# Speak Eldraeic Like A Semi-Literate Barbarian (3.5): Some Érélar **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [October 14, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/speak-eldraeic-like-a-semi-literate-barbarian-3-5-some-erelar/741 "2024-10-14T19:29:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/speak-eldraeic-like-a-semi-literate-barbarian-3-5-some-erelar/741/1 "2024-10-14T19:29:20Z")
Originally published at: [Speak Eldraeic Like A Semi-Literate Barbarian (3.5): Some Érélar | The Associated Worlds](https://eldraeverse.com/2024/10/14/speak-eldraeic-like-a-semi-literate-barbarian-3-5-some-erelar/) In which we begin to discuss the arguments that are slotted into the predicates. Specifically we’re going to talk about _érélar_ (from _e_, diminutive prefix, plus _rélar_, argument-word). You may consider these the equivalent of pronouns, insofar as they are words which stand in the place of full arguments rather than full arguments themselves. But we aren’t going to give a comprehensive listing of _érélar_ at this time, as you may have guessed from the fractional number of this chapter. Rather, we’re just going to sum up some of the ones you’ve seen already in past examples, and which will help make future examples make more sense, and these will be gone back into in more detail in a future article. **Personal _érélar_** The equivalent of personal pronouns in English and used in much the same way, the most basic of the personal _érélar_ are these: | _val_ | I | | _valén_ | I and those I speak for | | _anan_ | You | | _ananén_ | You and those you speak for | Letting us say things like: _val dalessár an-anan; anan dalessár an-val_ I love¹ you. You love me. There are more personal _érélar_ available to express the many variations of “we” and “you (plural)”, which we won’t get into at this time, so that’s really all we have to say here. You should note, though, that as expected these carry no miscellaneous information about their users, nor do they inflect for case; case tags are used as normal. These _érélar_ can be used as _esprel_ and to form observatives in much the same way as any other word, leading to statements such as: _val valár_ I am me. or, in the observative form _valár_ I am. The latter is most useful when you hang a tense on it to indicate that you are in a particular place and time, but if you want to be philosophical, go right ahead. It should also be noted that personal pronouns are [most common in casual speech](https://eldraeverse.com/2018/08/05/the-pronouns-of-pros/), and that to a certain extent, they should be treated as assignable variables; one should illeize on first use of the first person, and upon later _valëssef_ shifts, in order to let people track the changes. This is done using the equivalence operator _es_ which we talk about below (and the naming operator _ádar_ that we will discuss in a later article), thus: _val es ádar Esitaríél Cyprium-ith-Aelies dalinár_ I, known by the name Esitaríël Cyprium-ith-Aelies, am a friend. The second person is generally only used when one has not been introduced, and subsequent to that one should use the name, and assign a variable for ongoing use. **Demonstrative _érélar_** Among the simplest ways to define something is to point at it. For this purpose, the three demonstrative _érélar_ exist: | pí | This, here | | pá | That, there | | pé | The other, yon | Usage, of course, is simple. _pí azikár_ This is a rock. _pá lórravár_ That’s a tree. _pé chalíëlár_ Yon’s the moon. The demonstratives are not “sticky”, or rather, only as sticky as the moment of the speaker’s pointing. You can walk down a row of items and refer to each in turn as _pí_. If you want to keep one particular item around for future use, you can assign it a variable (again with the equivalence operator): _pí es sá azikár_ This, henceforth known as A, is a rock. Note also that these are _strictly_ used as demonstratives. No other English uses of “this” and “that” are encompassed in them; if you can’t point at the thing or if you’re identifying one thing out of a group (i.e. “this car”), you don’t use these. And if you point at a date on the calendar, you can’t say that this _is_ Tuesday, you have to say that this _represents_ Tuesday. Precision, good sophs! **Variables and the Equivalence Operator** Finally, the variables, of which there are six, which are the most general-purpose of the _érélar_: | sá | it, known as A | | sé | it, known as B | | sí | it, known as C | | só | it, known as D | | sú | it, known as E | | sý | it, known as F | These _érélar_ can stand for anything at all. Animate, inanimate, singular, plural, whatever. They carry no meaning _except_ that which is attached to them using the equivalence operator, _es_, which is used to define that its operands refer to the same entity (i.e., it does not denote type or equality). So, for example. _val es sá_ … I, Mr. A., … _ádar Geffly min Torill es sú …_ Geffly min Torill, henceforth referred to as Mr. E, … _el azik es sé …_ A rock, B, … _pí es sí …_ That, C, … And so forth. These variables retain their values as set until explicitly redefined, explicitly cleared, or implicitly cleared by the end of the chapter or conversation. They can be used as simply as any other _érélar_ when defined. _sá cadairár_ It (A) is a throne. The use of the variables without defining them first as a means of posing hypotheticals is an attested form of the language, but it’s considered courteous to let your interlocutor know that you’re doing so, so that they don’t have to quest through their memory for a definition that they missed. If you find six variables insufficient for your needs, you can extend the list indefinitely by appending syllabic numerals to create the equivalent of A-prime (_sáne_), A-double-prime (_sáto_), etc. One convention that has arisen is that of setting the base variable to a group, and using its indexed variants to represent members of that group, as an aid to recall. That’s all for now! We hope to be back later in the month with details on _rélar_ themselves, not just their short substitutes. * * * 1. Eldraeic is a much more specific language than English. To put it in Greek terms instead, _daless_ refers to _[philia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia)_; compare, for example, _dalin_ (friend). ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Kenny](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/scott_kenny/32/226_2.png) [@Scott\_Kenny](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/Scott_Kenny)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 5:52am UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/speak-eldraeic-like-a-semi-literate-barbarian-3-5-some-erelar/741/2 "2024-10-18T05:52:21Z")
The demonstratives seem to be inspired by Japanese, which also has words for “this, here” “that, there” and “that, way over there” ---
**Author:** ![january1may](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@january1may](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/january1may)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:32am UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/speak-eldraeic-like-a-semi-literate-barbarian-3-5-some-erelar/741/3 "2024-10-18T09:32:30Z")
It’s a common demonstrative format; South Slavic also does this (in a very Esperanto-like table structure!), and for that matter modern English is close enough to dialects that did this to have a convenient word for it.