Brief Hymmnos Reference

Hymmnos is a language invented for the Ar tonelico series that focuses on conveying emotion.

Keep in mind that I'm working mostly from Japanese descriptions of how the language works and Japanese descriptions of the terms. Translations of translations always tend to suffer somewhat in quality....

 

Hymmnos Origins and Types

This section is directly translated from the corresponding page on the Hymmno Server, except where otherwise noted. As such, terms found here may not match either those used in the official English translations or those commonly used on fansites.


The origins of Hymmnos and the Hymmnos script are ancient, and existed before the forefathers of acousticians discovered Sound Magic in the First Era. It was not yet called "Hymmnos" at that time, but the incantations that all sorts of shamans, called Lunar Performers (月奏, tsuki kanade), used in those days became the origins of Hymmnos. Hymmnos was later formalized as a language optimized for control of and communications with the Towers, but its grammar and vocabulary sounds are based in the incantations of these shamans. The generic Hymmnos that spread throughout the world from there subtly changed format depending on the region and sect, and the vocabulary also steadily evolved as history progressed. Therefore, archaisms, dialects, and so forth also exist in Hymmnos, just as they do in Japanese and other languages.

There are many such Hymmnos derivatives in the present Third Era, as follow.

Pure Core Form (中央正純律)

"Core" refers to the First Tower, Ar tonelico, called the core of Song Magic in the First Era. In other words, the incantations optimized to control this Tower are called Pure Core Form. However, this is not to say that only this Pure Core Form can control it, and in practice it is possible to control it using any Form. That is to say, Pure Core Form is nothing more than the format that the Tower administration in Sol Ciel's capital city El Elemia decided upon as a global standard (like the ISO standard on Earth).

As a result, anything standardized from any Form becomes Pure Core Form, so everything acknowledged in lookups and so forth is all written as Pure Core Form. Pure Core Form and other Forms thus often exist mingled together.

Kult Ciel Form (クルトシエール律)

This Kult Ciel Form is itself the shaman spells that the Lunar Performers incanted, and is the origin of Hymmnos. It has largely been forgotten in modern times, and it can be said that this line of vocabulary scarcely remains.

Cluster Form (クラスタ律)

Passed down and established during the First Era in the Sol Cluster region, a region far removed from the Sol Ciel region (on the far side of the planet), is the Cluster Form. From the standpoint of Pure Core Form, it is a dialect of sorts, but the practical effect is scarcely different. At present, there are said to be none in the vicinity of Ar tonelico who can use this Cluster Form, but somewhere in the world, a colony centered on Cluster Form might exist even in the present day.

Alpha Form (アルファ律)

The Reyvateil Origins, of whom there are said to be only three in the world, can craft optimized Hymmnos terms in their own minds. Terms made in this way are called Alpha Form. This Alpha Form is somewhat problematic in that it is unable to produce maximal power if not used with the Tower that the Origin manages. That is because, in contrast to the way the other Forms craft terms that are within the current specifications of a Tower (strictly speaking, Reyvateils just pick out terms that are already present), this Alpha Form alone expands the receiving Tower's functionality and creates a Hymmnos term to deal with this. In other words, her own Tower has functionality to handle the term, but it is an invalid term on other Towers lacking this, and is thus naturally not general-purpose.

Old Metafalss Form (古メタファルス律)

A unique Form invented in the early First Era by the holy land of Metafalss that dominated the world back in the time of the 2000s. The power that one term holds far exceeds the average value for Pure Core Form. The reason they produced such high-powered Hymmnos terms is said to be in their land. In this land, spiritual ideology thrived more than in other regions, and the study and development of song by the Lunar Performers was extensive. For that reason, even as other regions were feeling the limits of song power, they overcame these little by little, training themselves to craft yet stronger songs, then refining and improving them.

For better or worse, the influence of their spiritual ideology meant that even as other regions began studying song scientifically, the spiritual thinking of the Lunar Performers still lived on, and the civilization rapidly became relatively backwards after entering the 3000s. Through diplomatic relations with Sol Ciel, Metafalss Form came to be registered on Song Magic servers.

Neopact Pastalie (新約パスタリエ)

A new dialect crafted in the land of Metafalss around the year 3400. The land has Infel Phira, a different Song Magic server from Ar tonelico, and this language can only be used by an I.P.D. (Infel Phira Dependent), a Reyvateil linked to that server. Thanks to its special characteristics, its compatibility with other languages, in everything from grammar to vocabulary, is almost nonexistent. The execution commands are thus also revised into the unique declaration "METHOD_XXXX/." rather than "EXEC_XXXX/.". However, in practice, other Forms are also generally available through emulation. They are translated into Neopact Pastalie within Infel Phira, but on the user level, it is possible to use Pure Core Form, for example, unmodified. The grammar entirely differs from the Forms of Hymmnos created in the First Era.


Other Forms

These aren't listed on the corresponding Hymmno Server page, but I think they belong in this section, so here they are.

Preformalized Lunar Chant (律史前月読)

An intermediate Form between the Ar Ciela of the planet and the Hymmnos people use. This appears to be earliest Form used by the Lunar Performers mentioned above. In any case, each individual letter has its own meaning, and words are formed by merging these meanings into a larger whole. Preformalized Lunar Chant was formed based on Ar Ciela, and the modern Forms of Hymmnos were developed with Preformalized Lunar Chant as a base. (In the game's timeline, at least. In the real world, it's more likely that the developers designed Preformalized Lunar Chant from the modern Forms, then created Ar Ciela by expanding on Preformalized Lunar Chant.) This Form is essentially obsolete in modern times, but shows up now and then anyway in various places, including the names of Ar tonelico 2 Dualithnode crystals, a bit in the lyrics of 謳う丘~Harmonics FRELIA~, and fairly extensively in the songs of Ar tonelico 3. There's also a Spica sound drama in which she invokes a song by way of an experimental device that uses this Form, presumably because she is not a Reyvateil and therefore cannot use the Tower and the more formalized language that it recognizes, leaving only this older and more primal Form.

Some fan sites call this Risshizentsukuyomi, directly romanizing the term rather than trying to get any meaning out of it. On that note, Tsukuyomi is also a name for the Japanese/Shinto moon god, but that doesn't quite seem to fit here.

Ar Ciela (アル・シエラ)

The language of Ar Ciel (the planet) itself. As in Preformalized Lunar Chant, each letter has its own meaning, but this is even more complicated since much of the meaningful sound lies beyond the audible range. As a result, sounds written with the same letter can have a wide breadth of meaning depending on the frequency, modulation, and so forth. For instance, while "b" in Preformalized Lunar Chant simply means "world", the sounds in Ar Ciela written as "b" have a meanings ranging from "self" to "neighborhood" to "region" to "world" and all the way to "love" (interestingly, *every* letter ends up meaning "love" once it's far enough out on the spectrum).

Though not listed on the Hymmno Server dialect summary page, and arguably not even a sort of Hymmnos in the usual sense, Ar Ciela is complicated enough to get its own page. I think they may have gone a bit overboard on the intricacy on this one, but at least that keeps things interesting.

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Standard Hymmnos Grammar

As previously noted, Hymmnos focuses mostly on conveying feelings, not on happenings as most languages do. That by itself poses a significant barrier to understanding and especially translating it cleanly.

To use (and translate the explanation for) the example sentence from the Hymmno Server:

WasyearawaelHerrhymaarwart.
emotive soundverbsubjectsecondary verbnoun

"Was yea ra" is as explained below under the "emotive sound" heading. Rough translations of the remaining words are wael = joy, herr = he (subject case), hyma = hear (words), ar = the, wart = words. The explanation given translates to: Says "He was glad to hear the words" while expressing that I am as glad of it as if it were myself. Also noted is that "Was yea ra" expresses the entire part outside of the quotes.

Emotive sound (想音)

All sentences in Hymmnos with proper grammar begin with a three-word phrase we'll call an "emotive sound" (想音, literally feeling-sound). An emotive sound is composed of three parts, in this order: a degree or extent (how strongly the speaker feels), a type of emotion (what the speaker feels), and whether one wishes to escape that emotion or remain that way (what the speaker wants to do with the situation). The subject of the emotive sound is always "I".

One particularly common emotive sound is "Was yea ra"—'Was' means the feeling is very intense, 'yea' means the emotion is gladness, and 'ra' means the speaker wants to stay like this. Put simply, "Was yea ra", with no other context to work with, means "I'm very happy and I like it this way".

Though it is possible to have a Hymmnos sentence without an emotive sound, this is uncommon and will not function as Song Magic, which is the primary purpose of Hymmnos in the context of the game.

It's also possible to establish a single emotive sound as the default for a block of sentences, by using the syntax "[emotive sound] 0x vvi." to begin the block and "1x AAs ixi." to end it. A sentence within such a block may still have its own emotive sound, which then overrides the default one for that sentence, comparable to the way an accidental in music notation makes a single note sharp, flat, or natural instead or what it would otherwise be.

The cataloged terms used in emotive sounds are as follows. All are Pure Core Form unless otherwise indicated.

Term Approximate Pronunciation Meaning Notes
First part: How intense?
Fou like "foe" somewhat seems to be rarely used
Ma as in "mama" level-headed, calm the "default" used in non-emotional sentences like automated messages
Nn "n" as a grunt or moan apathetic, unmotivated seems to be rarely used
Rrha much like "raw" but with a rolled 'r' consumed with used when so overwhelmed you can't even tell if you're sane
Was rhymes with "sauce" very intensely not as extreme as "Rrha"
Wee like "whee" or "Wii" quite  
Second part: What feeling?
apea ah pay ah "幸せでぽわー" Not sure what that means... happy and energetic? Kult Ciel Form.
granme gran may with courage in one's heart, wanting to protect  
guwo like "grow" with Elmer Fudd accent angry, indignant  
i like 'e' in "evil" impatient, irritated  
jyel like "jail" lonely  
ki like "key" serious, focused very common
num as in "number" nothing The "default" used in automated messages. Might also indicate calm.
paks like "pox" nervous, excited  
quel like "quell" eager, frantic  
touwaka toe wah kah with hope, wishing  
waa like "wa" in "wash", but prolonged happy Old Metafalss Form
wol like "vole" impassioned  
yant like "yawn" plus a 't' panicked Old Metafalss Form
yea like "yeah" happy very common
zweie like German "zwei" ("z" + "why") with resolve, sincere  

There is additionally some indication that *any* Hymmnos word that decribes an emotion may be used for this second part, and that any of the terms listed as being the second part of an emotive sound may also be used elsewhere in a sentence, though both cases seem to be fairly uncommon.

Third part: What do I want to do with it?
erra similar to "era" but with extended 'e' want to stay like this forever very strong statement, rarely used
ga like in "gawk" want to escape this quickly typically used when discontent with the current situation
gagis gya giss whatever becomes of me doesn't matter Old Metafalss Form, gives a sense of valuing the result over personal safety
gaya ga-ya, not gay-a never want to return to previous condition seems to be a stronger "ga"
ra much like "raw" want to be like this Very common, seems to be used as a "default" when the situation isn't objectionable.
wa like "wad" minus the 'd' none of the above, accept things as they are I've never seen this one personally, but it sounds either content or apathetic.

As suggested by the table, automated messages and such that use proper Hymmnos but lack any real emotion typically begin with the emotive sound, "Ma num ra." Furthermore, "ra" is so overwhelmingly common that it might as well mean nothing in most cases, and can usually be safely ignored.

Sentence structure

Since Hymmnos is focused on conveying feeling and is most often used to invoke Song Magic, sentences are first person by default. Second- and third-person subjects are not a strong point of the language. A typical sentence has no explicit subject, using an implicit first-person subject instead.

Syntax for a normal first-person sentence is emotive sound + verb + object + clause.

Syntax for a normal second- or third- person sentence is emotive sound + verb + "rre" + subject + secondary verb + object + clause. The "rre" indicates that the following word is the subject of the sentence. Arguably, these are still first-person sentences, since the emotive sound still expresses the speaker's feelings, and the first verb still has a first-person subject, giving the speaker's actual or desired action. Just to confuse things even more, there are special subject pronouns for the singular and plural variants of second-person, third-person masculine, and third-person feminine that are understood to be subjects and do not require "rre" (though it may still be included for emphasis). Furthermore, this syntax is a relatively recent development in Hymmnos (by the game timeline), and does not exist in older Forms of Hymmnos.

Since the proper grammar for third-person sentences is so cumbersome, they are sometimes phrased identically to first-person sentences, particularly when telling a story or already ignoring proper grammar by dropping the emotive sound. The only way to tell these apart from normal first-person sentences is by context.

For reference, here are the pronouns used:

Who Object Subject
I/me mea mea1
We/us mean merra
You (singular) yor yorr
You (plural) yora yorra
He/him hes herr
They/them (masculine plural) hers herra
She/her has harr
They/them (feminine plural) hars harra

1 Technically, there is no subjective first-person pronoun in Hymmnos (since the subject is normally "I" already), but "mea" fills in for it as needed.

For comparison purposes, English is nearly always subject + verb + object + other, as "I read a book in the park." Japanese, on the other hand, is most often subject + other + object + verb, other + subject + object + verb, or just other + object + verb, as "公園で本を読んだ," though the language is more flexible about word order than either English or Hymmnos, as long as the particles go in the right places.

Passive Voice

Place "re" before a verb or verblike term to create the passive form. The word "art" (roughly "by") often appears as well. The following examples are based on EXEC_SPHILIA/.

deggeez anw ciel = I betray the world (active voice)

re deggeez art ciel = I am betrayed by the world (passive voice)

Pact Spell Lines

Featured in Ar tonelico 2, these are the lines at the beginning of several of Luca's songs that look a lot like code. I've forgotten where I found the information translated below, but I'm fairly certain it's originally from an official source.


Hymmnos: Explanation about the pact that connects to Frelia

In this game's Hymmnos, there are songs with a pact phrase inserted at the beginning. This opening line is called a Pact Spell Line, and its purpose is to give the person with the D-Cellophane installed (= Beta ER) access to the power of the Goddess (= Frelia) in order to make use of it. These Spell Lines have two types, the Connection Line and the Activation Line.

Connection Line

This is the initial pact that she executes once. From then on, she becomes able to freely draw out resources from Frelia's Binary Field as long as she has the D-Cellophane installed. This Pact Spell Line appears only in EXEC_SOL=FAGE/., which the Maiden sings in the Heavenly Descent Festival.

Activation Line

By inserting this line at the beginning of the Hymmnos, she receives all the power from Frelia rather than using her own power. This is also called the Redirection Line. Simply put, it creates the same environment as if Frelia herself were singing.

Connection Line from EXEC_SOL=FAGE/.

Rrha ki ra nha_HYMMNOS/1x01 >> pat mea en xest SOL=MARTA > A2.

_HYMMNOS stands for the Hymmnos she is currently singing (here, it's Sol=Fage). 1x01 is the channel direction, with 01 indicating input (taking Frelia's power into herself). SOL=MARTA > A2 means Alpha #2 (= Frelia) via Sol Marta.

Activation Line from EXEC_VIENA/.

Wee yea ra exec hymme VIENA >> SOL=FAGE/1x10 enter FRELIA

The part VIENA >> SOL=FAGE/1x10 enter FRELIA is the key. In this case, it indicates breaching Frelia by way of Sol=Fage to sing the Hymmnos Viena. The 1x10 in the middle is the channel direction, with 10 indicating output (sending signals to Frelia).


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Neopact Pastalie Grammar

Ar tonelico 2 introduces an alternate Song Magic server known as Infel Phira (pronounced "infel pira" and, unfortunately, also spelled that way in the English release) that primarily uses a vastly different Form of Hymmnos, with different vocabulary and a completely different method of infusing sentences with emotion. Only I.P.D. Reyvateils (Infel Phira Dependents, those bound to Infel Phira), can use this Form. It's so vastly different from ordinary Hymmnos that A.T.D. Reyvateils (Ar tonelico Dependents, those bound either directly to Ar tonelico, the First Tower, or indirectly to it through the relay in Sol Marta, the Second Tower) can't make sense of it, despite having an instinctive understanding of Hymmnos in general. Presumably, H.D. Reyvateils (Harvestasya Dependents, those bound to Harvestasya, the Third Tower) can't understand it either.

Aside from the differences in vocabulary and grammar explained under the following headings, Neopact Pastalie also differs from other dialects in punctuation and other notation. Hymns run on Infel Phira begin with the identifier "METHOD" rather than the usual "EXEC" used for Hymns run on Ar tonelico, Sol Marta, or Harvestasya. Statements in Neopact Pastalie normally end in "/." (slash dot), though this is mostly to prevent confusion with the bank periods explained below, and ordinary question marks and exclamation points are also valid. Quotations begin with ":/" (colon slash) and end with "/:" (slash colon), instead of the quotation marks used in standard Hymmnos.

Emotion in Neopact Pastalie

Emotional content in Infel Phira's dialect of Hymmnos is more compact, yet capable of more complexity, than standard Hymmnos, though it looks quite odd at first. All verbs in this dialect contain two to four periods, such as "c.z." and "t.n.m.n". These are called "bank periods" and stand for "banks" that may be filled with "emotive vowels" (想母音). Banks within a word are numbered 1, 2, etc. from the left, and the lower the number is (the closer to the beginning of the word), the greater the effect and the higher the priority of the contained emotion.

The possible emotive fillers are as the following table indicates. Place the letter from the row side in the blank from the column. Note that the levels are merely notation and do not imply any sort of ranking or relative strength. Also note that this "n" is treated as a vowel, and seems to be loosely based on the Japanese syllabic n (refer to the n entry in the consonant heading of the Romaji section of my page on kana).

Level 1
I feel (_)
Level 2
I feel toward you (Y_)
Level 3
I feel toward everyone or the situation (LY_)
A: Purpose power, eagerness, focus want to serve, thinking of you thinking of all here, want to devote myself
I: Harm pain, want to flee, dread die, fall, suffer, tremble in fear perish, be destroyed, come to ruin
U: Unease sadness, grief, worry mourn, be uneasy be tense, be uneasy
E: Joy joy, contentment, pleasure rejoice, be content, have good fortune have good fortune, be content, prosper
O: Rage anger, aggression, cursing be angry, bare fangs, rise up, be ferocious do battle, fall to bloodshed
N: Calm nothing, absent-minded, relaxed calm down, be at ease, relax be still, be calm, settle down

The resulting compound term consisting of a "base term" with "emotive vowels" filling in the bank periods is called a "emotive sound verb" (想音動詞) and may be a complete sentence all by itself, depending on the context and the verb. The base term is always in lower-case and the emotive vowels always in upper-case. Any, all, or none of the bank periods in the base word may be replaced with these emotive vowels when used. If some but not all periods are replaced, the unused ones are omitted from the final word. For example, the word "c.z." may thus become "cEzE" or "cYOz" or "czLYU", or remain as "c.z.", but will never become "cYOz." or "c.zLYU" (the "c.z." case normally functions as a noun; see below).

If we take "c.z.", which is equivalent to "chs" in standard Hymmnos and means "become," then we can add some joy to it and get "cEzE," which is roughly equivalent to the familiar "Was yea ra chs" and roughly means "I (gladly) become." However, the emotive vowels used can also affect the object of the verb. If we change "cEzE" above to "cYEzYE," now it is not I who become, but you (and I mean for you to be happy by it). Similarly, cLYEzLYE would now target the situation as a whole. Of course, changing the emotion works similarly, so cLYNzLYN would indicate the situation becoming in a way that I intend to be calming. One practical example from METHOD_REPLEKIA/. is "hLYUmLYUmOrO." The dictionary indicates that "h.m.m.r." means "sing," so there's the literal meaning. "LYU" is unease directed at all, and "O" is rage, so essentially "hLYUmLYUmOrO" means to sing to with the intent to instill terror in all and with feelings of rage. While this system looks odd at first and is largely alien to standard Hymmnos, the way all emotional indicators can be expressed in a simple table actually makes it easier once learned, since there is no additional vocabulary needed to express emotion.

If the object of the verb is clear from the emotive vowels, and no other information is needed, the emotive sound verb is a complete sentence by itself. Otherwise, the object may follow the emotive sound verb to clarify. The examples given on the Hymmno Server are "fEwErYEn/." (フェウェリェン) and "fEwErYEn Luca/." The first simply combines the base verb "f.w.r.n" (meaning roughly "embrace") with two "E"s and a "YE" to get something along the lines of, "I embrace you with love." The second has an explicit object and becomes, "I embrace you, Luca, with love."

Pronunciation isn't that complicated either, even though it looks ugly. The simple vowels are simply vowels and append to the (usually) consonant sounds in the base verb, but keep in mind these are based on the Japanese pronunciations of vowels, not the English ones (quick reference... A: Similar to short 'a' as in "father"; I: Similar to long 'e' as in "feel" or short 'i' as in "ribbon"; U: Similar to 'oo' in "boot" but not in "foot"; E: Similar to long 'a' as in "cane" or short 'e' as in "lend"; O: Similar to long 'o' as in "open"; N: Basically an 'n', make it a grunt if it helps). The Y+ compounds should be simple enough too, and the LY+ are the same but may be more tricky to pronounce since compounds like "tLYO" are rather unnatural, and I'm honestly not sure what to do with ones like "lLYE" with a double 'l'. On the plus side, the (usually) consonants in the base words tend to behave themselves (for base words that contain vowels, such as "a.u.k.", pronouncing each vowel individually is most likely the way to go). If there aren't any vowels in the final word, just fake it as well as possible and toss in minimal vowel-ish noises as needed. "f.w.r.n" might come out sounding something like "fwern" for instance. The 'g' always seems to be hard, and the 'x' pronounced like a 'z', but be careful of 'c'. It's soft (pronounced like an 's') in "c.z.", but seems to be hard (pronounced like a 'k') elsewhere. On the other hand, it's not uncommon for the singers to have their own takes on how to pronunce words, so presumably there's room for some flexibility. For instance, "zz" is officially pronounced something like English "zoo", probably with the vowel deemphasized, but Akiko Shikata likes to pronounce it as rhyming with English "see".

While technically each emotive vowel is supposed to combine with the preceeding letter to form a single sound (or syllable, if you prefer), these can get to be quite a mouthful with the LY_ family of emotive vowels. It's therefore unsurprising that the singers often keep these complex vowels as separate sounds of their own. For instance, the "hLYUmLYUmOrO" in the first line of METHOD_REPLEKIA/. comes out sounding something like "huh - lyoo - muh - lyoo - moh - roh".

You may have noticed that there's no equivalent to the third word of a standard Hymmnos emotive sound. This is no great loss, however, as the third word rarely conveys any real meaning in the first place. While other words do occassionally appear, "ra" is so overwhelmingly common that the term becomes essentially meaningless, and most sentences would be unaffected by having the emotive sound be only two words long, if the grammar allowed it.

Here are a few more example emotive sound verbs, translated from the Hymmno Server because it's less trouble and more authoritative than writing my own:

hYAmmrA (hya m m ra) = "I sing thinking of you and do so with all my might"

hYImOmOrO (hyi mo mo ro) = "I sing feeling, 'I shall surely curse you unto death!' and brimming with anger"

hEmEmArA (he me ma ra) = "I am happy and sing with all my might"

hLYImLYImOrO (hlyi mlyi mo ro) = "I sing with feelings of cursing this world to ruin, filled with anger"

Sentence Structure

As noted above, an entire sentence may be expressed in a single word in some cases. Longer sentences behave more like standard Hymmnos, with objects and clauses following the emotive sound verb as needed.

Syntax for a normal first-person sentence is emotive sound verb + object + clause, much like in standard Hymmnos.

Syntax for a normal second- or third- person sentence is "x. rre" + subject + secondary emotive sound verb + object + clause, mirroring standard Hymmnos except for the substitution of an emotive sound verb for a standard verb, and of course the "x." at the beginning. This "x." is simply a place to indicate the singer's emotion about the whole thing, and replaces the emotive sound found here in standard Hymmnos. Fill in the bank period as usual. The same special pronouns as in standard Hymmnos also apply in Neopact Pastalie, and as in standard Hymmnos, the subject versions are already known to be subjects and therefore are normally used without "rre". However, using "rre" along with one of these words is grammatically valid and results in emphasizing the subject.

Who Object Subject
I/me mea mea1
We/us mean merra
You (singular) yor yorr
You (plural) yora yorra
He/him hes herr
They/them (male plural) hers herra
She/her has harr
They/them (female plural) hars harra

1 Technically, there is no subjective first-person pronoun in Hymmnos (since the sujbect is normally "I" already), but "mea" fills in for it as needed.

Sample third-person sentences translated from the Hymmno Server follow:

xE rre chroche cEzE hymmnos/. = Cloche (with joy) becomes song (and I'm wishing for good fortune by this).

xI harr cEzE hymmnos/. = She (with joy) becomes song (and I'm envious of this).

Though not explicitly stated on the Hymmno Server, it seems that the orientation of the emotive vowels shifts to match the subject when using second- or third- person. For instance, when the subject is Cloche, Level 1 emotive vowels now mean "Cloche feels" rather than "I feel", and so on. The initial "x." always remains first-person, and so always functions from the singer's perspective.

Miscellaneous Grammar

Nouns

Infel Phira has emulation capabilities that makes nouns from other dialects of Hymmnos available.

Nouns specific to Neopact Pastalie may have possession indicated by adding certain upper-case letters to the beginning of the noun. Add "A" to mean "my", "YA" for "your" (this may be either the singular or the plural "you"), and "LYA" for things that belong to the place, the situation, or the public in general. To indicate other ownership, add "A" to the beginning of the noun, then follow it with the owner and connect the two words with an underscore. To use the Hymmno Server's examples, "Agasar" is "my plushie", "YAgasar" is "your plushie", "LYAgasar" is "everyone's plushie", and "Agasar_chroche" is "Cloche's plushie" (the spelling mismatch is due to her name having a semi-official Japanese spelling that doesn't match the one in the English release). If the noun begins with an 'a' (leading to an "Aa" in the compound word), just extend the 'a' sound when pronouncing it.

Because this construct is based on the [noun]の[noun] construct in Japanese grammar, it can more generally mean that the second noun modifies or otherwise describes the first. For instance, "Ahiew_ayulsa" (from METHOD_IMPLANTA/.) more accurately means that "ayulsa" (eternity) describes "hiew" (sadness) than possesses it. In other words, "Ahiew_ayulsa" more cleanly translates as "eternal sadness" than as "eternity's sadness".

Though not officially confirmed, it appears that vowels other than A may be used to indicate specific emotions toward the possession or description.

Passive Voice

Attach "eh" to the end of a emotive sound verb to create the passive form. The following examples are from the Hymmno Server:

fEwErYEn = I embrace you with love (active voice)

fEwErYEneh = I am embraced by you and feel loved (passive voice)

Desire

Attach "aye" to the end of a emotive sound verb to create the "want to do" form. No examples currently available.

Negation

Place "zz" before a emotive sound verb or a noun to negate it. The following examples are from the Hymmno Server:

zz rUfImeh/. = "I can't see it yet." (literally, "It isn't seen by me yet.")

zz Agasar = "not my plushie"

Nominalizing emotive sound Verbs

Leave all the periods in a emotive sound verb as periods to use it as a gerund (noun). The following example is from the Hymmno Server:

aIuUkA zess pop v.a en d.z./. = "Birth and death are like a bubble." (a metaphor for the transience of life)

Functions

Neopact Pastalie has a macroing capability that allows an entire sentence to be represented in a single newly defined term called a "function". A function is only valid within the song in which it is defined, but has the same effect in one word as using the entire sentence. The definition syntax is "[new term] -> [sentence]", in which the "->" is pronounced "pass". As an example, using the line "foobar -> xE rre chroche cEzE hymmnos/." would allow "foobar" to stand for "xE rre chroche cEzE hymmnos/." for the remainder of the song.

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Preformalized Lunar Chant

As noted above, each letter in Preformalized Lunar Chant has its own meaning. Songs in this Form don't use words as such, instead putting together combinations of letters to come up with a larger meaning, though one more open to interpretation than usual. Furthermore, even the rough definitions available for the letters are fairly vague and prone to variation. This makes it difficult to get more than a general idea of the meaning of anything written in Preformalized Lunar Chant.

LetterMeaning(English) LetterMeaning(English) LetterMeaning(English)
APower J未知Unfamiliar S願いWish
B世界World K創造と破壊Creation and Destruction T己、自分Me, Oneself
C変化、成長Change, Growth L(不明)(unknown) U憎悪Hatred
D魔、闇Supernatural, Dark M慈悲Compassion V喜びJoy
ELove NNothing W精神、魂Spirit, Soul
F伝導、伝わるConvey, Transmit OEvil X守護Protection
G破壊、罰Destruction, Punishment P生と死Life and Death YLight
H炎、火Flame, Fire Q無知Ignorance ZGod(dess)
IHoly R生命Life

In theory, the vocabulary for the more standardized Forms is based on these. As a simple example, the verbs for "change" in both standard Hymmnos ("chs") and Neopact Pastalie ("c.z.") have a "c" at the beginning, which means "change" in Preformalized Lunar Chant.

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