Lítilish

Lítilish is a fictional language designed as part of a contemporary fantasy and science fiction universe. It is a constructed language (conlang) created to add realism to world-building and to provide cultural depth for its speakers, the Lítil people. In the internal lore, Lítilish is described as morphologically rich with agglutinative tendencies and a relatively flexible word order, though it commonly follows a subject–object–verb pattern.

The language features a phonology that includes a modest set of phonemes with distinctions such as vowel harmony and a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops. The lexicon reflects contact with neighboring languages in the setting, including loanwords for technology, governance, and everyday life. Grammatical information is conveyed by suffixes and particles, with case marking used for noun phrases and verb forms encoding aspect and mood through affixes.

Lítilish is written primarily with a Latin-based alphabet augmented by diacritics to indicate vowel quality and stress. The orthography aims for a mostly phonemic correspondence, mapping each sound to a distinct letter or diacritic. Verb conjugation and noun inflection rely on affixes and clitics, while word order remains relatively free but tends to emphasize discourse focus.

In-world use, Lítilish serves as the language of administration and daily life in northern kingdoms, with regional dialects showing pronunciation and vocabulary variations. Outside the canonical texts, fans and linguistics enthusiasts have expanded resources, including grammars, dictionaries, and sample conversations, contributing to a vibrant if fictional linguistic ecosystem.

As a fictional construct, Lítilish has no native speakers in the real world; its existence is tied to the stories and fan communities that study and expand its structure.