Mordish

Mordish is a constructed language used in a fictional universe, associated with the Mordathi peoples and their history in novels, games, and film tie-ins. It is presented as the ancestral tongue of the region of Mord, and is depicted with considerable regional variation across texts and media. In-world scholars describe Mordish as a language that shaped intercultural contact in earlier eras, with dialects evolving from social class, geography, and contact with neighboring languages.

Phonology and writing: Mordish features a consonant inventory that includes stops, fricatives, nasals, and liquids, with a glottal stop appearing in certain dialects. The language has five vowel phonemes, commonly realized as a, e, i, o, u, with occasional length distinctions in older or ceremonial material. Stress tends to fall on the penultimate syllable. The standard writing system is a Latin-based alphabet, augmented by diacritics to indicate vowel length or tone. In addition, a runic script is depicted for ceremonial inscriptions and historical artifacts.

Grammar: Mordish is described as moderately synthetic with analytic tendencies. The default word order is subject–verb–object, though the order can be flexible for emphasis. Nouns mark number and case through suffixes; adjectives typically follow nouns and agree in number. Verbs encode tense, aspect, and mood via affixes and clitics. Negation uses a dedicated particle, and questions are formed by question particles or intonation cues in speech.

Dialects and usage: The main varieties are Standard Mordish, Northern Mordish, and Southern Mordish, each with distinct phonological and lexical traits. In-world usage spans liturgical texts, folklore, and contemporary media within the setting. Learner communities in fictional academia and fan circles produce dictionaries, grammars, and phrasebooks to document regional forms.