pilngi

Pilngi is a fictional language created for worldbuilding in speculative fiction and role-playing media. It is attributed to the Pilngi, a coastal community imagined to inhabit the Nalua archipelago in the continent of Veridia. The language is noted for its synthetic morphology, rich system of affixes, and a phonology that favors durable consonants and rounded vowels. Within its fictional setting, Pilngi functions as a means of culture, identity, and social organization.

Origins and status: In the in-world chronology, Pilngi developed from earlier trade-contact languages and underwent several major phonological and morphological shifts. In contemporary works, it is presented through dictionaries, sample texts, and dialogue extracted from ceremonial and daily life. It is not a real language spoken by any community in the real world.

Phonology: The consonant inventory includes p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, s, z, l, r, ɲ, w; vowels are a, e, i, o, u. The language allows syllables of the form CV and CVN, with limited final consonants n, m, s. Stress tends to fall on the penultimate syllable. Pilngi is generally non-tonal.

Grammar and syntax: Pilngi follows a subject–object–verb order in basic clauses. Nouns take case markers via postpositions rather than inflection; possessive and demonstrative relations are expressed with clitics and adpositions. Verbs encode aspect and mood through affixes; plurality is marked on the noun with suffixes. Adjectives generally follow the nouns they modify.

Writing system: A distinct Pilngi script provides an in-world means of writing, though most published materials present a Latin transliteration or a standardized transliteration scheme. The script is designed to convey both phonetic values and morphological information with diacritics and ligatures.