Drenáic

Drenáic is a fictional constructed language designed for use in fantasy literature and tabletop role-playing games. In the setting where it appears, Drenáic is spoken by the Drenari, a coastal people in the eastern archipelago of Esmeron. The language has its own phonology, vocabulary, and grammar that readers and players encounter through dialogues, inscriptions, and lore.

Phonology and writing: Drenáic has a consonant inventory that includes p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, s, z, l, r, f, h and a set of postalveolar sounds, with vowels a, e, i, o, u. It features a limited tonal contrast used to distinguish words in certain dialects. The Drenáic script is an alphabet of about 28 letters used for most inscriptions and official texts.

Grammar: Drenáic is largely agglutinative and relies on suffixes to mark number, case, tense, aspect, and mood. The typical basic word order is subject–verb–object in simple clauses. Adjectives generally follow nouns, and agreement is expressed through affixation. Pronouns distinguish inclusive and exclusive first person forms, and evidentiality is indicated by verb suffixes or particles.

Lexicon and dialects: The two principal dialects are Nosk and Verri, which differ in pronunciation and some vocabulary but remain largely mutually intelligible. In current use, Drenáic appears mainly in fiction, games, and linguistic exercises within the conlanger community.

Influence and reception: Drenáic has been cited as an example of how tone, morphology, and writing systems interact in a constructed language, and it informs debates on how to balance naturalism with learnability in conlangs.