Penigis

Penigis is a fictional language family used in world-building and speculative linguistics. In the imagined setting, Penigis comprises several related languages spoken across an island chain and adjacent coastlands. The name derives from the region of Peniga, a historic cultural center in the lore. The family is traditionally divided into three primary branches—Penigan Proper, Ithari, and Qulun—with numerous sub-branches and dialects.

Phonology and grammar: Penigis languages are largely agglutinative and predominantly SVO in basic clauses, with extensive voice and mood markers on verbs. Nouns mark case and number through affixes, while pronouns often function as clitics. Vowel harmony and stress-timed rhythm are noted prosodic features. Consonant inventories include a core set of stops, fricatives, and nasals, with a few glottal and ejective consonants in some dialects.

Writing system: The Penigis writing system, known as the Penigraph, is a syllabary of roughly 70 signs encoding CV syllables, plus a small set of logograms for frequent morphemes. It is typically written left to right, with diacritics to indicate tone or vowel length.

Sociolinguistic context: In the fictional world, Penigis languages are used in traditional poetry and maritime trade records, and they influence various media within the setting. They are studied by in-world linguists as an example of long-term language contact and diversification.

See also: World-building, constructed languages (ConLang). References: In-world bibliographies.