oboen

Oboen is a fictional language family created as a constructed language for linguistic study and speculative fiction. It is designed to illustrate agglutinative morphology and vowel harmony, while keeping phonology compact. It is used in worldbuilding and in conlang demonstrations to explore typological concepts without relying on a natural language.

Phonology and orthography: Oboen uses a consonant inventory including p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, s, z, l, r, f, h and a five-vowel system a, e, i, o, u. It features backness harmony on suffix vowels and a relatively simple syllable structure, often described as (C)(C)V(C). Primary stress typically falls on the penultimate syllable.

Grammar: The language is predominantly subject–object–verb (SOV). Nouns take postposed case markers for nominative, accusative, and genitive. Verbs encode tense and aspect with affixes; evidential mood is expressed through auxiliary particles. Adjectives follow nouns and agree with case but not number.

Writing system: Oboen is usually written with a Latin-based alphabet, with diacritics to indicate vowel quality or stress. In some in-world texts, a compact syllabary is used for ceremonial or opaque contexts.

History and usage: Oboen was developed in the early 21st century by communities of conlang creators and linguistics enthusiasts. It has appeared in grammar sketches, dictionaries, and several short fiction works. Oboen is frequently cited as a useful model for illustrating morphological typology and for providing a realistic linguistic texture in fictional worlds.