Kerrannais

Kerrannais is a fictional language and ethnonym used in speculative fiction and world-building projects. The term commonly refers to the language spoken by the Kerrannai, a coastal people depicted in an imagined archipelago in the northern seas.

Linguistic profile: In the published world-building materials, Kerrannais is described as an agglutinative, generally subject–object–verb language with rich nominal case marking and a verb system that encodes tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, and agreement with subject and object. Word order is flexible but tends toward SOV in neutral clauses.

Phonology and writing: The imagined phonology includes a consonant inventory with plosives, fricatives, and nasals, and a five-vowel system with vowel harmony in some dialects. The writing system varies by author, with both an alphabetic script and ceremonial logograms appearing in different texts.

History and usage: Kerrannais appears across a corpus of world-building notes, encyclopedic entries, and fan grammars. Within the fictional setting, the language is tied to cultural identity, poetry, ritual speech, and inter-island trade. It serves as a tool for developing lore and character voice.

Status and reception: Kerrannais is a constructed language, not used by any real population. It is studied by fans and scholars as an example of conlang design and world-building technique. Some adaptations include dictionaries, phrase books, and sample dialogues produced by enthusiasts. See also constructed language, conlang.