mnoinu

Mnoinu is a fictional language and cultural construct created for the Aralia universe, appearing across a series of novels, a tabletop role-playing game setting, and a forthcoming film. In the lore, Mnoinu is the ancestral language of the Mnoinu people who inhabit the Liria archipelago, a maritime region with diverse island communities. The language functions as a key element of identity, history, and ritual life within the narrative world.

Phonologically, Mnoinu is described as having a moderately sized consonant inventory that includes plosives p, t, k, and sonorants m, n, l, r, with fricatives s and h, and five vowels a, e, i, o, u. Stress is variable and often phonemic. The in-world writing system is depicted as a syllabary-inspired script called Mni, though most official materials translate it into the Latin alphabet for accessibility.

Grammatically, the language is presented as analytic with a subject–verb–object order in simple clauses, while nominal phrases bear post-nominal case markers; verbs carry aspect and mood markers that attach to the verb complex. Personal pronouns can be cliticized onto the verb, and noun phrases frequently incorporate descriptive modifiers as compounds.

Within the fiction, Mnoinu is central to oral history, chants, and legal codes. Scholarly and fan communities have engaged with its reconstruction, creating dictionaries, grammar notes, and fan-made readings. The language is used as a world-building device to convey cultural differences among island communities and to explore themes of memory and continuity.