Okunuu

Okunuu is a constructed language featured in the fantasy setting of Valara. It is spoken by the Okunu, a riverine people inhabiting the southern continent. Linguistically, Okunuu is described as an agglutinative language with a subject–object–verb (SOV) basic order and postpositions rather than prepositions. Nouns reflect animacy and definiteness primarily through suffixal markers, while verbs carry tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, and agreement through a series of affixes.

Phonology and writing: The phoneme inventory includes stops p, b, t, d, k, g, and fricatives s, h, with a limited set of voiced/voiceless consonants; vowels are a, e, i, o, u with occasional vowel length distinguished in writing. Stress is generally on the penultimate syllable. Okunuu uses a Latin-based alphabet augmented with diacritics to indicate vowel length and tonal or intonational distinctions in ceremonial texts. In some communities a native script called Tul’ka is used for ritual inscriptions.

Grammar and syntax: The language features inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and rich evidential marking on verbs to indicate the source of knowledge. Adjectives follow nouns; demonstratives and numerals attach to the noun stem. There are several regional dialects differing mainly in lexicon and some phonetic realizations, but mutual intelligibility remains high.

Cultural context and media: Okunuu appears in contemporary fiction and role-playing games set in Valara, where it is studied in schools and depicted in literature and media. Scholarly in-universe grammars describe its morphology and syntax, while fan resources expand on historical texts and poetic forms.