Hllish

Hllish is a constructed language created for the fantasy world of Athera. It is spoken by the Hllian people, a coastal-to-inland culture featured in novels, games, and lore. In-world sources describe Hllish as a vehicle for folklore, law, and ritual speech.

Origins and status: Hllish was developed by worldbuilders and codified as part of the Hllic language group. It is described as agglutinative with analytic elements and a basic subject–verb–object order; case marking and discourse flexibility allow variations.

Phonology and script: The phonology includes stops, fricatives, nasals, and liquids; vowels display a length contrast. The writing system uses an alphabet of about 24 signs, with diacritics for length and stress. Some texts retain a runic-inspired variant.

Grammar: Nouns inflect for number and case; adjectives agree in number and typically precede nouns. Verbs encode tense, aspect, and mood through affixes and clitics; word order is flexible in complex clauses but often SVO.

Dialects and usage: Northern, Central, and Coastal Hllish form distinct dialects with lexical differences but mutual intelligibility. In the lore, Hllish is taught in schools and used in literature, governance, and ritual contexts; scholars document regional varieties for preservation.