirit-voc.pl deep-gen.sg-the freeze-past.part creature-dat.pl-this.anim life-acc.sg-the give-imp.2pl
- Spirits of the deep, give these frozen creatures life!
- The practitioners formed rings of ash around individual statues, which they then brought to life with this incantation.
- Klathanu ghuritak, krinytaf wongo glo koryt bona tsesy!
- klathan-u ghur-it-ak krin-yt-af wong-o glo kor-yt bon-a tse-sy
- spirit-voc.pl deep-gen.sg-the creature-gen.pl-this.anim heart-acc.pl to 1-gen.pl will-acc.sg bind-imp.2pl
- Spirits of the deep, bind these creatures' hearts to our will!
- After bringing the statues to life, the practitioners used this incantation to gain control of them. The statues became almost extensions of the practitioners' bodies.
As the above true-life example demonstrates, even a rudimentary understanding of the Language of the Book can bring a great deal of power. Please use this power wisely.