letla

Letla is a constructed language (conlang) created for a fictional Letlan culture in various worldbuilding and speculative fiction works. In most presentations, Letla is described as an agglutinative, subject-object-verb (SOV) language with a rich suffixal morphology and a system of postpositions rather than prepositions. The basic word order is typically SOV, with occasional flexibility for emphasis or poetic effect.

Phonology and grammar in described sources commonly feature a modest vowel inventory of five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and a consonant set that includes stops, nasals, fricatives, and approximants similar to many continental languages. Stress is usually phonemic and tends to fall on the penultimate syllable when a suffix is present, or on the root in shorter forms. Letla is generally portrayed as mildly synthetic, using affixes to encode tense, mood, aspect, number, case, and definiteness. Nouns may take suffixal markers for number and definiteness, while verbs carry tense-aspect-mood information through a chain of suffixes and clitics.

Writing and script are described as Letran, an alphabet-like system used for ceremonial inscriptions and modern transcriptions, with romanization commonly employed in fan translations and scholarly notes. In-universe, Letla is taught in schools, preserved in literature, and used in ceremonial contexts, while a contemporary or diaspora register appears in informal communication.

Etymology and usage: The name Letla derives from the autonym of the Letlan people, and the language is frequently referred to by the same term. In many sources, letla also appears as a verb root meaning “to weave” or “to tell stories,” underscoring its association with oral tradition and ceremonial speech.