Nounien

Nounien is a fictional ethnolinguistic group and language family used in speculative fiction settings and tabletop role-playing games. The term refers both to the Nounien people and to their language, sometimes called Nounian. The concept is commonly employed to build world-building detail and cultural texture in imaginary worlds.

In most depictions, the Nounien homeland is the Nouna Archipelago, a cluster of tropical islands and lagoons located off the eastern seaboard of the imagined continent of Veridia. Communities are organized around extended kinship networks, with coastal villages and inland settlements connected by a system of ferries and small craft. The archipelago environment shapes daily life, subsistence practices, and ceremonial calendars.

The Nounien language belongs to the Nounic branch of a fictional language family. It is typically described as an agglutinative, subject–object–verb language with vowel harmony and a rich system of noun classifiers. The writing system, the Noun script, is a syllabary derived from historical trade contacts with neighboring languages. Estimates of speakers in lore vary, but some sources place the number around 120,000 within the context of the world’s fictitious demographics.

Historically, Nounien-speaking communities are portrayed as maritime traders who established networks across the archipelago and beyond. Cultural life centers on oral literature, canoe-building, weaving, and seasonal ceremonies. Social structure is often depicted as a network of matrilineal clans and elder councils, with customary laws governing marriage, inheritance, and communal resource management.

In contemporary fiction, Nounien is depicted as balancing tradition and modernization. Endangerment of the language is a common theme, with revitalization efforts and language documentation appearing in various works.