Old Havlic

The Old Havlic language or Hãvlatis is the prestige language of the Havlic Empire, most people who are not aristocrats do not speak it but most people can understand it. All government officials and nobles are required to learn the language.
The Old Halvic language forms its own language family called the Havlic Language Family, each language in the family is derived from local dialects of different states in the Empire. The two most important languages are Tsilaian from Tsilaio, the Imperial capital, and Arcanittan from the port city of Arcanittas, a major merchant city.
Old Havlic derives from a proto-Havlic language spoken from around 2,000 B. However all evidence for such a language has been lost, likely being destroyed around the foundation of the first Havlic Empire in order to further Imperial propaganda that the Havlic race is the most pure and ancient of all others.

Writing System

There are two writing systems used for Old Havlic, both of which are derived from the Azedrahi Script. The original Havlic script is as follows (the diacritics are late innovations):

The romanization is almost one-to-one with the IPA with the following things of note:
-/ks/ and /ŋgz/ are written x and gx
-/ɸ/ and /β/ are written f and v
-/x/ is written kh
-/eː/ and /oː/ are written ei and ou

Geographical Distribution

Old Havlic is learned and spoken by all aristocrats, government officials and nobles in the Empire. It also acts as the lingua franca throughout the Empire and among certain neighbouring states.

Phonology

Pitch Accent:

High (á)	pitch stays high upto the accented syllable then drops for the remainder of the word
Rising (ã)	pitch rises upto the accented syllable and then remains high
Falling (à)	pitch drops drastically at the accented syllable then remains low

Morphology

Noun Class

Old Havlic, like all other Havlean languages, features a noun class system, albeit a relatively less complex one. Nouns are grouped into classes based on the characteristics of the noun. Old Havlic noun classes are as follows:

• Animate
• Inanimate
• God
• Divine
• Land Animal
• Swimming Animal
• Flying Animal
• Tall Plant
• Small Plant
• Structure
• Construction
• Time
• Abstract

All of these are relatively self-explanatory but there are some things of note: The Animate class is only used for Havleans, all other sentient species use the Walking Animal class. The Structure class is used for natural structures such as mountains and rivers but is also used for certain man-made structures like columns, the Construction class is used for man-made structures like buildings but also certain abstract concepts like nation states.

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Noun Declension

Noun classes also represent different declension paradigms. All nouns are declined for case and person (singular and plural), grammatical cases are as follows:

• Ergative
• Absolutive
• Genitive
• Abessive
• Ablative
• Causal
• Instrumental
• Comitative
• Vocative

Like all other Havlean languages, Old Havlic features Ergative-Absolutive alignment.

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Pronouns

Basic pronouns are forms using pronominal roots and attaching class affixes depending on the class of the word which the pronoun refers to. There are First, Second and Third person pronouns but Third person gets further divided into Proximal and Distal. Distal third person is used to differentiate between different things in a conversation, for example in the sentence "He opened the door for him.", the second "him" would be distal. Each person has distinct singular and plural roots.
Examples of pronouns in the Animate Class:

1. (sg.) nɛ̃os, (pl.) tɛ́kos
2. (sg.) mítos, (pl.) hèmos
3. (sg.prox.) kàos, (pl.prox.) kìanos; (sg.dist.) hɛ̀uos, (pl.dist.) hɔ̀nos

There are also separate possessive roots; the following are possessive pronouns in the Animate Class:

1. (sg.) néiros, (pl.) téiros
2. (sg.) mɛ̃ros, (pl.) hãros
3. (sg.prox.) kàros, (pl.prox.) kìaros; (sg.dist.) hèiros, (pl.dist.) hɔ̀naros

Along with these basic pronouns, there are special formal pronouns which are used is specific formal situations to refer to superiors. Here are the most common:

ìtsilos	talking about/to the Emperor
ìtsileus	talking about a past Emperor
ávos	talking about/to a government official
lɛ̀ros	talking about/to a superior military officer
ɔ̀ŋos	talking about/to a superior (in general)

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Verbs

Verbs are conjugated for person, number and aspect. The is only one tense, present/non-past tense, to denote when an action took place aspect and context is used instead. Verbs have specific Perfecting and Imperfect aspect conjugations. There are two verb paradigms, the lexical form of paradigm-I ends in -oi and paradigm-II in -ɛu.
The following is an example of the verb úkoi, meaning "to do" in the perfective aspect:

	singular	plural
1st	úka	úkain
2nd	úku	úkua
3rd	úkoi	úkoso

Verbs also have four participle forms; Perfect, Imperfect, Present and Passive. These can be seen as "adjectival" forms because they are conjugated as adjectives and often function as them.
See detailed verb conjugation here: Old Havlic Verb Conjugation
However, verbs are more complex than this. Not only are they conjugated for the subject, special clitics are appended to the verb to specify the object as well. These are called pronominal clitics, they are suffixes which derive from the basic pronominal roots as seen above. Pronominal clitics are as follows:

1. (sg.) -ne, (pl.) -te
2. (sg.) -mi, (pl.) -si
3. (sg.prox.) -ka, (pl.prox.) -ki; (sg.dist.) -so, (pl.dist.) -son

Modality is expressed through modal particles and auxiliary verbs. The primary modal particles are the Realis and Irrealis particles (these are usually placed before the object of the sentence but may also come directly before the verb):

• Realis: (sing.) tɛ́, (plur.) tìna
• Irrealis: (sing.) hɔ́, (plur.) hɔ̃nna

Specific moods are expressed by combining these particles with other particles or with auxiliary verbs, for example the deontic mood (used for requests, desires, promises, etc.) is formed with the irrealis particle plus the auxiliary tɛ̀unda. Some moods can take either realis or irrealis depending on context, for example the interrogative particle lè.

Vocabulary

See: Old Havlic Dictionary

Dictionary

146 Words.

Successor Languages

• Tsilaian
• Arcanittan

Spoken by

• Neo-Havlian

Common Phrases

nìkasis

casual greeting

hɔ mítasos stɛtsendɔ́noa

formal greeting (to one person)

hɔ hèmasos stɛtsendɔ́noa

formal greeting (to multiple people)

Common Female Names

Eilljɔ̃zas; Áiploura; Hɛ́uzeploura; Híembloura; Velechàlas

Common Male Names

Chɛ́nnos; Mẽuzos/Mẽuros; Ìtsias; Stɛdsìmenos; Petràkos

Common Unisex Names

Nìka; Éillipsa; Ŋãvlos; Maimétos; Nasenɔ́ndsos