eitli

Eitli is a fictional language family and constructed language used in speculative linguistics and science fiction worldbuilding to explore typology and language design. It functions as a thought experiment rather than a real language, and is commonly employed in textbooks, classroom demonstrations, and narrative worldbuilding to illustrate how grammatical systems interact with word order and phonology.

In the imagined setting, eitli is said to belong to a hypothetical language group spoken by the Eitli people in the highlands of the continent of Teren. The name eitli is typically treated as a proper noun for both the people and their language, with variants in regional dialects.

Linguistic features of eitli are commonly described as agglutinative and suffixing, with a strict subject–object–verb (SOV) base order. Noun phrases rely on a rich case system expressed mainly through suffixes; verbs carry mood, evidential markers, and tense through chained affixes. Pronouns and nouns show limited inflection, and there is some optional agreement between modifiers and head nouns.

Phonology is often depicted as relatively simple, with a small vowel inventory and a consonant set that includes a handful of ejectives and fricatives. Some versions implement vowel harmony to harmonize suffix vowels. The writing system is usually Latin-based transliteration or a fictional syllabary designed for the language’s aesthetic.

Because eitli is a constructed concept, its features vary among sources. It serves as a flexible template for illustrating how different typological choices interact and for testing parsing, translation, and teaching methods in linguistics and creative writing.