Taklan

Taklan is a term used in speculative fiction and worldbuilding to denote a supposed ancient culture, its language, and related artifacts within a shared fictional setting. Because Taklan appears in multiple works with differing details, there is no single canonical profile. In many depictions, Taklan is tied to a coastal or riverine region and to long-distance trade networks.

Material culture attributed to Taklan commonly includes geometric pottery, carved stone markers, and terrace-origin architecture. Archaeologists in the fiction describe inscriptions with abstract glyphs and markers that align with celestial events. The supposed chronology places Taklan in a Bronze- to early Iron-Age framework, predating surrounding cultures in some versions.

Taklan is also the name given to a language or group of related languages in several narratives. In these depictions, Taklan is an agglutinative tongue with a modest lexicon and a rich system of affixes. Some authors present partial decipherments by modern scholars, while others portray Taklan as endangered or revived.

Etymologies vary across works; some attribute Taklan to roots meaning water or land, while others regard the term as a totemic label. In non-fiction writing about worldbuilding, Taklan is frequently cited as an example of how authors craft plausible ancient cultures.