súae

Note: The súae described here is a fictional language created for illustrative purposes in linguistic education and in speculative fiction. It is not an actual language spoken in the real world.

Súae is a constructed language designed to exemplify typological variation and is often cited in discussions of ergative-absolutive systems, frontier phonology, and agglutinative morphology. In the hago-arcipelago setting where súae is imagined, speakers historically lived in river valleys and coastal settlements, using the language as a vehicle for trade, ritual speech, and local storytelling.

Phonology and phonotactics

Súae has five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) with moderate vowel harmony across morphemes. The consonant inventory includes stops p, t, k, a voiced-voiceless distinction in plosives, nasals m, n, a liquid l, and glides w, j. Syllable structure is typically (C)(C)(V)(C), allowing simple to moderately complex onsets. Stress is penultimate, and there is a limited set of tone patterns used for emphasis in discourse.

Grammar and syntax

Súae is an ergative-absolutive, agglutinative language with a predominantly SOV (subject–object–verb) word order. Noun phrases use post-nominal modifiers, including adjectives, numerals, and demonstratives. Case marking is suffixal: ergative -ṛ, absolutive -Ø (unmarked), dative -n, and genitive -s. Verbs carry aspect and mood markers; aspect distinguishes perfective and imperfective, while mood marks evidential stance. Pronouns distinguish clusivity in the first person plural, and verbs agree with their arguments in number.

Writing system

The súae writing system combines an alphabet with diacritics to mark vowel quality and tone. Syllables are generally written phonetically, with ligatures used for common morphemes and frequent verb forms.

History and reception

Súae was developed in the early 2000s by a language designer for pedagogy and world-building. It is widely used in academic exercises on morphology and syntax and appears in contemporary fiction as a regional language of the fictional archipelago.