Pronssian

Pronssian is a fictional language and ethnolinguistic designation used in speculative world-building to describe the people and culture of Pronssia. It is not a real language. In its setting, Pronssian is the common tongue of communities tied to bronze production and seaborne trade.

Origin and history

According to the canonical lore, Pronssian descended from Proto-Pronssian, with earliest inscriptions dating to the Bronze Age of Pronssia. The language diversified into Northern and Southern Pronssian through centuries of regional separation and contact with neighboring tongues.

Geography and dialects

Pronssia comprises a mosaic of river valleys, coastal estuaries, and upland plateaus. Northern Pronssian and Southern Pronssian are the main dialects, sharing a core grammar but differing in lexicon and phonology. External influence introduced loanwords and areal features.

Linguistic features

Pronssian phonology includes a consonant inventory with voiceless stops p, t, k and a set of fricatives, including s, z and a palatal series. Vowels are five short vowels a, e, i, o, u, with occasional length distinctions in older texts. The language is largely agglutinative, marking case, number, tense, aspect, and evidential mood on nouns and verbs with suffixes. Word order is subject–object–verb, and adjectives follow nouns. Noun cases include nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive; pronouns distinguish inclusive and exclusive plural. Pronssian uses postpositions rather than prepositions and employs clitic particles to indicate evidential stance.

Writing system

Pronssian uses a native script called the Pronssian script, runic-inspired, for inscriptions and records. In modern materials, a Latin orthography is common.

Culture

Socially, Pronssian communities are built around bronze guilds, maritime networks, and ritual houses linked to ancestors. Oral tradition preserves epics and proverbs that reinforce craft ethics, reciprocity, and territorial identity.