Origins of Nimâlni
The elves of Nimâl were the first to split from the rest of their kind, right after the Cyraxian war. Being isolated from the other races since this time, the Nimâlni language is both the best reflection of the original ke'Tralan language spoken by the ancient elves of Trelore and quite different from modern Trelorean, which was heavily influenced by Charismean.
Just as any language in its word-formation and structure reflects the society and values of its culture, so too Nimâlni grew to mirror its speakers. Since Nimâlni culture prized traditionalism, the sounds of Nimâlni are very close to those of ancient ke'Tralan; their love of formality gave rise to a complex system of honorifics; the slow and measured movement of Nimâlni lie is evidenced by the disregard of temporal markers in favor of modal markers within the language; their love of philosophy gave rise to a special philosophical mood, unique to the elves of Nimâl. As a whole, these points can be summarized by saying that Nimâlni is much more interested in answering the questions "how?" "why?" and "in what matter?" rather than the questions "What?" or "when?" or "where?"
Practically, students of the language have found Nimâlni very difficult to grasp because it is an inflected language and has some constructions unknown to Charismean. Those wishing to learn it should therefore grasp the most basic concepts before trying to construct long, complex sentences with many subordinate clauses. Sticking to simple sentences at first will perhaps not create poetry, but it will make the sentence comprehensible - which is, after all, the point of speech.
Introduction
Linear Mode
