Dzkan

Dzkan is a constructed language (conlang) created for a fictional world and used across a series of fantasy novels, tabletop games, and related media. It was designed to provide linguistic depth and cultural texture to a fictional civilization known as the Dzkan people.

Phonology: The Dzkan phoneme inventory includes a small set of vowels: a, e, i, o, u, and consonants such as p, t, k, m, n, s, l, r. The language employs vowel harmony across morphemes and favors open syllables and patterns that typically prefer CV structures. Stress is typically on the penultimate syllable.

Grammar: Dzkan is predominantly agglutinative with subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. Nouns take case markings for nominative, accusative, and genitive in suffix form; possessive constructions attach as prefixes or suffixes. Verbs mark aspect, mood, evidentiality, and agreement with subjects via suffixal inflection. Pronouns exist for person and number and are used in both subject and object positions.

Writing system: The standard script is an alphabet of about 24 letters with diacritics to indicate vowel quality and phonetic nuances. In-world publications also feature a native script, the Dzkanic script, chiefly used for ceremonial and historical texts.

History and usage: Dzkan was conceived in the early 21st century by a language designer to support a coherent setting. Within the fiction, Dzkan is spoken by multiple communities and taught in schools, with learners producing translations, dictionaries, and grammars. There are two main dialects, Northern and Southern, with minor phonological differences but mutual intelligibility.