Vangetu

Vangetu is a term that appears primarily in speculative fiction and worldbuilding as a flexible label for a family of culturally significant concepts. It is not tied to a single canonical meaning, and its interpretation varies by work. The word is typically presented as an invented term, with authors specifying its local meaning within their fictional settings. Etymology is not standardized; creators often derive it from constructed languages or from morphemes meant to evoke memory, gathering, or place.

Common uses include: a rite of passage or communal memory practice in which individuals contribute personal memories to a collective record or perform stories that encode history; a linguistic or semiotic feature in a fictional language, used to illustrate how language encodes social memory or identity; and a geographic designation, such as a region, city, or archipelago within a fictional world whose culture and history are defined by vangetu practices rather than political boundaries.

In scholarly or metatextual discussions, vangetu is used as a case study in how invented terms can serve as tools for worldbuilding, memory studies, and linguistic imagination. It functions as a flexible umbrella term that invites cross-disciplinary exploration across anthropology, philology, and cultural studies.