mäännät

Männät is a fictional ethnolinguistic group and geographic region created for world-building and speculative fiction. The term refers to both the people and their language, and is used by writers and game designers to define a coherent cultural background. The Männät homeland is an archipelago and neighboring coast in the northern seas, where the main political layer is a network of city-state guilds.

The Männät live on a cluster of islands with rugged coastlines and deep fjord-like inlets. Their economy centers on shipbuilding, timber, copper ore, and long-distance trade. Social life is organized around kin-based clans that participate in a maritime guild system; political power resides in a council of guildmasters, with a rotating chief chosen from among the guilds during times of crisis.

The Männät language is an agglutinative tongue with vowel harmony and a modest pitch element. It is part of a fictional North Sea language family. The script combines a runic-inspired alphabet for monumental inscriptions and a cursive syllabary used in commerce and administration.

Origin myths speak of a seafaring migration from a northern homeland. By the medieval analogue period, Männät polities had established a dense trading network across their seas and coastlines. Cultural life centers on seamanship, metalwork, and textile crafts. Festivals celebrate seasonal voyages, ship christenings, and the memory of drowned sailors.