Introduction
While the reference grammars available on this site are very efficient in conveying how the language works in a general sense and provide ample information for understanding the differences between various Lilitika's dialects, students eager to adopt the language, either for personal use or to better understand the many writings left behind by the poets of the age will generally find them wanting. This textbook aims to provide the student with a comprehensive grasp of Sarasí Lilitika (generally in use c. 400–800 lilpo), by far the most prominent and long-serving dialect of the language. From that understanding, it should be easy to transition to understanding both earlier and later dialects from the exodus of Ksreskézo up until the settlement of Thet and first contact with other human cultures.
Lilitika has many featural and syntactic similarities with the classical Mediterranean languages of Earth, especially Latin, and for this reason the information presented here is structured in a manner and tone that will model, at least somewhat, on Wheelock's Latin grammar, which has long-established itself as a standard in Classics, if not as a role model, then at least as a piece of furniture against which to compare other approaches.
History and Timeline
The Lilitai were a tribe of space-faring humans who developed a distinct cultural identity following the sudden and catastrophic extinction of their captors, the Ksreskézai, some twenty-four thousand years ago, approximately 480,000 years after the abandonment of Earth by the Terrans. They had lived in slavery for almost eleven millennia before that, fulfilling a wide range of roles within the context of Ksreskézaian society. During the acclimatization process at the beginning of this slavery, their male population was exterminated by their captors, forcing the surviving women to depend on state-controlled artificial fertilization technologies in order to reproduce. These experiences, in combination with the absence of males from their society, deeply shaped how they interpreted their past and architected their future.
Classical Lilitic society comprises a span of approximately one thousand years by their own calendar, starting with their exodus (the Vendashro in 67891 lky, ending the Ksreskézaian era at 23948 ksepo and beginning the Lilitic era at 1 lilpo) and concluding with encountering the Lyrisclensiae in 1071 lilpo (68156 lky) on the newly-settled Thet. For most of this period, the Lilitai were nomadic. They lived aboard a fleet of two dozen ships, travelling between the space-time-bubble-enclosed star systems of the Ksreskézaian Expanse, a globular cluster of approximately two thousand stars. As the Lilitai had been genetically engineered to live a very long time, many individuals survived this entire trip, including the disastrous plague-ridden colony at Illera (672–829 lilpo), which killed almost 80% of the population.
The Lilitai were innovators by nature, coping with the traditions of their former captors in a mixture of nostalgia and hatred that often manifested in contradictory ways. Grammatical features of the old language (Oksirapho) might be considered profane one century but later be re-added to the new language (Lilitika) in the next, while still others continued to be shed for pragmatic, artistic, or political reasons. As a result, the history of the language itself is rich with anthropological intrigue, requiring repeated and coordinated efforts to stabilize it through standardization committees, which were often more innovative than they were conservative. The major standard dialects, along with the periods during which they were the official primary language, are as follows:
Except for Illeran, these are properly called chronolects, as they are separated by time and not space, but we will mostly refer to them as dialects for familiarity's sake.
Occasionally, the dialects are often broken into an "Archaic" period (those that only mark mood and tense on the verb) and a "Classical" period (those that add number and person), with the break being placed in the middle of the Venrafivíai. There is some dispute about exactly where to draw the line, as we will see when we get to the more advanced verb morphology. From time to time the textbook will mention the differences between dialects and the histories of various features, but we will try to avoid confusing the student with discussion of features not pertinent to Sarasí, the primary focus of this volume.
Development Progress
Writing a textbook is a substantial ordeal, so as a result it will take some time to produce all of the chapters. Here is the table of contents of material, including both finished and unfinished material.
UNIT I: FORMING A NOUN
UNIT II: BASIC SENTENCES
UNIT III: COMPLETING THE PALETTE
UNIT IV: NUANCES
read more Basics I Nouns I Nouns II Nouns III Nouns IV Determiners I Derivations I Basics II see full hierarchy
