Carmena Foreluna

The Carmena Foreluna (律史前月読, risshizentsukuyomi^?) language is the direct ancestor of the Hymmnos language, and it was the basis of the development of the Kurt Ciel Note. Therefore, it is the Moon Chanter language itself. For those reasons, it is not considered as a Hymmnos dialect. Its grammar was based on the unification of pronunciation and meanings, where each letter had a meaning and effect, and it was based off from the Ar Ciela language that the Wills of Ar Ciel use to communicate among themselves and to create the effects necessary for the maintenance of life.

Since the extent of its effects are quite small and it required entire choruses of people singing in harmony to actually bring about any effects, the majority of the Reyvateils do not support it. And unlike any of the current Hymmnos dialects, it does not possess an actual structured grammar, as instead it is largely dependent on the interpretations of its speakers. Basically, each letter contains an emotion and a power, which comes in effect as soon as they are pronounced, and by chaining them, the words are formed. This means that this language does not have either a set vocabulary. Similarly, it has no writing system of its own and it can be written using either the Ar Ciela script or the Hymmnos script. Additionally, this language was never designed for communicative purposes and was reserved solely for prayers and rituals.

The following table lists the effects that each letter is known to have.

Letter	Power/Meaning	Letter	Power/Meaning
A	Power	N	Nothing, empty, emptiness
B	World, society	O	Evil, wicked, dark
C	Grow/Raise, change	P	Life & Death
D	Darkness, demon	Q	Ignorance
E	Love	R	Life
F	Convey, Transmit, Permeate, Spread	S	Request, wish
G	Destruction, curse, punishment	T	I, myself
H	Fire, heat, passion, love	U	Hatred
I	Holy	V	Joy
J	Unknown/Yet to be known, underworld	W	Mind, soul, heart
K	Creation & Destruction	X	Protection, protect
L	You, Other Person	Y	Light
M	Compassion	Z	God, gods

The words in Carmena Foreluna can range from something as simple as "Xa" (protective power) to something as complex as "zacta" (Oh, God, through your power, bestow growth upon me of power). Also, all the sentences are polite requests due to being prayers, and the more a letter is repeated in a word, the more it intensifies the power of said letter in the overall sentence.

For example, while "a" means "power", "aaa" means "incredible power".

Also, Carmena Foreluna has a few rules about how the combined letters work, which will be detailed below:

• The more times one letter is repeated, the more its effects are amplified (the stronger they have to be pronounced)
• Whenever there are vowels between the runes, the power flows from left to right, in this way: Left>Vowel>Right.
• When there aren't any vowels between consonants, it means in pronunciation that there will be a silent short stop, and that the phrase won't have any power. It's merely a modifier, a phrase for fleshing out feelings further. Such phrases can be written however one wishes.
• Capital letters denote reverence. The higher the grade of reverence, the further the original meaning of the original letters can change.

As an example, we have here a sentence used as a prayer by the Moon Chanters since ancient times:

yeerh zacta tyy maarr itt sss
(Oh, God, please bestow power upon me!)

And here, how the words are deconstructed to reveal their complete meanings:

yeerh [action]: Oh Light + through your great love + and to my passionate life
                    y               e e                        r    h

zacta [action]: Oh God + through your power + bestow growth upon me + of power
                  z              a                    c          t       a

tyy [object]: Illuminate me with a shining light.
                         t         y        y

maarr [action]: Oh Compassion + through your great power + to my vivid life
                     m                   a        a             r    r

itt [action]: bestow holy power + to me!
                    i               t t

sss [object]: That is what I wish the most.
                       s        s      s

And by joining the meanings, while eliminating the redundant ones, we get this:

Oh light, through your great love,
Oh God, through your great power,
illuminate me with a shining light,
and bestow power to my passionate life.
Oh, compassion, through your great love,
bestow a holy power upon my vivid life!
These are my greatest wishes.

Which we can simply condense as "Oh God, please bestow power upon me!"

Carmena Foreluna can also be used to deconstruct current Hymmnos words, to learn what their origins were.

For example:

hymme [action]: Through the passionate light + please bestow salvation upon me > with your love.
                            h           y                m        m                     e

Which can also be condensed as "Please, save me through the power of your love", which was the original intent of "singing" for the Moon Chanters.

Phonology

Due to the fact that Carmena Foreluna lacks a set vocabulary, its pronunciation is highly variable and subject to how the letters are combined. However, there are some rules to it:

• Every time a letter is used consecutively, its pronunciation lengthens.
  • Examples: a (/a/) vs aa (/aː/) and ba (/ba/) vs bba (/Qba/)

• If no vowels are inserted before, between or after different consonants, the consonant clusters are pronounced as if they had schwas (ә) between them. If the pronunciation is for a single cluster consisting of the same consonant multiple times, the schwa will be placed at its end.
  • Example: baccc (/baQQk/) vs bccc (/bәQQk/) and ssa (/Qsa/) vs sss (/QQsә/)

• All consonants will use the same vowel sound if there is one placed after them all.
  • Example: waacc (/wa:Qk/) vs wiicc (/wiːQk/)

• Consecutive syllables will use the vowel sound that finishes them.
  • Example: zacta (/zakta/) vs zucti (/zɯkti/)

• Consonant clusters that end in a single vowel sound will have all consonants prior to the vowel use the vowel sound that is placed at its end.
  • Example: ggthaZz (/Qgataha'zzә/) vs ggthiZz (/Qgitiçi'zzә/)

• The change from a consonant to another in a cluster is done smoothly if the following consonant is a short (single) one. If the following consonant is a long (multiple) one, they are separated by a glottal stop (ʔ).
  • Example: zacta (/zakta/) vs (zacctta (/zaQkʔQta/)

• Upper case letters will be marked by a raise in volume and increased emphasis on the letter.
  • Example: zzz (/QQzә/) vs Zzz (/'zQzә/)
• Usage of schwas or a consonant sound to finish the pronunciation for a particular letter combination that mixes both vowels and consonants will be left to the discretion of each speaker.
  • Example: it is valid to pronounce baaak as /baːːk/ or /baːːkә/.
• Letters can be skipped over if they worsen a phrase's sound or flow.

Finally, the following table indicates the known pronunciations to each letter:

Letter	Pronunciation	Letter	Pronunciation
A	/a/	N	/n/ and /ɴ/
B	/b/ and /bʲ/	O	/o/
C	/s/, /k/ and /tɕ/	P	/p/ and /pʲ/
D	/d/	Q	/kw/
E	/e/	R	/ɾ/ and /ɾʲ/
F	/ɸ/	S	/s/ and /ɕ/
G	/g/ and /gʲ/	T	/t/
H	/h/, /ɸ/ and /ç/	U	/ɯ/
I	/i/	V	/b/
J	/dʑ/	W	/w/ and /ɯ/
K	/k/ and /kʲ/	X	/ks/, /eks/, /zi/ and /kɾos/
L	/l/	Y	/j/ and /i/
M	/m/	Z	/z/ and /dz/

Trivia

Due to the fact that the official information on Carmena Foreluna was not published until after the release of Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel, most of the information regarding the proto-language came from the Dualithnode Crystals used in Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica, as the names of the crystals are translations of the Carmena Foreluna letters that are part of them and that are rendered as Hymmnos glyphs.